Rethinking the Eternal: D.Z.

Phillips, Immortality, and Eternal Life

Loyd Ericson, Claremont Graduate University

SMPT May 2009

In his book, Death and Immortality, D.Z. Phillips asks the question, “Does belief in immortality

rest on a mistake?”1 His answer to this question is in the affirmative, arguing that if immortality means

the survival of the personal soul or conscience after death, then such a belief is confused. This, he

argues, arises from mistaking the religious concept of eternal life for something it is not, and arriving at

what is ultimately philosophical non-sense. For Phillips, the Christian concept of eternal life does not

denote the endless survival of the soul after death, but rather refers to the type of life that one ought to

be living and attaining in our present mortality.

In this paper I will look at the three main philosophical arguments which Phillips uses to argue

that the common belief of immortality is a mistake, and show how the divergent conceptions of the soul

and the afterlife in Latter-day Saint theology are such that his arguments cannot be applied. However,

while his arguments for confusion in the traditional Christian thinking are negligible in Mormonism, I

will show that Phillips‟s conception of eternal life is one that can have considerable traction for Latter-

day Saints as an alternative view of eternal life. Finally, I will argue that for moral reasons, Latter-day

Saints ought to shift away from the traditional concept of eternal life as an eschatological immortal

goal, and instead adopt an understanding that places eternal life within the grasp of our present mortal

condition.

The first point of confusion Phillips elucidates deals with the conceptual problem of a belief in

the continued existence of an immaterial soul. Reflecting on what it might mean to say that someone

has survived death, he writes, “If we hear that someone has survived an accident, we know what it

meant. But if we hear that someone has survived his death, we do not know what to make of these

1
D.Z. Phillips, Death and Immortality (London: Macmillan, 1970), 1.
words.” Now of course these words are often used to describe those who may have managed to avoid

death in a tragic accident, or those who were thought to be dead, but turned out to still be alive—for

example Phillips gives two possible news headlines: “Torpedo Crew Survive Encounter with Death,”

and “Torpedo Crew Member Survives Death”—yet in both of these examples, we are referring to

persons who have not actually died. On the other hand, in our common Christian context, when we talk

about a loved one surviving death we are referring to persons who are actually (meaning physically or

biologically) dead and yet continue to live. Thus, according to Phillips, “the immediate problem facing

someone who believes in immortality is to explain how it is possible for human beings to survive the

dissolution of their bodies.”2

If, when we talk of the immortal survival of a person after death, we are not referring to the

survival our bodies, what is it then that continues to survive. Phillips points out that a common

Christian response is that “when we die, what lives on is some kind of non-material body.”3 While

some have argued that whether or not a non-material body continues to exist after death is an issue of

empirical science and not a logical one, Phillips disagrees. According to him, “Philosophers . . . have

the right to say something about the conditions which must be satisfied if these non-material bodies are

to be said to exist.”4 When we talk of something existing (as opposed to not existing), we are using

language tied to concepts surrounding material bodies. Our discussion of the existence of things

depends on related concepts of verification, location, measurability, size, etc. that are all notions of

materiality. When we talk of something existing in this sense, we are talking about something

materially existing. Thus the concept of the existence of a non-material body that survives death does

not just rely on an empirical question of whether or not it is shown that such a body exists, but a

conceptual question of whether or not it even makes sense to talk of the continued existence of a non-

material body. Because talk of existence is the talk of material existence, according to Phillips, the

2
Ibid., 2.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.

2
notion of the continued existence of a non-material body after death is nonsensical.

