Debates on Life After Death in Modern Western Thought: A Critical Analysis

The themes of resurrection of humans, life after death and immortality have religious, philosophical, ethical and psychological aspects and been questioned since the dawn of civilization. It is arguably the most crucial and most personal question that can be asked in light of the realization of one’s own mortality. The resurrection of dead bodies is an innermost doctrine of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to which many passages could be found referring in the Scriptures. This theme is not an empirical one, therefore many controversies arise around it. One crucial controversy is whether resurrection relates to the flesh or just to the soul or some spiritual body. This is by far the most discussed facet of the matter. Leaving aside the atheistic arguments against resurrection, those who consider themselves within a religious tradition virtually accept a kind of life after that, be it bodily or spiritual resurrection. In order to make it explicable to common human mind, not just to believers, the problem has to be handled anthropologically, too. In my paper, starting from anthropology and so outlining the debate on human nature, I tried to transform the matter into a human one and accordingly summed the arguments around it.