”Why Believe in Life after Death?” - Chapter 7 of Know Why You Believe

Know Why You Believe
By K. Scott Oliphint

“Why Believe in Life after Death?” – Chapter 7

Chapter Overview

• Introduction
• Reasons
  
  • Problems with Persons
  • Problems with Proofs
  • Christianity and Life
• Responses
• Questions

Introduction

• An overwhelming majority of people believe in an afterlife.
  
  • 75% believed in life after death.
  • 82% believed they would go to heaven.
• But why? Why do most people believe in life after death?
• Many believe in an afterlife but without sufficient reasons for doing so.
• “Heavenly Tourism” books are popular because people are looking for evidence.

Reasons

• A minority (avowed atheists) will prefer to argue that death is the end of everything.
• The majority who believe in the afterlife never sufficiently ask the “why” question.
• Some have tried to scientifically prove the existence of the afterlife, but these generally come from “near-death” experiences.
• But “nearly dead” is not the same thing as “dead.” So, these are not sufficient proof.
• There are two dominant traditions that explain the prevalence of belief in an afterlife in Western culture:
  
  • Christianity and its remnant ideas
  • Greek philosophy (Plato)
    
    • The dominant tradition in Greek philosophy believed in the immortality of the soul.
    • Greek philosophy popularized the concept of a “soul.”

Problems with Persons

• Greek philosophy took for granted that there was some kind of “animating” or life-giving aspect to human beings.
  
  • Plato thought this “soul” was immortal.
  • Souls preexisted their bodies and existed after they died.
  • This idea of an immortal soul that continues after we die is still the majority opinion in Western culture.
• Most of us recognize that there is more to us and our existence than just our physical bodies and our physical appearance.
• Because of Greek influence, most philosophers throughout time have believed in a duality of body and soul.
• The problem is that this concept is virtually impossible to prove philosophically or scientifically.
  
  • Philosophy can’t account for “consciousness.”
• What makes us the same person even while our physical bodies grow and change, sometimes drastically?
  
  • Most of our bodily cells completely replace themselves every 7-10 years.
  • Do our memories make us a person?
    
    • What happens if we lose our memories?
    • How many retained memories constitute a “person”?
  • Does “continuity of consciousness” make us a person?
    
    • What about sleep and those in a coma?
• Even though we don’t have conclusive answers to these questions, we assume that we are the same persons that we were decades ago. We have not become different persons over time.
• We seem to inherently believe in the idea of “personhood” or “consciousness” that is separate from mere biology.
• What is significant is that there is a wildly popular belief in the reality of life after death without adequate or successful reason for that belief.

Problems with Proofs

• Some Christians have attempted philosophical or scientific proofs, but without much success.
• Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) attempted to refute deists by affirming belief in the supernatural and life beyond death.
• Butler argued that we all use reason and perception, even over various changes in time, even if we don’t know where they come from or how they are put into practice by us.
• In other words, since we use our reason and our senses even though we have no idea of their source, can’t we also recognize that there is a high probability that they will continue after our physical existence ceases?
• Problems with this type of “proof”:
  
  • Butler never really advanced much beyond the typical philosophical argument for the reality of life after death. Like philosophy, there were things he couldn’t sufficiently account for.
  • The foundation of his argument was in what we do not know and then moves to some kind of probability.
  • These “proofs” still only leave us with “probability.” This is not sufficient warrant to believe in life after death.
  • How can it be “probable” that our consciousness and our ability to reason and perceive will continue after death if we don’t even know for sure where they come from or how they function in this life?
• We need more solid reasons for believing in the afterlife than philosophy can give us.
• The Christian faith and the biblical story provide a coherent explanation for “personhood” as well as the reality of life after death.

Christianity and Life

• Only the Christian position is able to give a full account of what it means to be a person and of what life as a person means.
• Humanism (and pure naturalistic atheism) is incapable of providing meaning and dignity to human personhood.
  
