In
Chapter One, D'Souza lays out his assumptions. He assumes that there is a possibility, even a
probability, of life after death. His assumption runs against the grain of a popular assumption in western society that makes any spiritual, immaterial, or subjective claims nothing short of comic fodder: that of reductive materialism. He defines reductive materialism as "the philosophical position that material reality is the only reality. Materialists hold that there is only one kind of stuff that exists--material stuff. We know this because material objects are objective: their existence can be verified by the techniques of science. Even human beings and other living creatures are ultimately collections of atoms and molecules, or if we break these down further, of quarks and electrons... Reductive materialists don't deny that there are subjective or immaterial experiences and entities. They insist, however, that upon examination those are caused by and are expressing purely material forces." (10) A good portion of his book focuses on this prevalent philosophy, because those who hold it simply cannot believe in life after death. As D'Souza puts it, "It is easy to see why such a philosophy leaves no room for claims that there is a reality that lies outside sense perception and outside the reach of modern science. If reductive materialism is true, then belief in an immaterial God is a fiction and life after death is impossible." (11) D'Souza isn't a reductive materialist, and throughout the book he makes excellent arguments against the belief that the material (i.e. physical) world is all that exists. Such a philosophy
assumes that all that exists is what science can measure; it
assumes that science covers all the bases of reality; it
assumes that if scientific instruments cannot detect it, then it's hogwash. This assumption, in D'Souza's mind, is the pinnacle of arrogance: such claims cannot be verified, and reductive materialism faces a mounting host of problems philosophically
and (believe it or not) scientifically. As D'Souza presents his case for the plausibility and probability of life after death, he will take shots at the chinks in the armor of reductive materialism.
In Chapter Two, D'Souza examines the claims of the reductive materialist regarding life after death. It basically goes like this: "Science hasn't shown us that there is life after death. Therefore, there must not be life after death." D'Souza argues that such thinking overdraws the reach of science. Science is tailored to tell us about the objective, material, and measurable aspects of our world; science has nothing to say about the spiritual, immaterial, or subjective realities of our world. Many scientists recognize this and testify to the fact that science does not address every avenue of reality. Others, particularly those endowed with the philosophy of reductive materialism, believe science addresses every aspect of reality because they assume that the objective, material, and measurable aspects of our world are all that exist. D'Souza says, "The atheist has no better proof that there isn't life after death than the believer has that there is. Both groups are claiming knowledge that neither group actually possesses. For the atheist, no less than for the believer, it is entirely a matter of faith." (22) The believer in life after death doesn't have proof; nor does the atheist who denies it. D'Souza relates the infamous story of the Russian cosmonaut who went up into space and claimed he didn't see God. The story has become apocryphal, expressing the atmosphere of those scientists whose probing hasn't revealed God. D'Souza finds this laughable; as he puts it, "Imagine poor Hamlet running around the castle saying, 'I've looked everywhere, and I can't find Shakespeare. I'm forced to conclude that Shakespeare doesn't exist." (24) This chapter has less to do with about the existence (or non-existence) of life after death and more to do with highlighting the arrogant assumptions within reductive materialism. So long as reductive materialism is embraced, regardless of its arrogance and inability to prove its claims, there can be no real dialogue about the possibility of life after death.
