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there are certain situations in which subjectively a
person transcends his public behaviour, acts more than
'officially'; and that this occurs as a response to a
challenge which in the same way but objectively
transcends any 'observables', though it is expressed
through them. Such a challenge we call 'obligation'.
Three corollaries:
i.
(i) Free will and Causation : how inappropriate to
discuss free will in a causal context.
ii.
(ii) Obligation and God : what is the relation between
'duty' and 'God's will'? Discussion of views held
by Lord Russell and Professor Ayer.
iii.
(iii) Freedom and Omnipolence : how we can be saved
from a bogus problem.
Retrospect.
III. IMMORTALITY: PERSONS 63
To justify 'freedom' by appealing to decision situations
which exceed public behaviour, and even to recall our
use of nicknames, is to see in principle how to justify
belief in immortality.
Typical arguments against immortality endeavour
to avoid or to deny the kind of situation which (we
would argue) is the empirical basis for immortality.
Typical arguments for immortality can all be viewed
as techniques to evoke a more-than-objects, more-than-
public-behaviour, kind of situation:
i.
(i) ethical arguments--from 'unattainable duties',
from frustrations,
ii.
(ii) arguments based on the results of psychical
research,
iii.
(iii) other empirical arguments.
Retrospect.
IV. LANGUAGE ABOUT IMMORTALITY:
ETERNAL LIFE AND THE SOUL 		91
If belief in immortality is empirically grounded in the
kind of situation we have been specially elucidating in
Chapter III, what have we to say about the language
used to talk about it?
What account can we give of 'immortality', 'unend-
ing life', 'eternal life'?
The 'Timeless Self'and 'Pure Ego'.
The treatment now broadens into a discussion of the
Immortality of the Soul. We examine some unreliable

-6-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Freedom and Immortality. Contributors: Ian T. Ramsey - author. Publisher: SCM Press. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 1960. Page Number: 6.
    
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