For Phillips however, this is not the only point of confusion. Even if we grant that there are

immaterial (or even material) bodies that do continue to exist and that these bodies are the soul, to say

that these bodies are the same person as that of the deceased is the second point of confusion which

Phillips argues lies behind the common Christian belief in immortality. This is the belief that the person

and soul is in some way distinct from the body such that the body “can be thought of as the prison

within which the soul is temporarily restricted, the house within which it is lodged for a time, or as the

suit of clothes which adorns a person for the moment. The essence of a person, what it means to be a

person, is identifiable with the mind or the soul.”5 At death, while the body dies and is no more the soul

of the person is what continues to live. It is important with this belief that the soul that remains after

death is the same soul and same person as it was when the person was living, and not merely a remnant

of them (such as a mere appendage). As Phillips puts it, “If John Jones can be identified with his soul,

then if John Jones‟s soul survives John Jones‟s death, John Jones has survived his death. Unless one‟s

soul is oneself, its survival would be of no interest to one.”6

The confusion lies in believing that the person is somehow totally distinct from the body and

that our conceptions of what and who a person is can be understood separately from our interactions

with that person as a material living body. According to Phillips,

The notion of the self is not the notion of an inner substance, necessarily private, whose
existence and nature we must guess or infer from bodily behaviour which is but a pale reflection
of the reality behind it. Persons are not mysterious entities that we never meet directly or have
direct knowledge of. On the contrary, we do meet persons, come to know them to varying
degrees, sometimes know them better than they know themselves, share or not share their
experience and so on. . . . [T]hese features of human existence depend on there being ways of
life in which human expectations, plans, and disappointments, ways of working and playing,
which people have in common. . . . [U]nless there were a common life which people share,
which they were taught and came to learn, there could be no notion of a person. . . . [W]hat it
means to be a person cannot be divorced from these common features of human life.7

5
Ibid., 3. For more on Phillips on the soul, see DZ Phillips, Religion and Friendly Fire: Examining Assumptions in
Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2004), 133-44.
6
Phillips, Death and Immortality, 4.
7
Ibid., 5-6.

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For example, I know my wife by the color of her eyes and hair, the sound of her voice, the way her

mood shifts when she is hungry, her indecisiveness, her fascination with the television show Scrubs,

and by what excites her and what annoys her. It is these things—these ways of life—that makes her a

person, and it is by these things that I see and recognize her each time as the same person. When

somebody does something out of the ordinary, or contrary to how we usually know them, it is

commonplace to say that he or she has become another person. If she suddenly changed her

appearance, personality, likes, and dislikes, what would it mean to even say that she was still the person

I know.

The confusion here, according to Phillips, comes out at two different points. First, there is

confusion in believing that the soul is identical with what we would call a person and has a sense

outside of all of these shared ways of life in which we ordinarily come to know a person. Second, and

more importantly, if we understand a person by these things and identify them as the same person

because of these things, in what sense does it mean to say that the embodied soul which we encounter

in life is the same person that might exist in the un-embodied soul after death. Once again for Phillips,

the Christian belief in the survival of the soul after death is a confused mistake because it is

meaningless to say that the un-embodied soul is the same person when in the afterlife there is no shared

way of life for which the concept of a person has its sense.

Finally, for Phillips, even if we grant that there is a shared way of life in which we can interact

with the departed souls (perhaps after resurrection), it is still a confused notion to say that these are the

same persons because our conceptions of persons are also tied the types of relationships we share in

this life. Phillips writes, “It has been said with good reason that the hope of life after death is often

contained with the hope of seeing loved ones again, of taking up broken relationships, of righting

wrongs committed long ago, and so on. All these activities depend on a continuance not merely of the

individuals involved, but of the forms of life in which they participated, and the social institutions

4
connected with these ways of living.” After noting Jesus‟ teaching that there was no giving or taking of

marriage in heaven, he notes that this lack of marriage in heaven is tied up with “a complex of other

relationships: child-parent relationships, relationships between brothers and sisters, relationships

between lovers, and so on.” 8 Thus,

If the situations in which such relationships have their meaning cannot be spoken of except
within the context of this human life on earth, how can one speak of taking up and continuing
these relationships after death? What is to be made of the hope of meeting fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, after death? Of course, in one sense of „know,‟ I know my
father if I can pick him out in an identity parade. But that is not what is normally meant by
knowing someone as one‟s father. The knowledge we have in mind can only be understood in
terms of the child-parent relationship. The question arises, then, of how one can know one‟s
father after death without being his son, how one can know one‟s lover without still being a
lover oneself, or how one can be a friend without the bonds of friendship. Yet no one suggests
that the features of this life which make these relationships the wonderful and terrible things
they can be are perpetuated beyond this life.9

