In science it is “Don’t know how yet.”
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I agree with the rest of your post—but not with this point (assuming that with “no afterlife” you mean eternal annihiliation, not a temporary annihilitation before the final resurrection, this would be the stance of those who refuse the intermediate state but it wouldn’t mean “no afterlife” at all, it would only mean no intermediate state).
In 1 Corinthians 15:19 and 1 Corinthians 15:32 which are just as much part of the New Testament as the Gospels and equally authoritative, Paul writes:
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
“If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
And frankly, I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve never been able to see a middle ground between a life rooted in transcendent meaning and full-blown nihilism. I know that’s not a popular view, but I genuinely believe that meaning is something to be discovered, not invented. You can invent it, sure, but it’s delusion, at the end of the day.
In my view, the human mind isn’t made to live without purpose. That’s why there are so few people who are truly and deeply convinced of their atheism—at least, not without some sliver of hope tucked away. Nihilism, to me, is the inevitable consequence of believing there’s no afterlife and that this life is all there is. If that’s true, then whether you’ve lived like Maximilian Kolbe or Amon Goth, you end up in the same oblivion. All your memories, thoughts, and experiences would vanish—as if they had never existed. There’s no justice, no redemption, no lasting truth—just annihilation.
I haven’t always been a theist, let alone a Christian. I was an agnostic, leaning toward atheism—until something happened in my family that made my conversion almost unavoidable. To remain who I was would have required deliberate blindness. And I thank God every day for breaking through.
But even before my conversion, I never lied to myself about “creating meaning” in a meaningless universe. That’s precisely why I went all in with YOLO and, admittedly, licentiousness, in the years preceding my conversion. Because…well, because why not? Why the hell not? If we are just biological machines, flickering briefly between two eternities of nothingness, there’s no true reason to do anything at all—except maybe follow utilitarian calculus. Even love wouldn’t hold up as a meaningful reason in that case, because in a meaningless and indifferent universe, ‘love’ would be nothing more than a biochemical reaction — devoid of purpose and inherent value.
Thank God the truth is different. And thank God He reveals it to those who are even slightly open to hearing and seeing it with a sincere heart.
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That is a “belief.” That science has closed a lot of primitive (prescientific) and a few modern (premature) gaps doesn’t mean it will explain everything or that it could ever provide a complete explanation or understanding of anything.
Vinnie
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But it will certainly continue trying.
You just said that it has “closed” gaps which would imply it has explained/understands some things.
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Those are good thoughts. I have to say that I hope for and look forward to afterlife, just wonder how it could work with intellect preservation. However, I think we have to be careful that our salvation and Christian life does not become a transactional agreement in our eyes.
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Nothing wrong with that.
It can rule out contrary explanations and provide models that work very well even if it can’t offer a complete description of something.
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A fair number of legal scholars over the centuries and in different systems of law have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to “convict” Jesus of having risen from the dead – and many of them started out to prove the opposite. On top of that, the case has only grown stronger the more we learn.
So I see it as a matter of sitting as a jury member: do I ‘vote’ to convict, i.e. to affirm the Resurrection?
To me that is a question for after I ‘cast my vote’ to “convict” Jesus of the Resurrection. And of course I start with the text, so my question is twofold: Does anything about evolution contradict the text of scripture (answer: no)? and How does that work, given the text? The hardest part is separating my societally-ingrained “animals are cute” worldview aspect from what the scriptures actually say.
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I had a Jewish friend who became Christian who had little patience with the “accept Jesus to go to heaven” crowd; he maintained that was an attitude of accepting a bribe and insisted that the question should never be whether the message brings a reward but whether it is true.
There’s a difference between “containing certain historical facts” and being historical. Nothing in the Bible except the Gospels were written as any form of history – the “historical” OT books come in second – but it was all written to convey a theological message. Some that to uneducated eyes looks like history (e.g. Genesis 1) wasn’t written as anything even resembling history but was pure theological messaging, and to try to read it as history always gives off-center results (and indeed throws most of the actual message in the trash). The message is always about how things stand between God and man, and sometimes that means following some historical facts, but it always means reading according to the type of literature the writer intended, because that’s where the message is conveyed.
So to a large extent the question of “Did it actually happen (this way)?” isn’t relevant; what is relevant is that God gave us this set of messages and we are supposed to learn about Him.
How do you vote – to convict Jesus of rising from the dead, or not? That’s the core question, because if He rose from the dead (He did) then everything else has to fit around that fact.
Besides which, what authority does science have to rule on an afterlife? What instruments are there that can measure it? The answers are that there is no such authority because the matter lies outside the reach/scope of science; there is no Divinometer or even a Spiritometer.
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Absolutely. But when we reflect on how deeply God loved the world, and the immense suffering He endured on our behalf, love for Him becomes a natural and genuine response, far beyond any sense of transaction.
I don’t love God because He promises me eternal life; I love Him because, while I was still a sinner, He gave His life for me.
How could we not be moved to reciprocate such a profound love? Once we begin to grasp the depth of His love for humankind, loving Him isn’t something we’re obligated to do — it becomes the only natural response. Even more when you start seeing how He intervenes in your life.
Far beyond any “transactionality”.
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I think that answers it pretty well from my perspective as well, so will not repeat, but just note that I think some history is present after Genesis 11, but it is not readily identifiable as to what actually transpired vs what the human authors thought happened from their viewpoint.
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I only believe in Christianity because of evolution. It is the only solution I see to Epicurus’ “Problem of Evil.” Life in its very essence is a struggle against death and thus without death there is no life. So the question simply becomes, why did God create life? Because love requires it. Love requires relationship and choice. Choice is the essence of life, and without life all you will have are poor imitations like game simulation of societies of npcs.
