Philosophy Of Religion: Main Topics

the body is mortal. Further, since life is an attribute of the soul, the soul cannot participate in its opposite, viz., death. Therefore, the soul can never die. Thus, the soul is logically seen to be immortal.

There are others who find in moral justice a ground for the immortality of soul. For, they argue, if the soul is not immortal, then justice is not guaranteed to all and injustice is elemental to the universe. The reality of justice demands a life hereafter in which the soul is rewarded good or evil for the deeds it has done in the body. Different options are present for a philosopher before he can come to any conclusion by philosophical analysis. The materialistic notion is of annihilationalism, according to which the soul is coterminous with the body and dies with it. Reincarnationalism, on the other hand, argues that the body dies but the soul, which never dies, takes in a new body each time; thus, changing bodies as one changes garment. The Biblical teaching is of a resurrection in which the wicked will be resurrected to damnation while the righteous will be resurrected to life and glory. Annihilationalism doesn’t explain the administration of justice. Reincarnationalism cannot explain how the soul can be eternal and not just immortal and yet be finite at the same time. The theory of non-dualism attempts to relegate reincarnation to the deluded Self. However, it fails in adequately explaining how this Self came to be deluded. The linear aspect of time in the doctrine of resurrection, with its assurance of justice is the most logical alternative.

3. Religious Experience

Religious experience may be defined as a ‘seeming insight into usually unseen dimensions of existence, revealing something of

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