The Soul and the Afterlife
Dafydd Mills Daniel, David Mills Daniel
August 13, 2026 DOI: 10.4324/9781003568414-6 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that debates about the soul and afterlife are fundamentally about personal identity, and that it is possible to believe in life after death without believing in the soul, and vice versa. Introduces and contrasts historical and contemporary positions, including materialism, dualism, and emergent dualism. |
Abstract
Is there a soul, and, if there is, what is it and does it necessarily survive death? And, if there is life after death, how can I be sure that I am still the same person in the next life that I am in this present one? In exploring answers to these and many other related questions, this chapter examines how debates about the soul and the afterlife are essentially debates about what makes you, where, it turns out, it is possible to believe in life after death, and not to believe in the soul, and vice versa. Introduced here are leading historical and contemporary positions, theories and debates on the soul and the afterlife, as well as personal identity and agency, including: Aristote’s materialism, Baker’s Christian materialism, bodily resurrection, Theseus’ ship problem, Plato’s and Descartes’ substance dualism, the hard problem of consciousness, the mind/body problem, Manicheanism, Hasker’s emergent dualism and open theism, Clarke’s libertarian freewill, Leibniz’s determinism, Calvin’s double predestination and Aquinas’ attempted compromise between materialism and dualism of the soul.