hicks replica theory

Hicks aim

to defend the general Christian view of the resurrection of the body after death by God and presents thought experiment - demonstrate that this is logically possible.

Monist

Hick believes there is one substance - ‘body-soul’ in which body and soul are unified.

if body and soul are inseparable then when the body dies the soul dies also.

however, since the body rots away and its atoms become part of other living things, it is not possible for the individual to be resurrected with bodily identity

instead - what is resurrected is a perfect replica which retains the individual’s identity as a unit of body and mind.

Hicks first thought experiment

• A man disappears from a meeting in NY - and immediately reappears at a similar meeting in Australia.

• suppose that he telephones the meeting from which he inexplicably disappeared.

• his colleagues will be mystified but if he then returns to NY - his colleagues will be able to give him memory and personality tests

• in the end - they can say that the man in front of them is the same man who disappeared earlier

Hicks second thought experiment

• a man dies in the meeting in NY - so that his dead body is visible.

• at the same time the man has a feeling of unwell but appears in the same meeting in Australia

• he telephones to his colleagues - shocked at the fact that their colleague appears to be talking to them from Australia - his dead body is visible to them.

• when the man returns from Australia - his friends will conclude that the man they see is the same man who disappeared from the meeting

Hicks three scenarios

hick sets up these three scenarios through which he attempts to demonstrate that resurrection of the person is a logically possible hypothesis.

to show that it is logically possible for the body to be resurrected - because the criterion of bodily identity requires God to resurrect humans as the psycho-somatic unities that they are before death

• problem is that a replica cannot be made identical with the original.

states that it is logically possible - NOT factually possible.

but says that with a changes in the way matter functions could make it factually possible.

logical possibility

• hick bases the logical possibility of his theory on the work of scientist called Norbert Wiener

• Wiener suggests that it is theoretically possible to transform a human person into a signal - and transmit them somewhere.

• argues that this is possible because what makes the person or individual is in a constant change.

• suggests that the body is like a candle - the personality is like the flame.

• the flame contains elements of the candle but can be moved.