In Chapter Three, D'Souza looks at the universal conviction that there is life after death. He surveys the major world religions, both of Western and Eastern origin. He discusses Judaism and the rise of afterlife beliefs, highlighting that these beliefs arose not so that the Jews could have a "happy home" when they died but so that God Himself would be vindicated. He examines Christianity and how Platonism has affected Western conceptions of the afterlife. He then looks at Hinduism and Buddhism, exploring their eastern conceptions of Nirvana and reincarnation. "The universality of belief in an afterlife is astonishing, because life after death is not one of those empirically obvious beliefs that one would expect every society from the dawn of mankind to share. No one is surprised at the universal belief in mountains or rainstorms or animals, because such things are undeniably present to our senses. But it is an entirely different matter when all cultures in history right down to the present jointly proclaim a proposition that seems impossible to confirm through experience." (40)
In Chapter Four, D'Souza examines NDEs (or Near-Death Experiences). Most of these experiences are good, but others are bad. NDEs show the same features across time and cultures. Those who report NDEs tend to have their lives changed for the better: they become gentler, more loving people who are unafraid of death. Many are even sad that they returned to their bodies! D'Souza examines the nature of NDEs and then tackles the biggest scientific explanations: perhaps NDEs reflect a distorted brain state or is simply what happens when the brain begins to die. But as D'Souza notes, "[Nothing] in the dying brain hypothesis accounts for how clinically dead people seem to know things that are apparently out of the range of their perceptual capacities." (72) Furthermore, studies on NDEs have shown that a good number of those who experience NDEs do so when their brains are clinically dead: the brains show absolutely no activity, but yet the people experience things, hear voices, hold conversations with deceased loved ones, and can even recount things that're happening outside the bounds of their sensory perceptions. The scientific explanations for NDEs simply cannot account for this, and reductive materialism is at an impasse. If the brain and brain states are all there is, there simply cannot be any experience if the brain is dead or not working. This isn't the case with a good number of NDEs, and scientists are baffled. D'Souza writes, "[NDEs] do suggest that consciousness can and sometimes does survive death" but adds a disclaimer: "Since only some people have NDEs, it is possible that only some people's consciousness survives their death. Also, the fact of some sort of out-of-body survival in these cases tells us very little about what the afterlife is really like. By definition no one has reported a near death experience that fully crossed that barrier from this life to the next. Finally, 'survival' is not the same thing as 'immortality,' because theoretically we could survive our deaths and still lose our consciousness shortly thereafter." (72) As an aside, D'Souza points out that one of the two major groups that attack NDEs are evangelical Christians; the reason is because people of all moral calibers and religions experience good NDEs, and according to preconceived notions within the Christian worldview, this shouldn't be the case.
In Chapter Five, D’Souza examines the landscape of modern physics, showing how science itself has made belief in alternate realms—such as heaven and hell, or their equivalents—not only possible but feasible. He begins by laying out the premise of reductive materialism: “The behavior of matter is lawful, and the laws are known to scientists today. Given the recognized qualities of matter, our chances for life after death are nil, since human bodies break down and disintegrate. More-over, atheists say, the religious concept of eternity presumes the existence of exotic locales like heaven and hell. The problem is that we live in a physical universe, and these alternative realms seem to exist nowhere, or perhaps only in the imagination of the devout. Consequently it is simply ridiculous to think that humans can continue to live their lives beyond their deaths.” (73-74) After a lengthy treatment of the evolution of modern physics, he writes about quantum mechanics and string theory, multiple dimensions, dark energy, and dark matter. String Theory seeks to unify Einsteinian relativity with quantum mechanics. “[Reality] is divided not into four but rather eleven dimensions, ten of space and one of time.” These other dimensions are hidden, “somehow positioned so that they are invisible and inaccessible to us.” (78) String theory opens the door to alternate dimensions that could be the “exotic locales” of heaven and hell. “[If] space, time, and the laws of physics are local to our universe, any realms beyond our universe—if such realms exist—could operate independently of our conceptions of space and time, or without space and time altogether. Now suddenly we see the coherence of the Christian concept of eternity, a realm beyond space and time and the known laws of science.” He adds as a disclaimer, “This is not to say that these other realms beyond space, time, and the laws of science exist, but it is to say that, without the understanding of modern physics, they