“죽음 이후의 삶”에 대한 생명신학적 탐구: 영혼/육체 일치의 통전적인 이해의 추구

Abstract

In this article the author argues that an inclusive approach to the soul/body unity makes possible a more dialectical and integrativeunderstanding of life after death, while paying attention to certain prejudicial blind spots to which contemporary so-called physicalism and studies of near-death experience expose concerningthe soul/body relationship and the immortality of the soul. Physicalism too strongly maintains reduction to material or the body alone, that is, monistic materialism, while flatly denying the substantiality of the soul and the reality of life after death. On the contrary, researchers of near-death experience strongly affirm the substantiality of the soul (or consciousness) and the reality of spiritual life after bodily death, taking for granted the separation of soul/body. Both of them seem to run in the opposite direction without convergence. However, the author tries to reconcile both positions by highlighting the promise of the perspective that does not reduce the soul to the body or vice versa. From the perspective of Christian theology the author finally proposes to seek a more integrative understanding of life after death grounded in the soul/body unity, while looking into especially Karl Barth’s elegant explanation of the soul/body unity andKarl Rahner’s profound ontological interpretation of the soul/body relationship after death. Both theologians provide respectively a unique and persuasive account of the soul/body relationship.