self, death and afterlife - philosophy

• Purgatory


  A (particularly Catholic) doctrine of an intermediate state after death in which those who are destined to enter heaven are punished/purified in order to make them worthy of heaven
• Purposes and their relative importance in the meaning and purpose of life

  • To glorify God and have a personal relationship with him
  • To prepare for judgement
  • To bring about God's Kingdom on Earth
• Religious people look for answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of life in the teachings and beliefs of their religion, as well as their own experiences and observations
• To glorify God and have a personal relationship with him


  Most Christian ideas about the purpose of life have their origin in Christian ideas about God. Christians see God as the creator and sustainer of all that exists, so they define the meaning and purpose of life with reference to God.
• Let us make man in our image: 'Genesis 1:26'
• Humans are God's image in the created order


  They represent God's qualities to everything else that God has made, and to one another. By reproducing and filling the Earth, they are supposed to spread the qualities of God that they represent over the whole Earth.
• Glory (kavod in Hebrew)


  The essential quality of God, used throughout the Old Testament to describe God's qualities
• Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.: 'Isaiah 43:7'
• Purpose of existence for many Christians

  To represent and spread God's glory, that is, to glorify God
• Ways Christians try to glorify God

  • Show God's glory in their own life and actions
  • Tell others about God and try to encourage them to become Christians so they too can glorify God
  • Make their own lives more God-like in order to represent him better in the world
  • Draw people's attention to God's qualities in the world by talking and writing about them
  • Engage in worship which draws on and reflects back God's glory
• Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.: 'Matthew 5:16'
• Second creation story (Genesis 2:4b-3:24)

  Depicts a view of God who is intimately involved in the physical act of creation, showing care and affection for the individual that has been created
• Purpose of human existence

  To share a personal relationship with God
• I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory that thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.: 'John 17:20-23'
• Ways Christians build a close relationship with God


  • Communicating through prayer
  • Aiming to know God better through studying the Bible
  • Trying to follow Jesus' teachings, because Christians believe that God can be known through the person of Jesus Christ
  • Trying to model their lives on the life of Jesus
• To prepare for judgement

  After the creation of the world and all its contents, Adam and Eve were persuaded by the serpent to disobey God, and as a result, they were banished from the garden. The close relationship between humans and God was broken, and humans were forced out into a world where they had to work to survive, and where pain and death became part of human experience. Christianity teaches that God paid for the sin of humanity by suffering, dying, and being resurrected, in order to reconcile humanity with God and allow them to return to God's presence.
• Medieval churches often had an image of the Last Judgement on the chancel arch to remind worshippers that they would have to face judgement.
• When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.": 'Matthew 25:31-36'
• Jesus: 'When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me."'
• The righteous: 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?'
• Jesus: 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'
• Jesus: 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.'
• And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
• Purpose of life


  To prepare for judgement and be with God after life on Earth has come to an end
• Many liberal Christians today do not accept the dramatic Judgement Day at the end of time as factually accurate
• Judgement


  Happens in response to Christ in this life, and being born of spirit and living eternal life is a quality of existence in this life
• Soul-making theodicy of John Hick

  • God created humans as incomplete beings, with the potential to achieve a 'likeness' with God
  • The existence of evil allows humans to grow and develop virtues
  • God made humans free to choose good or evil, so that true virtues are those gained through freely overcoming temptations and trials
  • The existence of evil is essential to developing moral perfection, and the purpose of life is soul-making in which evil plays an essential part
• In Hick's opinion, the process of overcoming evil continues, perhaps through different levels of existence, until everybody reaches God's Kingdom, so there is no possibility of God sending anybody to hell
• Purpose of life


  To bring about God's Kingdom on Earth
• When Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God (Matthew uses the similar term 'Kingdom of Heaven'), he is linking the kingship of God over all of creation to the possibility that there will come a time when all of the created order, on Earth as well as in heaven, will follow God's laws
• The Lord's Prayer makes this very clear: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven"
• Bringing about God's Kingdom on Earth

  • Not only try to build up their own relationship with God, and develop virtues to make them more like God, but also work to bring about the conditions of a perfect heaven in their own community and in the world
• The first thing Jesus is recorded as saying in Mark's Gospel is "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."
• Jesus is referred to as 'the inaugurator of the kingdom'
• Qualities of God's Kingdom on Earth

  • Peace, justice and freedom from want
• Quakers believe there is something of God in everyone and this shapes all their relationships and the way they treat others
• Quakers work for peace in all aspects of life-locally, nationally and internationally-and they believe that working for peace begins in their own hearts