In this and a number of other post titled Heretic I will outline current theological dilemmas I am wrestling with. My hope is that posting these questions to this blog might result in finding answers to these questions. Response are welcome.
I will begin by painting a picture of the afterlife, a thumb nail sketch of what is understood by the after life for Christians. I will then look at some of the variations that exist within this belief, before raising some questions about particular problems that come out of these beliefs.
The belief
When God calls last orders on the universe a time of judgment will come when all humanity will be held to account for the way they have used the gift of life they where given. All but one person will be found guilty, none will have been found to have used the gift of life to its full. In passing judgment on humanity God will condemn all but the one person who lived a life as intended to Hell. Yet standing behind the one who was found worthy is a line of people who each step within his footprints and our judged not by their lives but by the life of their master. They, as the one who is worthy are given a gift greater than the temporary earth bound life that they lived, they are given the gift of an existence that will stretch through eternity and will be lived in perfect joy and harmony in heaven and on earth. This new existence is beyond the imagination of any human, as to live in harmony with God is that most wonderful of all things. There will be no suffering, no pain, no anguish, no regrets even for those who did not walk in the footprints of the master.
Hell:
The concept of Hell as eternal punishment for humans has fallen somewhat by the way side in all but conservative evangelical circles, in part this is due to a changing concept of justice. Most of us would not wish on our worst enemy eternal punishment, and we struggle to envisage a crime that could be committed in a human’s lifetime deserving of such a punishment.
While the scales of justice may have not be properly balanced upon the death of someone who has committed horrific acts during their life time, hell as eternal punishment appears to be a vastly disproportion response particularly when viewed in light of the experiences that have led an individual to commit horrific acts. As such the concept of hell as eternal punishment results in injustice occurring.
To address this, some Christians argue that Hell is a place to which people go and die an instant and final death – they simple cease to exist. This belief is called Annihilationism. This in itself carries with it some major problems but I will address these issues at a later stage. Others argue that everyone will go to heaven (Universal Reconciliation) this view was held by Alexendria, Antioch, Cesarea, and Edessa.
Despite the distaste with which the concept of Hell is viewed, many Christians continue to believe in a literal Heaven to which they or a part of them will go after death.
As with the issue of who is destined for hell, the details of who will or won’t make it into heaven appear far less clear to modern Christians than those in antiquity.
Entrance to Heaven
The traditional Christian understanding is that the only route in to heaven is through a personal commitment made to Jesus, in which the individual acknowledges Jesus as Lord and saviour. Some add to this requirement a necessity to live a transformed life from the point of conversion, it is not enough to simple declare one believes, but this needs to work itself out in the life of the individual.
This raises difficult questions about whether a child or someone who has never heard the Gospel message will receive a place in Heaven. A common response to this is the suggestion that God will judge each person according to their knowledge, hence a child might gain immediate access, and someone who has never heard the gospel might be judged according to there belief or unbelief based on the natural evidence of God they find in the world and whether they have followed their own conscience.
Subsequent questions such as what happens to people of other religions, and whether the quality of the proclamation of the gospel an individual has received effects the judgment of their belief or unbelief remains a grey area into which few theologians dare trend.
New Heaven, New Earth?
Even accepting the issues outlined above as solvable, a more fundamental issue exists in the conceptualisation of a ‘new Heaven and Earth’. Many Christians now address the afterlife in terms of a new Heaven, the idea of a new Earth receiving little attention and being conveniently forgotten by all but the most keen end time watchers. Whether addressing a new Heaven, a new Earth, or both, the belief is that a place will exist which is without pain, suffering, pain or sin. This will be a perfect existence spent with God.
The Problem
In the current scheme of things Christians universally acknowledge that humanity has the capacity to sin, an opportunity that it embraces fully. This in turn is seen as the cause of much of the life’s pain and misery, but is ‘a necessary’ evil in that it is only with the ability to sin that humanity might have free choice in its actions, and so have meaningful existence. If sin is not possible in this new creation (as suggested by Rev 21:4,27) then it follows that:
a) freewill will have been sacrificed to create this utopia, or
b) freewill and a world free of pain and suffering can co-exist.
The third option is the original assumptions are incorrect, and that freewill does not necessarily result in sin.
In scenario a, freewill is designated to be of less importance than this peaceful future existence. This argument may indeed be seen as justifiable, but if this correct then it seems the current scheme, one in which freewill and suffering are allowed to exist is a poor creation, particularly as we have knowledge of a far better scheme, which is indeed the future plan of the creator but has for some reason not yet been actualised.
Option b, is an attractive one, and seems to follow with the argument that all humanity is capable of resisting sin, Jesus providing the ultimate proof that it is possible to do so. For this new creation to work then each individual must choice to not sin, the failure of one individual to make this choice threatening the entire scheme. How likely is an individual to make a choice to sin, having seen the full Glory of God? We are told that Lucifer was a fallen angel, which even if viewed metaphorically tells us that such a fall is at least possible. It seems that if heavens population is to be large then the likelihood of such a fall seems high, almost inevitable. This would result in the new creation becoming sullied and failing to achieve its aim.
The third option as mentioned is that the freewill does not necessarily result in sin, yet, we are told that all have fallen short of the glory of God, and so it seems that even if this is not a necessary consequence of freewill, it is at least the likely outcome.
Reconciling the problem
This is where I stumble, it seems clear that traditional models of belief regarding an afterlife are deeply flawed. Whether this should result in a belief that there is no afterlife, or that current concepts of afterlife need to be revised is unclear. Comments are welcome.
