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Berkeley and Bodily Resurrection
- Journal of the History of Philosophy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 45, Number 3, July 2007
- pp. 443-458
- 10.1353/hph.2007.0062
- Article
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Establishing and defending the Christian faith serves as both a guide and a limit to Berkeley's intriguing metaphysics. I take Berkeley seriously when he says that his aim is to promote the consideration of God and the truth of Christianity. In this paper I discuss and engage Berkeley's superficially weak argument (which I call the natural analogy argument) in defense of the plausibility of the doctrine of bodily resurrection. When his immaterialist resources are properly applied, the argument has more merit than one might initially believe. I conclude by speculating that Berkeley had reason to believe that immaterialism was a better fit with Christianity than materialism.