3.1B- Death and The Afterlife

Question 1

What are the three key places Christians believe you can go after death? and what will happen to determine which one you will go to?

Answer 1

-Heaven
-Hell
-Purgatory
-There will be a judgement to decide where people go

Question 2

What was the Greek view of life after death?

Answer 2

-Plato’s dualist ideas influenced the Christian view that we have a spirited soul, which survives after the death of the body and goes to the world of the Forms

Question 3

What does the Old Testament say about life after death?

Answer 3

-life after death isn’t a prominent subject in the Old Testamnet; also nothing about life after death is mentioned in the Torah
-Few references to Abraham accepting God’s call, and that death was not the end.
-Many examples of the phrase “was gathered to his people” throughout the Bible and leaves it ambiguous.

Question 4

What was the ideas surrorunding lfe after death during the time of Jesus?

Answer 4

-No belief in Christianity of reincarnation, believe soul will be given a new physical body in which to continue after death; this is known as resurrection.
-The book of common prayer in the Church of England rejects Plaotonic ideas on life after death.

Question 5

Parousia

Answer 5

-means second coming, used to demonstrate and deifne the time when Jesus will return to Earth and judge people
-Some passages in the New Testament sh9ows the belief held by many that theywere living on the threshold of the new era, expecting the acseded Jesus to return to Earth and hereald in a new glorious state.

Question 6

Resurrection of Jesus

Answer 6

-According to Gospels, after his resurrection, Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb.
-Three days later, the large stone covering the entrance had been moved, and the tomb was empty, with Jesus seen and head by his followers in a physical body.
-This is where the Christian belief in continued embodiment/existence stems from- the resurrection of Jesus shows Christians that they too will be resurrected.

Question 7

The letters of St. Paul

Answer 7

-In Corinthians, about 20-25 years after the events of the resurrection, St. Paul explained the importance of the resurrection. He uses the following metaphors to explain his beliefs:
-In 1 Corinthians, he compares life after death as a seed blooming into a plant (15:35-38)
-In 2 Corinthians, he replaces a tent with a solid house as representing earthly to resurrected life.
-Also in 2 Corinthians, he compares being naked in this life to being clothed in the afterlife.

Question 8

Aquinas and the soul

Answer 8

-He admired Aristotle, but his own ideas on life after death differed slightly.
-Believed the soul is a ‘life principle’
-Believed human souls are different from other souls
-Believed the ability to reason had to come from something non-physical
-Believed we couldn’t assertain perfect happiness whilst we were living, instead thinking this came when you were dead and rejoined with God.
-Used St. Paul’s letters to support his point

Question 9

Aquinas and the beatific vision

Answer 9

-Believed the afterlife was beyond time
-beatific vision is timeless, therefore we don’t need to worry what’s happening all the time.
-There would just be one eternal moment of being in the presence of God.
-Speaks of Heaven as a ‘Beatific vision’, which he describes as a human’s final end, a state in which a human being attains perfect happiness.
-This occurs when every desire has been satisfied and when it is not possible to be happier, for Aquinas, this will be the final and everlasitng happiness with God, achieved in death, in Heaven.
-We can only be fulfilled in death when we are reconnected with God.
-Metaphors are used to enhance a Christian’s understanding of Heaven.

Question 10

What Early Christians believe about Heaven

Answer 10

-Not much in Old Testament
-Speaks fo future transformation of the world in the Messianic age
-Some believer the Kingdom of God will come in their lifetime
-Mixed messages in the Gospels were early and latter traditions are represented.
-The Eastern Orthodox Church believe there are different layers of Hierarchy

Question 11

What the Bible teaches about Heaven

Answer 11

-Traditionally, faithful go to Heaven, which needs to be described figuratively, to point the believer, whilst recognising the afterlife is a mystery.
-Heaven is understood as the place where God lives. This is a metaphor for his omnipresence.

Question 12

Metaphor of God the father

Answer 12

-Also used in the context of Heaven, where it seems in terms of the family home, where an adult might return with their father.
-The Lord’s prayer begins with “Our father, who art in Heaven”
-This conveys ideas of comfort, return and familiarity under the authoirty of unconditional love.

Question 13

Dante’s version of Heaven

Answer 13

-Heaven, also know as paradise, is beyond description
-Rational soul yearns for the ultimate good and harmony with God’s love
-The end of the journey is Empyrean, from which God’s light, the source of knowledge and illumination, descends.
- Each soul, therefore, find it’s own intellectual resting place and different degree of bliss.
-As Dante and Beatrice rise up the spheres, they are surrounded by the brightness of the souls, as this intensifies.

Question 14

Bernard William’s ideas on Heaven

Answer 14

-Implies that as long as a person has a character, then however good Heaven was good to begin with, the repetitive nature and lack of freedom of choice would soon become boring, unless God stripped people of their character.
-Argues that life has meaning and purpose because of the limited time we have to achieve what we want to.
-We should work for Heaven, to avoid getting bored.
-Karl Rahner argees with Bernard Williams, and uses his argument to support the view of a timeless order.

