I finished my Hermeneutics Mega Course, part of my uThM Program and selected this topic for my second course paper.
To do so, I used course lectures from three sources: Koinonia Institute, the Theology Program, and the Master’s Seminary and the additional text, Basic Bible Interpretation.
You can read all of my course assignments here.
Let’s get started….
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?
Is it possible that Western Culture is doomed? Are we on a downward trajectory that ends with America being wiped off the map? Nuclear war, maybe? Economic collapse? Something worse?
Don’t believe it can happen? Ask the people who used to live in the Soviet Union. Ask a Roman….if you can find one…..
Societies fall all the time. In fact it seems almost inevitable. The Pandya dynasty in India lasted over 2000 years, but it ended. The Roman Empire lasted nearly 1500 years before it bit the dust. Assyrians, 1000 years.
There is a list as long as my arm of empires that lasted well over 400 years, all now gone.
The United States? How long have we lasted?
243 years.
Yesterday, I stumbled onto a website by a PhD candidate doing research in sociology. He reviewed the work of an anthropologist from the 1940’s and came away with an interesting question – about America. Ready for the bad news?
Let’s get started….
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?
For most of my thinking life, I’ve wanted to read Clan of the Cave Bear. I’m not altogether certain why, I just knew I did.
But, of course, as life goes, one thing got before another, excuse after excuse as good as any, and I found myself in my mid 40’s without having had the pleasure.
So, when I started my uThM program, I immediately added the book to my reading list.
(You can read all of my book reviews here.)
So, now that I’ve finished this book and have checked a long over due item off my bucket list, let’s talk about it….
I’ve recently started creating small playlists on Youtube with a variety of music I happen to enjoy – especially when I’m writing. I’ve even started using them on my TV to free up resources on my computer – plus, the speakers are much louder.
I like to turn it up and rock out while the words hit the page. Check out the songs I LOVE to listen to while I’m writing.
This is part of my Music Review Series.
Deborah Harkness is new to the writing scene, with a break out first book, A Discovery of Witches, released in 2011. It is now the first book in the All Souls Trilogy, as well as an upcoming television series to air in the US in January 2019.
The teaser on the Amazon page is this book is a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight.
Let’s see, shall we?
I have to admit, I’m new to Nora Roberts. I’ve never been exposed to her novels before, never really knew anything about her.
But, with a lot of down time on my hands lately, I stumbled onto this book and decided to give it a try.
What a good choice.
Katie Cadora had a rather uneventful life living with her mother in the suburbs of Chicago. But now everything is about to change, and Katie must come face to face with an unspeakable evil threatening her very existence. Will she make it out alive? What would you do if you realized everything in your life was a lie and someone out there wanted you dead or even worse?
Join Isaac in this incredibly tense and harrowingly supernatural, witch-tastic, paranormal thriller, and find out if Katie has it within her to survive the coming of Our Daughter.
$3.99 Only $2.99
ISAAC HUNTER 