Self, death and the afterlife

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

For example: a piece of literature which has a symbolic meaning

Question 2

Forms

Answer 2

Plato’s theory of the Forms - Everything in the physical universe is a particular ‘instance’ of a perfect idea in the metaphysical world of the Forms.

Question 3

Objective immortality

Answer 3

The belief (in Process Theology) that every living thing exists for ever in the mind of God, because the objects are literally ‘in God’.

Question 4

Panentheism

Answer 4

The philosophical view that everything that there is exists ‘in God’.

Question 5

Purgatory

Answer 5

A (particular Catholic) doctrine of an intermediate state after death in which those who are destined to enter heaven are punished/purified in order to make them worthy of heaven.

Question 6

Reincarnation

Answer 6

The belief that at death, the soul is ‘re-enfleshed’ into another body.

Question 7

Subjective immortality

Answer 7

This belief that after death the thinking self continues as the same subject of consciousness - the same ‘I’.

Question 8

Venial Sin

Answer 8

A forgivable sin that does not result in separation from God and eternal damnation to hell (as opposed to ‘mortal sin’, which does result in this).