Argument

Argument from the Narrative-Identity Convergence

Intro

What makes you "you" across time? Your body changes. Your memories change. Your personality drifts. Modern philosophers have tried to ground personal identity in continuous memory, in continuous biology, or in calling the whole question pointless. None of those answers survive a hard test: are you still you after you die?

The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur said your identity is really the story your life tells, but that story needs Someone outside the story to keep it going through death. He left the question of who that Someone is open. Paul the Apostle, writing nineteen hundred years earlier, had already answered it. The resurrection body is the same you, transformed. God preserves the story of who you are through death and gives it back to you in a new body. The deepest puzzle in modern identity philosophy has a Christian answer already on the shelf.

In full

Two independent domains exhibit the same structural law: personal identity is constituted through narrative continuity rather than through substance-sameness or material-continuity, and the framework requires a metaphysical guarantor outside the temporal-physical narrative itself. In contemporary philosophy of personal identity, the psychological-continuity and animalist traditions both fail to ground identity-through-radical-discontinuity (death; total amnesia; teletransport thought-experiments). Paul Ricoeur's Oneself as Another (1990) supplies the most-developed alternative, the idem-ipse distinction in which ipse (selfhood-as-narrative-continuity) is the irreducible category of personal identity, distinct from idem (sameness-of-substance), and Ricoeur is explicit that this narrative ipseity requires a guarantor outside the narrative to sustain identity through the rupture of death. In Pauline-Christian eschatology, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 develops the resurrection body as the same person in a transformed-but-continuous body, what is sown is what is raised, but the body is transphysical (N.T. Wright's term), bridging across the radical discontinuity of death precisely through narrative-identity preservation by God. The two domains have no shared etiology, Ricoeur's analysis emerges from continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy of mind in the late 20th c.; Paul's resurrection-body theology emerges from 1st-century apostolic preaching and reflection on the Risen Christ. The convergence is precise: both require narrative-identity-through-radical-discontinuity as the irreducible structure of personal identity, and both require a metaphysical guarantor (God, in Christian theology; an unspecified-but-required guarantor in Ricoeur) to sustain that identity. This page is structured as debate prep, each premise carries a second-order positive case, anticipated objections, rebuttals, a live-cite kit, and tactical notes.

Argument structure

Form

Convergence (cumulative-case, abductive landing). Bayesian-shaped: the conjunction-probability of (Ricoeur's narrative-identity framework as the best philosophical account of personal identity + Paul's resurrection-body theology as the apostolic-tradition account of post-mortem persistence + structural-isomorphism between the two) on naturalism is much lower than on Christian theism. The argument joins the codex's 6 prior convergence-arguments (Observer-Demand, Twin Asymmetries, Apophatic, Pre-Given Logos, Question-Asking Asymmetry, Costly-Signal) as the seventh in the series; the cumulative-pattern of seven convergence-arguments is itself an additional layer of evidence (the convergence-shape is the signature of theistic-grounded reality on the cumulative reading).

Premise development

P1, Naturalistic accounts of personal identity fail to ground identity-through-radical-discontinuity

Affirmative case:

1. Locke's memory-criterion (Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.27, 1689) makes personal identity a function of consciousness-extending-back-through-memory. The criterion fails immediately under the circle objection (Butler's critique 1736), to remember an experience as mine, I must already have a notion of me, so memory cannot constitute identity but presupposes it. The bridge-cases (a person remembering a previous life-stage but no continuous memory chain) further break the criterion.

2. Parfit's psychological-continuity (Reasons and Persons 1984) refines Locke into a bundle-theoretic framework: personal identity = the holding of Relation R (overlapping chains of psychological connections). Parfit's fission and fusion thought-experiments (split-brain commissurotomy; teleportation cases) produce indeterminacy, there is no fact of the matter about whether the post-fission persons are the original. Parfit himself concludes (p. 281): "Personal identity is not what matters." The naturalistic answer to the personal-identity question is to dissolve the question. This is a concession of failure on the naturalistic-grounding question.

3. Animalism (Eric Olson The Human Animal 1997; What Are We? 2007) takes the alternative line: persons just are human animals; personal identity = biological-organism continuity. The view fails through (a) thought-experiments (cerebrum-transplant; would I follow my brain or my body?); (b) the resurrection question (the biological organism decays at death; on animalism, the same person cannot be raised because the same animal is not present); (c) the persistent vegetative state question (is the same person present when consciousness has ceased but the organism continues?).

