Debate: The Jehovah's Witness view on death and resurrection is false.

I thought for sure I posted this debate before, but now I can't find it. Anyway, this is a debate I had on debate.org a long time ago on the Jehovah's Witnesses view about death and resurrection. I'm just going to post my opening statement, and you can click the link if you want to read the whole thing.

In the set up for the debate, I explained what I took the Jehovah's Witness view to be, and my opponent agreed with my explanation. Here is the explanation:

Basically, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that when we die, we cease to exist. We are not immaterial souls who survive in any consicous state after physical death. We are purely physical beings animated by what they call a "life force," which in some publications is likened to electricity. But a "life force" is not the same thing as people traditionally think of as a soul. It is not a person and therefore has no personal identity.

After we are dead, Jehovah remembers us perfectly and completely. At the resurrection, Jehovah uses his perfect memory of us to bring us back into existence, albeit with some improvements. Although the resurrection entails physical humans coming into existence, it is not a raising up of the same body that died. Rather, Jehovah fashions a new body which he brings to life.

It is important to note that in the view of Jehovah's Witnesses, the person who rises at the resurrection is the same person as the one who died. That means that we ourselves will be raised up at the resurrection. It won't just be a replica.

Now, to my opening. . .

Con's clarification on the JW view of resurrection is perfectly aligned with my understanding of it, so we can just dive right in.

What I'm going to argue and it's implications

What I am going to argue is that it is impossible for a person to cease to exist, then to come back into existence. And it does no good to appeal to the omnipotence of Jehovah because the impossibility is not due to a lack of power any more than the impossibility of creating a square circle. Regardless of how powerful Jehovah is, he could not make the person who comes into existence actually be the same person as the one who died rather than a mere replica. The reason is because there is nothing that could possibiliy be done that could make the person who comes into existence be the same person who died.

If I am right, then there are two possible implications. One implication is that JWs are wrong to think we cease to exist when we die. If resurrection is a reality, it would imply that we continue to exist in a disembodied state between death and resurrection so that the same person who once animated the body that died can reanimate the body that is raised at the resurrection, therefore preserving personal identity.

Another possibility is that there will be no resurrection, at least not of original people. If there is something like a resurrection, it would only be the replication of previously existing people, which does us no good since we ourselves will have permanently ceased to exist. Either of these possibilities will have even further implications. It will mean that either the Bible does not teach the JW position on death and resurrection or else the Bible is not the word of God. So clearly if I'm right, it will require a paradigm shift in thinking for a JW. As for me, I once held the JW position. After changing my mind, I went with the first option above.

I think the reason it is so hard for people to change their minds, even when the evidence is sometimes overwhelming, is because it's rarely possible to change your mind about just one thing. Changing your mind about one thing has implications for other things because all of our beliefs are connected to each other, and you can rarely just change one in isolation from the others.

By I digress. Let me get into the arguments now.

The arguments

If you've read me carefully, you've noticed that I make a bold claim. Rather than claim it's unlikely that the JW position is true, I claim it's impossible for it to be true, which means it doesn't just happen to be false, but it's necessarily false. My arguments may be hard for some people to understand, but I think they prove with absolute certainty that the JW position is false.

I am going to use some thought experiments to show why it is impossible for a person (or anything for that matter) to cease to exist then come back into existence.

First thought experiment

Given Jehovah's omniscience, his knowledge of you now is just as exhaustive as his memory of you after you're dead. That means whatever information he uses to recreate you at the resurrection is information he already has. It is possible, then, for him to use that information now to fashion a body, bring it to life, and cause it to have all of your memories and personality traits.

But clearly if he did so, that person would not actually be you. You would be you! The other person would be an exact duplicate. It is impossible for two persons to be the same person. The fact that the other person would have all of your memories and personality and even think he was you doesn't change the matter. From the moment of his or her creation, he or she will begin to have different experiences from you. For example, if the person were created five feet away from you, and a moment later a bird pooped on his head by not yours, one of you would experience something the other wouldn't, which makes it impossible that you could be the same person.

If Jehovah happened to wait until after you were dead before he did the exact same thing, it wouldn't for that reason be you that he was bringing into existence. If it's only a replica while you're alive, then it would only be a replica after you were dead because Jehovah would be doing the exact same thing. You're death doesn't change anything.

Second thought experiment

Suppose that at the resurrection, instead of using his perfect memory to bring one person into existence who had died, he brings 12 versions of that person into existence, each exactly alike both physically and mentally. Well, clearly 12 persons cannot be the same person. At least 11 of them are replicas. So which one is the original?

None of them are the original! Thnk about it. If the 12th person is made just like the 11 replicas, then the 12th person is a replica, too. They're all replicas, and there is no original.

It wouldn't change the matter if Jehovah happened to only create one. If all 12 would be replicas if he created them, then if he only created one of them, it, too, would just be a replica.

Conclusion

The only way it's possible for a person who has died to rise from the dead is if they continue to exist in a disembodied state between death and resurrection. If they cease to exist when they die, they are gone for good. At best, Jehovah can create a replica of them.

To overcome this argument, Pro will have to think of some criteria of personal identity that makes the resurrected person be the same person as the one who died. The problem is that there is nothing that could do that. Memories are not sufficient because Jehovah could put the same memories into several different persons, which shows it's possible for two people to have all the same mental properties (memories and all) and still not be the same person. There is nothing Jehovah could do to a risen person that he couldn't do to a replica, yet a replica is still just a replica and not the original person.

Therefore, not even Jehovah can bring a person into existence who has ceased to exist.