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Death & the Afterlife - Coggle Diagram

- - - - individual experiences punishment
        
        the biblical story of Lazarus and the rich man is a well-known parable of Jesusfound in the Gospel of Luke
        
        Lazarus is a poor man who begged the rich man for help on numerous occasions. The rich man chose not to help Lazarus
        
        when the two men die, Lazarus ends up in heaven and the rich man ends up in hell
        
        'The time came when the beggar died and the angels. carried him to Abraham's side [Heaven]. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades [Hell], where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.' (Luke 16)
        
        quotes aout hell
        
        in the book of revelation, the image is of a 'burning lake of fiery sulphur'
        
        the catechism quotes, ' Immediately after death the souls pf those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell'
    - - individual experiences purification
        
        seen to be a place of cleansing where people will have their sins forgiven
        
        Catholics on earth can pray for sins of the deceased to be cleansed, in the hope they will end up in heaven
        
        In the Bible it states: 'The purification is necessary because, as Scripture teaches, nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven' (Rev 21:27)
    - - individual experiences physical and emotional happiness
        
        Jesus was raised from the dead in a physical body which could be touched and could eatfodd
        
        as such the blessed will physically rise from the dead
        
        St Thomas Aquinas spoke of heaven as a beatific vision
        
        he described it as the eternal happiness when w come face to face with God
        
        it Is seen as a relationship of love, peace and joy, a time when those in heaven will live in perfect harmony and be at peace
        
        God will bring Christians back to life physically. So they belie in a literal, physical resurrection
        
        It says in the Creed that: 'We believe in the resurrection of the dead. And the life of the world to come.'
        
        also believe at the end of time, the dead will the resurrected as Jesus Christ was
  - - - seen as alienation from God which is punishment enough
        
        Sexing Thessalonians 1:9 refers to hell as 'exclusion from the face of God'
    - - seen as the continual mental struggle a state of perfection
        
        it is not a physical place where the sold is purified by fire
    - - Pope John Paul II was an advocate of heaven as a spiritual state
        
        He explains that trying to work out which senses, if any, would work in heaven seems ridiculous
        
        'The 'heaven' or 'happiness' in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds , but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion o the Holy Spirit.'
      - papal infallibility
        
        his view implies that it is absurd to discuss physical sense being used in an afterlife
        
        the Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church and is seen to be infallible
        
        belongs in a special way to the pope as head. of the bishops
        
        is a doctrine that the pope cannot be wrong when teaching matters of faith or morality
        
        this is because the pope acts as the supreme teacher of Roman Catholic theology
    - - Catholic Church teaches about the immortality of the soul
        
        this is the belief after death our souls will either go to heaven, hell or purgatory
        
        the soul is often described as the non-physical essence of a person
  - - - represent an individuals torment whilst on Earth
    - - Dewi Zephaniah Phillips was an anti - realist about religious matters
        
        he did not believe in the existence of God
        
        would see purgatory in the same way
        
        would argue purgatory is a symbol of our difficult mental struggle to be perfect
        
        but this relates to our struggle in this life, not in an afterlife for which there is no physical proof
    - - may represent an individuals happiness
      - both personal happiness and happiness in interactions with other people
    - - this view would be held by those with little faith or belief in God
- - - - does not say that all people will be saved
    - - such individuals will be seen as refusing Christ;s gift of salvation
    - - within Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian traditions, no one is predestined to go to hell
      - God loves evryone
        
        seen to be omnibenevolenyt (all-loving )
        
        so everyone has the opportunity to be redeemed and saved through Jesus Christ
  - - - past and present, will eventually go to heaven due to the love and mercy of God
    - - Jesus is quoted as saying ' in my fathers house there are many rooms, and I am going to prepare a place for you' (John. 14:2)
      - This is thought to mean there is room for all religions and all people in heaven
  - - - this is the belief that tGod is all-knowing, so nothing Pius unknown to God
        
        He knows where we will end up after death
    - - St A originally taught the idea
        
        first concluded that people were predestined for heaven or hell because of God's 'foreknowledge'
        
