As inferred in previous articles on freelance theology, the general Christian view is that human beings are holistic and so body and spirit are interdependent – one cannot exist without the other. This is why there has always been an emphasis within Christian teaching on physical resurrection. The New Testament view on the afterlife seems to imply that there is no time-lag between death and resurrection/judgement day, from the point of view of the person who has died.

Strictly speaking, then, there is no room for ‘ghosts’ in the Christian view of life after death. However, there are a couple of interesting Biblical references to ghosts. Also within Christian-based folklore that has been historically plenty of room for ‘ghost stories’, with a popular belief that ‘ghosts’ are spirits who have somehow gone astray in the process and have not ended up where they were supposed to be.

Biblical ghosts
In the Old Testament, there is a story that King Saul paid a witch to summon up the spirit of the prophet Samuel, so that the king could seek the prophet’s guidance. During this story (found in 1 Samuel chapter 28), it seems that Saul believed the encounter with Samuel’s spirit to be genuine. Samuel asks Saul why he has been disturbed and “brought up” (verse 15) and then gives Saul some bad news, which destroys the king’s confidence. There is no hint in the narrative that another supernatural agent was deceiving Saul.

It’s worth noting, though, that this story occurs in the Old Testament, when there was a widespread belief that ‘souls’ of the departed went to a place called ‘sheol’ (often translated as ‘the pit’ or ‘the grave’). Later, in Christian theology, ‘sheol’ was identified with ‘hell’, although it appears more like a cosmic holding place, similar to ‘limbo’ in medieval Catholic theology. The ancient Christian tradition that Jesus descended into hell and liberated the righteous who had died during the time of the old covenant (occasionally referred to as ‘the harrowing of hell’) meant that spirits of departed heroes of the faith were no longer available to be summoned.

In the New Testament there are two particular incidents where Jesus is misidentified as a ghost. The story of Jesus walking on water includes a reference – his disciples thought he was a ghost and “cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified” (Mark chapter 6, verses 49-50). Later, after Jesus resurrection, Luke’s gospel records his first appearance to all the disciples, when apparently the disciples thought he was a ghost. Jesus allays their fears by inviting them to touch him and affirm his physicality (Luke chapter 24, verses 37-39).

It would appear from both those stories that, like many people at the time, the disciples believed in ghosts. They are not reprimanded for their belief, but their initial reaction is proved to be a mistake. Of course, just because the disciples believed in ghosts is no indicator of whether ghosts exist, and all it really shows is that the disciples were as superstitious as anyone else living at that time.

A lack of evidence
The likelihood is that, ghosts simply do not exist, despite several attempts by paranormal investigators to prove the existence of ghosts, and several popular television programmes that claim to uncover evidence of haunted houses and spirit apparitions. There is no conclusive proof and many ‘sightings’ can be explained by visual hallucinations, suggestion, and the subconscious ‘wiring’ in human brains that seeks to ascribe a cause to random events and looks for identifiable patterns, for example, seeing the outline of a ‘person’ in a random shape.

Human brains are both very complex and quite easy to fool, and so there is often no need to ascribe ‘ghosts’ to ‘demonic activity’ or any other supernatural agent. A more prosaic explanation is that people who go looking for ghosts because they believe in ghosts are more likely to have an experience of a ‘ghostly’ nature, simply because their brain tells them they have seen a ghost. Those experiences – including feelings of fear, dread, or even wellbeing and peace – may well be real, but the ghosts probably are not.

(For more information about how human brains are structured to interpret and imbue meaning to random patterns, see Supersense: The Brain Science of Belief, by Porfessor Bruce Hood. Please note, this is not a Christian book.)

But in theological traditions that maintain a doctrine of judgement and ‘perdition’ (e.g. that unbelievers are destined to be punished in hell for their sins), the physical nature of descriptions of hell presupposes that the human beings who are sent there possess a physical body.

