The Afterlife

In a related blog, I've been working my way through the New Testament, chapter by chapter. There we are just finishing I Corinthians.

The end of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is a suitable place to explore Paul's description of the afterlife.  Paul insists that he saw Jesus after his crucifixion and resurrection and claims some 500 others did also.  Paul insists the belief in the resurrection is central to his faith in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus.

Paul then goes on to claim that there will be a final Resurrection of the dead and a "celestial body", a true physical body, but in many ways different from the current earthly one.  How this occurs is unknown and probably unknowable.  Christians have added layers to this interpretation since then.

Central to the theology of the afterlife, within Christianity, is a belief that there will be an afterlife and that one's part in the afterlife is linked to one's response to Jesus is this one.  After this, the viewpoints begin to diverge.  Do those who reject Jesus go on to a place of conscious torment, often called Hell?  Is Hell/Hades a place of annihilation, of a continuance of death and the end of existence?  Is there some type of "cleansing" place of Purgatory? (See here, here and here, as part of a book review on the Jesus Creed blog by Scot McKnight, of the book Four Views on Hell.)

Does one, after death, immediately move into a conscious state, with the soul separated but conscious and aware? Or does life require a body and so after death one "sleeps", unaware, until recreated in the final Resurrection?  The Jesus Creed blog has a brief discussion on that also.

Of course, there is a wide-ranging article on the afterlife at Wikipedia.

I have my own opinions on this ... but the only one I will share here is this: like Paul, I believe (and hope) there will be a Resurrection.  After that, it is OK to not be sure about any of the many views on how the afterlife will occur. One can have doubts.  One should ask questions about the form it takes and whether our existence, as Scot McKnight asks, is "separation of soul and body (dualism)" or "physicality."

We will all find out soon enough....

Next week, on that blog, we will begin studying my favorite gospel, The Gospel of Mark.