IV Religion and the Life Hereafter

Religion and the Life Hereafte as an article of religious faith, not only may be true but is perhaps capable of empirical proof; and if so, that, instead of the inventions of theologians concerning the nature of the postmortem life, factual information regarding it may eventually be obtained. That, in such a case, the content of this information will turn out to be useful rather than not, for the two tasks which it is the function of religion to perform, does not, of course, automatically follow.l The author, while accepting life after death as a reality, has refused to accept the religious nature of this same phenomenon. This is only a matter of his own personal predilections. The truth is that if life survives after death, there can be no interpretation other than a religious one. 1. C.J. Ducasse, A Philosophical Scrutiny of Religion, p.412.