Abstract

Questions concerning death and the afterlife are amongst the most perennial in philosophy and theology. Traditionally, the afterlife was the answer that many religions offered in response to the mystery with which death presents us. This answer has metaphysical, anthropological, and ethical implications in that it appeals to a transcendent justification to ground our understanding of human nature, the concepts of justice and moral obligation, as well as more general propositions pertaining to the nature of reality. In recent years, with the advances in science, which have helped us to better understand the processes surrounding death and the developments in our thinking about personal identity, which have influenced how we construe the possibility of an afterlife, the more traditional conceptions of what we might expect after death have come under pressure.