Question 15

The importance of Matthew 25

Answer 15

-There is a big focus of judgement, and seperating the people that do good, as opposed to the people who might say they will do good, but never do.
-Could also be interpretated that some people have been predestined for Heaven.

Question 16

The Old Testament’s ideas on Hell

Answer 16

-No real ideas of Hell
-Ideas only began to emerge just before time of Jesus
-In ancient times, there was a belief that Hell was located at Earth’s core.

Question 17

The New Testament’s ideas on Hell

Answer 17

-Sometimes described as a rubbish dump
-Agricultural metaphors; seperaitng wheat and cheaf
-In Revelations, writer has a vision of throwing bad people into a lake of firery sulphur.
-Seen figuratively as being donwards, below physical world.
-New Testament protrays hell as a place of enternal fire (Mark) and where both body and the soul can be destoryed (Matthew).

Question 18

Roman Catholic’s view on Hell

Answer 18

-Teaches hell is eternal for those eho have commited mortal sins
-These mortal sins include hating one’s neighbour, and not meeting needs of the poor or the weak.
-Hell is nor something God actively chooses for humanity, rather it is the result of free choice and is self- imposed, hell is ‘self-exclusion’.
-It is an eternal state
-The notion of hell is to urge people to use their freedom wisely and to do good.
-It is ultimately the reason why the Church has an ‘urgent call’ or mission to convert people to Christianity.

Question 19

C.S. Lewis’ view on Hell

Answer 19

-Considers hell as an eternal seperation from God
-Seperation from everything God made (all good), was agonising.
-Believes punishments will be proportional to the sin committed.

Question 20

Jean-Paul Sartre’s view on Hell

Answer 20

-Imagines that Hell is occupied by three people who have just died and think they are in a room waiting for the conventional religious hell of fire, brimstone and torture.
-But as time goes on they relaise that there is no hell of this kind, this hell they discover is living with the lies, deceits, false relationships, cowardice and murders each has committed on Earth.
-They torment each other about the other’s failings until it dawns on them that they have each become psychologically the torturer they were expecting of traditional hell.

Question 21

Dante’s inferno (his ideas on Hell)

Answer 21

-Hell is in all respects, physical, mentally and spiritually, an utterly dysfunctional state.
-It was created at the moment of Jesus’ death when, according to Matthew’s Gospel, an earthquake cause the deas to awaken from their tombs.
-It is the antithesis to Heaven, here reaosn is abandoned to irrationality, it’s inmates lack faith in God and live without hope.

Question 22

Idea’s on Hell as a second death

Answer 22

-This idea is gianing popularity.
-For people that haven’t gained entry into Heaven.
-Body dies at physical death, and then the soul dies.
-It says this in the book of Revelation in the Bible.

Question 23

Paul Tillich’s ideas on Hell

Answer 23

-Follow argument going back to Origen, that if out of love God reconciles all things to himself, then it would be contradictary and immoral to exclude some of his creatures.
-Hell maintains it’s psychological power as life alienated from God.

Question 24

David Hume’s ideas on Hell

Answer 24

-Can existence of Hell be compatable with the existence of a perfectly loving and jusrt God?
-Hard to think of a sin equal to eternal punishment
-Thinks the whole idea of Hell calls God’s justice into question, because Hume believes that a finite sin never deserves an infinte punishment.

Question 25

John Hick’s ideas on Hell

Answer 25

-Rejects doctrine of eternal hell
-Believes it’s imcompatible with belief in God of love
-Argues the belief was developed as a form of social control, encouraging people to be fearful of disobeying the teachings of those in religious authority. This deosn’t allign with God’s infinte love and mercy.

Question 26

Augustine’s ideas on Hell

Answer 26

-Many Christians struggle with the idea that a loving God will condemn people to infinte punishment for finite sin, especially if there isn’t a choice for them to lead a good life.
-Augustine’s view was that babies who die would go to hell as they have Original Sin, because they haven’t been baptised, but many Christians say that God’s judgement will make exceptions for those who could not have chosen the path to salvation.

Question 27

What is purgatory?

Answer 27

-Preodminantly a Roman Catholic belief
-It helps with criticisms that God will over punish, or let things slip
-grey area between Heaven and Hell
-A state, not a real place
-Purges us from our sins, time of purification and cleansing.
-A perosn’s life, given by God, is being prepared to return to him in Heaven.

Question 28

Three early thinker’s belief’s on purgatory

Answer 28

Ambrose:
-Considered purgatory to be a place where a soul waits for Judgement, have a foretaste for what’s in store for them.
Origen:
-Argued that Purgatory was like a probationary school where the soul is given the oppotunity over “‘many worlds’ of experience” to develop and perfect itself.
Gregory of Nyssia:
-Similar to Origen and emphasising the purpose of Purgatory is so that all people, both wicked and good, can be cleansed of their sins and enter heaven.

