When asked, an ordinary Christian would agree that, from the New Testament teachings, the fate of man after demise is that life continues after death. This topic has been discussed widely. The concept of life after death (resurrection) is pegged on the Christ-event. However, this is offensive to modern-day thought, and incompatible with the concept of the Greek belief in immortality. It is not very integral to the early Christian proclamation, and can be surrendered or reinterpreted without stealing away the New Testament’s substance. This paper examines whether the early Christian resurrection faith and the Greek’s immortality of the soul are irreconcilable. The New Testament, particularly the Gospel of John, preach that man already has eternal …show more content…
The early Christian thought borrows from Heilgeschichte, and every concept about death and eternal life lies within a belief in an actual occurrence in actual events that occurred in time, which makes it differ from Greek thought. The natural immortality of the soul doctrine is among the oldest doctrines that ever existed. Even before faith in Christ was preached, this doctrine was already spreading. In the modern day, this doctrine has been favored even by the people who profess and spread the word of God a basis for their belief, and denied this is equal to denying the Bible itself (Swinburne, 1998, p. 2). However, rather than this being a denial of gospel and truth of revelation, this truth can be logically held only by the complete and unequivocal denial of the concept of the natural immortality of the soul. The truth that is openly preached and emphasized in the Bible is that men’s future existence largely depends on a resurrection after death or a translation without witnessing death at all. Even Paul’s hope for existence in the future lied in the resurrection of the dead. From the Greeks’ school of thought, the soul gives life to man’s …show more content…
Plato intended to place a number of arguments to demonstrate that the human soul is, by nature, immortal; in its own nature, because what has existed will continue to do so indefinitely. Since then, many philosophers have developed and put forth a number of arguments (Swinburne, 1998, p. 4). While these arguments might not demonstrate it, and many philosophers think this is true, the soul could still be immortal naturally. It might be immortal simply because its creator (God), or any other supernatural power behind it, intended to keep it living forever, either standalone or attached to another body. If at all there is an omnipotent God, who could keep it living forever, He might have made His intentions known to man.
Final Thought
Even if the soul were that simple and separable from the human body, it could not be true that it would continue existing even after death, leave alone live forever with a functional mental life, with sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Instead, it might exist in the same manner man’s soul exist while having a dreamless sleep. For instance, Plato, Berkeley, and Joseph Butler, believed that things can only cease to exist when they possess parts, and when these parts are taken part (Swinburne, 1998, p. 5). But since the soul is not made of parts, no ordinary power would cause it to stop living.
Socrates a classical Greek philosopher and character of Plato’s book Phaedo, defines a philosopher as one who has the greatest desire of acquiring knowledge and does not fear death or the separation of the body from the soul but should welcome it. Even in his last days Socrates was in pursuit of knowledge, he presents theories to strengthen his argument that the soul is immortal. His attempts to argue his point can’t necessarily be considered as convincing evidence to support the existence of an immortal soul.
Phillips gives an alternative account of immortality based, not on any realm of existence beyond this life, but on certain moral and religious modes of living within this life. Unlike some of writers, e.g. R. Swinburn, D Z Phillips does not support the notion that belief in continuous personal existence is logically defendable. Indeed, he provides an extremely robust argument to the contrary, claiming that such claims are open to fatal logical objections. After briefly contradicting any notions of survival of a non-material body (the possibility of some form of bodily resurrection in this world or the next), Phillips goes on to attack the more comm... ... middle of paper ... ...
In the book Plato 's Phaedo, Socrates argues that the soul will continue to exist, and that it will go on to a better place. The argument begins on the day of Socrates execution with the question of whether it is good or bad to die. In other words, he is arguing that the soul is immortal and indestructible. This argument is contrary to Cebes and Simmias beliefs who argue that even the soul is long lasting, it is not immortal and it is destroyed when the body dies. This paper is going to focus on Socrates four arguments for the soul 's immortality. The four arguments are the Opposite argument, the theory of recollection, the affinity argument, and the argument from form of life. As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul
One of the greatest and oldest human mysteries on Earth is death, and the fate that lies beyond it. The curious minds of human beings constantly wonder about the events that occur after death. No person truly knows what happens after a person ceases to live in the world, except for the people themselves who have passed away. As a result, over the course of history, people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions have speculated and believed in numerous different possibilities for the destiny that awaits them beyond the world of the living. The great ambiguity of the afterlife is extremely ancient that many different beliefs about it have been dated back to several centuries ago. These beliefs go as far back to the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians, which outline the journey that the dead travels to the land of Osiris; and the belief of Ancient Greeks that all souls eventually find themselves in Hades’ realm, the Underworld. Throughout history, views and beliefs from emerging religions continue to develop as the human conscience persists in finding answers to this ancient, unresolved mystery. Prime examples of the various and separate beliefs regarding death and the afterlife are found in the diverse faiths of Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism.
