Judaism
She'ol
Writing that would later be incorporated into the
Hebrew Bible names
Sheol as the place of the dead.
The Christian writer's traditional re-interpretation is that the Hebrew
word Sheol can mean many things, including "grave", "resort", "place of
waiting" and "place of healing". It can also mean "deep", as it is used
when the earth opens up and destroys the rebellious Korah, Dathan and
Abiram and their 250 followers (
Numbers 16:31-33).
One might take this as implying that Sheol is literally underground,
although it is as easily read literally, as signifying an earthquake or
split in the earth.
Ecclesiastes:
"For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing
befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one
breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to
one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the
spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the
animal, which goes down to the earth?" (
Ecc. 3:19-21
NKJV)
"But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a
living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they
will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For
the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and
their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share in
anything done under the sun." (Ecc. 9:4-6 NKJV)
Similarly Psalms 146:2-4 (NKJV) states: "Do not put your trust in
princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit
departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish."
In the book of Job it is stated: "But man dies and is laid away;
indeed he breathes his last and where is he? ... So man lies down and
does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, they will not awake nor be
roused from their sleep ... If a man dies, shall he live again?" (Job
14:10,12,14a NKJV)
Olam Haba
The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife.
Talmudic authorities agree that any virtuous gentile will be given a
share in the world-to-come. After death, the soul is brought for
judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the "
Olam Haba"
or World to Come. Most do not enter the World to Come immediately, but
now experience a period of review of their earthly actions and they are
made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a
"re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are
reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for
past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the
soul then takes its place in the World to Come. Although discomforts are
made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept
of "eternal damnation", so prevalent in other religions, is no tenet of
the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is
reserved for a far much smaller group of malicious and evil leaders,
either whose very evil deeds go way beyond norms, or who lead large
groups of people to utmost evil.
Maimonides describes the
Olam Haba
("World to Come") in spiritual terms, relegating the prophesied
physical resurrection to the status of a future miracle, unrelated to
the afterlife or the Messianic era. According to Maimonides, an
afterlife continues for the soul of every human being, a soul now
separated from the body in which it was "housed" during its earthly
existence.
The
Zohar describes
Gehenna not as a place of punishment for the wicked but as a place of spiritual purification for souls.
Reincarnation in Jewish tradition
Although there is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings,
according to rabbis such as Avraham Arieh Trugman, reincarnation is
recognized as being part and parcel of Jewish tradition. Trugman
explains that it is through oral tradition that the meanings of the
Torah, its commandments and stories, are known and understood. The
classic work of Jewish mysticism,
the Zohar, is quoted liberally in all Jewish learning; in the Zohar the
idea of reincarnation is mentioned repeatedly. Trugman states that in
the last five centuries the concept of reincarnation, which until then
had been a much hidden tradition within Judaism, was given open
exposure.
Shraga Simmons commented that within the Bible itself, the idea [of
reincarnation] is intimated in Deut. 25:5-10, Deut. 33:6 and Isaiah
22:14, 65:6.
Yirmiyahu Ullman wrote that reincarnation is an "ancient, mainstream
belief in Judaism". The Zohar makes frequent and lengthy references to
reincarnation. Onkelos, a righteous convert and authoritative
commentator of the same period, explained the verse, "Let Reuben live
and not die ..." (Deuteronomy 33:6) to mean that Reuben should merit the
World to Come directly, and not have to die again as a result of being
reincarnated. Torah scholar, commentator and kabbalist,
Nachmanides
(Ramban 1195–1270), attributed Job's suffering to reincarnation, as
hinted in Job's saying "God does all these things twice or three times
with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit to ... the light of the
living' (Job 33:29,30)."
Reincarnation, called
gilgul, became popular in folk belief, and is found in much
Yiddish literature among
Ashkenazi Jews.
Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end
up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a
number of Kabbalistic works from the 13th century, and also among many
mystics in the late 16th century.
Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the
Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives.
[26]
Among well known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are
Saadia Gaon,
David Kimhi,
Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century),
Joseph Albo,
Abraham ibn Daud, the
Rosh and
Leon de Modena. Saadia Gaon, in
Emunoth ve-Deoth (Hebrew: "beliefs and opinions") concludes Section VI with a refutation of the doctrine of
metempsychosis
(reincarnation). While refuting reincarnation, the Saadia Gaon further
states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish
beliefs. By no means do all Jews today believe in reincarnation, but
belief in reincarnation is not uncommon among many Jews, including
Orthodox.