4. Bernard Williams's "self-and-future" cases (Problems of the Self 1973) and Sydney Shoemaker's Personal Identity (with Swinburne 1984) sharpen the failure: under any naturalistic criterion, radical-discontinuity cases (death; total memory loss; teletransport) admit of no determinate answer about personal identity. The philosophical literature has converged on this indeterminacy.

Anticipated objections:

1. "Naturalism doesn't NEED to determinately answer the personal-identity question. Indeterminacy is fine."
2. "You're cherry-picking pessimistic readings. Lynne Rudder Baker's constitution view, John Perry's Kripke-style views, Galen Strawson's transient-self view all give naturalistic answers."
3. "The empirical sciences (cognitive neuroscience; embodied-cognition research) are progressively dissolving the personal-identity question into a network of empirical sub-questions."

Rebuttals:

1. The "indeterminacy is fine" reply concedes the argument's force. If personal identity is indeterminate on naturalism, then whether-I-survive-death is indeterminate, and that's exactly the gap the resurrection doctrine fills. The argument doesn't require naturalism to say something false about personal identity; it requires naturalism to fail to ground a determinate identity-through-discontinuity that ordinary moral and religious thought presupposes (who is praised or blamed for what; who survives death; who is reunited with whom in the resurrection). The indeterminacy is exactly the explanatory deficit the theistic alternative addresses.

2. The "alternative naturalist views" have not converged on a determinate account. Lynne Rudder Baker's constitution view; Galen Strawson's transient-self view; Sydney Shoemaker's; each gives a different answer; the non-convergence across the naturalistic literature is itself evidence that naturalism lacks the resources to settle the question. Compare with the convergence in the Christian-theological literature on a narrative-identity-preserved-by-God framework (across Catholic / Reformed / Eastern Orthodox).

3. Cognitive neuroscience does not address the metaphysical-personal-identity question. Empirical research can chart the correlates of personal-identity intuitions (the default-mode network; the temporo-parietal junction; the medial prefrontal cortex's role in self-reference); these are correlates of identity-experiences, not the grounding of identity-through-discontinuity. The dissolution-of-personhood-into-empirical-correlates is a philosophical move (eliminative materialism) that concedes personal-identity is not a natural-kind. That concession is what the argument exploits.

P2, Ricoeur's narrative-identity framework as the philosophical articulation

Affirmative case:

1. The idem-ipse distinction (Oneself as Another 1990, study 5-6): Ricoeur distinguishes idem (sameness, "what?", substance-or-character continuity) from ipse (selfhood, "who?", narrative-promise continuity). Idem is what changes (we age, our character shifts, our memories fade); ipse is what abides through change (the one who keeps a promise made years ago is the same self even as their idem-features have all changed). Personal identity is constituted at the ipse level, not the idem level.

2. The narrative-identity construction (Time and Narrative 1983-85; Oneself as Another study 5-6): personal identity is narratively configured, emplotment integrates the discordant events of a life into a coherent story; the story is what makes the self one. The framework draws on Aristotle's Poetics (the unity of plot in tragedy) and Heidegger's existential temporality.

3. The Other-as-guarantor structure: Ricoeur explicitly argues that the narrative-identity self requires the Other, both the others-in-the-narrative (Soi-même comme un autre, oneself as ANOTHER) and an implicit Other-to-whom-the-story-is-told. In Memory, History, Forgetting (2000) Ricoeur develops this further: personal memory is sustained by witness, the One-to-Whom-the-Memory-Is-Told. The framework leaves the metaphysical-character of this guarantor open in the philosophical work; Ricoeur's theological work (Thinking Biblically 1998 with LaCocque) explicitly engages biblical-resurrection-doctrine and is generally taken to fill in the philosophically-open guarantor-question.

4. Convergence with MacIntyre and Taylor. Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981; ch. 15, narrative-as-the-form-of-moral-selfhood) and Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self (1989) develop closely-parallel narrative-identity frameworks, both with implicit-or-explicit theological-philosophical roots. The narrative-identity framework is not Ricoeur-idiosyncratic; it represents a major late-20th-century convergence in continental + analytic philosophy of self.

Anticipated objections:

1. "Ricoeur is a theologian masquerading as a philosopher. His narrative-identity framework is just secularized resurrection-doctrine."
2. "Narrative-identity is a regulative idea, not a metaphysical claim. Ricoeur doesn't actually solve the personal-identity question; he reframes it."
3. "The 'guarantor outside the narrative' move is question-begging, Ricoeur smuggles God into philosophy."

