Abstract
Human history reveals a common belief in the afterlife and an ancillary commitment to the soul. Christians agree, yet they have a distinct contribution to a philosophy of the afterlife. Rather than covering all the traditions within Christianity, Farris limits his discussion to one strand of catholic Christianity, namely, Reformed Christianity. While it is true that Reformed Christianity borrows from Roman Christianity, thus overlapping with it, there are some distinctions in how both traditions understand the afterlife. Farris helpfully focuses his study on the nature of Christian hope or Reformed Christian hope. After he explores the states of anthropocentric afterlife, he argues that there are three ways to understand the interim state, the physical resurrection, and their relationship to hope (e.g., Christian Mortalism, Mere Resurrection Hope, Disembodied Hope with Resurrection Hope). He advances a brief defense of the view he calls the Disembodied Hope with Resurrection Hope view as the most widely assumed perspective in Reformed Christianity. Toward the end he lays out three ontologies as accountings for the Disembodied Hope with Resurrection Hope view.
“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20–21)
“As all Christians believe in the resurrection of the body and future judgment, they all believe in an intermediate state. It is not, therefore, as to the fact of an intermediate state, but as to its nature that diversity of opinion exists among Christians.” (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Part IV. Ch. 1 “State of the Soul after Death,” 724)
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Notes
- 1.
The reader may ask, what about divine idealism? In this case, it is true to say that all things are ideas in the mind of God (i.e., Berkeley or Edwardsian idealism), but we ought to make a distinction between ideas God has of actual things that exist and ideas of fiction.
- 2.
I realize by making this claim up front that I am necessarily ruling out Friedrich Schleiermacher who is an important figure in the Protestant-Reformation tradition who affirmed an anti-real view of the afterlife. I suggest that there is reason to affirm a realist view of the afterlife. First, it seems rather natural and intuitive to read Divine revelation (as codified in the Christian Scriptures) as speaking of a real afterlife. Second, there is no reason to think that prior to modernity (of which Schleiermacher is the father of modern theological liberalism) would have spoken of the afterlife in anti-realist terms.
- 3.
The literature on this subject is growing. For a representative sampling, see the following. See several entries in Walls (2010). Walls is one of the foremost defenders of the “traditional” Christian view of the afterlife, e.g., Walls (1992, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b). Murray (1998). Swinburne (1983). Talbott (2000).
- 4.
The story of creation itself implies that the image has purpose and destiny, but the specifics are left for later parts of revelation to unfold. See Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), chapter 1. In it, Cortez shows that the concept of covenantal representation is central to the meaning of “image” and that this has a function throughout scripture because God is using his image bearers in the context of covenant to bring about his final plan. Also see John F. Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), see especially the latter part of chapter 3 and chapter 6. Herein, Kilner convincingly makes the case that the image concept is fulfilled in the age to come where the incarnate one enters the human world. Where Christ becomes the perfect representative to carry out God’s plan, and, in a sense, restates the intentions of creation.
- 5.
For a unique naturalist view of the afterlife see Eric Steinhart, “Digital Afterlives,” in the present volume. He affirms that we can affirm the possibility of a personal life after death by adopting not scientific materialism, but digitalism. Digitalism is the view that rejects substance metaphysics and affirms that information and computation are fundamental to substance, matter and energy. Thinking about bodies and persons as comprised of “bits” allows for the possibility of some kind of survival so long as the necessary and sufficient “bits” are gathered together.
- 6.
See also Hick (1976).
- 7.
The charge of unnecessary or unhealthy Greek influence on Christian theology is a common one that is still at work today. First, it is unwarranted because Christian theology as it is communicated in the Old and New Testaments is, generally, unsystematic and requires systematization. The Bible, itself, does not articulate metaphysical issues, but, instead, yields certain metaphysical views or requires a metaphysical grounding. Second, given Second temple Judaism literature, it is nearly impossible to separate Greek philosophical categories from Jewish tradition, which is part of the background behind the New Testament. See Levering (2012: ch1, esp. 9).
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Cullman (1965) has affirmed “soul sleep” as the teaching of the New Testament, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?”, in K. Stendahl, ed., Immortality and Resurrection (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 57. Cooper (2000: 137) helpfully points out in the context of discussions of 1 Thess. 4:13–18 that the reference to sleep is simply a metaphor for death.
- 12.
Calling humans psycho-somatic wholes is rather fuzzy, although, not uncommon in the theological literature. When philosophers or theologians use this term they are referring to the integrity of both the mind and body in operation. While this term is often used in order create distance between human nature as ontologically holistic or monistic from substantial dualistic conceptions of human nature it is not entirely clear to many substance dualists that it does create the kind of distance suggested. However, substantial dualism can, arguably, account for a psycho-somatic whole if in fact the mind and body are treated as functionally integrated although not ontologically identical.