In Chapter 13 of Concerning the Soul, Avicenna argues that, because the soul is incorruptible, it does not die with the death of the body. He then presents two arguments to support the conclusion that, upon death, the soul does not die. It is my intent to explain the general structure of the “absolutely incorruptible” argument that Avicenna gives for the immortality of the soul, and to give a critical assessment of that argument.
The resurrection of Jesus is a topic in Christian Apologetic that confirms the faith of a believer. Groothuis submits, “Of all the world’s religions Christianity alone purports to be based on the resurrection of its divine founder. No other religion or worldview makes such an audacious and consequential claim. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus himself predicts his own betrayal, death and resurrection.”1 The Bible reveals the importance of the resurrection in Corinthians 15:14-17, “And if Christ wasn’t raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is your faith. If the dead won’t be raised to life, we have told lies about God by saying that he raised Christ to life, when he really did not. So if the dead won’t be raised to life, Christ wasn’t raised to life. Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins.”
...erstand the nature of the soul are, as Epicurus says "incomparably stronger than other men" (Letter to Herodotus 83), since they will be able to understand and set aside their fears and worries about themselves after death.
But this would be impossible unless our soul had been somewhere before existing in this form of man; here then is another proof of the soul’s immortality.” (Phaedo,
In the Phaedo Socrates claims that the soul is indeed immortal, that it lives forever and cannot die even after the body has died, thus philosophers spend their lives devaluing themselves from their body. Socrates presents the Theory of Recollection to persuade his fellow philosophers that have convened inside his cell that the soul is immortal. In essence, the recollection argument refers to the act of learning, because the soul is immortal, according to Socrates, then this suggests that when a person is learning something they are actually relearning it, because their soul has existed before they were born. This idea of recollecting knowledge is prominent and is the most convincing argument in proving the existence of immortality through the soul, however, this argument does not suggest that the soul continues to exist after death and lacks clarity regarding what truly happens after a person dies.
Socrates was a philosopher who was true to his word and his death was ultimately felt by his closest friends and followers. In Phaedo, Socrates is met with his closest friends during his final hours as they await his death. At this point Socrates is prepared for death and seems to welcome it. Although death may seem like a scary inevitable fate that we all must face at one point; Socrates saw death as a privilege mainly because he believed that the soul was immortal. As a result, Socrates provides arguments as to why he believed the soul was immortal and even though all his arguments lacked unconvincing evidence, he does bring up good points. In this paper I will talk about Socrates’ most and least convincing arguments on immortality, and explain what Socrates’ problem was with Anaxagoras.
Through the course of these last few weeks, we as a class have discussed the Soul, both in concept, and as it applies in terms of our readings of The Phaedo and as a philosophical construct. But the questions involved in that: In the ideas of good, of living a ‘good’ life and getting ‘rid of the body and of their wickedness’, as ‘there is no escape from evil’, (Phaedo, 107c), in whether or not the soul is immortal, or if our bodies themselves get in the way of some higher form of knowledge, or even of the importance of philosophy itself are rather complex, simultaneously broad and specific, and more than a little messy. While I discuss these aspects, the singular question that I feel applies to this is, in a sort of nihilistic fashion, does
The soul can be defined as a perennial enigma that one may never understand. But many people rose to the challenge of effectively explaining just what the soul is about, along with outlining its desires. Three of these people are Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Even though all three had distinctive views, the similarities between their views are strikingly vivid. The soul indeed is an enigma to mankind and the only rational explanation of its being is yet to come and may never arrive.
Many passages in the Bible talk about and discus the concept of death. The passage that will be looked at today is in Daniel, the book of Daniel’s visions and activities throughout his life. This book is full of accounts that give evidence that the bible is true. This essay will discuss the meaning and purpose of the verse Daniel 12:2. Although there are many good verses on death and eternal life, Daniel 12:2 is a very good verse to reference, on death and everlasting life, because of its metaphors, references to other scripture, and overall deep meaning.
All three arguments propose an intriguing account for Socrates’ claim that the soul exists past death. Plato’s three arguments for the proving of the immortality and longevity of a soul provide clear and concise reasons to agree with his approach. It seems that any counterargument can be debated using at least one of the three arguments, simply begging the question.
Plato believed that the body and the soul were two separate entities, the body being mortal and the soul being immortal. In Plato’s phaedo, this is further explained by Socrates. He claims that by living a philosophical life, we are able to eventually free the soul from the body and its needs. If we have not yield to our bodily needs, we should not fear death, since it can than permanently detach the soul from the body. The most convincing argument for the immortality of the body is the theory of recollection, which shows that we are already born with knowledge of forms and that learning is thus recalling these ideas. If we are already born with knowledge this implies that are soul is immortal, since it would otherwise be a blank page.