Write a ten-page paper explaining to an atheist the Christian belief concerning the afterlife. Indicate in the introduction to your paper the beliefs the other person holds and show how you would respond to those beliefs with the Christian viewpoint. Where there are differing opinions in Christian belief on particular matters; indicate the belief you hold and your reasons for holding it.
During an Alpha course discussion after dinner, I became acquainted with an avowed atheist named John who had just read Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion”. From our conversation, I learnt that he believes in a materialist worldview that life and the cosmos came about by pure chance and natural processes without intervention from any Creator. As such, man is just a highly evolved, biological machine that will eventually break down and cease to exist. When the deceased body decomposed, there is no spiritual consciousness that will survive beyond the grave since the mind is reducible to physical properties of the brain. One of his favorite songs by John Lennon captured the essence of his afterlife views with these haunting lyrics:
“Imagine there's no Heaven, It's easy if you try,
No hell below us, Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people living for today.”
We should freely invent our own proximate meaning in life since there is no transcendent or ultimate meaning for human existence. Living for the moment, without regrets, made sense since we only live once and there is no future accounting that we need to give for how we had lived it. For John, it meant being a loving husband while he is alive, cherishing every hour because death shall be their final parting.
He also felt that beliefs in heaven and hell are necessary psychological crutches for the fearful and feeble at best, and manipulative tools of oppression at worst. Borrowing from Marx, the poor masses could be kept docile with the promise of an afterlife instead of making this world a better place. An eternity of conscious existence in heaven may be overrated anyway. Won’t it be unbearably boring to be still around forever and ever? As for an infernal hell, John felt that a god who punishes people eternally for a finite lifetime of wrongdoing to be unfair. “How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been?”
As our friendship and conversation developed, I had the opportunity to explain the Christian view of the afterlife, the main subject of this paper. It is beyond its scope to discuss in detail issues related to origins of life, evolution, the existence of a human soul/spirit and the inadequacy of a materialistic worldview. Suffice to say, materialism owes more to a priori philosophical commitment than actual empirical observations. Even if macroevolution is true, we cannot rule out the guiding hand of God working through natural processes to bring about life. And since the cells in our body are entirely replaced every seven years, our identity over time and moral responsibility for acts done in the past present a strong case for a nonphysical soul as their basis. However, we would only deal with existentially pressing issues surrounding death and the afterlife here.
The Abyss Of Nothingness
“When a man dies, will he live again?” asked Job, in the face of suffering (Job 14:14). It’s not a dispassionate philosophical puzzle because if death is all that awaits us finally, much of life seems like a tragic comedy. No one could deny that life offers much that is beautiful, true and good also. For John, there is indeed meaning and beauty in his relationship with a beloved spouse. However, if death is ultimate, even that most precious of experiences will finally vanish in the abyss of nothingness. The same fate awaits all that humanity esteems most in life - the pursuits of wealth, glory, achievements, knowledge and philantrophic feats. The existentialist may stare down the abyss, seize life with gusto and face the despair with a stiff upper lip. But even his self-invented, proximate meaning of life is an empty illusion in the wider scheme of things. In Macbeth, Shakespeare captured the essence of its futility, “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Act V, Scene V) For the Christian, death is not necessarily the final parting of cherished relationships for the grave would not have the last laugh. While that does not make it true, at least we can say it is more existentially fulfilling.
Why do we believe in the afterlife? Philosopher Immanuel Kant observed that every human being has a sense of right and wrong, even though they may disagree on moral issues. More disturbingly, we find that the righteous often suffers and the wicked prospers in this life. Unlike the movies, the bad guys sometimes were not brought to justice in reality. For justice and ethics to be meaningful, Kant‘s practical reasoning argued that there must be life after death and a final judgment that will set things right in the end. Otherwise, no meaningful basis for ethics would be possible. But if justice will prevail, we have cause to be uneasy for in our moments of brutal honesty, we are aware of our guilt of having broken moral laws. While is it praiseworthy that atheists like John chose to live honorably as a matter of preference, there seems to be no basis whatsoever why another person ought not choose to live as a criminal given a materialistic viewpoint.
