Self, Death and the Afterlife

Question 1

The meaning and purpose of life- To bring about God’s kingdom

Answer 1

• 3rd purpose is less individualistic but sees humans as part of the fabric of creation in which the purpose of everything to bring to completion God’s work in bringing his kingdom on earth
• The Kingdom of God in Matthew refers to the rule of God, with God’s values being established as fully on earth as in heaven
• This is both an eschatological hope relating to the end of time whilst for many there is a responsibility to work with God to bring this about in the here and now
• Qualities of the kingdom of God include: peace, justice and freedom. Luke 4: Jesus preaches on the prophecy in Isaiah proclaiming to release prisoners, freedom for the oppressed
• This leads Christians to get involved in working for justice and peace through charities and in communities
• The idea of the realisation of the kingdom is reflected in Revelation 21 where the imagery of Eden is restored

Question 2

The meaning and purpose of life- to prepare for judgement

Answer 2

• Protestants: Phillipians 2:8
• Catholics: parable of the sheep and the goats
• Christians believe that God will judge them after death according to the way in which they have been true to their faith
• According to the creation story in Genesis 2, humans were created for fellowship with God, but disobeying God led to alienation
• God alone could restore the relationship and he did this through the death of Jesus, the supreme act of reconciliation
• The final act of this reconciliation is the judgement that all humans will face

Question 3

The meaning and purpose of life- To glorify God and have a personal relationship with him

Answer 3

• Genesis 1: Humanity is told to be fruitful and multiply. The one purpose of life is to fill the Earth with the reflection of God
• Genesis 2: Portrays an immanent and personal God through anthropomorphism interpreted as a model of a close relationship with God- his intent for us
• Both accounts of creation in Genesis insist our purpose on Earth is to glorify God
• Christians try and build their relationship with God through living well: reading the Bible, prayer, evangelism, procreation etc

Question 4

Resurrection- Dualism and resurrection of the soul

Answer 4

• In the OT there are 2 Hebrew words for soul: nephesh and ruach- they are associated with the principle of life
• The nephesh was said to be given by God to Adam. The word is often linked with the word ‘heart’ which was thought of as the seat of the will. In the teaching of Jesus also, the word is often used alongside ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ almost in the sense of ‘inner self’
• Plato thought that there were 2 spheres of reality: the imperfect world in which humans live and have only a partial understanding of reality and truth. The world of the Forms- the body perishes at death but the soul is immortal and after death is returned to the World of the Forms
• Many Christians think of the soul as the moral and spiritual dimension of human life- distinct from the physical body. The soul is given by God before birth and after death it returns to God

Question 5

Resurrection- The resurrection of Jesus

Answer 5

• Belief in the afterlife was a late development in Jewish thinking in the OT era, and was not a primonent belief in Judaism, but the belief in the resurrection of Jesus was from the very start and still is for most Christians a central tenet of the Christian faith for a number of reasons:
• It forms the basis of the Christian hope of life after death
• Paul expressed memorably the sheer pointlessness of life and faith if the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction
• All 4 gospels state that the tomb was empty: all accounts of the resurrection appearances have in common the fact that his friends knew it was Jesus, though not necessarily immediately. He was the same, yet different and not subject to human limitations
• It was a unique event: those whom Jesus was said to have raised to life would in the future have to face death again. Jesus through God’s power conquered death which opened up the possibility of eternal life after death for humanity
• Christians interpret this idea of resurrection for humanity in different ways: some think of it in terms of a physical resurrection, others a spiritual resurrection

Question 6

Resurrection of the flesh

Answer 6

• Augutine believed that the Fall affected not only Adam and Eve but the whole of humanity
• Every human is infected with sin in every aspect of his/her being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual
• Humans are totally dependent on God’s grace to deliver them from the eternal punishment that sin merits
• Christ’s saving death achieved atonement and his physical resurrection showed to believers what was a possibility for those whom God had chosen
• Jesus’ resurrection and ascension were physical
• Augustine believed that God could perform the same miracle for anything created with a soul
• In this physical resurrection, both the spiritual and physical effects of sin would be erased
• Augustine’s thinking can be seen in the Catholic Church’s teaching about resurrection

Question 7

Spiritual Resurrection

Answer 7

• Some Christians reject the idea of physical resurrection: they believe that after death, the body decomposes in a grave or is destroyed by resurrection
• They believe that the soul survives death and lives on with God
• They believe in a ‘spiritual resurrection’ along the lines of what Paul taught (1 Corinth 15)
• On the basis of his belief in Jesus’ resurrection, Paul believed that Jesus’ death and resurrection had freed humans from the power of sin and death and had opened up for humanity the possibility of eternal life in the presence of God
• He believed in the resurrection of the body rather than immortalisty of the soul: not the resurrection of the physical earthly body, the body that perished after death. Rather, a new spiritual and imperishable body, appropriate to the new model of existence after death
• He believed that the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world of human experience were imminent: He describes this in language that many Christians believed was meant as metaphor, showing the momentous nature of what would happen

Question 8

Judgement

Answer 8

• The Nicene Creed sets out the belief in judgement and the afterlife
• The Catholic Church believes that: there are two types of judgement after death which are particular judgement and general judgement
• particular judgement refers to the judgement that takes place straight after death and determines the eternal fate of the individual
• the general judgement will take place at the Second Coming of Christ and is upon humanity as a whole
• those who are free from sin are directed immediately to the eternal joys of God’s presence in heaven
• those who knowingly and deliberately rejected God’s love and mercy and those who have committed mortal sin and have not repented of it and sought God’s forgiveness are directed to hell, which is the state of eternal separation from God
• those whose venial sins have not been remitted are directed to purgatory, where they will be prepared for heaven

Question 9

Judgement, heaven and hell as physical

Answer 9

• This was the view almost held universally in the West until modern times
• The powerful, both in the Church and in the secular world, saw it as a way of controlling the people. Some fundamentalist Christians still believe in it, though any Protestants who think this way reject the idea of purgatory
• At the end of the world, Christ will return in glory to judge all humans according to their needs
• Those assessed as holy will be taken to heaven (often depicted as a city) by angels
• Those who have committed mortal sins will be cast into hell to suffer torment, often depicted as blazing fire, for eternity
• Those who sins are venial undergo a period of cleansing suffering and pain (known as purgatory) and this will enable them to enter heaven

Question 10

Judgement, heaven and hell as spiritual

Answer 10

• For those who believe in resurrection as spiritual rather than physical, ideas of judgement, heaven and hell and purgatory as physical realities does not make sense
• Many Christians therefore understand them as spiritual realities
• Modern Catholic thinking, for instance, understands heaven and hell as spiritual rather than physical
• Heaven is a spiritual state and likewise hell is not a physical realm of torture. It results from the deluberate choices of mortal sin without repentance and refusing God’s offer of forgiveness

Question 11

Judgement, heaven and hell as psychological realities

Answer 11

• Some Christians reject any belief in life after death because it lacks empirical evidence
• They think in terms of living in such a way as to bring heaven on earth
• heaven and hell are products of the human mind
• Rob Bell- Love Wins

Question 12

Objective immortality in process thought

Answer 12

• Most process theologians believe in objective immortality. That is, after death, all individual beings remain eternally as ‘objects’ in the mind of God. In that sense, they never die
• Process theologians reject the idea of subjective immortality, which is the belief held by most Christians that after death, humans exist as thinking subjects with continued experiences
• Most Christians reject the idea of objective immortality because one feature of life after death for Christians is that innocent suffering will be redeemed. If a person no longer exists as an individual but simply as an object in the mind of God, there will be no awareness of this having been done