Rebuttals:

1. Ricoeur was a serious philosopher whose theological background informs but does not collapse his philosophical work. Oneself as Another engages Locke, Parfit, Strawson, Williams, and the analytic personal-identity literature on its own terms; Ricoeur's framework is argued philosophically, not theologically. The "secularized resurrection" charge actually strengthens the convergence-argument: if Ricoeur's philosophical analysis lands on a framework that requires something Christianity provides, the philosophical-theological convergence is exactly what the argument predicts.

2. The "regulative idea, not metaphysical claim" reply concedes the argument's force. If the narrative-identity framework is the best regulative idea but lacks metaphysical grounding on naturalism, then it requires metaphysical grounding from somewhere. The argument's claim is that Christian theism provides exactly that grounding (the resurrection-doctrine + imago-Dei + Trinitarian-personhood metaphysics); naturalism does not. The regulative-vs-metaphysical distinction is therefore not a refutation but a re-statement of the explanatory deficit the argument addresses.

3. The "guarantor outside the narrative" move is Ricoeur's own philosophical conclusion, not a smuggled premise. Ricoeur arrives at the guarantor-requirement through philosophical analysis of the narrative-self's need for witness (the narrating requires the narrated-to). The identity of the guarantor is left open in the philosophical work; the convergence-argument observes that Christian theology supplies a candidate (the personal God who knows-and-witnesses every life, Heb 4:13; Ps 139). Other religious traditions could in principle supply other candidates; Christian theism's specific Trinitarian-personhood + resurrection-doctrine is the most precise fit.

P3, Pauline resurrection-body as the theological actualization

Affirmative case:

1. 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 is the locus classicus. Paul addresses the question "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" (v. 35) directly. The answer (vv. 36-44): the resurrection-body is a transformation of the natural body, what is sown is what is raised, but the raised differs from the sown as the plant differs from the seed. The seed-and-plant analogy is precise: there is narrative-identity continuity (this plant is from this seed) without substance-identity (the plant is not the seed). Paul's terminology: sōma psychikon (natural body) sown vs. sōma pneumatikon (spiritual body) raised, not "spiritual" in the sense of "non-bodily" (Greek-Platonic discontinuity) but spiritual in the sense of Spirit-animated (transformed by the Holy Spirit's life-giving power; cf. v. 45, "the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit"). N.T. Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God 2003) calls this transphysicality, body-but-transformed.

2. 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 develops the framework: the earthly tent (body) is dismantled at death; we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (v. 1), the resurrection-body is prepared by God, given at the resurrection, and is the same person's eternal embodiment. The we of v. 1 is narrative-identity continuous with the we of the present body.

3. Philippians 3:20-21: "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself." The transformation (metaschēmatisei) is of the body of our humble state, the same person's body, transformed.

4. The empty-tomb evidence (Mark 16; Matt 28; Luke 24; John 20-21) is the empirical-historical anchor: Christ's risen body is the same body (the wounds remain, John 20:20, 25-27; Luke 24:39-40) AND transformed (passing through doors, John 20:19, 26; sometimes recognized, sometimes not, Luke 24:16; the new ability to ascend bodily, Acts 1:9-11). The risen Christ is narratively-continuous with the crucified Jesus while being bodily-transformed. Christian theology takes Christ's resurrection as the paradigm case for the believer's resurrection (1 Cor 15:20, "Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep"). See 1 Corinthians 15.20.

5. Patristic anchor: Irenaeus Adversus Haereses V.7-13 (c. 180) develops the resurrection-body doctrine against Gnostic discontinuity-readings. The Gnostic view (the resurrection is a "spiritual" event in which the real self, soul / spirit, escapes the body) is the opposite of Paul's; Irenaeus argues that the resurrection-body is the same body restored and is the basis for the Christian claim that the material world is good and is redeemed, not escaped. Augustine De Civitate Dei XXII.12-21; Aquinas ST Suppl. qq. 75-86 develop the numerically-same-body-transformed framework that has remained dominant in mainstream Christian theology.

Anticipated objections:

1. "Paul is unclear; Christian theology has always struggled with the resurrection-body question; the framework is not as developed as you claim."
2. "The resurrection-body doctrine is mythological. You cannot use a 1st-century mythological claim as evidence for a 21st-century philosophical convergence."
3. "Christ's resurrection is a historical-evidential claim that requires its own defense; you can't lean on it as a premise."