Other well-known rabbis who are reincarnationists include Yonassan Gershom,
Abraham Isaac Kook, Talmud scholar Adin Steinsaltz, DovBer Pinson, David M. Wexelman, Zalman Schachter,
[27]
and many others. Reincarnation is cited by authoritative biblical
commentators, including Ramban (Nachmanides), Menachem Recanti and
Rabbenu Bachya.
Among the many volumes of Yitzchak Luria, most of which come down
from the pen of his primary disciple, Chaim Vital, are insights
explaining issues related to reincarnation. His
Shaar HaGilgulim, "The Gates of Reincarnation", is a book devoted exclusively to the subject of reincarnation in Judaism.
Christianity
Mainstream Christianity professes belief in the
Nicene Creed, and
English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use include the phrase: "We look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the
world to come."
Christian eschatology is concerned with
death, an
intermediate state,
Heaven,
Hell, the
Second Coming of Christ, the
resurrection of the dead, a
rapture, a
tribulation, the
Millennium,
end of the world, the
last judgment, a new heaven and a
new earth, and the ultimate consummation of all of God's purposes.
Eschatological passages are found in many places, especially
Isaiah,
Daniel,
Matthew 24,
Matthew 25, and the
Book of Revelation.
Although punishments are made part of certain Christian conceptions of
the afterlife, the prevalent concept of "eternal damnation" is a tenet
of the Christian afterlife.
When questioned by the
Sadducees about the
resurrection of the dead (in a context relating to who one's spouse would be if one had been married several times in life),
Jesus said that marriage will be irrelevant after the resurrection as the resurrected will be (at least in this respect) like the
angels in heaven.
[28]
Jesus also maintained that the time would come when the dead would hear the voice of the
Son of God,
and all who were in the tombs would come out, who have done good deeds
to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the
resurrection of condemnation.
[29] According to the
Gospel of Matthew, at the death of Jesus tombs were opened, and at
his resurrection many
saints who had died emerged from their tombs and went into "the holy city", presumably
New Jerusalem.
[30] No other New Testament account includes this event.
The Last Day: Jesus compared the
kingdom of heaven,
over which He rules, to a net which was thrown into the sea and
gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and
sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. So it
will be at the close of the age also known as the Last Day. The angels
will separate the evil from the
righteous and throw them into
the furnace of unquenchable fire. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their
Father.
The
Book of Enoch describes Sheol as divided into four compartments for four types of the dead: the faithful saints who await resurrection in
Paradise,
the merely virtuous who await their reward, the wicked who await
punishment, and the wicked who have already been punished and will not
be resurrected on Judgment Day.
[31]
It should be noted that the Book of Enoch is considered apocryphal by
most denominations of Christianity and all denominations of Judaism.
The book of
2 Maccabees
gives a clear account of the dead awaiting a future resurrection and
judgment, plus prayers and offerings for the dead to remove the burden
of sin.
The author of
Luke recounts the story of
Lazarus and the rich man, which shows people in Hades awaiting the resurrection either in comfort or torment. The author of the
Book of Revelation writes about God and the angels versus
Satan and
demons in an epic battle at the end of times when all souls are judged. There is mention of ghostly bodies of past prophets, and the
transfiguration.
The non-canonical
Acts of Paul and Thecla speak of the efficacy of
prayer for the dead, so that they might be "translated to a state of happiness".
[32]
Hippolytus of Rome pictures the
underworld (
Hades) as a place where the righteous dead, awaiting in the
bosom of Abraham their resurrection, rejoice at their future prospect, while the unrighteous are tormented at the sight of the "
lake of unquenchable fire" into which they are destined to be cast.
Gregory of Nyssa discusses the long-before believed possibility of purification of souls after death.
[33]
Saint Augustine counters
Pelagius, arguing that
original sin
means that the unbaptised go to hell, including infants, albeit with
less suffering than is experienced by those guilty of actual sins.
Pope Gregory I repeats the concept, articulated over a century earlier by
Gregory of Nyssa that the saved suffer purification after death, in connection with which he wrote of "purgatorial flames".
