Chapter 10: Heaven and Hell
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- - Contents
- - Preface
- - Introduction
- - 1) The Physical Universe
- - 2) The Human Mind:
Cognition and Conscience - - 3) Love
- - 4) Tackling Arguments
Against a Designing God - - 5) Jesus
- - 6) The Resurrection
- - 7) Suffering
- - 8) Christianity and Politics
- - 9) Other Religions
- - 10) Heaven and Hell
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In Chapter 10, Williams explains why he believes there is an afterlife, how God
may judge individual souls, and what Heaven and Hell may each be like.
Is there life after death? There is no escaping this question in any hard-headed discussion of Christian belief. I have already touched upon the matter in places, but will now tackle it in detail. It is a subject of high importance and an appropriate subject with which to conclude this book.
The afterlife has become a distinctly unfashionable subject, even in some religious circles. A number of the more liberal Protestant denominations of the Church - whose views I share on a good many issues - seem especially reticent when it comes to grappling with it, particularly the notion of Hell. In some ways this is understandable. The sane mind seems to recoil instinctively from conscious thoughts of eternity - not because the idea is absurd, but because it is unsettling.
Atheists are generally not shy about addressing this critical issue. They will assert plainly that the concept of an afterlife is an infantile invention of Man, 'a cognitive illusion'. Michel Onfray devotes a great deal of attention to this issue in The Atheist Manifesto. He pities the 'naïve and foolish believer' who has swallowed the idea that Man can 'ward off death by abolishing it'. In his view, the 'religious impulse' ultimately stems from fear of death, from an 'inability to look death in the face... and distress at the realisation that human life is finite'. Concepts of heaven and hell are imagined, he argues, as a source of comfort.
It has been suggested that the rage exhibited by radical atheists like Onfray may itself be a product of the fear of death - of a truly uncanny fear that death is the end, and that there is no 'big vague thing ... going to happen'. The rage of such a person "is so huge and so personally felt that he craves the vindication of repudiating the God in whom he does not believe'.
This suggestion is interesting, because it recognises an undeniable fact. For many people, dwelling on the afterlife is much less often a source of comfort than it is a source of discomfort. The subject is not one calculated to brighten dinner table conversation, in part because it is so mysterious and - let it be said - frightening. I can remember as a child of ten or eleven, during the phase when I attended a Bible study group, being terrified by the idea of Hell. From memory we had been subjected to the 'fire and brimstone' version. It horrified me to think that my mother and father, who were not practising Christians, might be separated from me one day and pitched into such a dreadful place. I soon stopped going to the Bible study group, and these feelings passed.
My childhood experience reflected a common human attitude. Most people prefer to dwell on the more congenial and accessible aspects of religion, or to put the whole subject of what happens after death out of their minds entirely. Belief in an afterlife is, though, a common feature of many faiths. It is integral to Christianity, which shares with Islam and Zoroastrianism a conception of both Heaven and Hell. Now that I am no longer a child, there is no option but to face up to the issue. It is not a question of seeking comfort, but of asking the hard questions. It can plausibly be argued that atheists are the ones really trying to comfort themselves, by pretending to be certain that death is mere nothingness and should therefore hold no fears.
I believe that there is life after death, and will attempt to explain why. I also believe in both Heaven and Hell, though my conception of each is decidedly hazy, and quite possibly in conflict with more orthodox Christian teaching. I will try to describe what I imagine both places to be like, and how God will decide who goes where. My aim is to demonstrate that there is much comfort to be derived from belief in an afterlife, as well as much to be feared.
Why I believe in the afterlife
It is necessary to emphasise one point at the outset. Whatever claims may sometimes be made to the contrary, neither the existence nor the non-existence of the afterlife can be proved to a level of scientific certainty. The closest thing we have to 'evidence' (in a secular sense) is the phenomenon of near-death experiences - the visions described by people who have been resuscitated after cardiac arrest, i.e. who 'survived' clinical death. Most of these people are regarded by researchers as honest and reliable witnesses; not a few were atheists before their experience. The classic NDE is this:
As well as ...bright light and an out-of-body experience... people, while clinically dead, see a tunnel, deceased relatives and divine figures. They may be guided by one of these spirits through a life review in which, some report, they feel again every emotion the past events aroused. Though they believe themselves to be dead, this cascade of feelings typically occurs against a prevailing sense of euphoria. At some point, they're told it's not their time and they return to the confinement of their body.
