AC Cotter states that the belief in an afterlife is a prerequisite for philosophy. I do not agree, and there is a specific reason why. I need not beleive in a afterlife because it is not, as Thomas says, 'self evident'. 'god' as order and structure in the universe is self evident, finding God as a persona and creator is one of the purposes of philosophy, but the afterlife is neither self-evident nor reasonable without others of his suppositions, which are many also irrational. I find it exceedingly hard to believe in life after death, particularly if I do not believe in a personal God. For the most basic reason of 'with no personal God, who is there to make it? it is not evident in nature, and god/order is.'
So, perhaps with the proof of a personal God we can reason toward an afterlife, but I shall declare that it is not a necessary starting point. Another proof that belief in an afterlife is not necessary is similar to aristotle's proof that there is no universal good. If there are so many versions of the afterlife, how can one be true, and the rest false? as sinclair says, "maybe god doesn't care how you say your prayers so long as you pray them" If so, then perhaps whatever you have believed so far may be true for your afterlife. And then we can consider the idea of reincarnation, for the buddhists, that is a form of afterlife, yet it is also unreasonable.
So who can say? I say that Mr. Cotter is wrong in presupposing that such a belief is needed, but that it may be interesting to reason towards this thought. Though I still find it ridiculous at the present time, I can still try to figure it out.
The Thinking Skull.
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I understand what you are saying about "whatever you have believed so far may be true for your afterlife," and I have also pondered whether we could apply this statement not to just the "afterlife," but to every belief each person has about his spirituality. But when thinking about this (in eucharistic adoration at school--what else is there to do?) I ran into a road block. Part of the "self-evidence" of God's existence is the existence of order that we see empirically throughout the world had to be created by something, hence that something has to be some sort of "god." But, if God were to exist, then surely in every matter, subjectivity would be impossible. Either something is true or something isn't. We can see this throughout nature. Gravity always exists and follows precise equations. Fire is always hot and will burn your skin if your decide to expose yourself to it for a while. Alcohol always has less surface tension than water. But another thing in our world that exists (as immaterial as it is) is our ideas. And, we see by free will that we can think things that are "untrue" and that contradict the order and structure (i.e. The LOGOS).
Excellent point schnook, I agree entirely. The paradoxical statement of "there is no absolute truth, except the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth" seems to throw a wrench into this argument. To say that every individual's belief dictates what is individually true for him (relativism) leads to many problems.
However, the main crux of this argument is wrong. Thomas does say that knowledge of God is not 'self-evident' because we cannot know God in His entirety, not because it is not fundamentally true. An argument for Gods existance which is rather hard to disprove is Anselm's argument that if one thing can be better than another,there must ultimately be one thing that is best, or as he says "that than which nothing greater can be thought", and that best thing could not only exist in the imagination because things that actually exist are always superior to things that do not actually exist, that best thing must exist. Furthermore, the order of the created world ought to be sufficient evidence for God's existance as well.
Now as to your argument begging the question as to how one knows that one is right and all the rest wrong in regards to the afterlife is a matte of faith, but anyone who actually believes what they say must therefore discount opposing views as wrong, you can't have it both ways. There is, as established above, one absolute truth.
Now A.C Cotter's point about an aftelife being necessary to philosophy is that there is no point in philosophizing unless there is some final purpose for everything we do that transcends ourselves to which we must ascend through reason. In order to reach that final purpose, there must be an afterlife.
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