Philosophia Christi

Volume 14, Issue 2, 2012

Symposium on Paul Moser's Religious Epistemology

Jonathan Loose
Pages 439-449

Constitution and the Falling Elevator
The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief

Ontological dualism is energetically resisted by a range of Christian scholars includ­ing philosophers such as Baker and Corcoran who defend accounts of human persons based on material constitution. Whilst Baker’s view fails to account for diachronic identity, Corcoran’s account of life after death makes use of Zimmerman’s problematic “Falling Elevator Model.” It is argued that Zimmerman’s recent reassessment of the model overestimates its value for materialists. In fact, the model generates either a fatal encounter with the nature of identity, or absurdity. A lack of alternatives is illustrated by anticriterialist proposals. Thus it seems materialism and resurrection belief remain incompatible.