Personal Immortality between Transcendental Anthropology and “Christian Materialism”

After the publication of Immortalité de l'âme et résurrection des morts, in which Oscar Cullmann argued the inadmissibility of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as a prerequisite for the resurrection of the dead, theological reflection engaged in an in-depth discussion on the subject. Particularly, Karl Rahner's contribution appears noteworthy. While rejecting the irreconcilability between immortality and resurrection, Rahner gives personal immortality not the character of survival of a spiritual principle, but rather that of human being’s fulfilment in eternity. In the current debate on immortality, a relevant and certainly critical position towards the concept of the 'immortality of the soul' is represented by the so-called “Christian materialists”. Among materialists, Lynne Rudder Baker's position with her Constitution Theory differs from that of authors such as P. Van Inwagen or D. Zimmerman, in that, according to this theory, the human person would not be identical to the organism of which it is constituted, but it would be rather a form of self-consciousness, that would determine the personal identity that would survive after death. The aim of this paper is to critically approach the Constitution Theory about personal immortality, starting from the theory offered by Rahner.