Death And The Afterlife

Question 1

Disembodied existence

Answer 1

Existing without a physical body

Question 2

Resurrection

Answer 2

Living on after death in a glorified physical form in a new realm

Question 3

Beatific vision

Answer 3

A face-to-face encounter with God

Question 4

Purgatory

Answer 4

A place where people go, temporarily, after death to be cleansed of sin before they are fit to live with God

Question 5

Election (in a theological sense)

Answer 5

Predestination, chosen by God for heaven or hell

Question 6

Limited election

Answer 6

The view that God chooses only a small number of people for heaven

Question 7

Original Sin

Answer 7

A state of wrongdoing in which people are born (according too some Christians) because of the sin of Adam and Eve

Question 8

Unlimited election

Answer 8

The view that all people are called to salvation but only a few will be saved

Question 9

Universalism

Answer 9

The view that all people will be saved

Question 10

Parable

Answer 10

A story told to highlight a moral message

Question 11

Particular judgement

Answer 11

Judgement for each person at the point of death

Question 12

Parousia

Answer 12

Used in Christianity to refer to the Second Coming of Christ

Question 13

Who believed that some people have already been chosen (elected) to be saved and have eternal life in heaven?

Answer 13

John Calvin and Augustine

Question 14

Who believed in unlimited election (the view that all people are brought to salvation but only a few will be saved)?

Answer 14

Karl Barth

Question 15

Who believed in universalism (the view that all people will be saved)?

Answer 15

John Hick

Question 16

Who was against universalism and why?

Answer 16

Pope Benedict 16th

He said there was no point in Jesus dying on the cross if everyone is saved.

Question 17

What were Aquinas’ beliefs on the afterlife?

Answer 17

Humans have a rational soul that sets us apart from other life forms, which lives on after the body dies and experiences a beatific vision of God.

Aquinas believed that our purpose (or telos) is union with God, and this is only truly possible in the afterlife.

In the afterlife, we don’t need faith in God, as we will know he exists. We can enjoy the perfect state of happiness in his presence.

Question 18

Where did the idea of resurrection after death come from (Bible scripture) and what does it say? There are two pieces of scripture.

Answer 18

“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.”

Genesis 25:8, NIV

“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Daniel 12:2, NIV

Question 19

What did the Sadducees teach about life after death?

Answer 19

There is no life after death

Question 20

How did Plato’s ideas influence Christian ideas about life after death?

Answer 20

Even though Plato had dualist ideas and the soul wonders away, Christianity believed that we do have a soul that leaves our physical body at death.

Question 21

What did Jesus’ death on the cross tell us about life after death?

Answer 21

Jesus died and then was resurrected - it was a belief that had been around from people who lived during Jesus’ lifetime.

We also might be resurrected? The physical body that Jesus was within at death is a representation of Jesus living in people’s memories.

Question 22

Using a metaphor of a seed being sown, what does Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:35-39) tell us about?

Answer 22

The body, like a seed, would be transformed and radically changed. God gives a body to each person.

Question 23

What does the metaphor of the tent in 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 describe?

Answer 23

Our bodily lives are housed in an earthly tent, and if it is destroyed, we have a building from God (an eternal house) in heaven.

Question 24

Another metaphor in 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 - break this down:

“Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.”

Answer 24

Reference to when Adam and Eve were free of sin.

In our earthly life, we are aware of our own sin, but in the afterlife, God will transform us so that we are not in state of sin anymore.

Question 25

In summary, what are the 3 central ideas in Christianity about the afterlife?

Answer 25

The resurrection will involve a bodily life of some form. Resurrected bodies will be ‘spiritual’ and glorified’ and no longer capable of being corrupted or destroyed.

The resurrected person will be the same person as the one who died and not merge with God in some way or with each other, sharing identity with the particular individual who died.

Life after death will be a miracle given by God, and not just a natural process.

Question 26

What was Aquinas’ thoughts on the afterlife?

Answer 26

The soul survives the death of the body and it is capable of beatific vision with God.

The soul was a ‘life principle’ and also the ‘form’ or distinctive character of living things. All living things had specific souls - animals had ‘sensitive souls’ and plants had ‘vegetative souls’

Humans have a special soul (rational soul), which enables life after death as a possibility.

The soul gives humans the ability to accomplish their purposes and reach the potential for which they were made (to reason and too make a free choice to love God, with the final goal and reward of living eternally in presence of God.

Perfect happiness can only be achieved after death.

Question 27

Why does Aquinas believe that his view of the beatific vision does not have some of the the problems that the more Protestant understanding of heaven might encounter?

Answer 27

If the beatific vision is eternally timeless in the sense of being a single ‘simultaneity’ rather than a timeline, then there is no need to wonder what the people in heaven would be doing all the time and how they would fill their endless day without getting bored - it’s eternal.

Question 28

What is the weakness of beatific vision?

Answer 28

If the soul is timeless in the presence of God, it’s hard to understand how this could be the same person as the one who had the physical body while on earth and went about a physical daily life.

