Exploring the Interim State

July 15, 2015 - July 19, 2015
Immortality Grant, Northwest Nazarene University

McCall
United States

Sponsor(s):

  • John Templeton Foundation

Organisers:

Timothy Pawl
University of Saint Thomas, Saint Paul
Kevin Timpe
NNU

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All three major western monotheisms - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - assert that there is a final resurrection of the dead, wherein some portion of humanity (perhaps all of humanity) is raised from the dead and judged. What ought one to think about the persistence of the human between the time of death and the time of the final resurrection from the dead? Call that time between death and the resurrection the ‘interim state’.

We take this question to be vital for understanding both the theological and philosophical questions that arise from the acceptance of immortality. Concerning the theological questions, one might wonder what sort of union could one have with God in this state, and what one should say about the utility of an interim state in considering what to say about those who die prior to the ability to form their characters or beliefs. Philosophically, one might wonder, supposing the person exists in an interim state, what entailments such a state would have for analyzing the ontology of the human person, or what philosophical entailments the acceptance of a state such as purgatory or limbo would have for views of the interim state.

In order to stimulate and support further investigation into the interim state, we will be hosting an intense (but small) writing workshop. Our goal is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for theologians and philosophers to interact with one another in the common pursuit of better understanding the consequences of accepting an interim state.

To accomplish this goal, we will bring together ten faculty and five graduate students for a writing workshop. Each of the faculty participants will circulate a work in progress—not an already published or accepted for publication piece—to the group no less than three weeks ahead of time. The majority of the workshop will be devoted to intensive discussion of the papers; every participant will be expected to have read all the essays prior to arrival at the workshop, as the papers will not be read during the meetings but only discussed. Each graduate student who attends will be responsible for writing up comments on two of the papers to begin the discussion and to moderate those sessions.

All participants will be expected to revise their contribution in light of the workshop and submit it for publication in an appropriate venue within one year of the workshop date. The graduate student participants will be expected to begin work on their own projects on the interim state in light of their participation in the workshop.

Attentance is be acceptance only. 

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December 16, 2014, 4:45pm MST

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