I’d like to live forever, and under the right conditions I hope I can. I discuss that wish (and rebut those who look askance at the prospect) here. So I always remain puzzled by atheists/skeptics/naturalists etc. who insist that they really don’t want to live forever, even under the most ideal of conditions. Soren Kierkegaard […]
eternity
What happens after we die?
This past Sunday (Dec. 7th) I was invited to give a talk (aka a “sermon”) at St. Albert Alliance Church on the topic “What happens after we die?” (Thanks to Matt Garvin for inviting me and to the church for being a great host.) The talk was part of an extended series the church did […]
Are we horrified by hell because we aren’t holy enough?
Could it be that we are horrified at the prospect of people suffering eternal torture in body and mind because we are insufficiently holy? At first blush, that claim seems to contradict in the most direct terms what it means to be holy. And yet, you don’t have to look far to find theologians suggesting that […]
Life is meaningful because it does (or doesn’t) go on forever (a footnote)
Many a theist says this life is meaningful (or more meaningful) because it is the beginning of a life that is infinite in duration. Many an atheist says this life is meaningful (or more meaningful) because it is finite in duration. What does each side mean when they make these declarations? Let’s take a closer look at the […]
Life is meaningful because it does (or doesn’t) go on forever
Many times I’ve heard theists who accept the doctrine of human immortality talk about the fact that human life is meaningful because it continues forever. Thus, they’ll say things like this ditty from Maximus (Russell Crowe in “Gladiator”): “Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.” And then there is this classic observation from […]
A quick look at God as a temporal being
In “Love, omnibenevolence, and Francis Chan” I observed that many Calvinists reject the biblical presentation of God as sempiternal (that is, as backwardly and forwardly everlasting) in favor of an abstract and extra-biblical theory of divine atemporality. While I don’t have a problem with this per se, I do object when Calvinists then claim that Arminians […]
Will resurrected bodies have face mites?
The doctrine of the general resurrection is central to the Christian theological conception of the afterlife. At the core of the doctrine is the claim that numerically the same body that dies will one day be restored to life. Conceptually it is relatively straightforward to envision this process in the case of Christ who died […]