For Phillips, our identities as persons have meaning in the relationships we form and maintain in

mortality, because these relationships do not continue into an afterlife it is once again meaningless to

say that our same identities continue to survive after death, as the means by which it makes sense to

speak of persons no longer continues.

For anyone conversant in LDS thought, the Mormon responses to these criticisms should be

fairly obvious. Instead of critiquing or dismissing Phillips‟ criticisms, a Mormon believer might accept

them wholeheartedly while at the same time appealing to her own Latter-day Saint beliefs to avoid

these same criticisms of her own belief in the survival of the soul after death. However, before going

into them, I must also point out that I am not discussing these for the purposes of apologetics or to say

that Mormonism has a superior response—as I believe that the responses lead to further challenges

which I won‟t be discussing here—rather, I do so to point out the divergent paths that Phillips and

Mormonism have taken in response to these challenges.

First, in response to Phillips‟ claim that the continued existence of a non-material body is

8
Ibid., 16.
9
Ibid., 16-7.

5
philosophically nonsensical, a Mormon might be in agreement, instead pointing to her LDS belief in

the material composition of spirit bodies. Joseph Smith similarly affirmed this criticism when he taught

that “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can

only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it

is all matter.”10 For Latter-day Saints, Phillips‟ criticism here would not apply because the spirit body

would be made up of matter and could be discussed as existing in a manner similar to other physical

objects. Now, of course, this spirit may not be seen nor felt, but like with other mostly unobservable

particles of the universe, the grammar of spirit in LDS thought leads to the theoretical possibility of

detection at some point—just as Joseph Smith taught that one day we would “see that it is all matter.”

Furthermore, it is a common LDS belief that our spirit bodies are not just shapeless spirit

entities, but rather take the form of physical bodies. For example, the Book of Mormon tells of the

post-Babel brother of Jared seeing the pre-mortal spiritual body of Jesus appearing just as he would

later appear in the flesh (Ether 3:15-16). And this leads to Phillips‟ second criticism—that the concept

of a person is tied into a shared way of life and that it is nonsensical to say that a person survives death

without a shared way of life that extends after death. Far from not sharing the same way of life, Joseph

Smith taught that the spirits of the dead “now exist in a place where they converse together the same as

we do on the earth.”11 His nephew (and later president of the LDS Church) Joseph F Smith‟s vision of

the spirit world describes individual and identifiable spirits intermingling and ministering to each other

(D&C 138). Also, for example, the LDS Church‟s official website Mormon.org teaches, “At the time of

physical death, your spirit will leave your body and go to the spirit world where you will continue to

learn and progress. In the spirit world, your memories of this life and the knowledge you have gained

on Earth will remain with you. Death will not change your personality or your desire for good or

10
D&C 131:7-8.
11
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), 353.

6
evil.”12

Finally, contrary to Phillips criticism that the Christian conception of heaven does not include

the same types of relationships as we have here on earth, one of the most prominent and most promoted

of LDS teachings today is the belief that the relationships we share on earth today do continue and

survive after death. Mormonism teaches that “death does not need to be the end of your relationships

with cherished loved ones. . . . Family members who accept the Atonement of Jesus Christ and follow

His example can be together forever through sacred sealing ordinances performed in God‟s holy

temples.”13 For Latter-day Saints it does make sense to say that I will be a father, husband, son, brother,

friend and so on in heaven. Once again, Latter-day Saints could find themselves in agreement with

Phillips, arguing that the continuation of relationships is necessary for the personal survival of death to

have meaning. However, rather than using this as a reason to call life after death a mistake, they would

instead argue that it is a mistake to believe that relationships do not continue into heaven.