are possible.” (82) D’Souza then looks at the Big Bang and the Anthropic Principle (the fine-tuning of the universe). “Basically we are in a fine-tuned universe, which looks like it was tuned by a creator, but science can’t really admit the obvious, and so scientists have to posit many universes that they have no evidence for in order to explain why we have the one fine-tuned universe we do inhabit.” (87) One way physicists have tried to get out from under the rug of the anthropic principle is by postulating a multiverse, so that our universe with all its “fine-tuned constants” is just one of a limitless number of universes. There’s absolutely zero evidence for this, but the multiverse theory has gained ground because it does away with the need for a fine-tuner; it does away with the need to explain why our universe is the way it is. He quotes cosmologist Bernard Carr, “If there is only one universe, you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.” But as physicist Steven Barr noted, “the God hypothesis is quite consistent with the possibility of multiple universes.” (87) D’Souza’s main thrust in this chapter is that “Atheists can no longer ridicule as unscientific the idea of eternal places beyond time, or of invisible matter that isn’t like our matter, or of realms that have their own laws and their own modes of being.” (88) He continues, “Modern physics has expanded our horizons and shown how life after death is possible within an existing framework of physical reality. The materialist objection has proven to be a dud; in fact, modern physics calls materialism itself into question.” (89)
In Chapter Six, D’Souza looks at evolutionary biology to make the argument that we see an uneniable teleology. As he summarizes in the last chapter, “Modern biology shows an evolutionary transition from matter to mind that does not seem random or accidental but rather built into the script of nature. This natural teleology from nonliving matter to living things to contemplative minds is a vital clue that nature progresses from the material to the immaterial, and from the perishable to the imperishable, so too may we. Like nature itself, we may be in a natural transition from living beings made up of matter to minds that are not subject to the limitations of matter.” (220)
In Chapter Seven, D’Souza examines the riddles of the human mind. Reductive materialists reject dualism, the concept that the brain and the mind are distinct, quoting neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, who declares that “All the richness of our mental life—all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love lives, our religious sentiments, and even what each of us regards as his or her own intimate private self—is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in our heads, in our brains. There is nothing else.” (110) An unnamed Dutch physiologist put it succinctly: “[The] brain secretes thoughts as the kidney secretes urine.” (111) The premise of reductive materialism demands that dualism be rejected, and arguments to explain the mind as a physiological attribute have arisen. Despite evidence to the contrary, which D’Souza shows, reductive materialists argue that the mind is the brain, or that brain states are equivalent to the mind. Another argument is that the mind is a by-product of the brain; “This means that the mind is a kind of shadow that rides alongside the brain. The brain produces the mind in the same way that fire produces smoke.” (115) D’Souza, upholding a dualist approach to the mind and the brain, argues that the brain is a transmitting organ. This idea isn’t original to him. “We cannot assume that brain states cause mental activity, because there is a second possibility. This is that the brain is a kind of gateway or receiver for the mind. William James, the founder of modern psychology, explored this idea… [He] argued that the brain serves not as a causal but as a transmission vehicle for the mind. Just as a prism or a lens allows light to pass, just as the keys of an organ channel wind and air in various ways, so the brain is an apparatus for channeling feelings and thoughts. Sure, James conceded, when the human brain dies, those feelings and thoughts, and their underlying consciousness, can no longer be expressed in that way. ‘But the sphere of being that supplied the consciousness would still be intact.’… [He] hypothesized the existence of a cosmic immaterial realm that, even while we are alive, supplies consciousness through our brains. When our brains die, this consciousness goes on, not because it enjoys life after death, but because it never died in the first place. We perish, but our consciousness endures, perhaps all by itself, perhaps in other instantiations. There is nothing in science, [he] argued, that undermines this alternative possibility.” (113-114) By way of an analogy, D’Souza expresses this idea: “If I want to listen to Mozart, I need my radio or CD player. Without them, I couldn’t listen to a particular Mozart symphony. Destroy the player, and Mozart stops playing. But does it follow that the radio or CD causes the music itself? Of course not. These are merely instruments for the expression of sound waves.” (113) He rounds out the chapter emphatically stating, “The best evidence of contemporary neuroscience is that the mind cannot be equated with the brain, and while deterioration of the brain might impede the operation of the mind, the two are separate, which makes it possible that our immaterial minds and consciousness might survive the termination of our physical frames.” (125)
In Chapter Eight, D’Souza builds upon the previous chapter and embraces James’ “transmission” theory regarding consciousness: in short, the body and brain is a transmissive organ for the human consciousness, which is not derived from material processes. D’Souza examines a handful of the most prominent materialist approaches to human consciousness and destroys them piecemeal. He advocates James’ approach to human consciousness: “[A] central feature of our identity and humanity operates outside the recognized physical laws of nature. One of those laws is, of course, mortality for all living bodies. But consciousness is not part of the body. Nor is consciousness ‘in’ the body in the same way that nerves or neurons are. Consciousness merely comes with the body and operates through the body. The body serves as a kind of receiver and transmitter for consciousness, not its author or manufacturer. What William James termed the ‘transmissive’ doctrine of consciousness, in which our individual consciousness is derived from and dependent on an outer cosmic source, now seems far more plausible than the materialist alternative.” (136-137) Science cannot account for consciousness and free will, so that D’Souza can write, “[Two] central features of human nature—consciousness and free will—that are irreducible to matter and appear to be independent from it. Even more remarkable, consciousness and free will have no natural explanation and seem to function beyond the bounds of physical law. Things that are defined by physical law, such as human bodies and human brains, are perishable or destructible. Consciousness and free will, unbound by those constraints, are not. Moreover, consciousness and free will are the defining features of the human soul, which requires awareness and choice in order to discriminate between right and wrong. The implication is that whatever happens to our bodies and brains after death, our souls live on.” (143-144)
In Chapter Nine, D’Souza looks at philosophy and deconstructs the arrogance of empirical realism, differentiating between perception and reality. Examining popular philosophers, D’Souza focuses on the German philosopher Schopenhauer who made the distinction between the noumenon (the world as it is) and the phenomenon (the world as we perceive it). “Schopenhauer says that if the self is nonumenal and the noumenal is undifferentiated, that means that whatever our phenomenal differences, we humans are, in the ultimate ground of our being, one. Perhaps at some level, [he] suggests, we recognize this. And this explains compassion, the ability of people to identify with each other, share each other’s pain, and help even when it involves some cost or sacrifice. [His] doctrine of a universal human connection implies that if we hurt each other we are, whether we realize it or not, hurting ourselves. One fascinating feature of this argument is that whether or not it is true, humans certainly on many occasions act as if it were true.” (160-161) Thus, “[Fear] of death is itself an illusion because the real or noumenal part of us cannot die. So far from denying the afterlife, Schopenhauer affirms it. ‘Your real being knows neither time, nor beginning, nor end… Your immortal part is indestructible.’ In other words, at death we are fully integrated into the realm of the noumenal from which we originally came. For [him], a pessimist about life in this world, death is a kind of liberation, a discarding of the veil of phenomenal existence and a discovery of our true oneness with each other and with infinite reality itself. When we die, our separateness is over and we live on as part of the absolute reality that is the only reality there is.” (162)
In Chapter Ten, D’Souza argues that the existence of morality presupposes some cosmic justice and, perhaps, some cosmic realm that lies beyond our material frames. He begins by defining his terms: “[Morality is] the voice within, the interior source that Adam Smith called the ‘impartial spectator.’ Morality in this sense is an uncoercive but authoritative judge. It has no power to compel us, but it speaks with unquestioned authority… Even people who most flagrantly repudiate morality—say a chronic liar or a rapacious thief—inevitably respond to detection with excuses and rationalizations… Morality supplies a universal criterion or standard even though this standard is almost universally violated.” (172) On pages 166-167, D’Souza states the problem that morality poses for reductive materialists: “Unlike material objects and all other living creatures, we humans inhabit two domains: the way things are, and the way things ought to be. We are moral animals who recognize that just as there are natural laws that govern every object in the universe, there are also moral laws that govern the behavior of one special object in the universe, namely us. While the universe is externally moved by ‘facts,’ we are internally moved also by ‘values.’ Yet these values defy natural and scientific explanation because physical laws, as discovered by science, concern only the way things are and not the way they ought to be. Moreover, the essence of morality is to curtail and to contradict the powerful engine of human self-interest, giving morality and undeniable anti-evolutionary thrust.” (166-167) To put it another way, “Evolution is descriptive: it says how we do behave. Morality is prescriptive: it says how we should behave. And beyond this, evolutionary theory appears to run in the opposite direction from moral behavior. Evolution implies that we are selfish creatures who seek to survive and reproduce in the world. Indeed we are, but we are also unselfish creatures who seek the welfare of others, sometimes in preference to our own. We are participants in the game of life, understandably partial to our own welfare, while morality stands aloof, taking the impartial or ‘God’s eye’ view, directing us to act for the good of others. In sum, while evolution provides a descriptive account of human self-interest, morality provides a standard of human behavior that frequently operates against self-interest.” (172-173) Reductive materialists have sought to answer for this in a variety of theories: Darwin’s “Group Selection,” kin selection, altruism as genetic selfishness, the presence of morality to enhance one’s reputation, and reciprocal altruism. None can explain the existence of morality or why we feel we ought to behave morally, even when we run in the opposite direction. D’Souza argues that “the presupposition of cosmic justice, achieved not in this life but in another life beyond the grave, is by far the best and in some respects the only explanation [for the existence of moral values that stand athwart our animal nature]. This presupposition fully explains why humans continue to espouse goodness and justice even when the world is evil and unjust.” (167) He continues, “Now let’s make the supposition that there is cosmic justice after death and ask, does this help to explain the great mystery of human morality? It seems clear that it does. Humans recognize that there is no ultimate goodness and justice in this world, but they continue to uphold these ideals. In their interior conscience, humans judge themselves not by the standard of the shrewd self-aggrandizer but by that of the impartial spectator. We admire the good man, even when he comes to a bad end, and revile the successful scoundrel who got away with it. Evolutionary theories predict the reverse: if morality were merely a product of crafty and successful calculation, we should cherish crafty schemers and aspire to be like them. But we don’t. Rather, we act as if there is a moral law to which we are accountable. We are judged by our consciences as if there is an ultimate tribunal in which our actions will be pronounced ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ There seems to be no reason for us to hold these standards and measure our life against them if the standards aren’t legislative in some sense. But if they are legislative, then their jurisdiction must be in another world since it is clearly not in this world. So the presupposition of cosmic justice, in an existence beyond this one, makes sense of human moral standards and moral obligation in a way that evolutionary theories cannot.” (180-181) D’Souza sees us as having one foot in two different worlds: “We humans—atheists no less than religious believers—inhabit two worlds. The first is the evolutionary world; let’s call this Realm A. Then there is the next world; let’s call this Realm B. The remarkable fact is that we, who live in Realm A, nevertheless have the standards of Realm B built into our natures. This is the voice of morality, which makes us dissatisfied with our selfish natures and continually hopeful that we can rise above them… [Morality] cannot coerce us because it is the legislative standard of another world; at the same time, it is inescapable and authoritative for us because our actions in this world will be finally and unavoidably adjudicated in the other world.” (182)
In Chapters Eleven and Twelve, D’Souza looks at how belief in an afterlife is both good for society and good for our personal lives. There’s a lot of great material here, more geared towards refuting those who advocate the idea that religion (or faith) is bad for us; what it says in regards to the existence of life after death is virtually nil. Here I can’t help but agree with Richard Dawkins, who declares that these issues—whether belief in God, morality, or life after death is helpful—are irrelevant. Dawkins argues that whether or not a belief is “good” for us has no bearing whatsoever on the truthfulness of the belief. Of course, Dawkins can write about the “badness” of religion and faith and act as if it has any bearing whatsoever on the truth, and in so doing commits the fallacy he opposes; but that point’s neither here nor there. In Chapter Thirteen, D’Souza squeezes in a chapter on the resurrection of Jesus, making an argument for its historicity (following the arguments given by N.T. Wright in “The Resurrection of the Son of God”).
My take on this book? It’s damned good, at least until the last three chapters. I say this only because D’Souza’s thesis is to look at the plausibility of life after death from a scientific, psychological, and philosophical point-of-view. The last three chapters come as add-ons; chapters eleven and twelve say nothing regarding the plausibility of life after death, and chapter thirteen just feels awkward. I understand why he put it in there, since he’s a Christian, but I have to be honest: I feel it detracts from the book as a whole, even though I agree with his conclusions.