Question 29

Dante’s divine comedy and ideas on Purgatory

Answer 29

-Is for souls that believe in Christ and have repented before death. They now have the oppotunity to purge themselves of all wrongful desires and actions.
-As they are now unable to sin, the experience is completely positive and unlike hell where punishment perpetuates inital sin.
-Poetically describes how the soul ascends various ‘terraces of the mountain’ whose summit or goal in the ‘beatific vision’.
-At the end of the journey, the mountain shakes and the soul accends to Heaven. Each of the terraces represent one of the seven deadly sins and is overseen by angels. The souls driving force is love and increasingly towards the end of the asent, reason: the vision of purgatory is an allegory for how life should be lived now. Earth offers temptations the soul has to conqeur, like the mountains.

Question 30

The Catechisms of the Catholic Church’s ideas on Purgatory

Answer 30

-Purgatory must be a period of moral cleansing

Question 31

Catholic ‘evidence’

Answer 31

-No direct biblical reference to purgatory
-Roman Catholics often cite 1 Corinthians 3 that says after death, people are still ‘worldly’, and that after death, there will be a form of cleansing by fire of the works that each person has done throughout their life.
-2 Macabees 12 is also often citied, as this passage implies that the idea of purgatory, was an ancient tradition, rather than a concept introduced centuries afte the time of the New Testament. In this passage, Judas Macabees leads his army to battle, and God grants them victory, but when preparing them for burial, they notice many were idolters, wearing concealed amultes of devoution to pagan Gods.
-Matthew 12:32 talks about forgiveness if people speak against the son of man, but not if they talk against the Holy Spirit.

Question 32

Karl Rahner’s ideas of Purgatory

Answer 32

-Created a more attractive doctrine for the 20th Century.
-Argued that purgatory shouldn’t be understood as a place of pain, but as a metaphor for the soul’s greater awareness of the consequences of sin, in between death and the last Judgement.

Question 33

John Hick’s ideas on Purgatory

Answer 33

-Argues that the need for an immediate state makes a great deal of logical sense
-Makes sense tha the afterlife is a contribution of the ‘person-making process’ started on Earth.

Question 34

Protestant ideas on Purgatory

Answer 34

-Concepts of purgatory is incorrect
-If we need Purgatory, Jesus didn’t make the ultimate sacrifice on the cross to attone for our sins, implies this wasn’t enough.

Question 35

Eternal-ness of purgatory

Answer 35

-Heaven and Hell are both described as eternal, however, Purgatory is described as a state someone enters for a specific amount of time, but how long is it?

Question 36

What is election?

Answer 36

-The belief that God chooses the eternal destiny of each human being in the Christian theological view.
-God kinows before we are born who will be damned to Hell and who will experience the glory of Heaven.

Question 37

Augustine’s ideas on election

Answer 37

-Doesn’t believe humans can earn salvation, they have to be granted it from God.
-Becuase of Original Sin, nobody can earn salvation, needs to be given God’s grace.
-He believed that God not only knows in advance who will be saved (foreknowledge), but also that he chooses those to be saved (predestination).
-God is in control of who recieves his grace.

Question 38

Aquinas’ ideas on election

Answer 38

-Aquinas’ didn’t consider the Fall as wiping out human freedom.
-The Catholic Church follows Aquinas’ teachings

Question 39

The Catholic Church’s ideas on election

Answer 39

-The Catholic Church teaches single predestination
-The Catholic Church follows Auqinas’ interpretation of Augustine

Question 40

John Calvin’s ideas on election

Answer 40

-holds views on double predestined election
-Argues God’s will is hidden and humans shouldn’t presume to kinow what he has in store.
-What God reveals takes into account humans’ limited knowledge
-God wills his mercy and grace for all, like when St. Paul says that God will choose all people, referring to all kinds of people.
-Christians have the responsability to preach the Gospels
-Both elect and non-elect have a duty to act morally
-Therefore, it had to be the cast that God already knew who would be saved and who would not; and this could not be a situation that God knew about but had no control over; therefore God would have to have chosen the destiny of each human life before it began.

Question 41

Karl Bath’s ideas on election

Answer 41

-Emphasises the idea that all people are entiltied to go to Heaven, however, it is possible for some not to be saved.
-Jesus was God in human form, so is a mediator, as well as being the one who elects and the elect. As he took on human flesh, humans have the potential to be saved.

Question 42

John Hick’s ideas on election

Answer 42

-Doesn’t think that the God whom Jesus preached is the God of judgement and exclusion which Hell requires.
-Argues the majority of the New Testament is reconciliation with God.
-Furthermore, what purpose does it serve to punish someone eternally?
-People learn to ammend their bad ways and strive for perfection.