While Mormons may agree with the criticisms posed by Phillips, they diverge from him by

instead affirming the material reality of the soul, a continuation in the type of life that makes the sense

of a person meaningful, and a continuation of relationships in which we find purpose and meaning in

this sense by which we identify persons. Despite this divergence, Phillips‟s conceptions of what eternal

life is (and should be) for the Christian believer is still, however, insightful for Mormon thought and

practice.

Though he argues that the belief in immortality as the survival of the soul after death is a

confused mistake, as a Christian believer, Phillips instead believes that the Christian concept of eternal

life is still meaningful—not in the common understanding of an endless duration of life, but in the type

of life we live in the present. Looking at how believers conceive of the soul, he notes that ultimately

12
“Life After Death,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon.org,
http://mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/heavenly-father-s-plan-of-happiness/life-after-death (accessed May 9,
2010).
13
“Heaven and Eternal Reward,” Mormon.org, http://mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/heavenly-father-s-plan-of-
happiness/heaven-and-eternal-reward (accessed May 9, 2010).

7
“Questions about the state of a man‟s soul are questions about the kind of life he is living.”14 When a

believer says that a friend has lost or sold his soul, she is not saying that he actually lost his soul such

as how he might lose his keys, or sold his soul like how he might sell his television. Instead for

Phillips,

[these] are all to be understood in terms of the kind of life a person is living. To ask a question
about the state of one‟s soul is to ask a question about the state of one‟s life. . . . For the
believer, the state of his soul has to do with its possession or lack of spirituality, this spirituality
being assessed in terms of the person‟s relationship to God.15

In a similar fashion, when we talk of the immortality or eternal life of the soul, we are not assessing the

prolongation of life, but are rather discussing the type of life one lives. As Phillips puts it, “Eternity is

not an extension of this present life, but a mode of judging it. Eternity is not more life, but this life seen

under certain moral and religious modes of thought.”16 In other words, “eternal life for the believer is

participation in the life of God.”17

This view of eternal life should perhaps resonate with some Latter-day Saints in light of the

teachings about eternal punishment found in the 19th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, where God

states:

Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless
torment. Again, it is written eternal damnation; . . . For, behold, I am endless, and the
punishment which is given from my hand is endless punishment, for Endless is my name.
Wherefore—Eternal punishment is God‟s punishment. Endless punishment is God‟s
punishment. (D&C 19:6-12)

While Mormons are often quick to affirm that eternal punishment does not refer to an endless duration

of punishment, but rather refers to the type of punishment one might receive, they on the other hand

usually want to conceive eternal life as an endless duration of life (though an endless duration of a

certain type of life). And along with eternal punishment, eternal life is not typically understood as

something that is experienced in the present, but is rather a life that awaits us (or is awarded us) in the

14
Phillips, Death and Immortality, 44.
15
Ibid., 45.
16
Ibid., 49. Emphasis added.
17
Ibid., 54-5.

8
afterlife.

An oft-appealed to scripture in Mormonism is in the Book of Moses where God tells Moses,

“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”

(Moses 1:39). In discussing this and similar scriptures, a distinction is usually made between

immortality and eternal life, where it is pointed out that immortality refers to the never-to-die-again

state that all humans will receive after the resurrection, and that eternal life is a state of—what I will

call—“immortality-plus” for those who keep God‟s commandments. Eternal life is usually understood

as the ultimate goal which is achieved following the resurrection where we both live immortally and

live the type of divine life that God does now. Immortality is usually described as the default state

anybody achieves regardless of their faith or righteousness, while eternal life is the privileged state

reserved for those with faith who live righteously. For example, in the Church-produced reference

manual True to the Faith, it reads: “Immortality is to live forever as a resurrected being. Through the

Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone will receive this gift. Eternal life . . . is to inherit a place in the

highest degree of the celestial kingdom, where we will live in God‟s presence and continue as families.

