Belief in life after death is present in many religions and cultures and has always been an important aid in accepting the tragic reality of death. However, rather than speaking of the intrinsic immortality of the soul, the Bible speaks of the future resurrection of the dead.
Nevertheless, some argue that this belief can lead to passivity in the face of life’s challenges, resulting in a lack of engagement with social issues based on the expectation of a better afterlife.
A belief in the survival of an entity after death—usually called the soul—is found among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Far East. Studies conducted in the US in recent decades reveal that 82% of Americans believe in life after death. This belief is not confined to those belonging to a particular denomination or religion; it is also held by those who are not affiliated with any religious movement. Despite the lack of concrete, empirical evidence of the soul’s survival after death, this belief has endured for millenia.
Definitions of the soul are complex and varied, with most associating it with an immaterial reality, breath, a shadow, or an intangible image. Some believe that the soul takes the form of the deceased, while others believe that it is merely a vapour or an invisible presence. Regardless of religious beliefs or concepts, however, the soul is often attributed with the ability to move and speak (sometimes even with living people).
Talking to the dead
The idea that there is another level of existence after death is supported by the testimony of people who claim to have contacted spirits without the help of a medium. According to some estimates, at least two out of five Americans have had one or more experiences of communicating with the dead.[1] In 1988, Judy and Bill Guggenheim conducted over 3,000 first-hand interviews in the US and Canada about communication with the spirits of deceased persons. This phenomenon is known as ADC (after-death communication) and is extremely common not only in the US, but also throughout the world.
According to a report by the After Death Communication Research Foundation, 19% of cases of communication with deceased souls occur within the first 24 hours of death, and the deceased are usually relatives of those contacted. The Guggenheims’ study led them to conclude that there are various forms of ADC, including the feeling that the deceased person is in the room; hearing voices; the sensation of being hugged; smelling the perfume that the deceased person used to wear; dreams that are confused with reality; out-of-body experiences; receiving phone calls from the deceased; and physical signals, such as the movement of furniture or the opening of doors or windows. Most of these events can easily be questioned, especially when it comes to grieving relatives. However, the frequency of cases leaves room for many interpretations.
“The belief that the soul of man survives his death is so nearly universal that we have no reliable record of a tribe or nation or religion in which it does not prevail.” (J. T. Addison, Life Beyond Death in the Beliefs of Mankind)
Belief and effect
Canadian humanist Derek Watters believes that this belief emerged as a means of providing comfort to bereaved individuals. There is a tendency, particularly among African Americans, to believe that the soul of the deceased does not ascend to heaven, but remains with loved ones, close to them in difficult moments of life. Alternatively, Watters believes that human beings’ immaturity and selfishness, and their dissatisfaction with the brevity of life, are another root of the belief in life after death. This belief also has negative consequences, such as the multitude of superstitions and rituals performed by the living to ensure that their deceased relatives or friends fare better “on the other side.” The belief in the survival of the soul can encourage followers of certain religions to take reckless and dangerous actions. Relevant examples include suicide bombers in Pakistan and the Gaza Strip. Mohamed Atta, one of the suicide bombers at the World Trade Center in 2001, left a note expressing his hope for eternal life.
Since the beginning of time…
The study of religious ideas and beliefs shows that the concept of intrinsic soul immortality has existed since the earliest times in primitive societies. Some populations even believed that humans had two or more souls, including the Chinese, the Fijian tribes, and the Hurons, and so on. The Chinese believed that the soul of someone executed by decapitation was condemned to an eternity without a head. The Australian natives amputated the fingers of their slain enemies so that their souls could no longer throw spears. The ancient Hittites believed that after death, the spirit of a person joined the gods; in order for the soul to survive death, they burned corpses. However, in the multitude of ideas, legends, superstitions, and “theologies” of the ancient world, the concepts of the Egyptians and Greeks stand out. These two major Eastern civilisations have had a lasting influence on our ideas about the afterlife.
Egyptian theology
Egyptian civilisation did not have a unified conception of what happens after death; it underwent a profound evolution of its theology. On the one hand, there were sceptics who said that death meant the end. This is demonstrated by a few verses from “The Song of the Harper”: “None comes from there, / To tell of their needs, / To calm our hearts.” Conversely, there is a rich body of religious literature, such as the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts, which describes what happens to the soul after death. For example, the Egyptians believed that life in the afterlife was similar to life on Earth, which is why they placed objects, clothes, food, and tools necessary for everyday life in tombs or pyramids.
