Afterlife
The afterlife is existence after death. Death raises the question of whether personal survival is possible at all, and many religions answer that it is: they teach that the immortal soul is judged after death and lives on with God.[1]
Descriptions of life after death appear in many places, from Plato's Phaedo and Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles to the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead.[2]
Forms of the afterlife
Religions picture life after death in several ways:
- Immortality of the soul: continued, usually personal, existence grounded in the soul. Plato argued for it in the Phaedo, and Ibn Sina wrote on the soul.[3]
- Bodily resurrection: the dead are raised in bodily form. Jewish tradition says less about the soul in analytic terms but speaks of bodily resurrection, and Aquinas wrote of glorified bodies.[3][4]
- Heaven: the final state of those who are with God.[4]
- Hell: in Christianity, the final state of the damned, separated from God.[5]
- Reincarnation: the soul is reborn in another body, as taught in Hinduism and Buddhism.[6]
In Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism has one of the oldest detailed pictures of the afterlife. The Gathas describe an individual reckoning at the "Crossing-place of the Account-Keeper", the Chinvat. Thoughts, words and deeds are tallied; the good go to the "house of song" or "best existence", and those who chose deception go to the "house of deceit".[7] Later texts say the bridge widens for the righteous and narrows to a razor's edge for the wicked.[8] At the end of time comes a renewal of the world, with the resurrection of the dead and the reunion of body and soul.[8]
It has been suggested that Zoroastrian ideas of resurrection and paradise influenced Judaism and Christianity, but priority is hard to prove. Rose notes, for example, that Jewish resurrection meant the same life restored, while the Iranian picture involved a transformed world.[9]
Philosophical questions
Modern philosophers ask whether survival of death even makes sense.[10] Dean Zimmerman argues that it is conceivable on either main view of the mind. If materialism is true, God would have to arrange the causal links between the matter of the dying person and the matter of the afterlife. If dualism is true, God could preserve souls. Pre-existence and reincarnation are another possible route to "multiple embodiments".[11]
Mark Johnston argues that it is rational to hope for other embodiments, and asks why bodily resurrection should not be allowed, by God preserving or reconstituting matter.[12] Paul Draper suggests that, on his "panpsychotheism", it is reasonable to hope for a significant life after death.[13]
Zimmerman also stresses that believing in an afterlife, hoping for one, and living as if there is one are different attitudes.[11]
Without an afterlife
Not every tradition centres on a world to come. A Buddhist catechism by Olcott presents Buddhism as offering happiness "without an objective heaven", with Nirvana attainable in this life.[14]
See also
References
- ↑ "Death". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. pp. 60–61.
- ↑ "Afterlife, The". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. p. 5.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Immortality". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. pp. 101–103.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Heaven". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. pp. 87–88.
- ↑ "Hell". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. pp. 90–91.
- ↑ "Reincarnation". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. p. 179.
- ↑ Rose, Jenny (2014). "Zoroastrians Present and Past". Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. I.B. Tauris.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Rose, Jenny (2014). "Eranshahr: The Sasanian Center of the World". Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. I.B. Tauris.
- ↑ Rose, Jenny (2014). "A Zoroastrian Presence from Seleucia to Sistan: The Parthian Period". Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. I.B. Tauris.
- ↑ "Philosophy of Religion". Philosophy of Religion A-Z. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. pp. 159–160.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Draper, Paul, ed. (2019). "Chapter 5 (Dean Zimmerman)". Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion. Routledge.
- ↑ Draper, Paul, ed. (2019). "Chapter 4 (Mark Johnston)". Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion. Routledge.
- ↑ Draper, Paul, ed. (2019). "Panpsychotheism (Paul Draper)". Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion. Routledge.
- ↑ Patton, Kimberley C.; Ray, Benjamin C., eds. (2000). "Contested Identities". A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in the Postmodern Age. University of California Press. p. 59.