Personal Identity and Resurrection How Do We Survive Our Death?

What happens to us when we die? According to Christian faith, we will rise again bodily from the dead. This claim raises a series of philosophical and theological conundrums: is it rational to hope for life after death in bodily form? Will it truly be we who are raised again or will it be post-mortem duplicates of us? How can personal identity be secured? What is God's role in resurrection and everlasting life? In response to these conundrums, this book presents the first ever joint work of leading philosophers and theologians on life after death. This is an impressive demonstration of interdisciplinary cooperation between philosophy and theology. Various models are offered which depict what resurrection into an incorruptible post-mortem body might look like. Therefore this book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the doctrine of bodily resurrection - be they philosophers, theologians, scholars in religious studies, or believers interested in examining their faith.

Contents: Foreword, Ted Peters; Introduction; Resurrection, personal identity and the will of God, Stephen T. Davis; Bodily resurrection: the falling elevator model revisited, Dean Zimmerman; Immanent causation and life after death, Eric T. Olson; 3.5-dimensionalism and survival: a process ontological approach, Godehard Brüntrup; Multiple location and single location resurrection, Hud Hudson; Bodily resurrection: when metaphysics meets phenomenology, Thomas Schärtl, Personhood, bodily self-ascription, and resurrection: a Kantian approach, Johannes Haag; The same body again? Thomas Aquinas on the numerical identity of the resurrected body, Bruno Niederbacher; Persons and the metaphysics of resurrection, Lynne Rudder Baker; Hylomorphism and the constitution view, Josef Quitterer; Constitution, resurrection and relationality, Kevin Corcoran; Joseph Ratzinger on resurrection identity, Christian Tapp; The rationale behind Purgatory, Nikolaus Wandinger; Scientific insights into the problem of personal identity in the context of a Christian theology of resurrection and eschatology, Robert John Russell; Bibliography; Index.

Georg Gasser is Researcher at the Department of Christian Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. His areas of specialization include Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind and Philosophical Theology. He is the editor of How Successful is Naturalism? (2007).