. . . [I]t requires our obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”18 Or as the Church website

Mormon.org puts it, “Eternal life is a gift of God given only to those who obey His gospel. It is the

highest state that we can achieve, and it comes to those who are freed from sin and suffering through

the Atonement of Christ. It is exaltation—living with God forever in eternal families. It is to know God

and Jesus Christ and to experience the life They enjoy.”19

I believe both of these portray eternal life as it is commonly understood by Latter-day Saints—

as an endless state which occurs after the resurrection, which includes immortality, but is also distinct

from mere immortality by also involving the type of live in which we live. However, this view of

eternal life as „immortality-plus‟ seems to have some conceptual problems itself. If our definition of

18
Truth to the Faith: A Gospel Reference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004), 52.
19
“Resurrection and Judgment,” Mormon.org, http://mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/heavenly-father-s-plan-of-
happiness/resurrection-and-judgment (accessed May 9, 2010).

9
eternal life includes immortality, then it would be either nonsensical or at least redundant to speak of

God‟s goal for his children to be both immortality and eternal life. Such a redundancy would be like

telling a woman that she is both a good parent and a good mother, or like me saying that I hope to soon

purchase a bike and a mountain bike, when I actually just want to get a single mountain bike. On the

other hand, if we want to say that immortality and eternal life are two separate states, such that

immortality was to live forever while eternal life was to live forever with God, then to say that God‟s

work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” would result in the bizarre

(if not blasphemous) claim that God‟s goal is to bring immortality to some and eternal life to others. If

God loved all of his children equally, it would seem odd to think that eternal life was not a goal that

God would want for all of his children.

One way to get around this is to do what some Mormons have done by making immortality and

eternal life two distinct ways of describing our post-mortal lives. For example, according to Elder

Richard B. Wirthlin, “Eternal life, however, is something altogether different. Immortality is about

quantity. Eternal life is about quality. To use a metaphor, immortality is how long the dinner lasts.

Eternal life is what is on the menu and who is with us at the table.”20 With this view, the former

describes the temporal quantity of that life while the latter describes the quality of that life. The end

goal then for God is for us to possess both immortality and eternal life. Though not describing the

duration of this new life, this view of eternal life is still understood as something that is not attained

until the next stage of life.

If eternal life is distinct from immortality, why then can‟t we (Latter-day Saints) also believe

that eternal life is something that can be attained in our present condition? Can we say along with

Phillips that “Eternity is not more life, but this life seen under certain moral and religious modes of

20
Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Timely Topics: What Is the Difference between Immortality and Eternal Life?” New Era, November
2006, 8.

10
thought,”21 and that “eternal life for the believer is participation in the life of God”?22

LDS scripture makes it clear that the experience of the eternal is not something that can only be

lived in a post-mortal life. For example the Book of Mormon prophet Alma says that for three days and

nights he “was racked with eternal torment” for the sins which he had committed (Alma 36:12).

Exemplifying what God taught in section 9 of the Doctrine and Covenants, this scripture shows that the

eternal (in this case eternal torment) could be experienced both in mortality and in a finite amount of

time. Furthermore, far from being a punishment rewarded him for his actions, Alma describes this

torment as self-inflicted upon his realization of the type of life he was living.

Like Phillips, another Book of Mormon prophet, Nephi, taught in the final verses of his writings

that “to believe in [Jesus], and to endure to the end, . . . is life eternal” (2 Nephi 33:4; emphasis added).

