PoE and LaD: Debates between the body and the soul in relation to LaD

Question 1

Define Materialists

Answer 1

All aspects of humans are functions of the body

Question 2

Define Idealists

Answer 2

Humans are essentially minds

Question 3

Define Dualists

Answer 3

Two distinct but related substances: mind/soul + body

Question 4

Plato’s dualist argument

Answer 4

• our identity is from the WoF, as our soul is the connection between us and the WoF => gives us identity
• support LaD

Question 5

Aristotle’s monist materialist argument

Answer 5

• we are fundamentally a substance in nature and all things are a result of mental interactions
• all 4 causes are linked to the material form
• LaD is almost by definition impossible
• our soul dies as the material body dies

Question 6

Christian beliefs (main idea of resurrection)

Answer 6

• centre around the idea of resurrection (Jesus)
  
  • Mark went to annoit body, discovered an empty tomb, encounter someone who they later found to be Jesus
    
    • inconsistency across gospels questions the legitimacy of theory

Question 7

Christian beliefs (St. Paul’s theology of resurrection)

Answer 7

• dualist
• battleground between flesh (body) + spirit (soul) as your flesh is sinful and your spirit is Christ in you
• you can have eternal life/be resurrected if you accept the spirit of Christ as it is he who can release you from sin created in ‘The Fall’ => solves PoE as we need to endure evil in order to live eternally in a spiritual/heavenly body

Question 8

Hick’s replica theory

Answer 8

• “God’s re-creation of the human psychological individual. Not as the organism that dies but as a ‘soma pneumatikon’, a spiritual body”
  + believes in resurrection => fits with biblical teachings
• ‘replica’ implies that if you died beheaded you would reappear in that state
• doesn’t offer proof for LaD
• Peter van Inwagen: once something has been destroyed it can’t be re-created => a replica can’t be you

Question 9

Thomas Hobbes

Answer 9

• analogy of the ship of Theseus

- identity can survive the gradual change of your physical form, but question of loss of limbs?

Question 10

Locke

Answer 10

• Prince and Cobbler analogy
• continuity of who you were rests in your memories
• you can survive separately from your physical body if your memories are conserved

Question 11

Dawkins

Answer 11

• epiphenomenal view of the mind
• can’t survive LaD
• we are just “bytes and bytes of digital information”
• fundamentally a materialist