The noun
"purgatorium" (Latin: place of cleansing
[34])
is used for the first time to describe a state of painful purification
of the saved after life. The same word in adjectival form (
purgatorius -a -um, cleansing), which appears also in non-religious writing,
[35] was already used by Christians such as Augustine of Hippo and
Pope Gregory I to refer to an after-death cleansing.
During the
Age of Enlightenment, theologians and philosophers presented various philosophies and beliefs. A notable example is
Emanuel Swedenborg
who wrote some 18 theological works which describe in detail the nature
of the afterlife according to his claimed spiritual experiences, the
most famous of which is
Heaven and Hell.
[36] His report of life there covers a wide range of topics, such as
marriage in heaven (where all
angels are married), children in heaven (where they are raised by angel parents),
time and
space
in heaven (there are none), the after-death awakening process in the
World of Spirits (a place halfway between Heaven and Hell and where
people first wake up after death), the allowance of a free will choice
between Heaven or Hell (as opposed to being sent to either one by God),
the
eternity of
Hell (one could leave but would never want to), and that all angels or devils were once people on earth.
[36]
On the other hand, the enlightenment produced more rationalist philosophies such as
deism. Many deist freethinkers held that belief in an afterlife with reward and punishment was a necessity of reason and good morals.
Most Christians deny that entry into Heaven can be properly earned,
rather it is a gift that is solely God's to give through his unmerited
grace. This belief follows the theology of
St. Paul:
For
it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can
boast. The
Augustinian,
Thomist,
Lutheran, and
Calvinist theological traditions all emphasize the necessity of God's undeserved grace for salvation, and reject so-called
Pelagianism, which would make man earn salvation through
good works. Not all Christian sects accept this doctrine, leading to many controversies on
grace and
free will, and the idea of
predestination.
In particular, the belief that heaven is a reward for good behavior is a
common folk belief in Christian societies, even among members of
churches which reject that belief.
Christian theologians
Thomas Aquinas and
Jonathan Edwards
wrote that the saved in heaven will delight in the suffering of the
damned. Hell, however, does not fit modern, humanitarian concepts of
punishment because it cannot deter the unbeliever nor rehabilitate the
damned, this however, does not affect the Christian belief which places
Biblical teaching above the ideas of society. Some Christian believers
have come to downplay the punishment of hell.
Universalists teach that salvation is for all. Jehovah's Witnesses and
Seventh-day Adventists,
though they have among the strictest rules on how to conduct their
lives, teach that sinners are destroyed rather than tortured forever.
John 3:16 says that only those that accept Jesus will be given
eternal life,
so the people that do not accept him cannot burn in hell for eternity
because Jesus has not given them eternal life, instead it says they will
perish.
In American pop culture depictions of Heaven, particularly in vintage cartoons such as those by
Looney Tunes in the mid-20th century, the
souls of virtuous people ascend to Heaven and are converted into
angels. However, this is not in accordance with the orthodox Christian theology. Christianity depicts a sharp distinction between
angels, divine beings created by God before the creation of humanity and are used as messengers, and
saints,
the souls of humans who have received immortality from the grace of God
through faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who dwell in Heaven
with God.
Latter Day Saints believe that the soul existed before earth life and
will exist in the hereafter. Angels are either spirits that have not
yet come to earth to experience their mortality, or spirits or
resurrected beings that have already passed through mortality and do the
will of God. See Job 38:4-7, D&C 93:29. According to LDS Doctrine,
Michael the Archangel became the first man on earth, Adam, to experience
his mortality. The Angel of Moroni visited the boy, Joseph Smith, after
living out his mortal life in ancient America. Later, he received
Angelic administrations from the Apostles Peter, James, and John, John
the Baptist, and others.
The Catholic Church
The Catholic conception of the afterlife teaches that
after the body dies, the soul is judged, the righteous and free of sin enter Heaven. However, those who die in unrepented
mortal sin go to hell. In the 1990s, the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the
sinner's self-exclusion from God. Unlike other Christian groups, the
Catholic Church teaches that those who die in a state of grace, but
still carry
venial sin go to a place called
Purgatory where they undergo purification to enter Heaven.
Orthodox Christianity
The Orthodox Church is intentionally reticent on the afterlife, as it
acknowledges the mystery especially of things that have not yet
occurred. Beyond the second coming of Jesus, bodily resurrection, and
final judgment, all of which is affirmed in the
Nicene Creed
(325 CE), Orthodoxy does not teach much else in any definitive manner.
