Masters’ School Seminar 10.05.2023 3 p.m

The Masters’ School Seminar will be held on April, 26, at  3 p.m.

Our guest is prof. Richard Swinburne [biogram].

Abstract of “Humans consist of two parts – body and soul”

A theory of personal identity is a theory about what makes some person P2 at a time T2 the same person as some person P1 as an earlier time T1. Most contemporary theories are “complex theories” which hold that the identity of P2 with P1depends on a certain degree of “continuity” between them: P2 having some of the same body or brain as P1, and/or being able to remember some of the experiences of P1. All these theories are open to the arbitrariness objection – that any such theory has to specify the degree of such features which is necessary for identity, and any choice of degree is arbitrary. To meet this objection complex theories have to claim that the extent of identity between persons is a matter of degree -that P2 is “partly identical” to P1. But such
“partial identity theories” are open to the objection that it follows that more than one later person could be partly identical to P1, and that cannot be spelled out coherently. This leads to the “simple theory” of personal identity, that either P2 is fully identical to P1, or P2 is not identical to P1 at all. Yet P2 can only be identical to P1 if they both have the same indivisible nonphysical part, that is the same soul; otherwise they are not the same. I go on to argue that not merely is our soul a necessary part of each of us, but it is sufficient for our existence.