Death And The Afterlife

Question 1

What are the Christian teachings about the afterlife?

Answer 1

• according to Christianity, there is life after death, not in this world but in a new kind of existence.
• they reject Plato’s idea that the soul and the body could part company, with the body decomposing while the soul moves on by itself (disembodied existence)
• instead, Christian teaching is that life after death will take the form of resurrection, where the person will be given a renewed spiritual body in which to continue their journey into the next life
• it’s important to Christians that Jesus’ tomb was empty when people went to visit him, because he had been resurrected from death to eternal life
• in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is trying to answer new Christians in the early Church who had questions. He was adamant that Christ had risen from the dead, and took this to be the central fact of Christian Faith. He was also quite clear that the resurrection of Christ was a promise for all Christians that they too would be resurrected

Question 2

What are Jewish teachings about the afterlife?

Answer 2

• life after death is by no means a prominent theme in the Jewish scriptures, but there are references to the possibility of it. For example, in the book of Genesis, the death of Abraham is recorded: “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.”
• this is interesting as it contains the intriguing phrase “he was gathered to his people” which is used of other prominent men of the Old Testament, too. The deaths of Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and his brother Aaron all included the phrase.
• the Bible does not tell us who these “people” where and what it was that was “gathered”, but there are certainly some hints that something of the original man was going to continue and go join the others of whom he was familiar, perhaps loved ones and or perhaps people of the same culture or religious beliefs.
• in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, there is a prophecy about the end of time where the writer says: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”
• during religious persecution, those who remained faithful were often worse off then those who abandoned Judaism to survive, so life after death may have seemed to the jews the obvious solution to the problem of God’s apparent injustice in this earthly life.

Question 3

What are the greek teachings about the afterlife?

Answer 3

• the Ancient Greeks had considerable influence on Christian ideas about life after death
• Plato’s dualist ideas about the body and the soul influenced the Christian view that although we are physical beings, we also have a spiritual soul which is non-physical and which is capable of surviving after the death of the body to return to contemplating the perfect Form of Goodness

Question 4

What is Aqunias’ view on the afterlife?

Answer 4

• Aquinas taught that the soul was a ‘life principle’ and also a ‘form’ of living things
• in his view, all living things had a soul in the sense that they all had essential characteristics (plants have ‘vegetative soul’ and animals have ‘sensitive soul’) but in Aquinas’ view, humans have souls which are strikingly different from other creatures. Other life forms have souls that die when the body dies, but humans have a special kind of soul, a ‘rational soul’ which enables life after death as a possibility.
• he thought the ability to reason and form chains of logical thought, could not come from any physical, bodily organ but had to be non-physical.
• in life, although we can be happy, its never perfect happiness because we know its only temporary because its often brought about by material circumstances. Perfect happiness, could only be achieved after death, by living eternally, in a state of perfect bliss. Which for Aquinas, meant being in the presence of God (beatific vision), were faith of God would be replaced of knowledge of God.
• because he believed the afterlife would be beyond space and time it doesn’t have some of the problems that the more Protestant understanding of heaven might encounter. The beatific vision is eternally timeless rather than a timeline, so there is no need to wonder what people would be doing with their days without getting bored as there would be no more ‘days’. Just one eternal moment of being in the presence of God.
• however, the beatific vision does have other issues. If the soul is timeless in the presence of God, it is difficult to understand how this could be ‘the same person’ as who had a physical body while on earth and went about a physical daily life. Many of the characteristics which make us who we are involve a relationship with linear time.

Question 5

What is Heaven?

Answer 5

• Christianity teaches that after death, the faithful will go to Heaven
• heaven, because its in a different dimension, had to be described figuratively, with different metaphors to point the believer in the right direction while still recognising that the afterlife is a mystery.
• for example, heaven is understood as the place where God lives, seated on a throne surrounded by angels
• another metaphor is God the Father which is also used in the context of heaven, where heaven is seen in terms of the family home
• the Catholic tradition has usually expressed its understanding of heaven in terms of the beatific vision. Protestants have tended to understand heaven as an everlasting existence, where people would live in the presence of God, reunited with their loved ones and able to worship God every day.
• Bernard William wondered if an eternity in heaven would really be desirable, surely however pleasurable heaven was at the beginning, it would become boring after a while. Whatever we wanted to do, we would be able to do it, and perhaps the excitement of anticipation would disappear.
• some object to this by saying that God would make sure this didn’t happen; perhaps we might miraculously never be bored, just as we would never be sad and never suffer. However if our minds are going to be controlled like this, we would lose our free will.

