Is death the end, or is there something more? Does life continue after the grave? According to Dinesh D’Souza, in his new book Life After Death: The Evidence (Regnery Press, 2009) this is the ultimate question that any of us will face. “Death is the great wrecking ball that destroys everything, “ says D’Souza, “Everything that we have done, everything we are doing now, and all our plans for the future are completely and irrevocably destroyed when we die” (3).

Nevertheless, some people still find this question uninteresting and unimportant. D’Souza finds this attitude “utterly incomprehensible.” After all, if you found out that you had six months to live, undoubtedly you would make some big changes in the way you live now. According to D’Souza, ignoring the question of mortality is “the product of deep denial” (5). Our language subtly reflects this denial. Euphemisms abound for death. We used words such as “He’s passed away” and “She’s gone,” rather than, “He’s dead.”

Interestingly, though, some type of belief in the afterlife is held universally (36). This is true for the great civilizations of Egypt, China, Great Britain, and across the cultures of the world, both East and West. Yet today, however, many people question the reality of life after death. Why? D’Souza says our skepticism stems from the growing influence of secularism, and in particular the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, etc.). The New Atheists believe science is the sole (or primary) means of knowing truth about the world. Things for which they believe cannot be detected by science (such as the soul, miracles, God, and the afterlife) are ruled out of court before an investigation.

D’Souza wrote Life After Death: The Evidence to take the New Atheists, and the secular skepticism they espouse, to task. One of the things that I most appreciate about his approach is that he doesn’t simply make a religious argument for life after death. He claims to give up all claims to biblical truth or revelation (15). Thus, rather than beginning with the Scriptures, D’Souza reasons from science, philosophy, and history to make his case. He asks his readers to consider them part of a jury, weighing the secular evidence for life after death.

The scientific case that D’Souza points to is the case of near death experiences. He first considers the scientific evidence for reincarnation but notes that the data has severe weaknesses, such as being quite old (59). On the other hand, the evidence for near death experiences is much more compelling. For example, he cites the story of a Seattle woman who reported a near death experience following a heart attack. She reportedly left her body during the incident and saw a tennis shoe with a worn patch and a lace struck under the heel, which was later identified on the ledge of the building (64). D’Souza rightly points out that such examples do not prove the biblical case for the afterlife, but it does show that consciousness continues after death.

Philosophically, D’Souza defends mind-body dualism to support life after death. He says, “If your mind is independent enough to create changes in your body and your brain, it seems reasonable enough to suppose that it can survive the dissolution of your body and your brain” (131). And historically, he points to the resurrection of Jesus as evidence that life can continue after death. This was one of the great surprised of the book. It was refreshing to see D’Souza giving historical evidences for the death, empty tomb, and postmortem appearances of Christ.

In one of the most interesting chapters of the book, D’Souza makes the case that the possibility of multiple universes counts in favor of the afterlife. The idea of multiple universes (“Megaverse” “Multiverse”) is thought help non-theists avoid the problem of the fine-tuning of the universe. If there are many universes, they claim, then we shouldn’t be surprised to find that ours is exquisitely fine-tuned for life. However, D’Souza claims that the existence of alternate universes with different laws of physics actually supports the Christian view: “Heaven now becomes a real possibility under the existing diversity of laws that govern multiple universes…Many physicists started down this intellectual path to avoid having the encounter God. In the process, they mapped out plausible scenarios for afterlife realms like heaven and hell” (89).

Peppered throughout the book, D’Souza deals with popular objections against the afterlife. For example, a common objection is that it is a case of wish fulfillment. Freud said that we have a child-like feeling of helplessness in the face of nature’s harshness and death’s inevitability. Thus, we project an imaginary God to give us consolation. Dawkins says that the same is true for the afterlife (31). D’Souza rightly concludes, “Just because I have a wish for something says nothing about whether or not that something is true or false” (32). This is a classic example of the genetic fallacy. Also, asks D’Souza, how would the wish-fulfillment constituency answer the problem of hell?

Another common claim is that the afterlife was fabricated by those in power to reconcile common people to their lot by promising them a wonderful existence in the next life. As D’Souza rightly points out, this ignores what common people were typically promised in regards to the afterlife. For instance, servants were occasionally buried with their masters to serve in the next life—hardly the kind of appeal that would be made up to motivate them!

Overall, Life After Death: The Evidence is welcome addition to the growing list of Christian apologetics resources. It is well-researched, well-thought out, and well-written. I have just two points of criticism that I hope D’Souza will address in his future works.

First, he continues to criticize intelligent design and creationists for making “god of the gaps” arguments (of course, he says that he does no such thing himself). For example, he says that creationists simply posit a supernatural creator since science cannot currently answer how the Cambrian explosion came about (168): “But there is no reason to think that the Cambrian explosion defies natural explanation, even if we don’t have that explanation,” says D’Souza. There are multiple problems with this criticism. First, he confuses the significant difference between creationism and intelligent design (see my Understanding Intelligent Design for an explanation). Second, ID proponents do not simply believe in design because of a lack of a natural explanation, but because of the positive evidence for design found in the information explosion that characterizes the Cambrian explosion. Stephen Meyer lays out this in his recent Signature in the Cell.

Second, D’Souza is confused about the relationship between faith and knowledge. He says, “Both groups [atheists and theists] are claiming knowledge that neither group actually possesses. For the atheist, no less than for the believer, it is entirely a matter of faith” (22). While he is right that we cannot have certainty about the afterlife and that each of us must exercise varying degrees of faith, the biblical model is that faith is based upon what we know to be true (by the way, knowledge doesn’t require certainty). 1 John 5:13 says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” Yes, we exercise faith about the afterlife, but this faith is grounded in what we know to be true. The evidence for life after death from science, philosophy, and history make the Christian’s faith quite reasonable.