Another reason for belief in life after death lies in the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave. Naturalistic theories like hallucination and conspiracy have been found inadequate to explain the empty tomb, the rise of the Christian movement in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified, the eyewitness accounts of His appearances and other important ancient events. The resurrection hypothesis is most plausible explanation inferred by well-attested historical evidences. If Jesus has risen from the dead as He promised, then we have good reason to suppose that what He taught about a general resurrection of the dead unto judgment is true (Matthew 25:31-46). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinth. 5:10). The historical resurrection of Christ is a precursor of our future resurrection from the grave and points forward to the consummation of God’s reign over all things and defeat of death itself. (1 Corinth 15)
During an Alpha course discussion after dinner, I became acquainted with an avowed atheist named John who had just read Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion”. From our conversation, I learnt that he believes in a materialist worldview that life and the cosmos came about by pure chance and natural processes without intervention from any Creator. As such, man is just a highly evolved, biological machine that will eventually break down and cease to exist. When the deceased body decomposed, there is no spiritual consciousness that will survive beyond the grave since the mind is reducible to physical properties of the brain. One of his favorite songs by John Lennon captured the essence of his afterlife views with these haunting lyrics: “Imagine there's no Heaven, It's easy if you try,
No hell below us, Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people living for today.”
We should freely invent our own proximate meaning in life since there is no transcendent or ultimate meaning for human existence. Living for the moment, without regrets, made sense since we only live once and there is no future accounting that we need to give for how we had lived it. For John, it meant being a loving husband while he is alive, cherishing every hour because death shall be their final parting.
He also felt that beliefs in heaven and hell are necessary psychological crutches for the fearful and feeble at best, and manipulative tools of oppression at worst. Borrowing from Marx, the poor masses could be kept docile with the promise of an afterlife instead of making this world a better place. An eternity of conscious existence in heaven may be overrated anyway. Won’t it be unbearably boring to be still around forever and ever? As for an infernal hell, John felt that a god who punishes people eternally for a finite lifetime of wrongdoing to be unfair. “How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been?”
As our friendship and conversation developed, I had the opportunity to explain the Christian view of the afterlife, the main subject of this paper. It is beyond its scope to discuss in detail issues related to origins of life, evolution, the existence of a human soul/spirit and the inadequacy of a materialistic worldview. Suffice to say, materialism owes more to a priori philosophical commitment than actual empirical observations. Even if macroevolution is true, we cannot rule out the guiding hand of God working through natural processes to bring about life. And since the cells in our body are entirely replaced every seven years, our identity over time and moral responsibility for acts done in the past present a strong case for a nonphysical soul as their basis. However, we would only deal with existentially pressing issues surrounding death and the afterlife here.
The Abyss Of Nothingness
“When a man dies, will he live again?” asked Job, in the face of suffering (Job 14:14). It’s not a dispassionate philosophical puzzle because if death is all that awaits us finally, much of life seems like a tragic comedy. No one could deny that life offers much that is beautiful, true and good also. For John, there is indeed meaning and beauty in his relationship with a beloved spouse. However, if death is ultimate, even that most precious of experiences will finally vanish in the abyss of nothingness. The same fate awaits all that humanity esteems most in life - the pursuits of wealth, glory, achievements, knowledge and philantrophic feats. The existentialist may stare down the abyss, seize life with gusto and face the despair with a stiff upper lip. But even his self-invented, proximate meaning of life is an empty illusion in the wider scheme of things. In Macbeth, Shakespeare captured the essence of its futility, “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Act V, Scene V) For the Christian, death is not necessarily the final parting of cherished relationships for the grave would not have the last laugh. While that does not make it true, at least we can say it is more existentially fulfilling. Why do we believe in the afterlife? Philosopher Immanuel Kant observed that every human being has a sense of right and wrong, even though they may disagree on moral issues. More disturbingly, we find that the righteous often suffers and the wicked prospers in this life. Unlike the movies, the bad guys sometimes were not brought to justice in reality. For justice and ethics to be meaningful, Kant‘s practical reasoning argued that there must be life after death and a final judgment that will set things right in the end. Otherwise, no meaningful basis for ethics would be possible. But if justice will prevail, we have cause to be uneasy for in our moments of brutal honesty, we are aware of our guilt of having broken moral laws. While is it praiseworthy that atheists like John chose to live honorably as a matter of preference, there seems to be no basis whatsoever why another person ought not choose to live as a criminal given a materialistic viewpoint.
Another reason for belief in life after death lies in the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave. Naturalistic theories like hallucination and conspiracy have been found inadequate to explain the empty tomb, the rise of the Christian movement in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified, the eyewitness accounts of His appearances and other important ancient events. The resurrection hypothesis is most plausible explanation inferred by well-attested historical evidences. If Jesus has risen from the dead as He promised, then we have good reason to suppose that what He taught about a general resurrection of the dead unto judgment is true (Matthew 25:31-46). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinth. 5:10). The historical resurrection of Christ is a precursor of our future resurrection from the grave and points forward to the consummation of God’s reign over all things and defeat of death itself. (1 Corinth 15)
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