Rebuttals:

1. Paul is unusually clear for a 1st-century theological writer. 1 Cor 15:35-58 is a sustained, systematic treatment of the resurrection-body question, the seed-plant analogy + the four contrasts (perishable/imperishable; dishonor/glory; weakness/power; psychikon/pneumatikon) + the Adam-Christ typology + the we shall all be changed eschatological summary (vv. 51-52). The framework is more developed than the average ancient-philosophical text on personal identity. Christian theology's struggles are application questions (what about cremation? destroyed bodies? resurrection of the very young?), not the framework itself.

2. The "mythological" reply begs the question. Whether Paul's resurrection-body theology is mythological depends on (a) whether Christ's resurrection actually occurred (a historical-evidential question) and (b) whether the philosophical-theological framework Paul deploys is intellectually coherent. The argument's force does not require resolving (a) at the natural-theology level; it requires noting that if Christianity is true, the resurrection-body framework predicts exactly the philosophical convergence Ricoeur articulates. The argument is abductive: which hypothesis better explains the convergence? Christianity-is-true explains it cleanly; Christianity-is-mythological-borrowing-from-philosophy fails the temporal direction (Paul pre-dates Ricoeur by ~1900 years); coincidence fails the precision-test.

3. The argument's structure is convergence-at-the-framework-level, not historical-resurrection-evidence. The historical-evidential case for Christ's resurrection is at Argument from the Resurrection (existing syllogism); this convergence-argument is philosophical. It claims that Christian-theological frameworks (resurrection-body; imago-Dei; Trinitarian-personhood) supply the metaphysical structure that Ricoeur's philosophical analysis requires. The historical-evidential case strengthens but is not required for the convergence-argument's force.

P4, Independent etiologies

Affirmative case:

1. Ricoeur's etiology: continental phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger), engagement with analytic philosophy of mind (Locke, Parfit, Strawson, Williams), late-20th-c. theological background (Reformed Protestant). His philosophical method is hermeneutical phenomenology, attentive reading of philosophical texts and human experience; not deductive theology. Oneself as Another (1990) and Time and Narrative (1983-85) are his philosophical magna opera, distinct from his theological writings.

2. Paul's etiology: 1st-century apostolic encounter with the Risen Christ (1 Cor 15:8, "last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also"); Hebrew-eschatological resurrection-tradition (Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19; cf. Daniel 7.13-14 adjacent eschatological-bodily tradition); engagement with Greco-Roman anastasis discussion (Acts 17:31-32 in Athens, the philosophers mocked the resurrection-claim, signaling that Paul was making a physically-bodily not spiritually-immaterial claim).

3. No causal pathway between the two. ~1900 years separates them. Ricoeur's philosophical method does not derive its conclusions from Pauline-theological premises. Paul's apostolic-theological method does not derive its conclusions from late-20th-c. continental-phenomenology premises. The convergence is structural, not derivative.

Anticipated objections:

1. "Ricoeur was a Protestant Christian; his philosophical work is therefore implicitly Christian-shaped. The 'independent etiology' claim is naive."

Rebuttals:

1. Ricoeur's Christian background informs his philosophical work but does not collapse the philosophy into theology. Oneself as Another is in continuous dialogue with non-Christian philosophers (Heidegger, Parfit, Williams) on philosophical grounds; the framework's force is independently arguable. The "Christian-shaped" reading actually strengthens the convergence-argument, if Ricoeur's Christian-formed-but-philosophically-articulated framework converges with Paul's purely-theological framework, the convergence is between (a) explicit theology and (b) Christian-formed philosophy that retains its rigor when engaged on philosophical grounds. The two together make the metaphysical-theological structure intellectually visible in two distinct registers; their convergence is the load-bearing observation.

P5, Naturalism's response and why it under-delivers

Affirmative case:

1. Naturalism's available explanations for the convergence: (a) coincidence; (b) projection from theology onto philosophy; (c) generic feature of personhood; (d) Ricoeur's framework is "secularized Christianity."
2. Each fails:

• (a) Coincidence. Two independently-developed frameworks arriving at the same precise structural law (narrative-identity through radical discontinuity with required guarantor) is improbable on coincidence.
• (b) Projection. Temporal direction is wrong, Paul (~AD 55) predates Ricoeur (1990) by ~1900 years; Paul cannot have borrowed from Ricoeur. The reverse direction (Ricoeur borrowing from Paul) would require Ricoeur's philosophical analysis to be secretly theological, which the "secularized Christianity" reading (d) attempts. But:
• (c) Generic personhood. The framework is not a generic feature of personhood-talk; it specifically requires narrative-identity-through-radical-discontinuity-with-divine-guarantor. This is a highly specific convergence, not a generic intuition.
• (d) Secularized Christianity. This reply is itself a theistic admission. To say that the best philosophical account of personal identity is "secularized Christianity" is to admit that Christianity's theological frameworks are required to make philosophical sense of the question. The argument's conclusion is precisely that.

