Death and the afterlife

Overview

Recall questions on heaven, hell and purgatory understood literally, as states and symbolically, Catholic teaching on purgatory, limited election, unlimited election and universalism, the parable of the sheep and the goats, judgement at death or at the end of time, and whether hell is eternal or morally harmful.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Outline the three broad ways Christians have understood heaven, hell and purgatory.

   Model answer

   First, realistically: as destinations, real places or conditions a person arrives at after death and where happiness, punishment or purification is actually experienced. Second, as spiritual states: not locations at all, but stages or conditions of the soul's relationship with God after death. Third, symbolically: as images for the moral and spiritual quality of a life lived now, with no reference to anything after death at all.

2. 2

   How do Christians who take heaven literally describe it, and how does that differ from treating heaven as a state?

   Model answer

   On the literal account heaven is a real destination where the saved enjoy God directly and consciously, often pictured as the vision of God in the company of the redeemed and, after the resurrection, in bodily form. On the state account there is no location: heaven names the condition of a soul brought into full relationship with God, and the traditional imagery of thrones and gates is understood as pictorial language for that relationship.

3. 3

   What is the symbolic interpretation of heaven and hell, and what motivates it?

   Model answer

   On this reading heaven and hell describe conditions of life in this world: a life of love, integrity and openness to others is already heaven, and a life of cruelty, isolation and self-obsession is already hell. It is motivated partly by scepticism about survival after death, partly by the moral worry that threats of post-mortem punishment corrupt ethics, and partly by a reading of the Gospels as concerned with how the kingdom of God is lived now.

4. 4

   What does the Catholic Church teach about purgatory, and how do other Christian traditions respond?

   Model answer

   Catholic teaching holds that those who die in God's friendship but still imperfect undergo a purification before entering the fullness of heaven; it is not a second chance for the damned but the final cleansing of the saved, and the living may pray for those undergoing it. Orthodox Christians pray for the dead but reject the Western account of purgatory as a place of satisfaction for sin. Most Protestant churches reject it altogether, arguing that it lacks scriptural warrant and undercuts the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work.

5. 5

   How can purgatory be understood as a state rather than a place?

   Model answer

   On this reading purgatory names a process of moral and spiritual maturing that the soul undergoes as it is drawn towards God - the painful stripping away of self-deception and disordered attachment, felt as suffering only because the person is being changed. Supporters say this preserves the intuition that no one dies ready for the presence of God, without committing anyone to an underground waiting room or to a currency of merit and penalty.

6. 6

   Explain what limited election is, and identify the Christians who have held it.

   Model answer

   Limited election is the view that God chooses a definite number of people for salvation and that only these are saved, salvation being God's sovereign decision rather than a response to anything foreseen in the person. It belongs to the Reformed and Calvinist tradition, and in its strongest form it becomes double predestination, on which God also determines the destiny of the rest. Its defenders argue it follows from taking grace as wholly unearned.

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