What really happens when we die? Do we take an express elevator to heaven or hell, whichever we deserve, as some claim? Or, do we just drift off into a blissful, seemingly never-ending sleep, until we’re awakened again at the resurrection and have to give account for all we’ve said and done?
It’s a peculiar question, fraught with and mired down by a lot of deeply entrenched tradition, hazy folk theology, and creatively interpretative biblical gymnastics.
But, it’s a topic I really wanted to take on when the professor of my Death Course at Yale brought it up in one of his lectures.
So, I made it the subject of one of my papers I wrote for my Unschooled Master of Theology Program (uThM), and I’m kind of surprised with the conclusions I’ve reached.
(You can read all of my assignments and see the coursework I’m undertaking for my uThM program here.)
So, let’s try to answer the question: Is there validity to the concept of soul sleep?
Did Jesus come back to life, soul, spirit, and body? Or, did he just manifest himself to the disciples as an ethereal spirit, a kind of ghostly apparition that could walk through walls and vanish into thin air – you know, all the things any self-respecting ghost could do?
It’s a question that has occupied many a theologian and not a few philosophers over the course of human history, and it’s something I tackled in this paper I wrote for my Unschooled Master of Theology Program (uThM), and I discovered the bible actually has quite a lot to say about it.
(You can read all of my assignments and see the coursework I’m undertaking for my uThM program here.)
So, get ready to have your mind blown as we answer the question:
Is the Bodily Resurrection a viable philosophical proposition?
Does the soul exist? If it even does, what is it exactly? Is it part of our bodies? Somehow separate from them? When we die, does our soul die with our bodies or does it continue on? Can we know anything about the soul?
In this paper I wrote for my Unschooled Master of Theology Program (uThM), I wrestled with these and other questions about the existence of the soul and came to some interesting conclusions.
(You can find out more about my uThM program by clicking here as well as read all of my assignments and see the coursework I’m undertaking here.)
So, dust off all those old presuppositions and blind beliefs you’ve been carrying around with you, and let’s dig into the question:
Do you have a soul?
ISAAC HUNTER 