The unbeliever’s resurrection physical body would presumably be similar to the believer’s resurrection body in that it would be recognisable with a continuous physical resemblance to the former body of the person who died. It will not, however, be remade in the same way as a believer’s resurrection body as it will not have been perfected and glorified in the way a believer’s resurrection body is described, because that process of glorification is achieved because of the believer’s faith in Christ. (1 Corinthians chapter 15)

There has been some debate about what happens to the soul in Christian theology over the centuries, partly because there has been a tendency to view the soul as almost like an ‘inhabitant’ of the body. This is an idea found more in Greek philosophy, which separates body and soul as two quite distinct entities. However, the Jewish view of human nature is much more ‘holistic’, in that body and soul are seen as indivisible, and it is that belief which appears to inform the New Testament emphasis on the resurrection being a physical, bodily event.

However, there is the question of what happens between the moment of a person’s death, and the resurrection, which usually links in with the promised return of Christ. Broadly speaking there are four main ideas, outlined below, although there are variations on each of them.

1. The believers’ soul goes immediately into God’s presence (and the flipside to that idea: unbelievers’ souls go to hell where they await judgement day)1. This seems to be implied by Jesus’ recorded words on the cross promising the thief crucified alongside him that “today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke chapter 23, verse 43). It also seems to be the apostle Paul’s view, given comments like: “to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians chapter 1, verse 23)2.

2. Souls go to some intermediate place and await judgement day. In Roman Catholic teaching souls enter Purgatory where they are ‘purged’ (purified) of sin to make them ready to enter Heaven. There is a reference in the book 2 Maccabees, in the Apocrypha, to ‘making atonement for the dead’3, which has been used to support this idea. However, there is also the possibility of people going straight to Heaven in Catholic belief, and also to Hell.

3. Souls “sleep” until the Second Coming of Christ and ‘wake’ just in time for judgement day. This idea has no Biblical basis, although the Bible does often use the word ‘sleep’ as a metaphor for death. As such, the word ‘sleep’ is used to reassert the conviction that death is only temporary and there will be a resurrection. In Hebrews chapter 12, the reader is urged to press on with living a godly life in the presence of a ‘great cloud of witnesses’, i.e. those who have died and are now in Heaven. This seems to imply the dead have some awareness of what is going on among the living, and so must be ‘awake’.

4. The souls of believers go to Heaven and the souls of unbelievers cease to exist. This is sometimes referred to as ‘annihilationism’ but is hard to square with the Biblical references to judgement day, or the historical Christian creeds which state that Jesus will judge ‘both the living and the dead’. If only the souls of believers survive death, then judgement is unnecessary.

Regarding the second part of the question, the chain of events to do with the Second Coming of Christ is again a matter of debate. From what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, it would appear he thinks that the souls of believers will return from Heaven to Earth with Christ and be reunited with their bodies when ‘the dead rise before the living’. Quite how this works is not really explained by Paul, and it should always be remembered that ‘resurrection bodies’ are a ‘glorified physical form’ which are remade perfectly4. On the basis of some Biblical passages5 it may be that unbelievers will also be resurrected at this time and then be judged.

On a final note, however, the most important thing stressed by the Biblical writers is not how long it takes for a person’s soul to get to heaven, but the assurance offered to believers that their soul, body, and combination of the two will end up there. In one sense it makes no difference whether that is instantaneous on death, or after a period of ‘soul sleep’, which you would not be aware of anyway. Similarly the exact timing of the resurrection it less important than whether it happens, or not.

Notes and references

1For the purposes of this question, it is assumed that there is a separation between believers and unbelievers after death, although that is also a subject with a number of differing viewpoints.
2 See also the phrase to ‘be away from the body and at home with the Lord’ in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 8.
3 See 2 Maccabees chapter 12, verses 42-45
4 Philippians chapter 3, verse 20-21: “And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
5 e.g. see Acts chapter 24, verse 15; Matthew chapter 25, verses 31-46 (The parable of the sheep and the goats)

I have read that Jesus only spoke in parables. I would like to know your thoughts on the subject of “The rich man and Lazarus”. I would just like to know if it is a true story or just a story to make a point.

‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’ is a parable of Jesus which is only found in Luke’s gospel (Luke chapter 16, verses 19 – 31). The basic thread of the story is that a rich man and a beggar, Lazarus, both die. The rich man goes to hell and sees Lazarus in “Abraham’s bosom” (a phrase equating to paradise or heaven) and begs Lazarus to come and bring him water. Lazarus can’t help him because he cannot cross the gulf between heaven and hell.

This parable has sometimes been cited as evidence that Jesus taught a ‘literal’ doctrine of hell – a place of eternal torment for the wicked – which, the theory goes, Jesus, as the pre-existent son of God would be able to describe from a position of knowledge. However, despite the popularity of this story as ‘evidence’ for hell, the fact remains it is a parable and no definite conclusions to its literal truth can be drawn.

Generally speaking, it is assumed that parables are stories told to convey a ‘deeper truth’. In this case the message of the parable is such that the parable is classed as an ‘example parable’, designed to make the listener/reader examine their own lives and actions.

The reason the rich man ends up in a place of torment is his own selfishness in life, refusing to share the riches that God has blessed him with. He ignores Lazarus, the beggar at his gate and is judged for it. The upshot of the story is found at the end when the rich man begs Lazarus be sent back from the dead to warn his brothers of the dreadful fate in store for them if they act in a similarly selfish way.

Jesus concludes his story with the rich man being told that if his brothers didn’t believe the Law and the Prophets, then they wouldn’t believe a man coming back from the dead (verse 31). This is Jesus’ commentary on the Law and Prophetic teaching of the Judaism of his time – that it can be distilled as showing compassion, or love, for the poor and dispossessed. Equally, in including the reference to a man coming back from the dead, the gospel writer is also making a wry reference to those who will not accept the teaching of Jesus, especially after he is resurrected.

Jesus then probably told the parable to make his audience think about their priorities in life. Whether he was basing it on a true series of events isn’t really relevant to the point of the parable, and certainly cannot be proven one way or the other.

The Christian idea of a ‘soul’ is itself an example of an ‘evolving doctrine’. In the Old Testament there is a concept of a ‘shade’ dwelling in ‘sheol’ (often translated as ‘the grave’), hinting at some undefined continuance of human life. In the New Testament, life after death is described predominantly in terms of bodily resurrection, with virtually no sense of a ‘soul’ existing apart from a physical body.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, a belief in souls as a part of a human being, distinguishable from the body, was soon assimilated into Christian thought. Souls, in pre-Christian philosophy were regarded as immortal, and some Christians have taken a view that when a person dies their soul continues to exist, in a diminished capacity, until it is reunited with its body at the resurrection.

Technically, whether the soul is accepted as immortal or not, the Christian view of humanity is holistic. To put it another way, a person’s soul or spirit is only definitely known to exist ‘embodied’ in a physical body, hence the New Testament emphasis on physical resurrection in ‘perfect bodies’.

Another area for confusion is between the soul and the mental, thought processes, which could be described as consciousness, and are often described as ‘mind’. A ‘soul’ is often grouped with mind and body to describe a human bieng in three parts – for example, body, mind and spirit. A soul cannot be detected by any empirical tests, unlike the physical body and consciousness/intelligence (usually described as ‘spirit’ or ‘mind’), so the belief in human souls is a matter of faith.

However, for those who do believe in souls, and most Christians do, there are two issues relating to the current debate on cloning with regard to souls. The first is whether a cloned embryo would have a soul. The second relates to the link between souls and genetic identity; or to put it another way: would a clone have a cloned soul?

