Heaven, Hell and Purgatory

• "Dead were judged by what was written in the books"

  • Gives us importance
  • All our actions are judged
  • Objective immortality
• Classic idea of judgement

  • At the end of time
  • Trumpets will sound
  • Awoken from the dead
  • Christ will come back again
  • each individual is judged according to their deeds written in the book of life
• The classical idea of Judgement is rejected in the modern era as there is no empirical evidence. The Bible is not read as absolute truth
• Those who are judged Holy are immediately sent to heaven
• Those who are judged sinful are sent to suffer burning, pain and torture for eternity
• Those who have venial sins (forgivable sins) are sent to purgatory before heaven
• Catholics teach that the soul is prepared in purgatory for the final universal judgement
• Dante's divine comedy

  • Informs of corruption
  • Shows people the horrors their souls would go through if they did not obey God's laws and live righteously
• Botticelli painted Dante's description of the afterlife as many people in the medieval ages were illiterate and had paintings influence their thoughts
• Physical punishment was more common when the doctrines of judgement, heaven, hell and purgatory were developed
• people were a lot more used to death in the middle ages than we are now
• The afterlife that was developed in the middle ages reflects the punishment that people received in life- it logically made sense to be punished for sin in the afterlife
• As we've moved away from torture being used as a form of punishment, the idea of hell seems more outlandish and less appropriate for an omnibenevolent God