ABSTRACT
In contemporary science fiction, people are sometimes represented as being transported instantaneously – by a process of de-materialisation followed by a re-materialisation – across vast distances. If such a transition were possible, one might ask, would there be a break in personal continuity? Would the re-materialised person be me or merely a replica of me? Would the de-materialised person and the re-materialised one be identical but not the same? In scripture, will the thief hanging beside Jesus, for example, be the same me – the me wishing to be remembered by Jesus – as that one who will be with Jesus in Paradise? Athenagoras was clear that an interruption through death to personal existence would not compromise permanence and thereby continuity or identity. Tertullian also discusses this issue, declaring that the transformation of a resurrected body does not imply its prior, permanent destruction. Origen sees no discontinuity of personal identity in the movement from this life and death, through a place where the soul is trained for the new life, to the final resurrection. For the author of the Letter, there is a seamless transition and given that the authentic self is the mind, no break in personal continuity at all.
