On the Ambivalence of Believing in Life After Death

Last updated on: February 8, 2016 at 4:31 pm by Kyle Roberts

On the Ambivalence of Believing in Life After Death 2016-02-08T16:31:20-05:00 Kyle Roberts

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Does believing in life after death make this life more precious and valuable or less so? Does it maximize our investment in this life or minimize it? Does it motivate working to improve the situation of this world or does it invalidate such work?

Paul Klee’s “Angelus Novus”

That’s the question theologian Moltmann raises toward the beginning of The Coming of God. Here’s the relevant paragraph, in which he poses the question and probes the precariousness and ambivalence of belief in an after-life:

The thought of death and a life after death is ambivalent. It can deflect us from this life, with its pleasures and pains. It can make life here a transition, a step on the way to another life beyond–and by doing so it can make this life empty and void. It can draw love away from this life and direct it towards a life hereafter, spreading resignation in ‘this veil of tears.’ The thought of death and a life after death can lead to fatalism and apathy, so that we only live life here half-heartedly, or just endure it and ‘get through.’ The thought of a life after death can cheat us of the happiness and the pain of this life, so that we squander its treasures, selling them off cheap to heaven. In that respect it is better to live every day as if death didn’t exist, better to love life here and now as unreservedly as if death really were ‘the finish.’ The notion that this life is no more than a preparation for a life beyond, is the theory of a refusal to live, and a religious fraud. It is inconsistent with the living God, who is a ‘lover of life’. In that sense it is religious atheism.

But if we have ever been close to death and have escaped some deadly peril, we know the feeling that life has been given back to us. We feel new-born, and experience life here, in all its uniqueness and beauty, with freshly awakened and sharpened senses. We then suddenly realize with a blinding awareness what living really means. So the thought of death and a life after death doesn’t have to deflect us from this life; it can also give this life a new depth. It doesn’t have to make us ‘absent-minded’; it can make us wholly present. It doesn’t have to make us indifferent; it can make us fully and wholly capable of love.

But what about you? What do you think belief in, and thinking about, life after death does for you? Does it make this life more valuable and more precious and more filled with wonder–or less so?

For more theology posts and discussion, like/follow Unsystematic Theology on Facebook

Image Source (Wiki Commons – Public Domain)

Previous Post

February 4, 2016

Is the Resurrection a "Broken Myth"?

Next Post

February 9, 2016 On Wheaton: If Reconciliation Means "Parting Ways," then Christianity is Done For

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month December 2020 November 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 December 2018 July 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz