Resurrectionism and the Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity from Early to Reformation-Era Christianity

This paper explores early and Reformation-era Christian attempts to render the idea of an afterlife coherent. The specific focus is on early Reformed Christians’ unequivocal belief in a bodily criterion of personal identity and a physical afterlife. This article shows how Jewish divisions are partially responsible for the differences from this endeavor. Lending focus and structure to this broadly reconstructive project is a sustained critique of Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston’s recent agenda-setting series of lectures published as Surviving Death. My general conclusion is that Christian resurrectionism—or at least, the most persuasive forms of it as presented by some of the more astute Reformed Christian thinkers—is at least a coherent idea regardless of whether or not it is true. 

Keywords:

Resurrectionism , Christianity , personal identity