Unlike Western forms of Christianity, however, Orthodoxy is
traditionally non-dualist and does not teach that there are two separate
literal locations of heaven and hell, but instead acknowledges that
"the 'location' of one’s final destiny—heaven or hell—as being
figurative."
[37]
Instead, Orthodoxy teaches that the final judgment is simply one's
uniform encounter with divine love and mercy, but this encounter is
experienced multifariously depending on the extent to which one has been
transformed, partaken of divinity, and is therefore compatible or
incompatible with God. "The monadic, immutable, and ceaseless object of
eschatological encounter is therefore the love and mercy of God, his
glory which infuses the heavenly temple, and it is the subjective human
reaction which engenders multiplicity or any division of experience."
[37] For instance,
St. Isaac the Syrian
observes that "those who are punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the
scourge of love. ... The power of love works in two ways: it torments
sinners . . . [as] bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the
sons of Heaven by its delectability."
[38]
In this sense, the divine action is always, immutably, and uniformly
love and if one experiences this love negatively, the experience is then
one of self-condemnation because of free will rather than condemnation
by God. Orthodoxy therefore uses the description of Jesus' judgment in
John 3:19-21 as their model: "19 And this is the judgment: the light has
come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the
light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works
should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light,
so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in
God.” As a characteristically Orthodox understanding, then, Fr.
Thomas Hopko
writes, "[I]t is precisely the presence of God’s mercy and love which
cause the torment of the wicked. God does not punish; he forgives. . . .
In a word, God has mercy on all, whether all like it or not. If we like
it, it is paradise; if we do not, it is hell. Every knee will bend
before the Lord. Everything will be subject to Him. God in Christ will
indeed be “all and in all,” with boundless mercy and uncondi- tional
pardon. But not all will rejoice in God’s gift of forgiveness, and that
choice will be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and
pain."
[39]
Moreover, Orthodoxy includes a prevalent tradition of
apokatastasis, or the restoration of all things in the end. This has been taught most notably by
Origen, but also many other Church fathers and Saints, including
Gregory of Nyssa, whom
Maximos the Confessor called the "universal doctor" and the
Second Council of Constantinople
(553 C.E.) not only called him the "father of fathers" but also
affirmed his orthodoxy while also simultaneously condemning Origen's
brand of universalism because it taught the restoration back to our
pre-existent state, which Orthodoxy doesn't teach. It is also a teaching
of such eminent Orthodox theologians as
Olivier Clément, Metropolitan
Kallistos Ware, and Bishop
Hilarion Alfeyev.
[40] Although apokatastasis is not a dogma of the church but instead a
theologoumena,
it is no less a teaching of the Orthodox Church than its rejection. As
Met. Kallistos Ware explains, "It is heretical to say that all must be
saved, for this is to deny free will; but, it is legitimate to hope that
all may be saved,”
[41] as insisting on torment without end also denies free will.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Joseph F. Smith of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
presents an elaborate vision of the Afterlife. It is revealed as the
scene of an extensive missionary effort by righteous spirits in paradise
to redeem those still in darkness—a spirit prison or "hell" where the
spirits of the dead remain until judgment. It is divided into two parts:
Spirit Prison and Paradise. Together these are also known as the Spirit
World (also Abraham's Bosom; see Luke 16:19-25). They believe that
Christ visited spirit prison (1 Peter 3:18-20) and opened the gate for
those who repent to cross over to Paradise.
"--- what Jesus' immortal
spirit did after His death and before His Resurrection is a mystery to
all but the Latter-day Saints ---" (Elder Spencer J. Condie, Liahona,
-Church magazine – July, 2003) "- - - unto the wicked he did not go, and
among the ungodly and the unrepentant - - his voice was not raised. - -
But behold, from among the righteous, He organized His forces and
appointed messengers ..." (D&C 138:20, 30–32). "Christ opened the
doors of hell to missionary work among the dead ..." (H. Donl Peterson,
"I Have a Question", Ensign, Apr. 1986, 36–38). This is similar to the
Harrowing of Hell doctrine of some mainstream Christian faiths.
