Death And The Afterlife Flashcards
What are some key parts of the parable of the sheep and the goats?
-‘All the nation’s will be gathered’
-The nation’s will be separated (like a shepherd separating sheep from goats)
-‘Take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world’
-People who have helped the hungry, thirsty, strangers etc, invited to heaven
-‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’
-‘Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life’
What are the points to consider from ‘all the nation’s will be gathered’?
-All people seem to be being judged, not just Christian’s
-Judgement seems right happen at the end of time
What are the points to consider from the nations will be separated in the sheep and the goats?
Some will go to heaven and some to hell: both places seem to be realities in the parable
What are the points to consider from ‘truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’
-Jesus is found in the outcast and needy
-Anyone could have helped the needy, but not everyone did
What does the parable of the sheep and the goats’ suggest?
That judgement will take place at the end of time; some Christian’s emphasise by contrast that we will be judged individually after death; others combine both views
What are the general Christian teachings on heaven?
-The New Testament speaks confidently about heaven as a place of eternal reward for people. Our bodies, according to Paul, will be transformed at death into spiritual bodies and raised to a spiritual home
-Jesus’ own resurrection gives a glimpse into what this will be lik
-There is no reincarnation in Christianity- who we are now will be who we are in heaven, transformed by an act of God
What are the traditional views on heaven in Christianity?
-Thomas Aquinas spoke of heaven as a beatific vision. This is the moment when we come face to face with God and live in happiness and harmony with God for ever. Because we have intelligence and eternal souls, Aquinas thought that we can use our reason to reach the reward of this beatific vision. This view tends to be that held by Catholics
-Christian’s do not believe that heaven can ever be fully described and so we can only use our limited language to explore the idea. The Bible helps with this:
-A place where those who have worked for righteousness are
-A place where people like Abraham are, as well as the angels
-A place where there is no more hunger or pain
-A place where every tear is wiped away: there is no sadness
-Following this Biblical tradition, many Protestant churches see heaven as everlasting, not eternal. Heaven is a place where people live for the rest of time in the presence of God, alongside their family and friends
-They spend their time joined together in the worship of God.
What is another view about heaven?
-Some might suggest that heaven is a natural continuation of our spiritual journey after death. If the body is not needed in the afterlife, and our souls capture who we are as people, then heaven does not need to be a ‘place’ as we understand the word and the word ‘state’ might be used
-Heaven is a different form of existence, rather than a place where we might go
-Heaven, therefore, becomes understood as the moment our souls leave our bodies behind to be with God in a non physical sense.
-Some argue that this is more of the sort of heaven that Jesus described and that the idea of a physical place was added by Paul later
What is a Christian teaching on Hell as an actual place?
-In this view, the focus for hell is on the punishment being given to the wicked person who is sent there for eternity. In revelation, the image is one of a ‘burning lake of fiery sulphur’; traditional Christian artwork picks up on this and depicts a place below of agony
-An argument in favour of this model of hell is the idea that without a genuine place of punishment there might be no need for God to set moral laws and then judge us when we die
-When we break those moral laws, we sin and each sin is a moment of turning away from God- and turning away from God deserves to be punished in a significant way
-The Roman Catholic Church believes that hell is an actual place, but emphasises that the main punishment in hell is alienation from God
What is believed by Christian’s about hell as a spiritual state?
-For many Christian’s, this re emphasis on the idea that hell is the separation from God self alienation has led to the idea that hell is not a physical, but a spiritual state
-The argument is that there is no need to be punished by fire because alienation from God would be punishment enough
-Paul Tillich is an example of a theologian who had understood hell as a metaphor of psychological alienation
What is taught about hell in symbolic terms?
-Much like the views on heaven above, it could be simply that hell is a symbolic representation of the negative elements of someone’s life
-Other people think that because a loving God would not be subject people to eternal punishment, hell might be a symbolic representation that if we are judged unworthy to go to heaven, we will be annihilated and our existence will not continue after bodily death
-Some think of this as a second death because of the passage in Revelation 21:8 where being cast into the pit of fire is specifically called the ‘second death’
What are the issues to do with the nature of God?
-If God is just and merciful, as in the Bible, then logically he might reward and punish in literal places: both are needed
-Some reject literal interpretations of heaven and hell because bald is also loving ans would never wish to punish his creation for all eternity. However the response to this is that the sinner condemns themselves to hell and the emphasis is on them, not God
-Het, if God is a loving parent then surely God would prevent eternal punishment, just like a parent would; the punishment would always be ‘just enough’, not for ever
What are the issues to do with continuity and identity?
-To be rewarded or punished, it must logically be the person who has lived a life on earth who receives that reward or punishment, so some argue we need our bodies after death. Others say that our identity comes from our souls alone and therefore heaven and hell not need to be physical places and could be symbolic
-However, if our bodies go to the afterlife, there are additional issues that arise, such as what age we will be and in what state- if a child dies, will be or she grow into an adult? If someone dies after a physical accident, will he or she to into the afterlife disfigured?
What are the issues to do with the Bible to do with the afterlife?
-Much evidence for the afterlife comes from the Bible, which is not in itself clear or consistent in what it teaches
-Not all Christian’s believe that the Bible needs to be taken literally, so any symbolic understanding of the Bible might lead to a symbolic understanding of issues to with the afterlife
-However, the Bible does suggest that there is something after death, and so some would reject any view that challenges this
What are the issues with believability on teachings on heaven and hell?
-Some suggest that it does not make sense that there is one punishment (and one reward) for the full range of possible lives that people lead. It is not believable to suggest that one sin leads to hell and equally not easy to determine when someone has sinned enough to be punished
-Some also observe that any form of heaven that includes the passage of time would become boring because there would be nothing to do! Aquinas’ response would be that at the beatific vision of all our attitudes will change, including our relationship with time