The idea that the soul will be rewarded or punished according to its good or bad deeds in this life is demonstrated by the autobiographies that the Egyptians inscribed on the walls of their tombs before they died, so that the gods would not forget any of their good deeds. Some of them performed magical rituals to ensure their place in paradise, regardless of the moral quality of their lives. “But this life—beyond and above the earthly one—was not granted automatically to everyone. Nor was the ability of the deceased to rise far above their earthly existence acquired automatically; it was the result of magical acts that transfigured the dead.”[2] The practices of today’s Christians related to the cult of the dead and the belief that the soul survives death indicate the persistence of the idea that the condition of the dead soul can be improved.
Greek mythology
There are numerous stories in Greek legends and myths that illustrate their beliefs about life after death. It was believed that, after death, the shadow of the deceased appeared before the gods for final judgement. Those who had fulfilled the will of the gods were sent to the Elysian Fields, a paradise at the end of the world, while the shadows of sinners were tormented in Tartarus, the equivalent of Hell in Christian theology. “This idea of happiness and punishment was encouraged by religions such as Orphism, the Eleusinian Mysteries and other mystery religions.”[3]
In order to reach the judges, the shadows had to cross the River Styx; for this, they had to pay the ferryman Charon a certain amount. This is why the Greeks placed coins under the tongue of the deceased. This detail is significant when we consider that, in certain regions of Romania, it is customary to place coins on the eyelids or in the hands of the deceased. Could this be a remnant of an ancient pagan belief? Unlike in most Christian theology, where the soul goes to Heaven to be with God, in ancient Greek religion, the shadows of the dead did not join the gods of Olympus.
From Plato onwards
Aside from popular beliefs in the Greek world about what happens after death, Greek philosophers’ ideas were of colossal importance. Among them, Plato (427–347 BC) stood out, claiming that the soul exists from eternity and that death represents its liberation from the prison of the human body. In Plato’s philosophy, the soul originates from a realm of abstract Ideas and, following incarnation, retains fragments of that world. These recollections guide man in his pursuit of the world of Ideas during his lifetime.
The serenity with which his master, Socrates, accepted death was, for Plato, the ultimate proof that death does not mean the end of existence. Although the soul is free to choose evil and capable of debasing itself through lawlessness, it cannot cease to exist, Plato argued. “Yet the concept of the immortality of the soul is not peculiar to Plato. It is found in the Orphic religion of his day, and also in the Pythagorean school. The Pythagoreans, however, understood the soul as not being itself eternal and imperishable, but as eternal because it transmigrates from one body to another.”[4]
Although Plato’s ideas about the immortality of the soul were later appreciated, developed, or criticised equally, their impact was strongly felt in the philosophy and theology of the centuries that followed. The essence of Platonic philosophy infiltrated the thinking of Alexandrian theologians. Unlike Tertullian, who believed that philosophy was the root of all heresies in Christianity, theologians such as Justin Martyr (also known as the Philosopher), Origen, and Clement of Alexandria drew inspiration from Platonic ideas.
A key figure among the Church Fathers was Augustine (354–430 AD), whose writings marked the transition from pagan to Christian philosophy. He considered that “the theology of Christianity prefigured in Neoplatonism.”[5] For Augustine, the soul “is no longer a type of more fluid matter, but belongs to a reality of a different order. Here, in Augustine, we find traces of Plato. The soul belongs to a different order of reality to matter. It is immortal because it belongs to the same order of reality as truth. In a sense, the soul and truth have the same substance. The death of the soul would be its separation from truth. Therefore, it is immortal, like truth itself.”[6] While the extent to which Plato’s ideas influenced Augustinian theology remains a topic of debate among scholars, the impact cannot be denied. This detail is significant, since “it was from Augustine more than any other single theologian that medieval thought took its theological framework of ideas.”[7] The trajectory of ideas concerning the immortal soul can easily be traced from the Greek philosophers, through the Church Fathers, to medieval theology, and on to the present day.
Cullmann’s revolution
A survey of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians would provide undeniable proof that belief in the immortality of the soul is almost universal among Christians today. Clergy and theologians share this belief. Against this backdrop of widespread acceptance of teachings about the soul’s transcendence beyond death and the body, the book Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Dead? by professor and theologian Oscar Cullmann, published in the middle of the last century, sparked fierce controversy. In fact, the criticism was so strong and so many people were offended by his statements that he decided to remain silent for a while.[8] Readers sent him letters of protest; some considered him a monster driven by a desire to stir up spiritual fears, while even his friends were quite reserved about his statements.
Cullmann’s thesis, which provoked such adverse reactions, was that the concept of the immortality of the soul is specific to Greek philosophy, whereas the Bible speaks of the resurrection of the body—something completely different. “I have put the death of Socrates and the death of Jesus side by side,” wrote Cullmann. “For nothing shows better the radical difference between the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection.”[9] If his theory is correct, this would mean that Christian theology fell into the trap of pagan philosophy in the early centuries of the Christian era. In our next article on the subject we will explore Cullmann’s theory further.
