Animal souls

The problem of evil is most forceful when we consider an individual whoose life, on balance, is a bad thing. Assuming God loves his creatures, it would seem to follow that God would not allow any of God's creatures to suffer to such an extent that it would literally be better for them not to exist. For example, a child who dies at age 2 and has lived a lifeconsisting of constant hunger and brutality. One is naturally compelled to think that such a circumstance is one that no loving God could permit.

But the Christian has an out here, in the form of the afterlife. If our human lives are really just a small subset of a much greater existence, it may still be true that the aforementioned toddler does have a life that, overall, is better for him or her.

But the problem is deeper than this, for suffering is not limited to human beings, but also non-human animals. And it is generally recognized that animal pain provides one of the most forceful examples in support of the inductive argument from evil (e.g Rowe's deer).

My question is what would be wrong with supposing that non-human animals also have an extra-mundane existence, as Bishop Butler and John Wesley both held. I don't know what the theologial consensus is on this point. But it seems an obvious position to hold if one really believes in a God that loves all creatures. Futhermore, such a position conforms well with what has been recently learned about the intellectual capacities of non-humans. Holding that there is a firm distinction between human and non-human has been on empirically shakey grounds ever since Jane Goodall's observations of the chimpanzees.

an ontological argument for immortality

Recall Descartes' famous dictum that "I exist" can be known with certainty prior to any other knowledge. Now if my existence is really what is first known, it cannot be an inference. If Descartes reasoned "Everything that thinks, exists"/"I think" "THerefore, I exist, my existence would not be the first thing known. it would depend on some general and controversial premises. For these reasons I think the cogito has to be understood as an immediate intuition--an insight into the necessary connection between "me" and "existence"

But the "I" or "me" may be too metaphysically robust. We may argue, contra Descartes, that what is known to exist is not the metaphysical subject, but consciousness--particular moments of awareness.

If that is so, then we should more conservatively claim: There is a necessary connection between consciousness and existence.

why a necessary connection? Well, if it was merely contingent, if there could be a consciousness that did not exist, then even this truncated cogito fails. But this more limited cogito is probably the least controversial of all philosophical theses.

Nor can one say that the intuition involved in the cogito only applies to consciousess--that the existence part is really superfluous. This is because it is not obvious that "everything" exists. Hallucinations and dreams seem to provide prima facie examples in which we are aware of nonexistent things. Of course, those of a Russellian bent will be inclined to explain away these appearances. But the theory of descriptions is hardly a premise we can use to buttress the soundness of the cogito. Again, the cogito stands on its own--its soundness relies on an immediate insight, not an argument that involves other premises.

But if existence is necesarily connected to consciousness, have we not then shown that consciousness necessarily exists? is not this parallel to the conclusion of the ontological argument with respect to God?