So in simpler terms, we have had earthly characteristics that have a relationship with time (with activities we enjoy with our spare time, for example)

Question 29

What does the Rich Man and Lazarus tell us about the afterlife?

Answer 29

There will be a separation after death between some kinds of people and others.

Heaven and hell will involve some kind of physical existence for the people there; it may not be the same kind of physical existence that we are used to, but nevertheless the belief is that we will continue as whole people, compromised of souls and bodies, into the next life.

Question 30

What is heaven like?

Answer 30

God is seated at a throne surrounded by angels, but is still omnipresent.

Heaven is like a family home, where an adult might return to stay with his or her father - “Our Father” - this conveys ideas of comfort, return and familiarity under the authority of unconditional love.

Heaven was described as a “city” that “was of gold”, wealthy.

There would be no pain, death, peace, and there would be no sin.

(Catholic tradition and Aquinas) - we have a beatific vision.
(Protestants) - heaven is of everlasting existence, where people would live in the presence of God, and would worship God daily.

Question 31

What was Bernard Williams’ problem about heaven?

Answer 31

He thought:

Would it be desirable? Wouldn’t it become boring after a while?

Part of the pleasure of living is making choices about what we will do with our limited lifespans, and setting ourselves challenging objectives and eventually achieving them makes us feel a sense of achievement.

Karl Rahner agrees with this.

Question 32

Excluding getting bored in heaven, what other issue is there about heaven?

Answer 32

Personal identity

It’s difficult to see how we could still be the same person, in a life after death, if we were incapable of feeling pain and negative emotions and wrong doing. Especially if we also had bodies which are very different from the physical, imperfect, changing bodies we have in this world.

Question 33

What is hell like

Answer 33

A place of eternal pain and punishment.

Eternal separation from God.

Figuratively described as a rubbish dump, where the useless people are thrown; sometimes a metaphor from agriculture is used, where the good wheat is kept but the leftover weeds are burned to get rid of them.

Below the physical world.

A ‘second death’ of the body and also the soul dies afterwards (a belief gaining in popularity).

Question 34

Which Bible passage has a writer’s vision in which the bad people are thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur?

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars - they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.”

Answer 34

Revelation 21:8

Question 35

What are the problems with the concept of hell?

Answer 35

You can never escape, eternal punishment - is that compatible with a perfectly loving and just God? (John Hick holds this belief)

Is eternal pain a fair punishment for a finite sin? (David Hume holds this belief)

Eternal punishment might become boring, like eternal pleasure? We might become immune to pain and suffering and stop feeling it anymore.

What does eternal punishment achieve if there is no possibility of redemption?

Question 36

Which Christian thinkers brought about the doctrine of purgatory as a Catholic teaching?

Answer 36

Origen, Augustine

Pope Gregory (6th century) developed this idea

Question 37

What were Pope Gregory’s ideas about heaven based on (Bible passage)?

Answer 37

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Matthew 12:30-32

Question 38

What did Pope Gregory think about that led him to the conclusion of Purgatory?

Answer 38

Using Matthew’s gospel, he understood this to mean that forgiveness does not only happen during a person’s earthly life but is also a possibility after death.

Building on the thoughts of other Christians before him, he came to the conclusion that there must be a temporary state after death in which people are cleansed of sin and are forgiven.

Question 39

What is similar between purgatory and hell?

Answer 39

You go though punishment for your sin, in a sort of cleansing process, which is more painful than all pain experienced on earth.

Question 40

What was Karl Rahner’s understanding of purgatory?

Answer 40

The state of cleansing comes with our pain of guilt, acknowledging the consequences of sin.

Question 41

Why do Protestants believe that purgatory is wrong?

Answer 41

Jesus did not complete the final act of salvation on the cross.

Question 42

How does a belief in heaven and hell affect moral behaviour?

Answer 42

The individual would have an expectation of standing before God in judgement as a sole agent, personally responsible for their actions.

Question 43

What are 3 different ways that can be used to describe the afterlife?

Answer 43

Literally - often believed by evangelicals, straight from the Bible descriptions, moving into a physical heaven.

Metaphorically - if we realise that we have separated ourselves from God, then we would be in a state of ‘hell’.

Symbolically - of a person’s moral and spiritual life as experienced on this earth, rather than after death. ‘I’m so happy I’m in heaven’ - you’re not actually going to heaven after you die.

Question 44

What does the Parable of the Sheep and Goats tell us about the afterlife?

Answer 44

People who take care of other will be rewarded with eternal life with God, and otherwise for the unhelpful.

It’s nothing to do with religious belief - do a good deed then you’re in heaven.

Many Christians believe that their belief in God causes them to display the characteristics of Christian love that you get from the Holy Spirit.

Question 45

What metaphor does John Calvin use to describe the lead-up to final judgement?

Answer 45

Heaven is sleeping while they wait for the final judgement, but are conscious, either in peaceful bliss or in pain depending on whatever God has chosen for them.

Question 46

Controversial quote from Luke 23:42-43 about purgatory

Answer 46

“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’

Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”