So far in this little miniseries, I’ve briefly outlined nine different Western takes on the afterlife (which you can check out in Parts 1 and 2). Despite their differences, each of these different theories has shared one thing in common: a belief in multiple ‘places’ in the afterlife. The criteria for who ends up in which ‘place’ may vary; so, too, the fate of those who end up in the ‘bad place’ (be it never-ending torments, destruction into non-existence, future salvation, or something else completely). Nevertheless, a sense of justice and hope is maintained: ‘bad people’ (whatever that means) receive the deserved consequences of their misdeeds; ‘good people’ are remembered and rewarded, their troubles and sufferings brought to an end.
‘Dual-destination’ models of the afterlife do not, however, represent the entire range of Western thought on the topic. The following, then, are five important Single-Destination views. I’ve tried to follow my own ‘naming rules’ as closely as possible (that is, choosing labels that are reasonably simple, easy enough to understand, and unbiased); I will admit, though, that my chosen labels are by no means perfect.
Type 10: Single-Destination Universalism
“Taking these estimates of human nature to heart, I draw two conclusions: first, that such impaired adult human agency is no more competent to be entrusted with its (individual or collective) eternal destiny than two-year-old agency is to be allowed choices that could result in its death or serious physical impairment; and second, that the fact that the choices of such impaired agents come between the divine creator of the environment and their infernal outcome no more reduces divine responsibility for the damnation than two-year-old agency reduces the responsibility of the adult caretaker...
My brand of universalism offers all the advantages of Augustine’s and Calvin’s sola gratia approaches (like them, it makes our salvation utterly gratuitous and dependent on God’s surprising and loving interest in us) and then some…”
— Marilyn McCord Adams, ‘The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians’
“We still have every reason to believe that everlasting separation is the kind of evil that a loving God would prevent even if it meant interfering with human freedom in certain ways...
Just as loving parents are prepared to restrict the freedom of the children they love, so a loving God would be prepared to restrict the freedom of the children he loves; the only difference is that God deals with a much larger picture than that with which human parents are immediately concerned.”
— Thomas Talbott, ‘The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment’
There is one possible destination in the afterlife. All humans will go to heaven.
Possibly, this will be because God’s freedom of choice will override human freedom of choice. If a person ‘chooses’ to do good or to reconcile to God, it will be because God decided to cause it to happen, and therefore God will effectively force all people to choose good and to enter heaven.
To put this another way, it could be speculated that God will so compellingly clear away all sources of ignorance and misunderstanding that all humans will obviously choose to ‘follow God’.
Alternatively, since human choices are dominated by ignorance, culture, upbringing, and other factors, it is impossible for people to be judged as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the first place. God will therefore choose to absolve all people of their ‘evil’ and transform them into perfectly good beings.
Type 11: Rubber Band (Theistic)
“In it beyond doubt there will dwell the blessed no less than the damned; but just as one and the same light, as we have said, is suited to healthy eyes, but hampers those in pain, one and the same food or drink is bitter in the throat of the feeble, pleasant in the throat of those who enjoy good health, so indeed the unimpaired joy of their salvation pleases the former, the punitive sadness of their corruption displeases the latter...
Accordingly, if there is no happiness except eternal life, and eternal life is the knowledge of truth, therefore there is no happiness except the knowledge of truth… Therefore, where truth is not known, there there is no life.”
— John Scottus Eriugena, ‘Treatise on Divine Predestination’
There is one possible destination in the afterlife. After death, all human consciousness will return to God. This will not be because God chose it to happen. Instead, like a rubber band, since all things originated from God, all things must inevitably return to God. While all human consciousness will return to God, each person will maintain a sense of individuality. ‘God’ is a being who is in all things while simultaneously transcending all things.
All individuals will be subjected to the same circumstances in the afterlife, but it is possible that different individuals will experience this as either joyful or painful based on their own conscience, attitude, and perceptions.
Type 12: Rubber Band (Non-Theistic)
“In the Supreme, the Intellectual-Principles are not annulled, for in their differentiation there is no bodily partition, no passing of each separate phase into a distinct unity; every such phase remains in full possession of that identical being. It is exactly so with the souls...
… they have already chosen the way of division; but to the extreme they cannot go; thus they keep, at once, identification and difference; each soul is permanently a unity [a self] and yet all are, in their total, one being.“
— Plotinus, Fourth Ennead
“The evil that has overtaken them has its source in self-will, in the entry into the sphere of process, and in the primal differentiation with the desire for self ownership. They conceived a pleasure in this freedom and largely indulged their own motion; thus they were hurried down the wrong path, and in the end, drifting further and further, they came to lose even the thought of their origin in the Divine. A child wrenched young from home and brought up during many years at a distance will fail in knowledge of its father and of itself: the souls, in the same way, no longer discern either the divinity or their own nature; ignorance of their rank brings self-depreciation; they misplace their respect, honouring everything more than themselves; all their awe and admiration is for the alien, and, clinging to this, they have broken apart, as far as a soul may, and they make light of what they have deserted; their regard for the mundane and their disregard of themselves bring about their utter ignoring of the divine…
Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all… but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is of eternal being.“
— Plotinus, Fifth Ennead
There is one possible destination in the afterlife. After death, all human consciousness will return to ‘God’. Like a rubber band, since all things originated from ‘God’, all things must inevitably return to ‘God’. While all human consciousness will return to ‘God’, each person will maintain a sense of individuality. ‘God’ is a not a being; ‘God’ is a ‘principle’ which is in all things while simultaneously transcending all things.
Human souls are inherently immortal, while human bodies are not. Individual human consciousness will continue indefinitely after death.
Type 13: Non-Conscious Cosmic Recombination
There is one ultimate destination in the afterlife. The supernatural ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ of all humans will eventually return to the eternal cycle of decay and rebirth which makes up the universe.
It may be possible that the souls (and therefore, the individual consciousness) of all humans, some humans, or no humans will continue after death for a period of time. Even if human souls persist after death, however, this afterlife state will not be ideal or heaven-like; furthermore, all human consciousness (if it does persist after death) will eventually be destroyed.
Type 14: No Afterlife
There is one possible destination in the afterlife. Individual human consciousness does not persist after death, and neither does any kind of supernatural human ‘essence’. Humans are entirely mortal and physical; as such, the final destination for all humans is death.
This is a modified excerpt from my as-yet-unreleased book, Decoding Gehenna: Hell and the Afterlife in the West. Subscribe or Follow Me for updates and more sneak-peek excerpts!
