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Personal identity and Purgatory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2006

DAVID B. HERSHENOV  and
ROSE KOCH-HERSHENOV
DAVID B. HERSHENOV
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo, 135 Park Hall, Amherst, NY 14260
ROSE KOCH-HERSHENOV
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Niagara University, 357 Dunleavy Hall, Niagara, NY 14109
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Abstract

If Purgatory involves just an immaterial soul undergoing a transformation between our death and resurrection, then, as Aquinas recognized, it won't be us in Purgatory. Drawing upon Parfit's ideas about identity not being what matters to us, we explore whether the soul's experience of Purgatory could still be beneficial to it as well as the deceased human who didn't experience the purging yet would possess the purged soul upon resurrection. We also investigate an alternative non-Thomistic hylomorphic account of Purgatory in which humans would survive during the period between death and resurrection in a bodiless form with a soul as their only proper part.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 439 - 451
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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