Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1998, Blaðsíða 170

Jón Ma. Asgeirsson
These logical and empirical problems that philosophers have made central
to the issue concerning immortality do, however, not affect a religious con-
viction, in the opinion of Phillips, for the very fact that they are not religious
arguments. Belief in immortality is, to the contrary, basically based on a moral
postulate, “immortality construed as some kind of life after death,” says Phil-
lips, “constitutes a vindication of the beliefs and values to which they adhere
in this life.”22 This notion, however, does not hold, according to Phillips, as
both the moral postulates and the belief in them are wrong. To claim that
injustice can only be overcome in an extended existence beyond death is, in
Phillips’ argument, nothing less than projecting evil away from (earthly)
human existence in order not to face up with the love of god which would be
the only proper way to deal with it. Asks Phillips:
What if belief in the immortality of the soul, so far from being the product of
prudence, had close connections with certain moral beliefs? What if belief in
immortality of the soul does not entail belief in survival after death?23
Phillips suggests that love or “goodness” constitutes what is truly eternal
on the basis of how you exercise kindness while the triumph over death
consists of your giving up your own interest, indeed, your very self for others.
Eternal life is life with god accomplished by abandoning your very self or
understanding that nothing is yours and that everything belongs to god. 24
Replacing moral precepts with the love of god enacted by human beings
or relocating eternity itself from the realm of god to a personal rejection of
immortality is, in the opinion of Hick, a reduction of religious truths to a
humanist approach to religion or in this case a play with language of a typical
pupil of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Hick argues that the issue of immortality is the
one that separates Humanism and Religion or in this context, Christianity.
Hick maintains that the only theological solution to the problem of evil and
suffering consists of the “idea of immortality.” Says Hick:
Such a ‘solution’ must consist, not in denying the reality of suffering, but in
showing how it is to be justified or redeemed. But what would it mean to justify,
or redeem, the world’s suffering? Presumably it would mean showing it to be
rationally and morally acceptable either in itself or in relation to a future which
will render it worthwhile.25
22 Ibid., 19.
23 Ibid., 41.
24 Ibid., 41-60.
25 Vide his, Death and Eternal Life, Reissue with a New Preface (Houndmills: Macmillan,
1985) [1976] 157.
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