[citation needed]
Both Spirit Prison and Paradise are temporary according to Latter-day
Saint beliefs. After the resurrection, spirits are assigned
"permanently" to three degrees of heavenly glory, determined by how they
lived– Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial.(1 Cor 15:44-42; Doctrine
and Covenants, Section 76) Sons of Perdition, or those who have know and
seen God and deny it, will be sent to the realm of Satan, which is
called Outer Darkness, where they shall live in misery and agony
forever. (See Doctrine and Covenants, Section 76.)
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally use terms such as "afterlife"
[42] to refer to any hope for the dead, but they understand
Ecclesiastes 9:5 to preclude belief in an immortal soul.
[43] Individuals judged by God to be wicked, such as in the
Great Flood or at
Armageddon,
are given no hope of an afterlife. However, they believe that after
Armageddon there will be a bodily resurrection of "both righteous and
unrighteous" dead (but not the "wicked"). Survivors of Armageddon and
those who are resurrected are then to gradually restore earth to a
paradise.
[44] After Armageddon, unrepentant sinners are punished with eternal death (non-existence).
Seventh-day Adventists
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, teaches that the first death, or
death brought about by living on a planet with sinful conditions
(sickness, old age, accident, etc.) is a sleep of the soul. Adventists
believe that the body + the breath of God = a living soul. Like
Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists use key phrases from the Bible, such as
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any
thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is
forgotten" (Eccl. 9:5 KJV). Adventists also point to the fact that the
wage of sin is death and God alone is
immortal.
Adventists believe God will grant eternal life to the redeemed who are
resurrected at Jesus' second coming. Until then, all those who have died
are "asleep". When Jesus the Christ, who is the Word and the Bread of
Life, comes a second time, the righteous will be raised incorruptible
and will be taken in the clouds to meet their Lord. The righteous will
live in heaven for a thousand years (the millennium) where they will sit
with God in judgment over the unredeemed and the fallen angels. During
the time the redeemed are in heaven, the Earth will be devoid of human
and animal inhabitation. Only the fallen angels will be left alive. The
second resurrection is of the unrighteous, when Jesus brings the New
Jerusalem down from heaven to relocate to Earth. Jesus will call to life
all those who are unrighteous. Satan and his angels will convince the
unrighteous to surround the city, but hell fire and brimstone will fall
from heaven and consume them, thus cleansing Earth of all sin. The
universe will be then free from sin forever. This is called the second
death. On the new earth God will provide an eternal home for all the
redeemed and a perfect environment for everlasting life, where Eden will
be restored. The great controversy will be ended and sin will be no
more. God will reign in perfect harmony forever.(Rom. 6:23; 1 Tim. 6:15,
16; Eccl. 9:5, 6; Ps. 146:3, 4; John 11:11-14; Col. 3:4; 1 Cor.
15:51-54; 1 Thess. 4:13-17; John 5:28, 29; Rev. 20:1-10; Rev. 20; 1 Cor.
6:2, 3; Jer. 4:23-26; Rev. 21:1-5; Mal. 4:1; Eze. 28:18, 19; 2 Peter
3:13; Isa. 35; 65:17-25; Matt. 5:5; Rev. 21:1-7; 22:1-5; 11:15.)
[45][46]
Islam
Main articles:
Barzakh and
Akhirah
The Islamic belief in the afterlife as stated in the
Qur'an is descriptive. The
Islamic word for Paradise is
Jannah and Hell is
Jahannam. Their level of comfort while in the grave depends wholly on their level of
Iman or faith in the one almighty creator or supreme being
God or
Allah.
In order for one to achieve proper, firm and healthy Iman one must
practice righteous deeds or else his level of Iman chokes and shrinks
and eventually can wither away if one does not practice
Islam long enough, hence the depth of practicing Islam is good deeds. One may also acquire
Tasbih and recite the names of Allah in such manner as "SubahannAllah" or
Glory be to
Allah over and over again to acquire good deeds. The levels in
Jannah are 7
[47] and 7 ((15) HİCR Suresi. Âyet - 44) for
Jahannam.
Islam teaches that the purpose of Man's entire creation is to worship the Creator of the Heavens and Earth—
Allah
alone that includes being kind to other human beings and life including
bugs, and to trees, by not oppressing them. Islam teaches that the life
we live on Earth is nothing but a test for us and to determine each
individual's ultimate abode be it punishment or
Jannat in the afterlife, which is eternal and everlasting.
