A Jewish Perspective

Before we ask "What is the afterlife?" we need to ask if we are really alive here on earth because we are all in the process of dying. According to one aspect of Judaism we are not alive. Judaism defines life as something which is eternal - something which never fades - something which is true. The only thing in Judaism which is truly alive within human beings is the soul, and in a sense the afterlife which affects the soul is more real than our life here and now.

What is the Soul?
The soul is introduced in Genesis chapter 2. God formed man out of dust from the ground and He blew into his nostrils the breath of life and so man became a living soul. So unlike the body, as the soul emanates from God and God is always alive, the soul is always alive. The soul is our source of life and it animates the body and makes the body alive. This is why in Hebrew one of the terms used for a cemetery translates as "House of the Living". A cemetery is the house of the living for those who have gone on to eternal life.

The question arises "Why does God send the soul into the body?" God sends the soul into the body for the task of repairing His very imperfect world. The soul animates the body, and the purpose of our lifespan is to make the body do the Will of the Creator - to improve the body so that at the end of one's life one has become a better person, and in that process we make the world a better place. After we die the soul is freed from the body and goes back to its source. As it says in Ecclesiastes "The dust returns to ground as it was, and the Spirit returns to God". In a major Kabalistic work there is a very old phrase where death is referred to as something which translates as a wedding, a wedding where the soul is reunited with its source - with Divinity. So the body is like a change of garments. In Psalms it is referred to as a garment which can be cast away, but the soul lives on.

What happens when the soul goes to this afterlife?
In the Talmud, there are many different opinions giving rise to many questions such as: What is the definition of heaven? What is the definition of hell? How long do you spend there? Who do you meet there? Can you ever get out? etc. The concept of hell is derived from the name of an actual geographical location just south of Jerusalem. In the biblical period it was a source of pagan worship and child sacrifice.

Hell
The Talmud equated hell with that location as a place of torment for the wicked, but as there are no bodies none of the physical torment as, for example, portrayed in medieval literature, can take place there. The punishment is some spiritual torment, but we don't know what. There is a debate among the Talmud sages as to how long you spend there. One view is that the wicked are damned for ever, but one scholar says "not so, even the wicked don't cook in hell for more than 12 months" (which is why, incidentally, Kaddish for a loved one is said only for eleven months to indicate that no one who we know or love could possibly spend more than eleven months in hell).

Heaven
Heaven is translated as the Garden of Eden or the "world to come", the place where the soul basks in divine glory. When the soul is finally reunited with its source it is blissful but not static. It constantly draws closer to its source and the mourning practices of Kaddish, giving charity in the name of a loved one, studying Torah in the name of a loved one, reciting the memorial prayer for a loved one are all ways in which we here below can help propel the soul forward in reuniting with its source.

A Muslim Perspective

Life is a Journey
Belief in the afterlife and belief in the unseen overlap and although we do not know what it is like, we are sure that an afterlife exists even though we haven't seen or experienced it. So the unseen is a phenomenon which makes life on earth a meaningful thing, because it encourages people and makes them aware that something is awaiting them in the second half of their life. Life to a Muslim is a journey, and this journey has two halves, this worldly kind of life we all experience, the other half which we are not informed about, and death is like a step in the middle.

A Question of Justice
So what is the reason for thinking that afterlife is something important? People are sure that God, the Almighty, is just and fair, and therefore everything we do in this life merits a reward or a punishment. God has bestowed on man the faculty of the mind and enabled him to choose between good and evil. Those who have worked hard to be good should receive the reward for their hard work, and those who didn't care about God's guidance, didn't listen and were selfish, who didn't care about other people, then the outcome for them must be completely different.

The Day of Judgment will happen when life on earth comes to a halt. The millions of people God has created since Adam until the Day of Judgment are kept in a state of waiting, because this Day of Judgment is when people, the whole of Creation, will join each other and will be witnessing each others' deeds in life. So this is a kind of middle state in which people will be aware of what is waiting for them but not actually experiencing it. Actual experience will come when the angel Gabriel will descend at the end of the world. It will be the day of reckoning. All life on earth will be coming to an end, and each one will be held to account for what he or she has done.

Work Hard
Dr Amer quoted from Scripture "God has prepared for his righteous servants what no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what the might of man has not conceived". So people work hard in order to enjoy the everlasting second half of their lives. There is a saying "work hard for your life as if you are living for ever, and work hard for your afterlife as if you are dying tomorrow".

This implies living a life of moderation, conscious of the fact that God has been kind enough to create me and allows me to enjoy life, but at the same time I have to think of others. I have to refrain from over indulgence and selfishness as there are others who are entitled to their own share of things, and this can affect those who come after me. So the password is "all things in moderation" and this is a preparation for the afterlife as death can come at any time.

Punishment and Paradise
It says in the Koran that everyone will have a taste of punishment. This is because people are people and you cannot find a human being who hasn't actually done something bad. However, it is one of the merciful signs of God that no one knows how long he will remain in punishment. What the afterlife is like can be gleaned from the sayings of the prophets and the verses in the Koran. The Koran speaks of paradise as rivers, gardens, trees, water - it speaks about all the pleasures of life but on a scale that nobody has the capacity to visualise or comprehend during a lifetime. We don't know the particulars but the Spirit will be in a state of freedom and happiness. Some disagree with this concept and say that physically we will exist, and people will be able to physically enjoy the pleasures of paradise.

Struggle between Good and Evil
During life there is always the struggle between good and evil, the outcome of which determines what we experience in the afterlife. Goodness encompasses being helpful, friendly, neighbourly, friendly, charitable - i.e. holding to values and ethics according to how they were explained by the Prophet and how these teachings in the Koran were put into practice.

