Persons And Immortality (Value Inquiry Book Series 77)

The religious belief in personal immortality depends on the evidence for the existence of God, an immaterial soul or mind, and human nature. We also need to support the view that God will always want to maintain relationships with us in the afterlife. So, immortality is a hard sell. The suffering of innocent victims suggests that the existence of a loving God is not self-evident. Furthermore, the soul's separation from the body at death raises the troublesome problem of personal identity. How can that be me in the afterlife without my body? The tradition from Plato to Descartes plants the seed of personal immortality in our rational nature. But the deconstruction of human nature suggests that our species is not special. Yet, the belief in immortality lingers.
The first step in the reconstruction of personal immortality is found in systems theory, or belief that the whole individuates the part. This view suggests that we are the outcome of relationships rather than eternal natures entering into relationships. We are the product of relationships taking place at three basic levels. 1. In psyche where being human is the result of a tendency toward good and evil. 2. As social entities where the existence of other human beings individuates us. 3. In being's unconcealment where the intelligibility of things provides a foundation for epistemic life. Heidegger's view of the nothing or horizon surrounding being allows us to identify God as creator entering into personal relationships with us - a view supported by contemporary science.
That will be me in the afterlife, if the relationships that individuate me in my pre-mortem state continue into my post-mortem existence. The reversal in being's unconcealment suggests that human death continues the cycle of personal existence.

Kenneth A. Bryson is Professor of Philosophy at the University College of Cape Breton, where he has taught since 1970. He has held a teaching appointment at the University of Ottawa, and visiting appointments at l’Université de Moncton, Mount Saint Vincent University, Le CEGEP Régional de la Côte Nord, P.Q., and the University of Wales, Lampeter, U.K. He received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Ottawa, with a dissertation on the metaphysics of Emile Meyerson’s philosophy of mind. He developed an interest in the philosophy of death and dying as a way of introducing students to philosophy. It has since become one of his primary research areas. He has published five books, including Flowers and Death, now in its tenth year and third edition. The central issue that animates his work is the belief that eternal truths exist.