God has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  (Ecclesiastes 3:11b)

The Bible affirms that human beings are eternal creatures.  Mortality was simply a mechanism of grace, for without mortal life the first infraction would doom to hell.  Solomon, granted all earthly wisdom, says self-knowledge of eternity is hard-wired into our very nature.

The Hebrew word translated ‘eternity’ is עוֹלָם olam, a conceptual noun that has a wide range of meanings, from the sense of long duration or ‘everlasting’, to unfathomable past, ‘antiquity’, to the ever-existent, ‘perpetuity’.  But the most common usage in the Bible is ‘forever’; as here when God declares himself to Moses from the burning bush:

‘Say this to the people of Israel, “the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever…’. Exodus 3:15

If the Bible’s assertion in immortal existence is then to be believed, why is it that so many people think that everything ends at the grave?  

The idea that after death comes nothing is not a modern concept.  The Greek philosopher, Epicurus, wrote:

The most terrifying of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist, death is not present. But when death is present, then we do not exist. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, since concerning the former it does not exist, and concerning the latter, they no longer exist. 

The Bible says the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection (Mark 12:18); the Jewish concept of Sheol did not equate to Hell, but the grave or ‘pit’; this was no afterlife but more a place of destination for the soul, yet the Sadducees believed that there was no hereafter, no lingering consciousness, simply oblivion.

What is striking perhaps is that across time and culture, such ideas are in the minority, most Greek philosophers rejected Epicurean notions.  In Phaedo, Plato writes that all should welcome death because of the emancipation of the soul.  In Germanic mythology, a glorious death in battle guaranteed a seat on the mead benches and the eternal feast of heroes.  While Eastern religions espouse the idea of rebirth, again rejecting the idea that death is final.

Modern thinking tends to consider such ideas wish fulfilment.  The European Enlightenment put much store in the material and observable.  Is ‘Science’ the reason for today’s scepticism?  Here is one famous scientist’s conclusion:

‘I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’  (Stephen Hawking)

Yet, consistently, surveys on the topic of life after death suggest that even atheists resist the notional finality of death.  People repeat (almost certainly unwittingly) the neo-Platonic ideas of cosmic absorption or that they will reunited with a loved one in heaven.  But in truth, this betrays how with little serious consideration people view death.

Perhaps with the advent of modern healthcare there came a collective trust that death can be staved off, even eradicated.  Medieval churches were full of reminders of death, tombs and wall paintings depicting skeletal imagery; moreover, life expectancy was limited – yet presently, the reality of death is avoided; bodies are whisked away and efficiently dispatched to flame or grave; is it surprising then with so little attention, many live thinking death will never befall them?

This delusion was not suffered by the Psalmists, for instance, who spoke incessantly about the grave.  David pleaded with God:

What profit is there in my death, 
    if I go down to the pit? 
Will the dust praise you?
    Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me!
    O Lord, be my helper. (Psalm 30:9-10)

Can it be then that the prevalent view of post mortem annihilation is a failure of imagination?  And if so, there is cause, for indeed, it is impossible to imagine what eternal life would look or feel like.  For a start, there is no tomorrow or yesteryear, merely an endless today!  Human life, as all life, is governed by this procession of the present moment.

In mortal existence, God created temporality, the inexorable passage of time.  Life then has a beginning and an end, and there is one-way path from birth to death.  There is no pause or rewind.  There is cause and effect, one thing leads to another.

All the physical laws of the universe require the function of time.  This sense of progression is best seen in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, where the arrow of time is seen with increasing entropy, the disorder of matter. In physical terms, this is future for the universe, dissolution; literally chaos in which no life is possible.

The human consciousness of mortal life then like matter in that it is a series of events.  Consciousness registers actions and thus is experienced.  A highly meditative state does not halt interaction, only observes in minutia.

Yet the eternal existence, presumably, knows nothing of time’s arrow.  There is no being and doing, only being.  The closest perhaps any come to this is expressed in the phrase ‘being in the moment’. It is simply impossible to imagine eternity because it means re-imagining an alternative where none of the laws of physics apply.

So once more with God, it comes down to faith.  There is no empirical evidence of the hereafter, none has ever returned ‘from the other side’.  And as for spiritualism, God forbids ‘inquiring of the dead’ (Deuteronomy 18:11) for a reason, because demonic spirits mimic the dead as the apostle John warns:

… do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

Yet, dwelling on life after death is far from being a morbid activity, rather it is necessary, logical even, for it will dictate the way life is conducted.  If any believe that there is no afterlife, then hedonism makes sense, as Paul says:

If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ (1 Corinthians 15:32b)

But what if the grave is not the end? Should fear of this unknown realm not inspire enquiry, at the very least!  Fear of the unknown might drive any to look for hope, and is it human to substitute hope in place of fear.  

Jesus promised that eternal life was possible through him, having overcome death himself:

‘I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades’ (Revelation 1:18)

Jesus posed this question to Martha, whose brother Lazarus had been in the tomb four days:

‘I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he should die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11:25-26)

Then as a sign that he did have the power to conquer death, Jesus revived the rotting body of her brother and brought him out of the tomb.

Mortal death then is not an end but a beginning of the life God first bestowed.  But to access it requires faith, not just on an eternal existence but in the one through whom it is accessed. If this is a possibility, then to ignore or deny it, will indeed prove fatal!