Dr Amer concluded by reiterating that the concept of the afterlife is fundamental to the Muslim faith.

A Christian Perspective

He read a quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) to the effect that the saints in heaven gain pleasure by being able to see the torment of the dammed in hell. A notice seen outside a Church in the USA asked passers-by how they would spend eternity - Smoking or Non-Smoking? On Premier Radio last year a speaker maintained that if you are a born-again Christian you will go to heaven but if you follow other religions then, by default, you will go to hell.

While not defending the above in any way they do illustrate the range of views. Clark Pinnock, an American professor of logic, has observed that we are asked to believe that God endlessly tortures millions of sinners because God the Father has not elected them for salvation, although he could have done so, and their torment is supposed to gladden the hearts of believers in heaven! The problems with this concept are both extensive and profound, not least because they make God appear more like Satan.

Resurrection
The basic concept in the New Testament is not eternal life or immortality of the soul, it is actually "resurrection", because the community to which Jesus belonged believed that what God had in store for us at the end of time was resurrection, and this resurrection was not just the resurrection of their bodies but rather a communal glorification of all the holy saints of God. This will be something which takes place at the end of time.

What would happen to a person if they die? They would go to a place of rest where they would rest until the final raising of the dead. There are passages in the New testament which actually assume some sought of active life after death rather than just a passive waiting for the day of resurrection, for example, the parable of Dives and Lazarus - a story Jesus told of a rich man and a poor leper. The rich man goes to hell where he is tormented in flames for his neglect of the poor man Lazarus, who goes to heaven and is enfolded in Abraham's bosom (Gospel of Luke 16:19-31). Jesus on the Cross says to the repentant thief "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Gospel of Luke 23:43). So together with the New Testament talking about resurrection at the end of time there is also an awareness that with death we pass into the presence of God which is something to do with life, wonder and joy.

Resurrection according to Paul
Paul talks about the resurrection of Jesus and says that what has happened to Jesus will happen to all Christians. In the letter he wrote to the Thessalonians we have a very graphic picture of the rising of the dead, and those who are still alive at the time being caught up in the air - a very fantastic and striking picture. In his letter to the Corinthians he discusses what the resurrection of the body might be like. It will be, he says, a spiritual body. Exactly what a spiritual body is, is quite a hard thing to get your mind round. This raises questions about the afterlife: are the dead merely sleeping, or are they awaiting the last trumpet?

Resurrection, the Creeds and the Soul
Although the Christian Creeds speak of the resurrection of the dead, and this remains to this day orthodox doctrine, Christians today tend to increasingly stress those aspects of teaching which visualise life being of bliss or torment immediately after death. This is based upon quotations from Jesus in his earthly life: "I am the resurrection and the life," says the Lord, "Whoever believes in me shall not die" (Gospel of John, 11:25-26). This lead to the growth within the Church of the idea of the immortality of the soul.

Three Spheres
The state of the soul after death received very intensive consideration during the medieval period when the concept of afterlife was divided into three very convenient spheres:
• Heaven - the abode of the saints and the Blessed
• Purgatory - a place of purification prior to entering heaven
• Hell - a place of torment for the dammed

A Self-Imposed Hell
On the 23 July 1999 the Pope devoted his general audience to consideration of the subject of hell. He said hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life. So eternal damnation is not God's work, it is actually our own doing. Hell is not a physical place, it is a place of the all those who definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. Hell is the pain, and frustration and emptiness of life without God.

Conservative and Liberal Views
Protestant beliefs about the afterlife might be divided roughly into conservative and liberal. Conservative Protestants would agree with the Catholics on the concept of heaven and hell, but would reject purgatory. To them one's eternal destiny is fixed at death and depends on whether or not one has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. There is debate over the fate of people who have never been exposed to the Gospel message.

There is also a debate about whether people who have been "saved" are all to be treated equally. In the New Testament Jesus says "Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven" (Gospel of Matthew, 6:19-20) and some people interpret this to mean that if you have lived an exceptionally good life you will have a better time in heaven than those who have only lived a moderately good life.

Liberal Protestants have trouble with all this, they find it difficult to believe in a God who punishes people for having wrong beliefs. To the liberal Protestants hell is a myth which can safely be discarded and heaven is a place to which virtually everyone goes; exceptions might be those who resolutely refuse: after all, God gives us free will which presumably includes freedom to deny his gracious invitation.

Personal Reflections
On a personal note, Rev Coleman said that he would want to affirm heaven and hell as realities, but not physical realities, rather as "states of being". For all those who are holy, merciful, truthful, ie. for the saints of God, to be in God's presence will be heaven; but for those whose lives have not been filled with such principles it will be less than heavenly; indeed in some measure it will be painful.

God's purpose is to bring His people to the full vision of His glory, to lead them on, and this state of purification is the truth behind the traditional concept of purgatory. Is it possible for someone to be so corrupted, depraved and self-possessed that they are unable to move towards God and remain forever in the state which we can only describe as hell? We must allow for that possibility but whether it is actually a fact is known only to God. With regard to the different faith traditions the teaching of the second Vatican Council is that all people of goodwill are acceptable to God.

Where does this leave resurrection? Revd. Coleman's belief is that eternal life with God will not be disembodied and ethereal but, in some way which we cannot know authentically, resurrection on the last day points to the fact that God's Will is for redemption, salvation and glorification of all his Creation and all his people: it is when all things are summed up in Him that we will know the fullness of salvation.

- Bernard Tiley