Life after death

What happens after you die?

  • Nothing?

  • No one can know?

  • Something (possibly or surely)? What?

  • The same for all?

  • Not the same for all? It depends ... on what?

      • Jesus offered the prospect of eternal life.

  • Eternal life is the reward of what?

      • Faith?

  • Belief in Jesus? As necessary or as sufficient or neither?

  • If you do not gain eternal life, what happens?

      • Nothing?

  • Something? Hell? What is hell? Eternal torture? External soul estrangement? Or a symbol of the "second death" -- the extinction of a soul who refused to say YES to the offer of progressive adventure?

  • Are popular ideas of hell consistent with the teachings of Jesus?

"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" [Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom -- the dump four miles west of Jerusalem where garbage was burned]. Mathew 10.28

  • Are popular conceptions of hell consistent with the affirmation of the goodness of God?

There are three words in the Bible all translated as "hell": (1) sheol (Hebrew), a shadowy underworld, not a place of punishment, but not anywhere you'd prefer to spend much time; (2) Hades (Greek), the same concept as sheol; and (3) Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, where outside Jerusalem trash was burned--not a place of punishment, let alone torture, let alone everlasting torture. This is the word used in the New Testament.

What is heaven like? Descriptions of heaven can be found in all the religions, and they tend to picture heaven as beautiful and wonderful beyond human experience and conception. Here are some descriptions from the Bible.

“No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2.9).

There have been visions. Paul refers to a man (himself?) who was “caught up in the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12.2 “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.” (2 Corinthians 12.2-4)

Heaven is not just a single place, but a series: “the heaven of heavens” (Deuteronomy 10.14; Nehemiah 9.6; Psalms 148.4 (cf. 1 Kings 8.27; 2 Chronicles 2.6; 6.18). “In my Father’s house are many tarrying places [mansions or stations]” (John 14.2).

Heaven is consistently portrayed as beautiful. Revelations 4: around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald; in front of the throne, a sea of glass, like a crystal. The NT book of Hebrews calls heaven “a better country” (11.16), speaks of “a city . . . whose maker and builder is God” (11.10), and says that “they have in heaven a better . . . substance” (10.34).

Heaven is consistently portrayed as a domain of goodness. “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So heaven is a place where the will of God is done, even as the earth will be such a place when the kingdom comes in fullness.

Critical questions

Is there a "denial of death" going on here? That is the title of Ernest Becker's 1973 book, in which he amassed evidence that human beings do in fact deny death in many ways. The philosophical question is whether such evidence shows that belief in life after death is merely a flight from the hard fact of death. The believer can reply that the skeptic is involved in another kind of denial, a denial of life.

Does the promise of eternal life fit with current scientific cosmology? No. Does that mean that current hypotheses, making huge extrapolations based on limited data, should be permitted to take away persons’ religious faith?

Is is possible to interpret science in such a way as to be consistent with the hope of eternal life? Note the difference between scientifically established facts and scientific hypotheses, theories, speculations, and associated philosophic attitudes. Science describes structures and processes that philosophy can interpret as functioning in accord with define purpose.

Does talk about heaven make religion a carrot-and-stick affair, a system of rewards and punishments? It certainly does function that way at times. Why did Jesus say so little about heaven? To avoid upstaging the present truth, beauty, and goodness of the relation to God and the neighbor.