P6, Christian theism's prediction

Affirmative case:

1. Imago Dei as narrative-personhood-image. Christian theology grounds humans as bearing the image of a personal God whose own life is narrative-relational (the Father-Son-Spirit eternal communion is a narrative-personal eternity, not a substance-static eternity; cf. Trinity and the Argument from the Costly-Signal Convergence's eternal-self-giving treatment). Humans, made in this image, are narrative-persons; their identity is narrative-relational, not substance-static.

2. Resurrection-body as imago-Dei-restoration. The resurrection-body is the eschatological completion of the imago Dei, the embodied-narrative-self preserved through death and transformed into Christ-conformity (1 Cor 15:49, "just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly"). The Christian-theological framework predicts that the philosophical analysis of personal identity will land on a narrative-framework requiring divine guarantorship.

3. The argument's Christian-specific anchor (load-bearing). Other religious traditions could in principle supply some divine-guarantor framework, but Christianity uniquely supplies (a) the resurrection-paradigm in Christ's already-actualized resurrection (1 Cor 15:20, first-fruits); (b) the Trinitarian-personhood metaphysics that makes narrative-personal eternity intelligible (the Father-Son-Spirit are eternal narrative-relational persons, not eternal substance-static monads); (c) the imago-Dei anchor that makes human narrative-personhood a participation in God's narrative-personhood. Deism predicts a guarantor but not the resurrection; Buddhism dissolves personal identity rather than preserving it through discontinuity; Islam grants resurrection but lacks the Trinitarian-personhood metaphysical anchor; Hinduism's atman-Brahman identity is a substance-monism that fails Ricoeur's idem-ipse distinction. Christianity uniquely passes the convergence-test.

Anticipated objections:

1. "You're claiming Christianity exhaustively predicts the convergence; that's overreach."

Rebuttals:

1. The argument's claim is abductive-best-explanation, not exhaustive-prediction. Christian theism is the best explanation of the convergence among the available alternatives, given the convergence's specificity. The argument doesn't claim Christianity deductively forces the framework; it claims Christianity predicts it (in the abductive sense, given Christian theism, the framework is what we'd expect; given naturalism, the framework is unexpected). The argument's conclusion is appropriately modest: "evidence for Christian theism," not "proof of Christian theism."

Master objections to the whole argument

Tactical notes (live debate)

1. Open with the Parfit concession. Parfit's "personal identity is not what matters" (Reasons and Persons p. 281) is the most-cited concession in contemporary personal-identity philosophy that naturalism cannot ground identity-through-radical-discontinuity. Use this as the load-bearing opening claim; it is the strongest piece of evidence for the failure of naturalistic accounts.
2. Lean on Ricoeur's own theological-engagement work. Thinking Biblically (1998 with LaCocque) and Memory, History, Forgetting (2000) are Ricoeur's explicit theological-philosophical bridges. Citing them disarms the "Ricoeur is purely philosophical" objection; Ricoeur himself made the philosophical-theological convergence partially explicit.
3. The seed-plant analogy at 1 Cor 15:36-38 is intuitively compelling. Use it to establish the narrative-identity-through-transformation framework in non-philosophical-jargon terms; then bring in Ricoeur's idem-ipse distinction as the philosophical articulation of what Paul illustrated with the analogy.
4. Force-commit on the resurrection of Christ as paradigm. The risen Christ is the same Jesus (wounds; voice; intimate-knowledge-of-disciples) and transformed (passing through doors; sometimes unrecognized; bodily ascension). The narrative-identity-through-radical-discontinuity is empirically attested (per the historical-resurrection arguments) in Christ's case; this is the paradigm that grounds the believer's resurrection.
5. Connect to the cumulative case. This argument is one convergence among seven; the cumulative-pattern of seven independent convergence-arguments is itself an additional layer of evidence. See Cumulative Case for Christian Theism.

