Witness literature claims that God transferred the life pattern and life force of Michael from heaven to earth. We have already argued that the former part of this claim cannot explain how Jesus could be identical to Michael. Here we argue that the second part of this claim cannot explain this supposed identity either.[1] Why can this supposed transfer of life force not guarantee the personal identity of Michael in the incarnation? First, Witness literature may not even claim that Michael’s life force was literally transferred, if by transferred we mean a literal movement of one and the same instance of life force. Second, life force is ill-suited to explain personal identity. Third, at least with respect to the resurrected, it is not used to explain their personal identity.
Before proceeding we ought to justify why we speak of instances of a life force, terminology not found within Witness literature. While this exact expression is not found within Witness literature, the idea certainly is. As described in their publications the life force in every living creature is generically identical. The life force in a cat in no way differs from the life force that is in you. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 1025; Is This Life All There Is?, p. 50) However, you have your own life force, and the cat has its own. Your life force was transmitted to you by your parents. It must be sustained by your eating, your drinking, and especially by your breathing. (Ibid., p. 246) Since Witness literature speaks of multiple beings possessing the same kind of thing, it makes sense to speak of instances of this thing, life force.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 says that at death “the spirit will return to God who gave it.” While this might be taken to indicate a literal movement of a man’s spirit (or life force) from earth to heaven, Witness literature is very clear that no literal movement of a person’s life force happens after the death of the body. What this passage means, according to their interpretation, is that the grant of existence that was previously enjoyed by the now dead man reverts to God, who has the power to give life back to the dead. There is no literal return, because a man’s life force did not previously exist in heaven, and it does not subsist after death. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 1025) Their literature compares the spirit’s return to God to a financial transaction where certain immovable property is legally transferred from one party to another. (Is This Life All There Is?, p. 52) Just as one can speak of a transfer in such cases, where no literal movement takes place, one can speak of a spirit returning to God, even though no literal movement takes place.
Since Witness theology takes such apparently locomotory language figuratively, we suggest that their publications’ statements about Michael’s life force being transferred from heaven to earth might be understood along similar lines. In which case, the process would look something like the following. The instance of life force that existed in Michael’s angelic body ceased to exist when Michael’s body ceased to exist.[2] At the same time, a new human body was given a new instance of life force. If this is what is supposed to have happened, then possession of the self-same instance of life force is out of the question.
Further, life force is ill-suited to ground personal identity. As described by Witness literature it is impersonal and cannot bear any imprint of the person whose life force it was. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 1025; Is This Life All There Is?, p. 50) So, it cannot store the life pattern, which Witness theology appears to describe as sufficient and necessary for personal identity. Of course, if the life pattern is both sufficient and necessary, it is hard to see why possession of the same instance of life force would even be invoked in the first place, except to explain why the creature, whatever its identity, exists or is alive. It certainly could not be sufficient to explain personal identity.
Let us suppose that a particular instance of life force could subsist between bodies or apart from any body. It is not clear why it could be useful to explain personal identity. Even if we were to grant that an instance of life force could both exist and therefore retain its own identity from one particular kind of body to a second body of a different kind, we would still have to ask the following question. Why would possession of it matter for personal identity? Something as bare and relatively property-less as an instance of life force would be an odd candidate for something that would play this role – especially when Witness theology already posits something else to fill this role! We believe that the Witness comparison of life force to electricity would illustrate this point. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 1025) If you were able to take the exact same electricity from one electronic device to another, the second device would not therefore be identical to the first one. So why would possessing the same instance of the electricity-like life force make you the same person whose life force it was originally, especially when you do not possess the complete life pattern of this person?
That Witness literature never claims (and could not claim) that the resurrected will possess the same instance of life force that they had before they died shows that possession of the same instance of life force plays no role in grounding personal identity. Consequently, any attempt to explain how Jesus is identical to Michael from his conception by appealing to life force cannot even get off the ground. Keep in mind, also, that at best it would be a necessary factor for personal identity. As long as possession of the same life pattern is necessary, the mere possession of the same instance of life force could not be sufficient for personal identity. Of course, that the resurrected are supposedly the same persons who have died shows that Witness theology does not consider possession of the same instance of life force necessary.
For these three reasons, we believe that any attempt to explain how Jesus could be identical to Michael from his conception by appealing to his possession of the same instance of life force fails. First, it is not even clear that this is what Witness literature means to claim. Second, given how life force is described in Witness literature it seems ill-suited to ground personal identity. Third, its striking absence when discussing the problem of the personal identity of the resurrected indicates that in Witness theology life force plays no role in explaining personal identity. In other words, even if within Witness theology an instance of life force could be literally moved between bodies, which we think is unlikely given how their literature speaks of its connection to the body of the person it enlivens,[3] it would be neither sufficient nor necessary to personal identity.
In the following part of the essay we will examine whether or not we have misunderstood what Witness literature says about the life pattern and what counts as sufficient possession of a life pattern to be identical to the person whose life pattern it is.
[1] It is not clear that Witness literature even claims that the transmission of life force from heaven to earth is supposed to explain how Jesus could be identical to Michael. But because there are some statements that might be read this way, such as the following, and for the sake of thoroughness we will assume that this claim is made within Witness literature. The February 1, 1997 Watchtower says, "By performing a miracle that only God, the Creator, could have devised, he transferred the life-force and personality pattern of a heavenly son to the womb of a woman, Mary the daughter of Heli, of the tribe of Judah." (p. 11)
[2] Since Witness literature speaks of Michael having disappeared from heaven, (Holy Spirit – The Force Behind the Coming New Order!, p. 88) we suggest that part of the Witness account of the incarnation is that Michael’s angelic body ceased to exist; given the connection that is posited between life force and body, it stands to reason that Witness theology is at least implicitly committed to the claim that the instance of life force that enlivened Michael’s body ceased to exist during the incarnation.
[3] In particular, the claim that life force ceases to exist or is “extinguished” when a person (living body) dies. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 246)
No comments:
Post a Comment