> the entire human person is simultaneously both material and spiritual... the human person transcends the material world through the soul... the human spirit does not exercise its normal mode of knowledge without the body
I have a hard time wrapping my head around exactly what it is that Christians believe about immortality. So the soul lives on forever, but without the reasoning and intellectual capabilities granted by the corporeal form? It's hard for me to imagine what that would be like. Just a beatific, glowing consciousness basking in God's light for all eternity, with no thoughts or conceptions or knowledge or memory or reasoning?
That sounds like a pretty limited vision of immortality. I wonder if the average Catholic gives this much thought.
It's been around 2000 years with many divisions and sects so I don't think you can give a single definition. Early Christians didn't agree on the divinity of Jesus. Hell wasn't christian doctrine until 400CE. Some Christians believe heaven is on earth itself and you'll be resurrected on earth, in your original body, when that times comes.
"So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The idea of Hell most popular is the “eternal conscious torment” view, which gives us the “don’t be bad or you’ll burn in Hell forever” perspective. That’s fairly new, and several other interpretations are just as biblical as it, if not more. Your quote for instance doesn’t explain what happens after the weeping and gnashing of teeth, some believe you become reunited with the Lord, others believe you are eliminated from existence.
"And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”"
~ Revelations 21:5-8
Combined with the story of the steward who owed more than he could ever pay (Matthew 18:32-35) and Christ's words in Luke 12:10 "Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven." I'd have a very hard time reconciling anything other than "Hell is real and you can go there forever" as having a biblical basis.
other reply got auto-dead for some reason? leaving out the link this time.
The passage from revelation again says nothing of eternity, the word death is rather absolute - the case would be much stronger if it finished “… which is where they suffer without end”.
As for the parable, the passage states that his imprisonment was “until he could repay his debts”. This suggests he may be able to repay them eventually, at which point he’ll be free. It could be interpreted that after an appropriate amount of time spent experiencing the punishment of fire, perhaps until the balance is settled for whatever your transgressions were, you will no longer being in the fire.
Blasphemy against the Spirit is an interesting case, I could see potentially that one class of transgressors being sentenced to eternal punishment. Alternatively, it could be saying that one who blasphemed against the Spirit has had their heart hardened so much that they will never seek forgiveness, and therefor will never get it. Their end isn’t specified here.
In all this I’m not saying that the “eternal conscious torment” perspective is wrong, just that there are other interpretations which are just as based.
If you have the time, I highly recommend the “Three Views of Hell” lecture series^, which goes into far more detail than I could manage here, including going through every verse in the Bible which speaks of anything related to what we now consider “Hell”.
^search “the narrow path” for the three views of hell lecture.
Not to argue, but just to drop some opinions for info sake. Early Christians largely did agree about the divinity of Jesus (it's in the gospels at least). Hell isn't really an Orthodox doctrine at all. The concept of Sheol/Hades predates the NT, and the modern idea of "hell" is more of a recent Western invention.
When you have 1000 people yelling their own version of truth, the only truth, chance of one of them being actually right is next to zero. Religious folks don't like this type of reasoning, often better without any reasoning at all.
I think folks should have stopped with Zoroastrianism, all the monotheistic rest is just layer of sects upon sects upon sects, all coming from roughly same geographical area and all preaching basically the same copy paste with some tiny differences then blown out of proportions by fanatic zealots, completely misunderstanding or ignoring the same basic message within.
Look at discussion here - many folks have their own version of reality re this topic, normally set up how they like it, sometimes not that much compatible with each other. A question - do you feel like this reality, universe and all we anyhow experience, is somehow conforming to our wishful expectations and arranges itself to match that so the expectations get confirmed? I call this semi-rational discussion - smart folks politely discussing utter irrational bollocks. I get where the need for spiritual comes from - we are still roughly the same as those early tribes that believed in long lost religions. I just didn't get that hole filled via traditional indoctrination by others, a wonderful gift to a child and maybe the best - a self-determination with respect for his choices. Cousin had the same upbringing, ended up as protestant priest and now has a nice family with 3 kids. Self-determination.
But religion is literal opium for the masses. And opium is highly addictive, especially when served since very early childhood continuously. I see it my wife, she tried to shed it, and failed, its burned too deep into personality. She settled somewhere in the middle compared to rather fanatical upbringing.
I disagree on Zoroastrianism, mostly because it sets up a metaphysic where the universe is a perpetual struggle between lightness and darkness (i.e. good and evil). You might associate that concept with many (admittedly popular) Christian sects but it isn't the only interpretation available.
It is totally possible to conceive of a monotheism that isn't based on this kind of eternal conflict.
Depends on the denomination, but Christianity in general usually has some sort of bodily resurrection. Certainly you see that in the gospel narratives about Jesus. Paul talks about it as well in his epistles, but whether he meant some new form of body or the existing one being restored is debatable. The ancients thought divine beings had bodies made of a celestial material. It's important to note that they didn't see the supernatural as existing in some other dimension. It was literally right above in the heavens or below in Sheol. It was all one universe.
So Paul may have been arguing that Jesus and his followers would receive a new celestial body that wouldn't be subject to disease and death upon resurrection. Orthodox Churches don't believe in cremation because they think the biological body does get resurrected. The idea of a pure immortal soul is Greek, not Jewish in origin. Or at least it was believed that a soulish existence was a shadowy one in the underworld, not one enjoyed by beings in the heavens.
What you're looking for is called christian gnosis.
Early Christians commited a cardinal sin when they banished gnostics because simpletons couldn't understand their wisdom. What's left is a shell of christianity.
Simply put, soul is a material creation of the monad, aka the divine spark or the spirit, which is also our true I. Monads are reflections of the spiritual Sun, aka the God, and this is why they are created in his image. Monads shape matter, but aren't affected by matter. In the matter they create a microcosm, aka the soul, in their own image. The soul develops mind, emotions and finally condenses body from the heavy matter to serve as an anchor. Intelligence is developed at each layer, although the mind is where it can manifest to the fullest. First the soul develops the simplest form of intelligence in the dense body. It's a lot like learning to count with pen and paper: it's a heavy constraint for intelligence, but it's much easier to get an idea what it is when things are simple. Once the paper is lost, the student takes with him the learned skill and applies it later where things are more complex and less constrained.
If the soul hasn't learned to count when it had pen and paper, it indeed live in the God's light blissfully unaware of its surroundings. But eventually it will develop the highest form of intelligence in its mind and it will no longer need pen and paper.
I imagine that many Christians agree that we will have a corporeal body after the resurrection. Jesus had a corporeal body after rising from the dead--that much has been orthodox tradition since the time of Christ and is recorded in the gospels.
Mind you, it also can'y answer this: who really goes to heaven or hell ? Your spirit as you were at 10, 20, 30, 50 ? what if you have a stroke at 60 and die as a vegetable at 70 ? Which one is the real you ? Because if it's as you were when you die then it's pretty silly
I'll give you my understanding, which isn't exactly Christian or Buddhist or whatever—it's just how it seems to me, and YMMV.
The word "soul" describes the fundamental sense of self experienced by a human person. We know this self isn't the same as our mind, our body, our possessions, or our memories, because those things change but the sense of self seemingly doesn't. It's just "me" or "I".
Because this sense of self doesn't change, it seems timeless, or eternal. And many experience some amount of tension because this eternal sense of self seems to get mixed up with all of the temporary things in the world, especially our bodies and minds. With that admixture comes a fear of losing the self (i.e. death), as everything temporary is eventually lost.
So what? The infinite is infinite, the finite is finite. IMO, any direct experience actually includes both. But anyway I figure it's wise to keep them straight and not mix them up.
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around exactly what it is that Christians believe about immortality
From the Christian perspective immortality is less limited than mortality. In mortality people are limited by the physical limitations of their bodies, thinking capacity, and the worldly environment in which they operate. Beyond that Christians cannot precisely describe immortality because knowledge and/or memories of that, or anything else, do not accompany the soul into the mortal world. All Christians can know is a limited set of opportunities described in religious scripture. Everything else in mortality descends from agency and accountability.
Not a Christian or follower of any organized religion but IMHO: Humanity (capital-H) is immortal; individual humans are not. Individuals are like the memory cells keeping the accumulated body of knowledge alive, and that body of knowledge is “God” or whatever, simultaneously human and spirit, an entire other world of Idea hosted in a distributed form in our physical reality.
It's like a DRAM refresh where new individuals are born, some bit of the accumulated knowledge gets passed on to them, the old individuals die off, but the knowledge is Eternal. In this sense, human love and reproduction literally makes more room for more Knowledge, and that's why the people who want to rule physical reality as a sort of false-god constantly try to convince us to have fewer humans, The Population Bomb, Maintain Humanity Under 500000000, etc.
This is great, except the knowledge is no more Eternal than the collection of humans. (The knowledge is also leaky—a lot of it has been lost.) If you turn off the DRAM power long enough, you can’t refresh it. So the need to maintain a sustainable environment for the humans is an inescapable conclusion from this model.
Staying under the Earth's carrying capacity isn't some conspiracy, it's basic responsible behavior for surviving as a species. If your income is $700 a week, spending $900 a week isn't sustainable.
> So the soul lives on forever, but without the reasoning and intellectual capabilities granted by the corporeal form?
:boom: You've found it! The disassociation of soul and body are the problem that pre-Catholic thinkers ran into over and over again. The soul must be immortal, but it relies on the body for the sensory perceptions which enable the first stages of any intellection. So what the heck happens to it after this dissolution?
This is why the resurrection is such a big deal. Not only is the soul redeemed, all of corporeal reality is redeemed. As later revealed (Revelation in particular, St. Paul's writings in several other places) the Final Judgement will include the restoration of the "whole human person", body _and_ soul.
What about the time between death and the final judgement? There is no natural bridge for our intellect to work on the beatific vision, but there is nothing stopping God from making up what is lacking (and indeed, we believe He does make up for what is lacking, so that the entire time between our particular judgement and the Final Judgement those who are in Heaven will be able to reason and remember far better than they could while on Earth).
If the soul is immortal and carries on to heaven, but doesn't contain your memories, but God copies all of your memories into a new body for you in heaven, then what's the point of even making the distinction between an immortal soul and a mortal body?
I have a hard time wrapping my head around exactly what it is that Christians believe about immortality. So the soul lives on forever, but without the reasoning and intellectual capabilities granted by the corporeal form? It's hard for me to imagine what that would be like. Just a beatific, glowing consciousness basking in God's light for all eternity, with no thoughts or conceptions or knowledge or memory or reasoning?
That sounds like a pretty limited vision of immortality. I wonder if the average Catholic gives this much thought.