        God knows with certainty
        
        God's knowledge would be of what people would freely choose to do
        
        God's knowledge doesn't take away from the idea of free will given in the Bible
        
        God did not only know who would be saved, but chose those people
        
        God decides who is going to receive his saving grace and who was not going to be saved from OS
      - Later in the 16th John Calvin elaborated on this same idea
        
        argued God has predestined some to eternal punishment and other to eternal life with God
        
        Calvin's ideas were taken from Augustine
        
        Ideas were based on his belief in the unshakablesovereignty of God
        
        God is in absolute control over everything that happens
    - - believe that heaven is only accessible to Christians who have accepted that Jesus is, 'the way, the truth and the life'
      - believe that based on Jesus' teaching; 'No one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6)
      - Heaven is limited to Christians only
- - - - were those who dud not feed the hungry or were not hospitable to the stranger
      - were those who refused to give clothes to the naked and id not visit the prisoner in prison
      - so the goats are condemned to 'eternal punishment' in hell
    - - this will happen when the 'Son of Man' (Jesus) returns at the end of history
    - - Jesus rewarded those who cared for others with an entirely different fate
      - are the 'righteous' and given 'eternal life'
      - they showed empathy, love and kindness to their neighbour
      - they fed the hungry, visited the sick and this in prison
    - - 'The nations will be separated (like a shepherd separating sheep from goats)
        
        Some will go tp heaven and some to hell; both places seem to be realities in the parable
      - 'Take your inheritence, the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world'
        
        Heaven is part of God's plan for all of creation
      - 'All the nations will be gathered'
        
        All the people seem too e being judged, not just christians
        
        Judgement seems to happen at the end of time
      - 'People who have helped the hungry, thirsty, strangers, etc., are invited to heaven'
        
        Pople who go to heaven have earned it
        
        Salvation seems to be based on actions not beliefs
      - 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me'
        
        Jesus is fund in the outcast and needy
        
        Anyone could have helped the needy, but not everyone did
      - 'Then they will go away to eternal punishmnet, but the righteous to eternal life
        
        The option between heaven and hell does not seem to include purgatory
        
        Either option is eternal
        
        Both options seems to be physical places
- - - - parable of sheep and goats seem to imply that hell is eternal
        
        'Depart from me, you are cursed, into the eternal fire'
      - biblical story of the rich man and Lazaru, there is no chance for the rich man to escape hell
        
        rich man even asks Abraham to send a message to his friends and the family to warn them ton to make the same mistakes and end up un hell
    - - the idea that ell is eternal seems totally against the idea that God is omnibenevolent
        
        would a loving God reallhysend someone to hell for all of eternity which no chance of being redeemed or saved?
        
        if hell is eternal, does this not defeat the purpose of Jesus' death on the cross which brought salvation fir humanity?
  - - - surely however pleasurable heaven was at the beginning, it would become boring after a while?
      - However, people may respond to Williams and say Godwould make sure that this (boredom) did not happen
        
        perhaps miraculously we never be bored, just as we would never be sad ad we would never suffer
    - - The writer records his religious experiences in which the nd of the world is revealed to him by God
      - John writes: 'Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth" for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea"
      - Others believe that the transformation and perfection of creation is underway. They see it as the role of Christians in the world today
  - - - the Catholic Church teaches that this who die in a state of grace but are impure do not immediately go to heaven
      - Instead they go. to purgatory
        
        where they can undergo a period of purification and continued change
        
        the Catcheism of the Catholic Church refers to this directly in The Final Purification or Purgatory
      - quotes in support
        
        'All who died in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (The Final Purification or Purgatory 1030)
        
        'The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent' (The Final Purification or Purgatory 1030)
      - John Hill is a liberal theologian who saw value in the idea of purgatory as hell could not be part of a living God's plan
        
        If God is supposed to be omnibenvllent, don't we all deserve a chance of redemption
      - Part of the reason why Catholics have Masses for the dead
        
        at Masses, they pray for the souls of the deceased's that they are cleansed of sin and can enter heaven
    - - the Catholic Church points out to retain passages in the Bible in support of the idea of purgatory
        
        but many Protestants think that there is not enough Biblical evidence for purgatory
        
