Opposing Views Of Augustine On Immortality

Augustine examines closely two opposing opinions on immortality through the lens of philosophical and scientific studies: the survival hypothesis, which asserts that the human personality will continue to exist after the death of the physical body, and the extinction hypothesis, which claims that the human personality will completely vanish after the death of the body (2). Before stating his claim in detail, he first premises that he does not deal with ethical and religious arguments (2). And then, he defines three forms of personal survival as the disembodied mind, the astral body, and resurrection (3). In fact, the difference of two arguments about immortality is derived from conflicting understanding about the interrelation between the body and mind. Although the survival hypothesis is based on dualistic view that insists separation of mind/soul from the body, the extinction hypothesis depends on inseparability.

He firstly insists not only that human beings are corporeal but also that the bodily continuity is vital to personal identity rather than memory on the basis of Lament’s and philosophers’ insistences (4-5). He secondly demonstrates the belief of modern science about the dependence of consciousness on the brain (9). He also strongly argues that NDEs, OBEs, and past-life memories can be explained as biological and psychological phenomena. Thus, for him, the extinction hypothesis is generally acknowledged to be true by sufficient experimental evidences of physiological psychology, but the survival hypothesis is only supported by an unintelligible explanation of parapsychology (9,