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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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Before discussing the main doctrinal formulations of
the idea of immortality, a few preliminary remarks will
be useful.

In order to be a satisfactory solution to the problems
arising in connection with the fact of death, immor-
tality must be first a “personal” immortality, and sec-
ondly it must be a “pleasant” one. Only pleasant and
personal immortality provides what still appears to
many as the only effective defense against the fear of
death. But it is able to accomplish much more. It
appeases the sorrow following the death of a loved
one by opening up the possibility of a joyful reunion
in the hereafter. It satisfies the sense of justice outraged
by the premature deaths of people of great promise
and talent, because only this kind of immortality offers
the hope of fulfillment in another life. Finally, it offers
an answer to the question of the ultimate meaning of
life, particularly when death prompts the agonizing
query, “What is the purpose of this strife and struggle
if, in the end, I shall disappear like a soap bubble?”
(Tolstoy, A Confession, 1879).

It is important to realize, however, that the notion
of a pleasant immortality for all and sundry runs coun-
ter to the sense of justice which otherwise plays such
a prominent role in man's claim to immortality. While
it was felt that it would be an “injustice” if man were
condemned to total annihilation, it did not make sense
that evil men should enjoy the same privileges in the
hereafter as did the good ones. Thus we find in all
doctrines of immortality some restrictions as to the
enjoyment of a blissful afterlife, be it a permanent
exclusion from it of those guilty of crimes, or a merely
temporary one, allowing for rehabilitation, expiation,
or purification. The main difficulty with personal im-
mortality, however, is that once the naive position
which took deathlessness and survival after death for
granted was shattered, immortality had to be proved.
All serious discussion of immortality became a search
for arguments in its favor.

The three main variants of the idea of immortality
are the doctrine of reincarnation, or transmigration of
the soul, the Platonic theory of the immortality of the
soul (which also admits the possibility of transmigra-
tion), and the Christian doctrine of resurrection of the
body, which includes “Platonic” immortality. Histori-
cally they seem to have appeared in the Western world
in that order. But we shall begin with the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul as expounded by Plato,
partly because his position was the best argued, and
because it is around it that in subsequent times most
serious discussions revolved.