  • For the naturalist, the human body is just a collection of physical materials that will one day decompose and be no different than a trash heap.
  • And yet the “Humanist Manifesto II” declares: “The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value.”
  • But how is our life precious if it is just a collection of cells and physical materials that arrived completely by accident?
  • The humanistic position on human personhood is inherently contradictory.
  • “Preciousness” and “dignity” are terms that point beyond the material and the accidental.
• There is only one way to ascribe dignity to human persons: They have to be more than their simple physical existence.
• The Christian message provides a more coherent framework for understanding personhood.
• Human beings were made from the dust of the ground as were the animals, but then a significant difference took place:
  
  • God breathed the breath of life into mankind and the human being became a living person or living soul (Gen. 2:7).
  • God made human beings in his image and likeness.
    
    • Dignity of Being
      
      • Self-consciousness
      • Reason
      • Language and Communication
      • Morality – sense of right and wrong
      • An immortal “breath of life”
    • Dignity of Function
      
      • Dominion over creation
      • Responsibility to care for creation
      • Special relationship with God
• The original command of God to Adam and Eve points in the direction of permanent life:
  
  • If they had never disobeyed, they would have lived forever.
  • There would be no life “after death,” because there would be no death.
• Adam’s disobedience brought death, which was “unnatural.” It was part of the curse.
• Death is not the end of the story.
• God provides a way for fellowship with him to continue.
  
  • Promise of a “seed” to come.
  • Clothed with animal skins from sacrifice.
• We see pointers throughout the Bible of life beyond death:
  
  • Enoch “walked with God” and “was not” for “God took him.” (Gen. 5:24)
  • God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – not the God of the dead but the living.
  • Jesus speaks of a divide separating those who die in Christ and those who do not.
    
    • The rich man and Lazarus
    • They both continued to exist in consciousness after death, but with two radically different destinies.
  • For those who die in Christ, existence continues in him and with God.
  • For those who die in their sins, existence continues, but it consists of nothing but eternal torment (Luke 13:28-30).
  • The “image of God” in Scripture includes an inbreathed life, an inbreathed character, that is distinct from everything else in creation.
    
    • It implies a relationship with God for eternity that ends either in eternal fellowship with him or in eternal torment under his wrath.
    • In either case, human beings continue to exist beyond death.
• The troubling thing about the poll of people who believed in the afterlife is that 82% of them believed they were going to heaven.
  
  • This demonstrates a great lack of understanding about salvation.
  • On what basis do they believe that they will go to heaven?
    
    • Probably on the same unsure foundation as their belief in the afterlife in general.
    • They are holding on to some basic remnants of Christianity without the true biblical substance.
• Some clarifications:
  
  • When we die, it is not just a “soul” (a thing) that goes to heaven (Greek philosophy).
  • The Bible speaks of “us” personally going to be with the Lord.
  • Our separation from our bodies when we die is an abnormal separation.
    
    • For the Christian, to be “with Christ” after death is to be absent from the body.
    • But there will be a time, at the end of time, when we will receive resurrected bodies.
• The time between our death and the end of time is commonly called the “intermediate state.”
  
  • This means that even though we live “with Christ” after we die, we have not yet become what we will be for eternity.
  • In Scripture, our final destination is not heaven.
  • The place where Christians will reside for eternity is called “a new heaven and a new earth.” It will be a real physical place, and we will have real bodies (imperishable).
  • While Christians live eternally in a new heaven and new earth, those who die in rebellion against God will experience eternal death.
    
    • It is called the “second death.”
    • The second death is not an end, but an eternal existence. It is the final and eternal punishment for sin.
• Existence after death is a fact of life. A majority of people believe it. The only real reason to believe it, however, is given to us in the Christian faith.

Responses

• The primary objection to the idea of life after death is that there is no real evidence for it.
  
  • Neither philosophy nor science can provide an adequate explanation or proof.
• There is, however, evidence for life after death.
  
  • The Bible records real historical events.
  • Biblical events did not take place in a hidden corner.
  • The Bible records numerous facts about life after death, including testimonies from some who actually saw those alive who had previously died (Mark 9:2-8).
• It is our status as “image of God” that alone can support our belief that there is more to us than our physical bodies, and that we, as persons, will exist for eternity.
  
  • But because the “image of God” is defaced by the effects of sin, our existence can be restored to true life again only if we are, by faith, in Christ.

Questions

• What evidence is there that people are more than simply material bodies?
• Why is it important for us to receive new spiritual bodies in the end?
• Why do most people believe that they will spend life after death in heaven?