Death and the Afterlife Flashcards
What does general judgement refer to?
Refers to God’s judgement at the end of time.
What does particular judgement refer to?
Refers to God’s judgement immediately after death.
What is Gehenna?
Is referred to by Jesus as a place of fire sinners are sent to.
What is the new earth?
The view of heaven that at the end of time God will restore the earth to its pre-fall state where the resurrected bodies of the righteous will live forever.
What is the rich man and Lazarus?
A rich man ignored the desperate needs of a beggar named Lazarus and so was sent to hell and tormented while Lazarus went to heaven.
The rich man was in hell before his family, indicating particular judgement took place immediately after death, not at the end of time.
How are heaven and hell depicted in the rich man and Lazarus?
Heaven/Hell are portrayed as eternal physical places.
How is the rich man and Lazarus against the idea of a new earth?
This passage is evidence against Heaven as new earth, since in the story the rich man wanted to warn his family who were therefore still on earth, which suggests that Lazarus was in heaven before the end of time, meaning that heaven is not a future state of the earth.
What does Martin Luther arue the rich man and Lazarus depicts?
The story is not about heaven and or hell because it is just a parable, not to be taken literally. Martin Luther argued it was just a parable which symbolizes the state of the conscience after we do good or bad. The torment mentioned is a symbol for the rich man’s conscience.
How can he rich man and Lazarus be taken literally?
The key detail that a personal name (Lazarus) was mentioned. Other parables just refer to generic types of people e.g. ‘the good Samaritan’. This suggests it was a real story about heaven and hell and so shouldn’t be taken as a symbolic parable.
What does Augustine argue on resurrection?
Our resurrected body must be physical since Christ’s resurrection was of a physical body and since that represented the hope for all Christians that they would be resurrected.
How is spiritual resurrection illustrated in The Bible?
Jesus appeared to his disciples after he rose from the dead, he appeared to be able to disappear and reappear at will, which proponents of spiritual resurrection interpret as indicating a non-physical form. It could also make sense of the fact that he wasn’t initially recognised. This could suggest that our resurrection will be non-physical too, and thus the after life is a non-physical state.
What is St Paul’s idea of a spirit?
The idea of a resurrected body as “spiritual” and his distinguishing of spiritual from “earthly” suggests that the resurrected body is non-physical. A belief in Paul’s time was that ‘spirit’ was a kind of material thing, but a refined and perfected form of matter not subject to decay or death.
What does Matthew 19:26 suggest about the puzzles surrounding resurrection and God’s omnipotence?
“With God all things are possible”
What does Revelations Chapter 21 suggest about a new earth?
“Involves God shows John the future, where there is the ‘new heavens and the New Earth” where there will be “no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain.”
How has Plato’s view of a soul influenced Christianity?
Western Christian culture has been too heavily influenced by Plato’s view of the soul despite it having been rejected by Jewish tradition. This Platonic influence has caused Christians to misunderstand what the soul means in Christianity which causes the popular belief that our souls go to heaven/hell straight after death, which Wright points out has the unfortunate effect of eclipsing belief in the resurrection of the dead at the end of time.
What does N.T Wright believe the soul within Christianity means?
Argues that when Paul and the gospels do use the word ‘soul’, the meaning is much closer to the Hebrew word ‘nephesh’, meaning living God-breathed creature than it is to the dualist notion of soul found in Plato.
What is Docetism?
Docetism was influenced by Gnosticism, their influence from Plato was to believe that pure mentality is spiritually higher and closer to perfected being than physical matter. They therefore didn’t accept that a divine being could have a physical human body. Docetism is antitrinitarian, since they thought Jesus was fully divine, they denied that Jesus was human. This solved some of the philosophical problems associated with the incarnation.
Why may heaven, hell and purgatory not be eternal but rather symbolic?
Heaven, hell and purgatory are only eternal if they are places or states. If they are symbolic, they are not eternal as they don’t exist in time.
What does psychology infer from heaven and hell?
The descriptions of an afterlife in the Bible should just be interpreted as reflecting psychological realities that people can experience in their life. During our life, if we behave badly, our life becomes worse and our psychology is negatively affected.
What could a physical view of the afterlife reflect?
Reflected extreme versions of medieval life on earth, where torture (Hell) and feasting (Heaven) was common.
Why might the liberal approach to the Bible inspire a symbolic representation of the afterlife?
The liberal approach to the Bible views it as a product of the human mind, not the perfect word of God.
