Summary High quality A* death and the afterlife notes for RS a-level OCR
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Death and the afterlife
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Hi, I'm a first year student at Oxford who just did my A-levels last year. These are the notes I made on death and the afterlife. They are extremely detailed and contain not only the content but also a whole range of relevant scholars, responses and pros and cons of the different arguments. This is...
Immediate life after death: The belief that after death, a person will be judged immediately by God and enter
straight into heaven or hell. Luke: “Jesus said to him ‘I promise that today you will be in Paradise with me’.”
There is biblical evidence of God welcoming people immediately into heaven or hell, for example in the parable of
the rich man and Lazarus.
Delayed life after death: The belief that after death the body or soul enters a period of nothingness until, at the end
of time, Jesus comes to judge all people simultaneously. Only then will the afterlife begin. Mathew: “No one knows
when that day and hour will come – neither the angels in heaven nor the son: the Father alone knows.” Paul writes
about how those ‘who sleep in the dust of the Earth’ will awake.
Irenaeus believed that most Christians do not enter heaven until the final day of judgement. Before this time, but
after death, people live in peaceful happiness while they wait for their final reward of heaven. Some exceptional
people, such as prophets, saints and martyrs, might be admitted on a fast-track. Calvin supported this view, arguing
that the dead are not sleeping as they wait for the Last Judgement but are conscious, either in peaceful bliss or in
pain depending on whatever God has chosen for them.
Heaven
Differing criteria for getting into heaven:
- In the story of the Rich Young Man Jesus is asked what must be done to get to heaven. He says to “keep the
commandments” and “sell your possessions and give to the poor.”
- In the parable of the sheep and the goats, those who receive eternal life are the ones who help those in
need: the hungry, thirsty, strangers, the sick, prisoners.
- John suggests all you need to do is have faith in the son. “Everyone who believes in him may not die but
have eternal life.” The idea of faith being crucial to salvation is also emphasised by Paul in Romans.
- Titus suggests we have no say in the matter. “It was not because of any good deeds that we have done, but
because of his own mercy that he save us. By his grace we might come into eternal life.”
Differing ideas of heaven:
1. A physical place, in another world or dimension, where our resurrected bodies live in harmony with God. It often
includes ideas of the departed watching or looking down from above. Revelation “I saw the Holy City, the new
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. God will live with them, and they shall be his people.”
2. Heaven as a physical recreation of the Pre-Lapserian world, here on earth, which God will create at the end of
time. Present earth is cursed due to the presence of sin. Thus, our world will be destroyed and the original Earth, as
God created it, will return. As physical as current Earth, it will be like Eden: an ideal paradise with no sin, death or
barrier to relationship with God. “New heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” The good are
selected to live eternally in this restored and renewed world.
- “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth.” Genesis suggests they are two separate places.
Bernard Williams argued that however pleasurable heaven was at the beginning, it would become boring after a
while. We would have literally all the time in the world, and so would be able to do and achieve everything we
wanted. Part of the pleasure of living is making choices about what to do with our limited lifespans, and setting
ourselves challenging objectives that we may or may not be able to achieve so that if we do we feel a sense of pride.
Rahner agreed, arguing that the limited span of our earthly lives gives them meaning.
- One could argue that God would just not allow us to be bored: just as would never feel sad or suffer.
However, if our minds and emotions are going to be controlled and programmed like this, we would lose our
free will. It also raises the question of why God did not make us like this in the first place.
3. Heaven as a disembodied spiritual state joining with God. Aquinas’ beatific vision is the understanding of heaven
usually accepted by Catholics. It is a perpetual state of happiness and oneness with God. This would be eternally
timeless, consciousness as we know it on earth replaced by consciousness of God’s enduring love – a happiness
currently incomprehensible to us.
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