        Most Bible passages about the afterlife talk about ending up in either heaven or hell
        
        examples include: parable of the rich man and Lazarus and the parable of the sheep and the goats
        
        protestants further reject purgatory on the gorunds that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was enough to save people fromhell
        
        people will be granted access to heaven provided they accepted Jesus was ' The way, the truth and the life'
    - - the possibility of lliving people helping the dead pass through purgatory gave rise to the selling of 'indulgences' in the Middle Ages
        
        some corrupt clergy said living individuals could 'buy' the forgiveness of their relatives sins
      - Martin Luther rejected the selling pf indulgences in the 16th century
        
        he also rejected the etcahings about purgatory, arguing that there was no biblical support for the idea
        
        Luther believed that the doctrine of purgatory undermined the biblical teaching of God's saving grace through faith
- - - - some might argue that heaven is not to be taken literally whether it is to be 'found' in this world or the next. heaven should be seen as a symbol of our life on earth
      - while heaven is a future place, it could be argued that it is possible to get glimpses of this future here on earth, perhaps through our observations of good actions in ourselves or others
      - the Biblical texts point towards heaven as a future place (or spiritual state) and very clearly not as something that will occur on earth eg JC. tells the thief on the cross, ' today you will be with me in paradise'
    - - some christians might point to the need to build God's Christian community. the Kingdom of God is not to be found physically but within people and good actions will lead yo the transformation of all of creation
      - following the effects of the Fall, theChristian's duty is to re-find the paradise that has been lost by Adam and Eve and to use free will to rebuild it on earth
      - book of Revelation vividly describes the end of time as a 'new heaven and a new earth ' using the words from the Prophet Isiaiah to echo the transformation that Jews looked forward to in the Messianic Age
  - - - some argue that purgatory is a medieval invention by the Catholic Church that is wishful thinking
      - the tradition of praying for the dead seems to come from. a test that is not accepted by all Christians
      - there is no need for purgatory because a just God will reward those who have tried to follow good lives. parable of the workers teaches that we should all expect the same reward, whatever our journey to that reward was
    - - exists in the traditions of Christianity
      - the idea of purgatory seems to be more in line with the Biblical portrayal of God as all-loving and just because it allows for 'minor' sins to be paid off
      - it is a view that allows for the grey areas of life to be taken into consideration because moral teachings are often presented as black and white
  - - - as you cannot experience punishment outside of time, some might argue that hell cannot be eternal but within time in some way. some have argued that hell only exists until final judgement and the restoration of the world
      - many reject hell n the basis that the God of love would not punish babies who die and would not punish people as disproportionately as he teachings on hell require
      - some argue that those who do not get to heaven are simply extinguished or annihilated after a period of punishment
    - - makes sense that people who are given the chance of following g Jesus' ways should be held to account idc they live bad lives because God's love is about justice
      - ultimately, people cannot be given and Infinite number of chances to get to heaven and so there must be a point at which they fall
      - both Biblical and Church teachings consistently telk of the eternity of hell, however out is interpreted
  - - - our bodies are needed for the reward or punishment of heaven/hell and as we know our bodies decay on earth, there must be a moment when they are resurrected all together
      - as time means something different after death, it is entirely posssible that we will simply sleep until the moment of judgement
      - majority of Biblical evidence seems to delay judgment until all people are judged. apart from the Sheep and the goats , we read in the book of Revelation eg of the last trumpet that will sound before the dead are all judged
    - - does not make sense for judgment to be delayed. where else can a persons soul go while it waits for judgement?
      - if heaven and hellare not understood as literal places then there is no need to wait for final judgement for our reward or punishment
      - there is Biblical evidence for God welcoming people into heaven/hell eg parable of Rich man and Lazarus
  - - - Bible as the authoritative text of Christians, is clear that both heaven and hell are realities - Sheep and Goat
      - incarnation and sacrifice of Jesus are too significant to be devalued by the idea that all will be saved. Barth argued that salvation requires faith in JC
      - universalism removes freedom from people to choose their fate
    - - Bible emphasises the fact that God calls everyone
      - religions reflect their cultures and so it cannot be wrong to say that one culture worships God correctly ad. others do not
      - the God of love would never allow anyone to be condemn ed to eternal suffering