Buy God, Actually and read more...
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Is there life after death? There is no escaping this question in any hard-headed discussion of Christian belief. I have already touched upon the matter in places, but will now tackle it in detail. It is a subject of high importance and an appropriate subject with which to conclude this book.
The afterlife has become a distinctly unfashionable subject, even in some religious circles. A number of the more liberal Protestant denominations of the Church - whose views I share on a good many issues - seem especially reticent when it comes to grappling with it, particularly the notion of Hell. In some ways this is understandable. The sane mind seems to recoil instinctively from conscious thoughts of eternity - not because the idea is absurd, but because it is unsettling.
Atheists are generally not shy about addressing this critical issue. They will assert plainly that the concept of an afterlife is an infantile invention of Man, 'a cognitive illusion'. Michel Onfray devotes a great deal of attention to this issue in The Atheist Manifesto. He pities the 'naïve and foolish believer' who has swallowed the idea that Man can 'ward off death by abolishing it'. In his view, the 'religious impulse' ultimately stems from fear of death, from an 'inability to look death in the face... and distress at the realisation that human life is finite'. Concepts of heaven and hell are imagined, he argues, as a source of comfort.
It has been suggested that the rage exhibited by radical atheists like Onfray may itself be a product of the fear of death - of a truly uncanny fear that death is the end, and that there is no 'big vague thing ... going to happen'. The rage of such a person "is so huge and so personally felt that he craves the vindication of repudiating the God in whom he does not believe'.
This suggestion is interesting, because it recognises an undeniable fact. For many people, dwelling on the afterlife is much less often a source of comfort than it is a source of discomfort. The subject is not one calculated to brighten dinner table conversation, in part because it is so mysterious and - let it be said - frightening. I can remember as a child of ten or eleven, during the phase when I attended a Bible study group, being terrified by the idea of Hell. From memory we had been subjected to the 'fire and brimstone' version. It horrified me to think that my mother and father, who were not practising Christians, might be separated from me one day and pitched into such a dreadful place. I soon stopped going to the Bible study group, and these feelings passed.
My childhood experience reflected a common human attitude. Most people prefer to dwell on the more congenial and accessible aspects of religion, or to put the whole subject of what happens after death out of their minds entirely. Belief in an afterlife is, though, a common feature of many faiths. It is integral to Christianity, which shares with Islam and Zoroastrianism a conception of both Heaven and Hell. Now that I am no longer a child, there is no option but to face up to the issue. It is not a question of seeking comfort, but of asking the hard questions. It can plausibly be argued that atheists are the ones really trying to comfort themselves, by pretending to be certain that death is mere nothingness and should therefore hold no fears.
I believe that there is life after death, and will attempt to explain why. I also believe in both Heaven and Hell, though my conception of each is decidedly hazy, and quite possibly in conflict with more orthodox Christian teaching. I will try to describe what I imagine both places to be like, and how God will decide who goes where. My aim is to demonstrate that there is much comfort to be derived from belief in an afterlife, as well as much to be feared.
Why I believe in the afterlife
It is necessary to emphasise one point at the outset. Whatever claims may sometimes be made to the contrary, neither the existence nor the non-existence of the afterlife can be proved to a level of scientific certainty. The closest thing we have to 'evidence' (in a secular sense) is the phenomenon of near-death experiences - the visions described by people who have been resuscitated after cardiac arrest, i.e. who 'survived' clinical death. Most of these people are regarded by researchers as honest and reliable witnesses; not a few were atheists before their experience. The classic NDE is this:
As well as ...bright light and an out-of-body experience... people, while clinically dead, see a tunnel, deceased relatives and divine figures. They may be guided by one of these spirits through a life review in which, some report, they feel again every emotion the past events aroused. Though they believe themselves to be dead, this cascade of feelings typically occurs against a prevailing sense of euphoria. At some point, they're told it's not their time and they return to the confinement of their body.
Buy God, Actually and read more...