In the 20th century, discussions about the afterlife address the
interconnection between human action and divine judgment, the need for
moral rectitude, and the eternal consequences of human action in this
life and world.
[48]
Jannah and
Jahannam both have different levels.
Jannah has seven gates and seven levels. The higher the level the better it is and the happier you are.
Jahannam possess 7 deep terrible layers. The lower the layer the worse it is. Individuals will arrive at both everlasting homes during
Judgment Day, which commences after the Angel
Israfil
blows the trumpet the second time. Islam teaches the continued
existence of the soul and a transformed physical existence after death.
Muslims believe there will be a day of judgment when all humans will be
divided between the eternal destinations of Paradise and Hell.
Resurrection and the Day of Judgment
A central doctrine of the Qur'an is the Last Day, on which the world
will be destroyed and Allah will raise all people and jinn from the dead
to be judged.
The Last Day is also called the Day of Standing Up, Day of
Separation, Day of Reckoning, Day of Awakening, Day of Judgment, The
Encompassing Day or The Hour.
Until the Day of Judgment, deceased souls remain in their graves
awaiting the resurrection. However, they begin to feel immediately a
taste of their destiny to come. Those bound for hell will suffer in
their graves, while those bound for heaven will be in peace until that
time.
The resurrection that will take place on the Last Day is physical,
and is explained by suggesting that God will re-create the decayed body
(17:100: "Could they not see that God who created the heavens and the
earth is able to create the like of them"?).
On the Last Day, resurrected humans and jinn will be judged by Allah
according to their deeds. One's eternal destination depends on balance
of good to bad deeds in life. They are either granted admission to
Paradise, where they will enjoy spiritual and physical pleasures
forever, or condemned to Hell to suffer spiritual and physical torment
for eternity. The day of judgment is described as passing over Hell on a
narrow bridge in order to enter Paradise. Those who fall, weighted by
their bad deeds, will remain in Hell forever.
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadi Muslims believe that the afterlife is not material but of a spiritual nature. According to
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of
Ahmadiyya
sect in Islam, the soul will give birth to another rarer entity and
will resemble the life on this earth in the sense that this entity will
bear a similar relationship to the soul as the soul bears relationship
with the human existence on earth. On earth, if a person leads a
righteous life and submits to the will of God, his or her tastes become
attuned to enjoying spiritual pleasures as opposed to carnal desires.
With this, an "embyonic soul" begins to take shape. Different tastes are
said to be born which a person given to carnal passions finds no
enjoyment. For example, sacrifice of one's own's rights over that of
other's becomes enjoyable, or that forgiveness becomes second nature. In
such a state a person finds contentment and Peace at heart and at this
stage, according to Ahmadiyya beliefs, it can be said that a soul within
the soul has begun to take shape.
[49]
Sufi
The Sufi scholar
Ibn 'Arabi
defined Barzakh as the intermediate realm or "isthmus". It is between
the world of corporeal bodies and the world of spirits, and is a means
of contact between the two worlds. Without it, there would be no contact
between the two and both would cease to exist. He described it as
simple and luminous, like the world of spirits, but also able to take on
many different forms just like the world of corporeal bodies can. In
broader terms Barzakh, “is anything that separates two things”. It has
been called the dream world in which the dreamer is in both life and
death.
[50]
Bahá'í Faith
The teachings of the
Bahá'í Faith
state that the nature of the afterlife is beyond the nature of those
living, just as an unborn fetus cannot understand the nature of the
world outside of the
womb. The
Bahá'í writings state that the soul is immortal and after death it will continue to progress until it attains
God's presence.
In Bahá'í belief, souls in the afterlife will continue to retain their
individuality and consciousness and will be able to recognize and
communicate spiritually with other souls whom they have made deep
profound friendships with, such as their
spouses.
[51]
The Bahá'í scriptures also state there are distinctions between souls
in the afterlife, and that souls will recognize the worth of their own
deeds and understand the consequences of their actions. It is explained
that those souls that have turned toward God will experience gladness,
while those who have lived in error will become aware of the
opportunities they have lost. Also, in the Baha'i view, souls will be
able to recognize the accomplishments of the souls that have reached the
same level as themselves, but not those that have achieved a rank
higher than them.
[51]
