William L. Rowe's Philosophy Of Religion: Life After Death

In William L. Rowe’s book, Philosophy of Religion, one of the chapters deals with the concept of life after death. The following paper is a synopsis of that chapter, presented with my personal opinions on the various concepts. The author tackles the subject of life after death by organizing the article into four areas of discussion. In the first, varieties of immortality, he looks at the predominant views of life after death in various civilizations. Next, the meaningfulness of immortality, examines whether or not it is a meaningful idea that a person survives death. The third area of discussion, the case for immortality, makes up the majority of this article and is broken down into several subtopics. Finally, the author concludes the
In fact, people from most major religions, and many different civilizations, have some belief in the afterlife. Rowe begins the article by pointing out that over time several conceptions of the afterlife have emerged. “Varieties of Immortality,” looks at the most predominant, and begins with those that appear in ancient Greece. One is the Homeric and the other is the Platonic. The Homeric view is that something does survive death, but what survives is only a portion of what existed on Earth. The Platonic view is quite a bit different, it presents the human soul as immortal and imprisoned within the body, with death bringing the release of the soul. Although these two views differ, they share the concept of individual immortality. Next the author discusses a non- individual form of immortality. He uses the example of Hinduism, in which the soul transmutes to another body and the cycle of rebirth continues until the soul gains release and is absorbed into God, at which point it loses all individuality. Finally the author presents us with, resurrection, which is taught in Christian faith. In resurrection, the soul and the body form a unity and will be reunited in end times when the bodies of those saved have risen. In this version, the resurrected body is spiritual and immortal. The two beliefs most prevalent in western culture are the Platonic and the Christian, and in each
It is unclear if these are the five attributes that are the most widely accepted in philosophical circles, or if Rowe is using them as an example to help illustrate the bigger question. To me, my pet dog demonstrates each of the characteristics mentioned in the article. But I would never say that my pet is a “person.” I think the point of this section was to briefly expose the reader to some of the more difficult to answer questions that surround life after death. In fact, the author asks us to assume that those difficult to answer questions have been solved and transitions into the next section of the