Yours, Sinfully
Hi Luke!
ReplyDeleteI have printed this out so that I can have a good look and think about this and I will endeavour of offer to you my comments very soon.
i look forward to it!
ReplyDeleteHaven't got the brain capacity to properly read and digest this post at the moment, but having read it, wanted to respond a bit. Hell has been occupying my thoughts a bit recently, and I found a book by Brian McLaren "the last word, and the one after that" quite helpful in making me think.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you've left your priestly training - I seem to have missed a bit somewhere along the line when all this happened. I've enjoyed reading your blog since I found it through 'carried family'.
Have you got any further with your thinking?
MummyMaker
A long and belated reply in two parts:
ReplyDeleteI read your description of heaven and earth with some interest. But I am not convinced that all of what you say reflects the tradition account (with all its nuances and different expositions).
I like your description of heaven best because it seems most positive. But I think we should also remember that the Merciful Master who saves on the cross is the same who would sit in judgement. Our sense of optimism is not our own. The prosecution also works for the defense...
I hope that you do not dismiss the traditional concept of hell so blythely, or at least do not only consider in terms of "punishment". The core idea is that though all that is good is authored by our Master, our free will allows us still to decisively reject His love.
In the classical Christian concept of free will, we are invited to take part in the Divine sacrifice, so that we who are worthless nevertheless truely merit our own salvation as well. A heresy for Calvin.
Yet this emphases the abiding significance of all our little choices in the nitty-gritty of life. This humble existence is not just an irrelevant dress rehearsal for the next, the main event. Instead, all that is good (which we may discard and forget) is taken up and treasured by our Father preparing the Kingdom for us.
If we would wish our imperfect assent(s) to His invitations to the Feast to be taken seriously, do we not demand the same Divine respect for the possibility of a decisive and final rejection.
Such a hell would be full of those who are consumed with hate not only of their creator but also thereby of themselves and the rest of creation. And because the beloved are never abandoned (the rejection is all one way) they are never destroyed or "de-created". This hell is eternal.
But as much as we or the church or the pope (or whoever you want) cannot usurp the Divine choice of who qualifies entry into heaven, we cannot guess or understand who is determined to embrace hatred and rejection and what this means in practice.
It seems quite reasonable to hope and pray that hell is entirely unpopulated (especially by me!) while at the same time holding firm to a conviction (grounded in God's regard for my free will) that, yes, it does exist!
On "Entrance into Heaven":
ReplyDeleteSince it is God who chooses who enjoys His/Her eternal friendship, not the pope, or the church, we can begin to understand the strange tensions in Tradition.
On one hand, it is affirmed that Jesus chose the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, as the means of salvation for all mankind. There is no other means of salvation, so "there is no salvation outside the church".
Yet from scripture it is manifestly clear that there are those who are not baptised Christians who enjoy eternal Divine favour (from Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration onwards).
From the Church Fathers onwards, the way to reconcile this is to say that even those who are not baptised may see God through the Grace of the Christ in the Holy Spirit through the Church.
As for how exactly this works out, there are no easy answers (including "limbo"). This is perhaps not so surprising when to do otherwise would be restricting Divine Freedom into a nice human sized box of our own construction. So when complaining about the lack of black and white categories in Magisterial Teaching, blame God not the Church.
Finally, on "New Heaven, New Earth?" or "is there free will in heaven"? Happily there is a recently published book of the latter title on this topic! The classical account of sin is that it is a defect of, rather than a successful product of free will.
We should be able to choose freely between the various options which are all in our interest, all that is which is good for us. Free will is choosing between "ice-cream" or "chocolate" or or "Chicken Tikka Masala" or "a good book" or "a hot bath" or "a walk by the sea side"...
But if the final choice is "amputation" or "water boarding" or "slow torture", you would say "What! That makes no sense. That is perverse!".
The traditional account is that sin involves perverse choices that are, by definition, not in our interest, that we would not make if we were not wounded or addicted or mad. Free will choosing sin is a contradiction-in-terms because sin is bondage and constraint not freedom.
In heaven, our faculties would be healed and restored so that we would no longer be compelled to choose against our interests. We would be Truly happy and the Truth will have set us free.
It is precisely a symptom of our lack of freedom that an inability to choose sin appears to be constraint on our autonomy. It is like saying to a non-smoker that only when one acquires the smoking habit, would one be able to have the freedom to crave smoking!
Does this make sense?
I am afraid this blog has for so long been abandoned that i can't even find my sign in name for it but i will have another attempt in the morning - i really value your input however!
ReplyDeleteMuch in my view has changed since this original post but let me give a first reaction to you comments specifically the following ones:
The classical account of sin is that it is a defect of, rather than a successful product of free will.
The traditional account is that sin involves perverse choices that are, by definition, not in our interest, that we would not make if we were not wounded or addicted or mad. Free will choosing sin is a contradiction-in-terms because sin is bondage and constraint not freedom.
I think this is an interesting argument - the difficulty with it is that it means that ultimately people are not responsible for the choices they have made - if no one would sin if they where not already broken how can someone be condemned or even criticised for a sinful action?
Hell becomes a far more pressing concern than even in my argument. Heaven does indeed gain from this argument and their is far more room for an argument that for example everyone after death is made complete. I am sorry to say however that i have found far more pressing - for me at any rate reasons to reject Christianity. This is not an argument i have any particular desire to reherse in as much as i see no need to damage anyone else's faith in the process of the loss of my own in Christianity!