Why can the liberal approach the the Bible be criticised?
The problem with liberal views of inspiration is that it’s difficult to see how it could grant authority to the Bible if it derives from human minds. Furthermore, it opens up the Bible to interpretation. This cannot provide the kind of stable consistent theology that a religion needs for it to persist.
What is purgatory according to Catholicism?
The Catholic Church teaches that it is a place of temporary punishment for those who have died after committing venial sins but had not confessed them to receive forgiveness before dying.
What is the Biblical basis of purgatory?
The word ‘Purgatory’ is not in the Bible.
What is Biblical evidence against purgatory?
The parable of the sheep and the goats is biblical evidence against purgatory. In the story people are divided into the righteous (sheep) and the sinful (goats). There is no middle ground third option for those who are somewhere between good and bad.
What is the moral argument for purgatory?
It seems unjust for someone to be condemned to hell for a minor venial sin, yet it also seems to conflict with God’s justice that he allow into heaven someone who dies in a state of sin. Therefore, a place like purgatory where those venial sins are purged from a person before being admitted into heaven seems to be the best moral and just solution to the problem.
What is the Catholic Church’s corrupt sale of indulgences?
The sale of indulgences was the policy of the Catholic Church to accept money in return for forgiveness of sins. Purgatory was an important part of this – if you gave the Church money, the priests would pray for your recently dead relative, claiming to get them out of purgatory faster.
What did Luther claim purgatory to be?
Luther claimed Purgatory was ‘fabricated by goblins’ and wrote a 95 thesis critique of the practice of the sale of indulgences. The invention of purgatory for use in the sale of indulgences looks like the Church is abusing its power to invent false doctrines purely for the sake of making money.
What is unlimited election
Is the view that all people can be saved but not all are. Typically the idea is that being a good person gets you into heaven, but since not everyone will choose to be good not everyone will go to heaven.
What is limited election?
Is the view that only a few Christians chosen by God before they are born, receive salvation in heaven.
What is universalism?
Is the view that everyone will be saved.
What is Augustine’s exclusivism?
We are so corrupted by original sin that genuine persevering faith in Jesus is only possible with God’s grace, which predestines some people to have and keep faith in Christ and thus be one of the ‘elect’ who will be saved.
What does Romans 8 suggest?
St Paul seems to hold to predestination, which is the view that our fate in the afterlife, is already unalterably fixed.
What is Augustine’s double predestination?
Heaven is predestined for some and hell for others.
Why is predestination not unjust for God according to Augustine?
It was a factual consequence of Adam’s sin that all future humanity, in Adam’s loins, became infected with original sin. It’s not God’s fault, it’s Adams’. So, Augustine argues that predestination is not unjust of God, since we are corrupted by original sin and so if we go to hell it is deserved.
What does Psalms 25:10 say?
‘All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth,’ and concludes: neither can his grace be unjust, nor his justice cruel”.
What is Hick’s interpretation of purgatory?
That after death, people could continue existing in a ‘resurrection’ world whereby they would continue to have a chance to redeem themselves and become better (soul-making). This is part of Hick’s universalism, the view that all people will be saved. An omnibenevolent God would not damn anyone to Hell.
How is Hicks universalism justified by Hume?
Hick’s argument can be justified by Hume’s reasoning that sending someone to Hell cannot ever be justice since as a punishment it is always disproportionate. No matter the degree of immorality a person’s actions have, they are finite.
What is proportionality?
Proportionality is the view that true justice requires punishment to be proportional to the crime.
How does Hume adopt proportionality to the afterllife?
Hume argues it cannot be justice for God to give an infinite punishment for a finite crime. Eternal punishment in Hell can never be proportional and thus never just.
What is annihilationism?
This is the view that although Hell is eternal and the destination of the unrighteous dead, they do not spend eternity in Hell but are annihilated into non-existence.
What does Matthew 10:28 say?
Matthew 10:28 Jesus said “fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna”.
What does Matthew 10:28 suggest about annihilation?
Jesus seems to suggest that in Gehenna the body and soul are destroyed. The everlasting fire of Gehenna might indeed be eternal, but that does not mean our souls spend eternity there. They are annihilated. In the sheep and the goats, Jesus says the sinful depart into eternal fire, but not that they actually spend eternity in it.
What Biblical evidence goes against annihilation?
In the parable of the sheep and the goats the phrase ‘eternal punishment’ is specified for the unrighteous. Some argue non-existence cannot be eternal punishment.
