Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

Conceptions of the Afterlife

The afterlife was another thing that I never questioned until a few months ago. But the more I thought about it, the more questions I had. Where do our modern conceptions of the afterlife come from? Do they have any scientific weight, or is it impossible to show what lies beyond death? What is the history of heaven and hell in Christian theology? And if the afterlife does exist, who gets to go where, and why?

Conceptions of the afterlife come in several flavors, including 1) a heaven for "good" people (or believers) and a hell for "bad" people (or nonbelievers); 2) an afterlife for "good" people and total annihilation of the self for "bad" people; 3) reincarnation based off of one's karma or actions in previous lives; 4) the merging of one's self with the higher consciousness of the Universe; and of course, 5) total annihilation of the self, i.e. no afterlife. Which version of events someone believes is often connected to one's religion or lack thereof. For example, most Christians and Muslims believe in some variation of 1) or 2). Buddhists and Hindus are likely to believe in some version of 3). People unaffiliated with a religion can fall all across the spectrum, while atheists most often subscribe to 5).

Even within Christianity, there are an overwhelming number of different interpretations of the afterlife. Some believe in predestination, the idea that one's place in heaven or hell is chosen or ordained beforehand by God. Others believe that while God knows what will happen, people still have the free will to end up in either heaven or hell. Many Christians believe that only Christians will make it to heaven, while some believe that entrance into heaven will be based off of one's works and "goodness," too. A small minority of Christians believe that everyone will make it to heaven eventually, rejecting the idea of an eternal hell as being possible to reconcile with a perfectly loving God. I'm sure there are other variations out there, but those are the ones that come to mind.

But what about the nature of Christian heaven and hell? As stated succinctly in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Christian view typically encompasses this:

...[H]eaven is in general thought of as a realm in which people experience the bliss of perfect fellowship and harmony with God and with each other, [while] hell is in general thought of as a realm in which people experience the greatest possible estrangement from God, the greatest possible sense of alienation, and perhaps also an intense hatred of everyone including themselves.

Indeed, there is even more variation between the ideas of heaven and hell than mentioned previously — some Christians believe that God actively rejects unrepentant sinners and punishes them himself in hell; others believe that people choose to reject God, so hell is a self-inflicted punishment; and a small minority of Christians believe that God will eventually reconcile all of humanity with himself so that nobody will suffer in hell forever. (The last view of universal reconciliation wasn't officially rejected by the Church until 553 CE.)

Each version of Christian heaven and hell has its flaws and strengths, which I definitely recommend reading about in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which I cited in my sources chapter. Personally, I'm not sure where I stand on the afterlife or the nature of heaven and hell right now. I've read interesting articles about NDEs (near-death experiences) and the possible supernatural and scientific explanations behind them; we don't know enough about the brain to make sweeping generalizations about whether our consciousness does or doesn't survive brain death; and from what I've seen, there is yet to be an answer to the afterlife hypothesis.

My view has not in any way solidified. Some days, I fear that death really does come as the end, lights out, never to be Katherina (or anything) ever again. Other days, I wonder if death is the merging of one's consciousness with the greater consciousness of the Universe, like a drop of water joining the ocean. Other times, I picture the afterlife as something where one has a life review (one's life flashing before one's eyes as one feels the joy or pain that one caused others) followed by entrance into a higher realm.

I like to picture a huge library filled with every book ever written, plus books that authors have continued to write while in heaven. For example, Anne Frank wanted to be an author, so imagine how many books she could've written while in the afterlife! She would get to fulfill her life's dream of being an author! I imagine getting to play endlessly in a huge orchestra next to the greatest musicians of all time and being conducted by the greatest conductors and composers in history. I want to meet all of the physicists and astronomers and mathematicians and scientists and historical figures that I look up to, all of the past leaders of civil rights movements and warriors of social justice.

But in the end, I haven't made any decisions. I have no idea what comes after this life, if anything, and I think I might be undecided on it for years to come. The jury is out until more evidence is collected in any direction.