Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bnr-public!hwt@watmath.waterloo.edu (Henry Troupe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: immortality in this life? Message-ID: Date: 1 Jul 89 07:31:59 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 70 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article wpg@mendel.acc.virginia.edu (William Gardner) writes: >I would like to pose a new question to this group... >What I would like to ask all of you is: Supposing some kind of >technological immortality were possible, what relationship, if any, >would it have to Christian salvation? ... > [][][][][][][][][][][] William Gardner [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] This is an interesting question. One of the things that it took me longest to deal with in Christianity is the very strong emphasis on the afterlife. But, being a Christian means a certain standard of conduct here and now. I don't see, given that the physical universe will not endure forever, that extended life would a) be immortality nor b) be in any way incompatible with Christian faith. The case seems to me to be parallel to antibiotics and venereal disease. There were many people, regrettably including many priests, who felt that antibiotics were 'evil', because the threat of venereal disease was something they used to enforce a standard of action, without teaching a true sense of morality. In short, technical life extension would postpone and dilute the 'God's going to get you when you die' school of theology. But, that has little to do with Christianity. utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bnr-public | BNR is not | All that evil requires hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for | is that good men do (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | my opinions | nothing. [In my opinion the most important effect of Biblical views on the afterlife is in the way it changes our perspective on what is important. There's a tendency to think that buildings, governments, and institutions outlive people. The Christian perspective is that these things are all part of this transitory world. It's people that are eternal, and what happens to them is ultimately what matters. I'm reluctant to take positions on technology that doesn't yet exist, since a lot of the impact will be determined by details that it's hard to predict. Simply living longer might in fact tend to move people's perspective more in the direction that I've suggested is the Christian one. But there are bound to be other effects as well. Someone commented that moving into a mechanical body might cause problems, since the soul can't be mechanically reproduced. There has never been a Christian concensus on what the soul is or how it comes into existence. There are certainly views under which mechanically-implemented people would not have souls. However there are both classical and modern views that would allow it. One classical view is that each soul is a special creation of God. In effect, the parents create the body of the child via normal biological processes, and God then graces it with a soul. Perhaps he would do so for mechanical entities as well. It is also possible to view the soul as a function rather than a object. In this case, a mechanical entity could have a soul. Note that Christian doctrine does not necessarily require us to believe in a soul apart from a body. It is very common to think of the soul as a sort of invisible object separate from the body that is part of our being. I think most Christians take it for granted that this is *the* Christian view. This is certainly not the Hebrew concept. In the OT people don't *have* souls, they *are* souls. The concept of the soul as the "ghost in the machine", a separate thing that flits off into heaven freed of the body, is really a Greek one. The Greek concept is certainly the most common in Christianity today. But I don't think it is strictly speaking necessary. As far as I know, Christianity does not require belief in immortality of the soul. It does require a belief in resurrection of the body. If the soul is a process, then it would be resurrected as well. --clh]