- 13.
Something like a Stoic view of humans, which, while not wholly materialist in the modern sense, has some similarities to materialism, but the material world exists eternally. This is different, however, from the view that persons exist forever, as is what we are after in Christian afterlife.
- 14.
Corcoran (2006: 130–134) advances an intermediate bodily state view.
- 15.
In fact, the belief in the afterlife as two stages where the first is an interim state of disembodied existence while not held to creedal standards as an essential Christian truth is held to the standard of dogma in both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Furthermore, it is the common view within Protestantism. See Nichols (2010: chapter 3). He shows that it is the common view throughout church history. Mathew Levering has shown that this is a dogmatic truth in Rome and in the East. See Levering (2012: chapter 1, esp. 20–25). Levering argues that taking Christology as our starting point, Rome dogmatically affirms that Christ descended to preach to those in hell. With that, the views of hell, heaven and, even, purgatory are dogmas.
- 16.
For a defense from the biblical material see Cooper (2000, 2001: 227–228). John W. Cooper, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). For a contrary opinion on the biblical data see Green (2008). Green delivers a strong case in favour of the biblical data yielding not dualism but monism, but dualists do not find his case finally persuasive. It is important to note that Green’s interpretation of the biblical data is revisionist in nature from the common traditional interpretations of scripture.
- 17.
This statement excludes purgatory, but my intent is not so much to exclude purgatory, necessarily, from the interim state only to highlight the emphasis on the immortality of the soul.
- 18.
Passages traditionally appropriated as signalling the intermediate state include the following: Gen. 3:19; Acts 13:36; Luke 23:43; Eccl. 12:7; Heb. 12:23; 2 Cor. 5:1,6,8; Phil. 1:23 with Acts 3:21; Eph. 4:10 Luke 16:23,24; Acts 1:25; Jude 6,7; 1 Pet. 3:19.
- 19.
- 20.
See a defense of substance dualism as an accounting for the afterlife in Taliaferro and Hasker (2014). Hasker and Taliaferro are not exclusively concerned with a Christian view of afterlife, but they are concerned with afterlife teaching more broadly concerning the possibility of survival. Herein, the authors suggest that dualism is the common sense view that is often naturally assumed as an accounting for the afterlife, see especially section 2, “The Possibility of Survival—Dualism.”
- 21.
Wright (2008) has a similar perspective.
- 22.
Assuming we do much of anything, it is not clear what we do. On this view, the interim state is treated as a kind of hold over until we get to the good stuff, namely, physical resurrection of the body. As noted earlier, the tendency to highlight the physical world and the body is common in our contemporary times, which is reflected in this view. Davis, however, is only one representative contemporary example affirming this “mere resurrection hope” view. See also N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope. See also the interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5 from Witherington (1995: 391). Witherington recognizes that 2 Cor. 5 yields an intermediate state interpretation, hence substance dualism, but does not view the state positively. Thomas Aquinas, also, recognizes a view of this sort in the famous commentary called the Gloss in his Summa Theologiae, III.59.5.
- 23.
Purgatory is commonplace in Rome. For a definitive Protestant treatment see Walls (2011). Walls presents a persuasive case for the doctrine of Purgatory that he argues is consistent with Protestant doctrine.
- 24.
I am less inclined to describe idealism as mind-body dualism because there is nothing substantial about bodies on this view, but some would categorise it in this way. I prefer to describe idealism as a variation of monism that has the benefits of substance dualism because of the person’s immaterial nature.
- 25.
I use the term Thomism to avoid confusing the view with substance dualism. Although, there is some debate about whether Thomas was a materialist or dualist, I take it that materialism is an odd coupling with Thomism because of Thomas’s clear assumption that humans are comprised of an immaterial part that can exist separable from the body.
- 26.
Things are slowly changing and idealism is being re-introduced into the discussion. See Farris, Hamilton, and Speigel (2016).
- 27.
Cortez (2016) advances something like this solution in the context of defending Jonathan Edwards’s idealist conception of the afterlife.
- 28.
Thank you to Cameron Moran for carefully reading through a first draft and offering insightful comments and helpful suggestions for clarity and structure. Also, thanks to those at the HBU colloquia who offered insights and suggestions on a previous draft.
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Farris, J. (2017). Christianity. In: Nagasawa, Y., Matheson, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48609-7_7
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