Live-cite kit (debate-ready quotes)

Scripture:

• 1 Cor 15:42-44 (NASB95): "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
• Phil 3:20-21 (NASB95): "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory."
• 1 John 3:2 (NASB95): "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is."

Scholarly / philosophical:

• Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons 1984, p. 281): "Personal identity is not what matters.", the load-bearing naturalistic concession
• Paul Ricoeur (Oneself as Another 1990, study 6): the idem-vs-ipse distinction; identity as who? (narrative-promise-keeping selfhood) not what? (substance-character continuity)
• N.T. Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God 2003, ch. 7): "transphysical", Paul's resurrection-body as bodily-but-transformed
• Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. V.7.1, c. 180): "the same flesh which was sown is raised, but transformed in incorruption" (against Gnostic discontinuity-readings)

Aphorism / closer:

• "Naturalism cannot tell me whether the person who walks out of my funeral 50 years from now is me. Ricoeur tells me identity through such discontinuity is narrative-shaped and requires a witness. Paul tells me Christ is the witness who already walked out of His own grave. The two domains converge on a single answer; only Christianity supplies the metaphysical guarantor."

Connection to Scripture

• 1 Corinthians 15, chapter hub; resurrection of the dead
• 1 Corinthians 15.20, Christ as firstfruits, the paradigm-case
• 1 Corinthians 15.42-44, sown / raised contrasts; sōma psychikon / sōma pneumatikon
• 1 Corinthians 15.44, spiritual body
• 1 Corinthians 15.50, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
• 1 Corinthians 15.53-54, this perishable must put on the imperishable; "death is swallowed up in victory"
• 2 Corinthians 5.1, the earthly tent / a building from God
• Philippians 3.20-21 (referenced, passage stub status: check)
• 1 John 3:2 (referenced, passage stub status: check)
• Daniel 12:2; Isa 26:19, OT eschatological-resurrection background
• John 20:19-29, risen Christ's transformed-but-continuous body
• Luke 24, Emmaus road + risen Christ eats fish

Patristic and scholarly anchors

• Irenaeus Adversus Haereses V.7-13 (c. 180), anti-Gnostic resurrection-body defense
• Athanasius De Incarnatione (c. 318), Christ's resurrection grounds the believer's
• Augustine De Civitate Dei XXII.12-21 (c. 420), handling of the difficult-cases (deformed bodies; cannibalism; martyrs)
• Aquinas ST Suppl. qq. 75-86, the medieval-systematic account of identitas numerica of the resurrection-body
• Modern theology: N.T. Wright The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress 2003); Robert John Russell Time in Eternity (Notre Dame 2012); Caroline Walker Bynum The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (Columbia 1995); Gerald O'Collins Christology (Oxford 2009; ch. 5)
• Philosophy of personal identity: John Locke Essay II.27 (1689); Joseph Butler Of Personal Identity (1736, the circle objection); Derek Parfit Reasons and Persons (Oxford 1984); Bernard Williams Problems of the Self (Cambridge 1973); Sydney Shoemaker & Richard Swinburne Personal Identity (Blackwell 1984); Eric T. Olson The Human Animal (Oxford 1997) and What Are We? (Oxford 2007); Lynne Rudder Baker Persons and Bodies (Cambridge 2000)
• Narrative-identity philosophy: Paul Ricoeur Time and Narrative 3 vols. (Chicago 1983-85), Oneself as Another (Chicago 1990), Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago 2000); Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue (Notre Dame 1981; 3rd ed. 2007); Charles Taylor Sources of the Self (Harvard 1989)

See also

• Ris3n Arguments, master hub for the convergence-arguments (this is #7)
• Argument from the Costly-Signal Convergence, sister #6
• Argument from the Question-Asking Asymmetry, sister #5
• Argument from the Pre-Given Logos, sister #4
• Argument from Apophatic Convergence, sister #3
• Argument from Twin Asymmetries, sister #2 (also deals with the resurrection)
• Argument from the Observer-Demand Convergence, sister #1
• 1 Corinthians 15, primary scriptural locus
• Hypostatic Union, Christological framework for the transformed-but-continuous paradigm
• Trinity, Trinitarian-narrative-personhood as ground
• Imago Dei, humans as narrative-image of narrative-personal God
• Christology, synthesis hub
• Pre-Pauline Creeds, historical-evidential anchor of the apostolic-resurrection-tradition
• Cumulative Case for Christian Theism, the cumulative frame this argument contributes to
• Arguments, master index