(2) Death and Afterlife Flashcards
Definition: disembodied existence
Existing without a physical body
Definition: resurrection
Living on after death in a glorified physical form in a new realm
Definition: beatific vision
A face to face encounter with God
Definition: purgatory
A place where people go temporary after death to be cleansed from sin in order to confront God
Definition: Election (theologically)
Predestination, chosen by God to go to heaven or hell
Definition: Limited election
The view that God chooses a small number of people to go to heaven
Definition: Original Sin
A state of wrongdoing that is innate in people from the fall of man in genesis
Definition: unlimited election
The view that all people are called to salvation but only a few will be saved
Definition: universalism
The view that all people will be saved
Definition: Parable
A story to highlight a moral message
Definition: particular judgement
Judgements for each person at the point of death
Definition: parousia
Used in Christianity to refer to the Second Coming of Christ
Christian teaching about the afterlife- physical body
- life after death will take physical resurrection, with a renewed spiritual body
- Seen in Jesus’ resurrection
How Christian teaching on the physical body when resurrection rejects Plato
- Plato idea that soul and body part of disembodied existence
- body dies but soul moves on
Quote in Genesis about Abraham’s resurrection
“He was gathered to his people”
How could Jesus’ resurrection not demonstrate that your body continues in the afterlife
- May be a metaphor for how his image (physical body continues to live in our memory
Problem with Jesus’ ascension
- we here it was a resurrected body or a spiritual form
- people didn’t recognise Jesus after he rose
Is the belief in a physical resurrection central to Christian doctrine?
Yes
What is a common feature in Jesus’ resurrection accounts
- white light from clothes, gleaming
- Jesus’ reaction of hope when people were worried about where his body had gone
- resurrection early morning
Why do the resurrection accounts differ?
- writer subjective
- own writing styles and personalities
- different audiences at different times
What was Dante’s view of Hell (13th C)
- Dante’s inferno
- 9 levels of hell that got worst as u go down
- lower u go down is for the more sin you committed
Central Christian beliefs about the afterlife
- Some form of physical resurrection, glorified version
- Still be the individuals we were, we will not merge with God
- Life after death is a gift from God, not a natural process
Aquinas on the afterlife
- believed that human beings had rational souls which set them apart from other life forms
- reason leads us to be closer to God
- true happiness can only come with knowing God in the afterlife where we experience the beatific vision
What is heaven + quote
- a place where the faithful go
- no sin as people are purified
- “fathers house has many rooms”
Bernard Williams view on heaven
- no progression
- no pleasure and potential to be boring
What is purgatory?
- Temp state where your sins will be cleansed
- Catholic belief
- only can go to heaven
Controversial view on purgatory
- indulgences
- people could “buy” place to heaven
Karl Rahner view on purgatory
- state of self imposed pain during your lifetime?
What is hell?
- permanent separation away from God for eternity
- eternal pain
- below physical world
Potential problems with idea of hell
- form of social and religious control?
Julian of Norwich view of hell
- saw it as empty
- God is all forgiving and everyone gets there in the end
How do Christian teachings on the afterlife affect moral behaviour?
- attempt to influence us to do good
- if you accept Jesus and go to Church people may use it to say it is ‘enough’
- all loving God may mean hell is empty so our actions do not matter
Kant argument against the Christian teaching affect upon moral behaviour
We should do good because we know it is the right thing to do (not for any other reason)
What other influences effect our moral behaviour outside the church?
Conscience
Different approaches on the afterlife
- physical places, eg. Heaven with angels and hell with fire
- spiritual resurrection away from our body
- purgatory used to repent
Problems with idea of perfection in an afterlife if we have knowledge of our life on earth
- we would be able to remember all the negative events and would lead to sadness
- against perfect happy state
Different ideas about election
- election that some go to heave
- everyone goes to heaven due to omni benevolent God
Augustine’s view on election
- chosen when we ask for and accept God’s grace
- we need God to go to heaven
John Calvin’s (16th C) view on the afterlife
- some punishes by God
- God has full control
- Predestination
Problem with Calvin view on the afterlife
- no room for free will
- we can act as we want
Barth (19th to 20th C) view of the afterlife
- unlimited election but have to be good
- Jesus’ redemption key to saving us from our sins
Hick (20th-21st C) view on the afterlife
- God save everyone no matter what
- universalist, everyone religion accesses God in a certain way
- we grow closer to God in heaven
Pope Benedict XVI (20th-21st C)
- Hick’s approach disregards Jesus and his death is pointless
- Jesus’s death didn’t necessarily save everybody, was not a cosmic even
What does the parable of the sheep and the goats tell us about the afterlife?
- disparity between heaven and hell
- people who go to heaven are those who “fed the hungry”, “helped the sick”
- moral actions act as reward
What does Luke:19-31 teach about the afterlife?
- material objects don’t contribute, your ‘goodness’ is defined by how you help others or keep faith
- eternal punishment or reward
- rich man seeing Lazarus and Abraham and reflects and feels guilt as people had the tools (scripture) to be good
Does God’s judgement take place immediately after death or at the end of time?
- Irenaeus believer in final judgement
- People wait in happiness or pain until final judgement
- judged at death (parable rich man and Lazarus)
- Jesus said to criminal “truest I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”
Are heaven and hell eternal?
- Aquinas view on timeless as God is
- no beginning or end removes sense of repetition
- question wether loving God would punish eternally
Is heaven the perfection of creation?
- revelation “a new heaven and a new earth” which suggests living similar to before the fall
- literal approach suggest second coming, ‘Parousia’
- missionary act to transform
Is Purgatory a state everybody goes too?
- Protestant segue Christ’s redemption was a victory over sin
- Rise of Martin Luther who rejected indulgences
- Catholic view that it is necessary purification