Objective evidence only exists because of the mathematical space-time structure of the universe, and thus logically it can only provide evidence for things within that structure. Science requires objective observation and excluding what you might want, but life requires subjective participation, where what you want is paramount. And thus science and its objective evidence is necessarily insufficient for living ones life.
Thus for living your life you simply must make choice where there will never be any evidence. It is unavoidable. And thus in the case of life after death outside structure of the physical universe is one of those things you choose whether to believe. For myself, believing existence ends with death seems a little too easy and comfortable. Seems to me we might as well prepare for the less easy/comfortable possibility.
Despite how much is written about history, what we have good evidence for is vastly exceeded by what we have no evidence for at all. So the question it seems to me, is what exactly does an absence of evidence actually prove? Well it only proves anything when we have substantial reasons to believe that evidence for a particular thing should exist. So, for example, the exclusive genetic beginning of mankind with a single couple – for that we have good reason to expect evidence and we see none. How about a global flood – again we have good reason to expect evidence and we don’t see any. But for most of the things in the Bible we don’t have any good reason to expect such evidence and so not seeing any proves nothing.
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But doesn’t the absence of evidence for the claims that should have some, make us doubtful about those that shouldn’t?
Doesn’t it seem like Paul, and even Jesus saw Genesis as historical though?
Thanks for the helpful input 
I guess I’m envious that you had an experience that made it unavoidable!
The more I hear, the more that I feel there is a strong experiential element to a confident faith.
Thanks for your response
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That fits with how some YEC types here have freaked out when I said we don’t need the Bible.’
I once encountered the idea that there was no childbearing – i.e. no offspring at all – before the Fall. This idea works well with that.
That’s true of any first-century Jew! That any disciple of any rabbi would do a 180 and start referring to a human being as God says something massive happened. That Yahweh showed up ‘wearing’ human form was familiar from the Old Testament, but to identify that Yahweh with someone who was even born as a baby in the first place is a conclusion that demands something extraordinary – let alone that Yahweh was crucified!
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By the Old Testament definition, you are a soul which has a spirit.
Ah, the old “Could God have done otherwise?” question.
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Big topics, Patrick…you could start SEVERAL posts with each of those three as the ONE topic…and even then! I will assert that each of those three could branch into three or four other topics related just to them.
#1 Does evolution “require” cycles of death? or do they just happen for no reason? or to ferilize the earth? the theological stance on death would be (probably in one view of it) that the only way to stop us is to give us a time limit on earth. But then that requires a conversation on why we need to be stopped in some way… a whole other thing!
#2–“lack of evidence for an afterlife” --well, that could fire up at least a half-dozen spin-off posts. The fact that we think there should be one does not mean there IS one. But the fact that we think we ought to live forever might mean that we actually do–
- The “lack of certainty” about things like the exodus, the fall, the resurrection…now those are curious subjects! Exodus – there are good arguments for just as some against. The range of Egyptian names and words in ancient Hebrew, the book of Exodus’ knowledge of brickmaking records that Egyptians used – making at least the case for Semites living in Egypt at some point. The knowledge in Exodus of the geography of the Sinai area…I don’t mean to be flippant but this is all a big subject. Good questions for sure…but require lots of conversation. At some point you weigh it out and say “yea” or “nay” to an assertion.
- The resurrection has quite a number of good arguments in its favor — the most common one was the fact (yes, pretty well known) that the Judaism of the day expected that a Jewish man would soon appear who would be both Messiah and God…but they sure did not believe he/He would be murdered — not on a cross or any other way. This is not an argument from silence but an argument based on the belief that a completely unexpected event occurred which vindicated the man’s claim to be Creator of the Universe…and Judaism believed (maybe still does) that resurrection occurs only at the end of time…OK long story.
– “The fall” – when was the last time you met a perfect person? OK, so you did meet one? Talk with his wife and then get back to us… This is a long topic.
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Possibly. But the types of literature involved are such that taking them literally in terms of drawing conclusions from them is legitimate. It’s something the modern mind has trouble with; we want something to be literal if we’re going to base conclusions on it, but the ancients weren’t stuck in that box.
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Hmm, are you sure? What I actually meant is that I suspect the rebellion of Satan and the one-third of the angels who followed him—which I believe occurred at the very beginning of time—may have had something to do with the way the material world turned out, long before human sin ever entered the picture.
The only thing I would add is that, according to Hurtado, in the thought of Paul and the early Christians, the name YHWH (the God of Israel) is primarily identified with the Father, but also applied to Jesus in significant ways.
So, in short:
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YHWH = primarily the Father, in traditional terms.
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But Jesus, while not being YHVH, receives divine honors, names, and roles reserved for YHWH alone.
Larry Hurtado argues that early Christians like Paul redefined monotheism by including Jesus in the divine identity traditionally reserved for YHWH. While YHWH is primarily the Father, Jesus is not a second god, but shares in YHWH’s unique divine status — through:
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his reception of the name Kyrios,
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his role in creation,
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his reception of worship,
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and the application of OT YHWH texts to him.
Hurtado does not say Jesus is YHWH the Father (or that YHVH was crucified), but rather that Jesus is “in” YHWH — or, to use Bauckham’s language, “included in the unique identity of the one God.”
In other words, a true binitarianism—Jesus’ full divinity was evident to the early Christians and not merely a later theological construct, even as they clearly distinguished Him from God the Father.
Sure – the idea was that there was no death – and no offspring, for that reason – until Satan or whoever rebelled, and that was the start of animal death which in return required offspring.
I’m guessing Hurtado isn’t familiar with Jewish binitarianism, where there was “Yahweh in heaven” and “Yahweh walking on earth” who were two distinct entities yet one Yahweh. From that perspective, Jesus was obviously the Yahweh who walked on earth.
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