Question 6

What is Hell?

Answer 6

• Christians teach after death a person is separated from God for eternity. Sometimes seen as a place of eternal pain and punishment, often depicted as a place in which people are tortured by demons with fire.
• in the book of Revelation, the writer has a vision in which the bad people are thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur.
• the concept of hell raises a difficult issue. Can the existence of hell be compatible with the existence of a perfectly loving and perfectly just God?
• David Hume raised this problem, suggesting that the whole idea of hell calls God’s justice into question because a finite sin can never deserve an infinite punishment.
• some argue that whenever we do wrong, we are wronging God, and that every kind of wrong deserves eternal punishment because wronging God is eternally bad.
• eternal punishment might in the end become as boring as eternal pleasure. We might become immune to pain and suffering and stop feeling it anymore
• John Hick rejects the traditional idea of eternal hell as it’s incompatible with the belief in a God of love. He argued it was developed as a form of social control, encouraging people to be fearful of disobeying religious authority.
• one view thats gaining popularity is that its a second death for the person who has not gained entry into heaven. The body dies, then the soul dies.

Question 7

What is Purgatory?

Answer 7

• the doctrine of purgatory is a Catholic teaching which was developed by Pope Gregory.
• he understood that forgiveness does not only happen during a person’s earthly life but is also possible after death. Therefore there must be a kind of temporary state after death in which people have to opportunity to rid themselves of sin and be forgiven.
• purgatory as the name suggests, is a place or state in which after death the soul is ‘purged’. Its made clear and purified, before the person is ready to enter heaven.
• an interim state between the moment of death and life in heaven. Some souls are not in a sufficient state of grace to warrant being sent straight to heaven.
• there is, for some, a need for punishment, not eternal, but punishment with an end result.
• Catholic teaching is that the prayers of the living can contribute to this cleansing process, helping the dead soul to get through the purgatory and become and become ready to enter heaven
• Karl Rahner developed the doctrine of purgatory, arguing that it should be understood not as a horrible place of pain, but as a metaphor for the souls greater awareness of the consequences of sin, especially the individuals own sin, in the time between death and the Last Judgment. The pain in purgatory is therefore a self-inflicted personal pain
• although purgatory is accepted in Catholic Christianity, Protestant Christians tend to reject it, partly because they don’t think it is supported by the Bible, and partly because they think it is contradictory to biblical teaching about salvation.

Question 8

What is election?

Answer 8

• the idea that God chooses the eternal destiny of each person. He knows even before we are born who will go to heaven and who will go to hell
• one type of election is limited election, this is the view that only a few Christians will be saved. Another type is unlimited election which is where all people are called to salvation, but not everyone responds so only some are saved.
• Augustine had some views on the idea of election, in which election is limited to a few. He believed people are born with ’Original Sin’ because of the sin of Adam and Eve, therefore no one could earn salvation and cannot possibly reach possibly reach God’s standards through their own efforts, but only by the grace of God.
• Calvin also followed that idea that God had predestined people to eternal punishment or life with God. He believed that God had absolute control over everything. Therefore it would not be possible for anything to happen that was beyond God’s control.
• Barth developed unlimited election and he saw election as a choice. He tried to combine the ideas that people are only saved if God chooses, with the idea that a loving God would not choose only a few for salvation. The election of individuals is bound up with the election of Jesus as their representative, and Jesus is elected so that everyone has the possibility of eternal life
• Hick argued that God will save all people, whatever their beliefs, he believed everyone will reach God in the end, after death and that the afterlife will provide further opportunities for people to develop their faith in God. In his view, different religions are different expressions of the same universal human desire for God, so there is no right or wrong religions.

Question 9

What is ‘The Parable of the Ten Virgins’?

Answer 9

• Matthew 25:31-46 is usually known as ‘The Sheep and the Goats’. In this parable Jesus writes about the time when the ‘Son of Man’ comes and separates people according to their deeds.
• the parable makes a sharp division between two groups of people, the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’, no middle ground. Those who are rewarded with the promise of eternal life with God are those who have taken care of other people in need.
• there is no mention of the need for them to be Christian or even religious at all. However, many interpretations argue the ‘sheep’ behave in the way they do because of their salvation, it’s argued because of their faith in God, they are displaying the characteristics of Christian love that follow from having been given the Holy Spirit.
• the ‘goats’ face harsh punishment and at first it’s difficult to see what they have done thats so wrong. However, its not that they have done something bad, but that they failed to take the opportunities they could have to do good to others.