Are We Bodies or Souls? by Richard Swinburne

A new book by British philosopher Richard Swinburne looks at the most fundamental question facing us - do we possess an immaterial soul, and if so, does it live on after our physical body dies?

I fear that the book won't sway anyone who believes (and it's just a belief) that once we die that's it. It will, however, bring succour to those who do believe in the eternal life of the soul. Good news indeed!

Are We Bodies of Souls? takes the approach of a logician to argue in favour of the separation of the material body and the immaterial, eternal soul. Prof Swinburne adheres most closely to a (modified version) of Rene Descartes' famous statement, "I think, therefore I am." The thinking part of the brain can, reasons Prof Swinburne, carry on thinking in the non-material world after the body dies. The arguments deployed by Prof Swinburne indeed make logical sense.

It is an interesting book, though by the very virtue of the inductive logic that Prof Swinburne employs, it's not an easy read. Sentences are by necessity long, as propositions with many conditions and negations have to be rolled out - chopping them into bite-sized chunks renders the argument's structure illogical. But the reader needs to take the trouble to truly understand them before moving on - it's not easy, but for me easier than the mathematics of Fr Michał Heller, for example.

Prof Swinburne is a Christian, although of choice, by reasoning, he has elected to follow the Eastern Orthodox rite rather than Catholicism or some brand of Protestantism. He postulates that the human soul is 'born' as the neurons in the foetus come together in the seventh month of pregnancy and lives eternally, and he refuses to consider in any detail the possibility of reincarnation.

I like this book for its open acceptance of modern science; there is plenty of reference both to subatomic physics and to the likelihood of sentient life existing on other planets in this an many other galaxies. I like the author's rigorous academic approach, in contrast to the wishful thinking and fluffy woo found in the writings of lesser intellects. I also like the lack of any reference to any religious text, to Jesus Christ or to Mary, the Mother of God. Prof. Swinburn, author of The Existence of God and Faith and Reason, Was Jesus God and The Resurrection of God Incarnate, keeps to science and philosophy in this title, making it more accessible to the non-Christian reader.

However, there is still a distance between Prof Swinburne's book and the cutting edge of consciousness studies. My personal spiritual quest is more closely aligned to the thinking of Prof Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff - who dispute the dualism of body/soul but rather consider that consciousness is a property of matter, like mass and energy, and that the consciousness that we experience is a quantum effect - which can survive the physical death of the body.

My reasons for siding here with the monists rather than the dualists is a lifetime of personal observation of experiences of anomalous qualia memories - ones that feel just like current-life qualia memories but which seem associated with a time and place from beyond my lifetime.

Prof Swinburne devotes a couple of chapters to the formation of our personalities through memories - in particular the memories of events. He notes that there are no atoms in our bodies that have been a part of us for more than seven years (he doesn't cite where this number comes from - I've also read nine years), but that the present 'I' is a continuation of the old 'I', and that memory is the link. This defines the 'thisness' of 'I' is the soul. Here I entirely agree. While believing that each morning we return to consciousness with our past nothing more than a toolbag of practical experiences to be put to use in the future, I often react with embarrassment or shame at memories of an event from my youth that pops up, unbidden, in my consciousness. This proves to me my mental/spiritual continuity; here I'm entirely in agreement with Prof Swinburne. However, my life-long anomalous unbidden memories of qualia from beyond my experience (who knows? The past? Leaks from parallel universes?) cannot be dismissed.

Prof Swinburne makes the point well that whereas several independent scientists can measure the physical properties of pretty much anything and agree on its fundamental parameters - size, weight, chemical composition and arrive at exactly the same results - literally no one can in any scientific sense feel what is going on in your consciousness. The trains of thoughts your mind creates while sensing something are unique to you to experience. They form the 'youness' of you. This is your soul.

The author also ponders on whether higher-order animals - dogs, gorillas, for example, have souls. He asserts that as they are conscious, and so yes, they probably have souls. I'd argue that lesser beings are less-evolved spiritually than we are.

How the soul gets to live forever - and why - remains open for debate, scientific and philosophical. I believe in spiritual evolution - I believe that consciousness is a property of matter along with mass and charge, and just as atoms clump together to form molecules which in turn can go on to create living cells, from which grow living organisms of increasing sophistication - consciousness evolves to ever higher levels as it spreads out throughout the universe. This is an eternal journey, the journey from Zero to One, from Nothing to All, from the beastly and barbaric to the angelic and Godlike. From being aware of the smallest discrete unit of consciousness, to being aware of infinity itself. It is a journey that we are all on. It does not end with our lives.

Are We Bodies or Souls - Oxford University Press, 2019.

This time three years ago year:
Popping out for a drink

This time nine years ago:
In search of happiness

This time ten years ago:
Mercenaries and missionaries

This time 11 years ago:
Spectacular sunrise, Jeziorki