Nephi here does not say simply that faith in Christ and enduring to the end eventually result in eternal

life, but rather that faith in Christ and the act of enduring is itself eternal life. Like the eternal

punishment experienced by Alma‟s unrighteousness, for Nephi eternal life is something experienced in

the present, and is not just a result of righteous living. It is righteous living. This equation of righteous

living with eternal life by Nephi correlates with his own father‟s (and brother Jacob‟s) teachings that

we are free to choose between eternal death and eternal life (2 Nephi 2:27-29; 10:23). If immortality is

necessary for all humans23 then like eternal life, eternal death cannot refer to an endless duration of

death, but would rather refer to a type of death, or an unrighteous type of life. According to Phillips, if

eternal life is identifying one‟s life with that of God‟s, then eternal death would be a distancing of one‟s

life with that of God‟s. As he puts it, “For a person to die unaware of his distance from God would not,

for the believer, be a matter of that person escaping anything, but of his dying in the worst possible

situation.”24

21
Phillips, Death and Immortality, 49. Emphasis added.
22
Ibid., 54-5.
23
Or as my friend Elisa Pulido called it, “compulsory immortality.”
24
Ibid., 60.

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 However, this is not to say that eternal life is only a state that is experienced in our present

mortality. While Phillips—because of his critical examination of the Christian concept of

immortality—is conceptually bound to locate eternal life within the mortal experience, Latter-day Saint

scripture and teachings seem to be very clear that there is in fact a continued existence of the soul and a

resurrection of the dead, and that eternal life is something that is also experienced in the afterlife. This

does not mean, however, that eternal life as an eschatological end should, or can even possibly, be

sought after.

According to the teachings of the Book of Mormon prophet Alma to his son Corianton, in the

resurrection we are raised permanently unto the same type of life we currently live. Alma says,

“Therefore, all things shall be restored to their proper order, every thing to its natural frame—mortality

raised to immortality, corruption to incorruption.” He continues:

And now behold, is the meaning of the word restoration to take a thing of a natural state and
place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature? O, my son, this is not
the case; but the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, carnal for
carnal, or devilish for devilish—good for that which is good; righteous for that which is
righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful. (Alma 41:12-3)

If we are raised into the same type or state of life into immortality, then it would not make sense to say

that one who does not live with eternal life in the present is restored to eternal life. On the contrary, it

would be those who live and have eternal life—in this mortal life—who are also raised to that life.

Because of this it would make no sense to pursue eternal life as an eschatological goal, as doing so

would be to not understand what living eternally entails.

Furthermore, this is not just an issue of philosophical and theological speculation but is also an

issue of ethical importance. While many might argue that a belief in an afterlife is a requirement for

morality, Phillips contends that to the contrary, such a belief actually negates morality and instead

redefines morality as another form of self-interest. The argument for an afterlife as a means for moral

living usually takes the form of something like this: You should help the poor, sick, and elderly, and not

12
tell lies, steal, or commit adultery so that you can go to heaven and have eternal life. Also, you should

do these things so that you don‟t go to hell and suffer eternal punishment. According to Phillips,

construing belief in the immortality of the soul as the final state which gives men good reason
for acting in certain ways now falsifies the character of moral regard. . . . It seems to me that if
people lead a certain kind of life simply because of the final set of consequences to which it
leads, they are indifferent to that way of life.”25

If morals are just seen as a set of codes that one ought to follow, then they are just means to one‟s own

self-interested ends. If morals ought to be followed simply because they lead to eternal life after death,

then it is not that morals that are to be regarded as important, but the end. It is for this reason that

Phillips asks, “But what if another kind of life, the antithesis of the one one has lived, happened to be

the one which led to [eternal life], would one then live that life? If the end is all important, why not?”26

Imagine the following three scenarios involving me being home sick lying on the couch, and

asking my younger brother to warm up a bowl of soup for me. In the first scenario, he simply gets up

and does it because he loves me. In the second scenario, I offer him a thousand dollars and he eagerly

gets up and does it for the reward. In the third scenario, I tell him that if he does not warm up some

soup for me, as soon as I am better I will chase him down and beat him with a stick. He then arises and

warms up some soup in order to avoid a beat down. In all three of these scenarios, he performed the

same action, and yet it seems that it is only in the first that we want to grant that he did it for moral or

loving reasons. In the latter two, we would probably just say that he did it simply out of self-interest. In

the same manner, if somebody follows God‟s commandments in order to achieve a reward of eternal

life after his resurrection, then how would it be any different than my brother making soup for me in

order get his reward of a thousand dollars. In both situations, it is not the moral or loving aspect of the

action that is the driving force, but rather the self-interests of the person.

