John Hick perhaps the foremost philosopher of religion in the English mannerof painstaking logical analysis offers an encyclopedic treatment of theinescapable a... » 

John Hick perhaps the foremost philosopher of religion in the English mannerof painstaking logical analysis offers an encyclopedic treatment of theinescapable and newly fashionable question of what happens to us when we die.Tracing belief in an afterlife back to its beginnings then a grim butindubitable prospect and up to its current rejection by humanists hescrutinizes the testimony of the great religious traditions the philosophicaltheories and the findings of science to determine what views make the bestsense logically and empirically. The evidence he finds points firmly towardthe existence of life beyond death. But neither of the principal accounts theEastern idea of reincarnation and eventual union with ultimate reality and theWestern notion of an immortal ego and its beatific vision of God proves fullyadequate. Hick argues that the best hypothesis is a synthesis of East and Westafter death the self goes through a purifying series of disincarnate livesultimately transcending the ego and entering a unitive state variouslyreflected in the doctrines of the Mystical Body of Christ the Dharma Body ofthe Buddha and the universal Atman. The adequacy of Hicks strictly analyticalmethod focused exclusively on doctrines abstracted from their concretereligious context is open to question. But as a comprehensive evaluation ofthe theoretical options his book is a considerable achievement a successfulexperiment in global theology and likely the standard philosophicaldiscussion of the subject for some time to come. Kirkus Reviews «