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Comparing the Meaningfulness of Finite and Infinite Lives: Can We Reap What We Sow if We Are Immortal?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2021

Thaddeus Metz
Thaddeus Metz*
Affiliation:
University of Pretoria (South Africa)
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

On the rise over the past 20 years has been ‘moderate supernaturalism’, the view that while a meaningful life is possible in a world without God or a soul, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with them. William Lane Craig can be read as providing an important argument for a version of this view, according to which only with God and a soul could our lives have an eternal, as opposed to temporally limited, significance since we would then be held accountable for our decisions affecting others’ lives. I present two major objections to this position. On the one hand, I contend that if God existed and we had souls that lived forever, then, in fact, all our lives would turn out the same. On the other hand, I maintain that, if this objection is wrong, so that our moral choices would indeed make an ultimate difference and thereby confer an eternal significance on our lives (only) in a supernatural realm, then Craig could not capture the view, aptly held by moderate supernaturalists, that a meaningful life is possible in a purely natural world.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 90: Death and Meaning , October 2021 , pp. 105 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2021

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