As pointed out earlier, according to Alma we are resurrected and restored to the state we were in

before our death. If in our life we did all of the right things, but did so in order to achieve eternal life

25
Ibid., 30.
26
Ibid.

13
after death, then despite our “good” actions, in dying in self-interest, we will also be restored as

someone one who simply seeks for our own self-interest—hardly a divine attribute which we would

normally associate with eternal life. If on the other hand, we live our lives doing the same actions—but

this time without regard for a future life or other self-interests, and instead just out of love and

kindness—then in dying we will later be restored with that same love and kindness. Thus, if eternal life

is sought in this life, then there need be no concern for eternal life in the next because all who have (or

live) eternal life in this one will have it restored in heaven.

By placing eternal life in the present, it is important to realize that this does not say that eternal

life is a reward for our actions in this life, such as a ribbon or prize is a reward for baking an excellent

pie, or a tip is a reward for providing good service. By helping out a hungry and mentally ill veteran on

the street we aren‟t rewarded with eternal life. Rather, eternal life is helping out the hungry veteran. In

a similar manner, being happily married is not a reward for not committing adultery, but is instead, a

part of being happily married simply involves being true to one‟s spouse. Thus, it can and should be

said that eternal life is not a reward for keeping God‟s commandments and serving others in love, but to

have eternal life is to do those things and live that kind of life.

Another issue of moral concern that should lead us to utilize this conception of eternal life is the

primacy which it places on the current lives of ourselves and others. Latter-day Saints often appeal to

the importance of an eschatological eternal life, arguing that without such a teaching we are left only

with the nihilistic aphorism to “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” However, in my own

experience—and this is purely anecdotal—the emphasis on eternal life in heaven can also lead to a new

aphorism which states: “let starve, let thirst, and let suffer for tomorrow we live.” This is perhaps

exemplified by the words of an acquaintance who said—and I quote—“God does not care about

children in Africa starving, because he sees the bigger picture.” The argument behind such thinking is

usually to say that because the afterlife is so much longer—infinitely longer—than our mortal lives,

then what we experience in this life is largely negligible in comparison to our next life. Thus, our
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primary concern for others in this mortal life should be directed at ensuring an exalted place for them in

the next life, with their current conditions being a distant secondary concern.

By placing eternal life as achievable in our mortality and emphasizing its present attainment in

our actions and lives—and not as rewards of them—we not only eliminate the self-interest involved in

the believe of eternal life as a mere eschatological end, but we also eliminate the potential neglect of

present concerns for those of another life. If we want to say that the eternal life is to live the type of life

that God does, then in living eternal life in the present, we would foremost concern ourselves with that

which God has indicated is His primary concern—such as taking care of the hungry, thirsty, homeless,

sick, and naked, which, according to Jesus in Matthew‟s Gospel, is that which separates the sheep and

goats into life eternal and everlasting punishment (Matt 25:31-46).

In conclusion, for Phillips, the eternal life of the soul does not indicate the immortal survival of

the soul after death, but rather is meant to describe the state and life of a soul who is living in

participation with the life of God. While different understandings of spirit, resurrection, and the

afterlife in Latter-day Saint theology from that of traditional Christian theology helps it to avoid

Phillips‟ criticisms—and perhaps be in agreement with them—LDS theology could greatly benefit from

Phillips‟ insights on eternal life. An understanding of eternal life as a type of life that could be lived in

the present—instead of just an eschatological reward—is not only compatible with and found in LDS

scripture and thought, but is one that promotes moral regard instead of self interest, and places a

primacy on our concerns for the present needs of others.

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