Different ways of understanding ideas about the Afterlife Flashcards
How do thinkers from the evangelical tradition of Christianity take the idea of the afterlife?
literally - they believe heaven, hell (and perhaps purgatory) are actual physical places on a different plane from this world
Why do thinkers from the evangelical tradition of Christianity interpret ideas of the afterlife literally?
Bible teaches that Jesus had a physical body after his Resurrection, and his physical body went up into heaven; therefore, it must have gone to a physical place.
Biblical depictions of heaven describe a physical place, full of angles, and hell as full of fire
What do people who believe heaven, hell and purgatory are spiritual states rather than places believe happens when someone ‘goes to heaven’?
after death, they become fully aware of having shed the physical body and being eternally in the presence of God.
What do people who believe heaven, hell and purgatory are spiritual states rather than places believe happens when someone ‘goes to purgatory’?
after death, they recognise their earthly sins and the ways in which they have fallen short of God’s standards and might work to repent and make themselves fit for God’s presence.
What do people who believe heaven, hell and purgatory are spiritual states rather than places believe happens when someone ‘goes to hell’?
after death, they realise that they separated themselves from the love of God by rejecting him
What do ideas about heaven and hell being spiritual places rely on?
the view that people will have conscious thoughts and wishes after death; this depends on a view of the relation between the mind and the body in which the mind is capable of surviving the death of the body
What arguments can be used to support the idea that people will have conscious thoughts and wishes after death?
- we experience emotional states of happiness, guilt and despair in this earthly life, so perhaps ideas of the afterlife in the Bible are metaphors referring to similar states after death
- if we are essentially the same people after death, then perhaps we continue to experience the same kinds of thoughts and emotions after death
Some describe heaven, hell and purgatory as physical, spiritual or…
mere symbols of a person’s moral and spiritual life as experienced on this earth, rather than after death
Give an example of where people refer to heaven, hell and purgatory as mere symbols?
people sometimes talk in terms of heaven when they are blissfully happy, of purgatory when they are going through testing times and of hell when they suffer bereavement or mental health problems
What does the ‘symbolic’ view of heaven, hell and purgatory not assume the existence of?
an afterlife
What is an advantage of the ‘symbolic’ view of heaven, hell and purgatory not assuming the existence of an afterlife?
it avoids the philosophical problems that these ideas raise.
What is an advantage of the ‘symbolic’ view of heaven, hell and purgatory not assuming the existence of an afterlife?
although it avoids the philosophical problems that these ideas raise, in order to make this interpretation, many biblical teachings about heaven and hell have to be discarded as they often refer to heaven and hell in context of life after the physical death of the body