Artificial embryos: artificial souls?
Some Christians, including the Roman Catholic church, would argue that life begins at the very moment of conception, so as soon as sperm and egg fuse together to create a new genetic identity, the ensuing embryo has a soul. For example, British pressure group Care state: “CARE believes, as do many others, that human life begins at conception. … We do not see any moral distinction between an embryo, a postnatal baby and an adult.” [Human Cloning - Your Questions Answered, CARE, 2000]

This belief that an embryo has a soul, is why anti-abortion campaigners oppose ‘early abortion’ methods such as the morning-after pill, which prevents an embryo implanting in the uterus, effectively killing it. Some also oppose infertility treatment, because it often creates a number of surplus embryos which are not implanted and are subsequently destroyed. [See for example: Cherishing Life (teaching document from the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales on life issues), published in 2004]

Other Christians regard an embryo as only a ‘potential human’, rather than a full human, but then it is debatable when ‘ensoulment’ occurs, and what causes it. The Catholic position, echoed by many anti-abortion campaigners is a catch-all. By insisting that life begins at conception, when God gives an embryo a soul, the awkward question ‘When does a foetus gain a soul?’ is avoided.

If the soul does come into existence at the moment of conception, that means if an artificially created embryo survives and develops into a human being, such a position would have to regard the clone as having a soul.

A cloned embryo would be developed in a very similar way to an embryo created through standard infertility treatment, which would be regarded as having a soul. The only difference is in the source of the genetic material. There is still a ‘moment of conception’, regardless of the origin of the genetic material.

Genetic identity and cloned souls
Except, as in most medical ethical issues, it is not as simple as that. A clone would, of course, share the exact same genetic identity as another human being. This already happens in the case of identical twins, but as ethicists frequently point out, identical twins are usually very similar in age, and are also formed naturally. A clone would be younger than it’s genetic twin and “would be denied the right to genetic diversity and the unique identity and individuality that natural procreation provides.” [- Philippa Taylor, Cloning: Issues and Implications, The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy, Summer 2003]

If the Christian holistic view of humanity is to be believed, a human’s soul is inextricably bound up in their genetic identity, even more so if human embryos have souls from the moment of conception, as in the views outlined above. If a human clone was regarded as having a soul, then would that soul be an exact replica of its genetic twin? Would the cloner effectively be cloning a soul too?

On a facetious level, if God ‘gives out’ souls when an embryo is created, then this issue is irrelevant. A new embryo would have a new soul. If, however, souls are produced along with new genetic material – and are inextricably linked to it – then re-creating that genetic material may create an additional soul too.

Creating clones
As a final point in this whole discussion it is probably worth pointing out that a clone, in this context, is likely to be the victim of circumstances. While there is no evidence that a successful human cloning has taken place, and some debate over whether the procedure could even produce a viable human being, there is a deeper ethical issue of why a person would want to produce a clone.

If clones were produced to harvest body parts, as in science fiction film The Island, then the clone would be a victim. The Christian, Biblical depiction of God is of a deity who takes the side of the oppressed – in this case the clones. Certainly, in order to deny the human rights of a clone, it would be easy to imagine people claiming they were without souls and less than human.

But it would be hard to square the Biblical injunctions to protect the weak and the powerless (the ‘voiceless’) with aggressively cloning humans and using the clones as ‘spare parts’. However, whether it would be acceptable to use cloned embryos to create ‘stem cells’ or other medical treatments, will depend on whether a human embryo is considered to have a soul or not.

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I have a question about hell. What do you think of a God who says (to paraphrase Brian McLaren), ‘If you don’t love me, I’ll torture you forever in hell’? If the lake of fire scenario is right, then the vast bulk of humanity are going to be eternally tortured in ways that make Guantanamo seem tame. I want to be faithful to the Scriptures, and to God, so what do you think? Is annihilation-ism an unscriptural cop-out, or a better rendering of the biblical evidence?

One of the big issues of Western theology since the Enlightenment has been the application of moral judgements on theological statements. Frequently the debate about hell descends into a moral debate: is it right for people to suffer eternally, regardless of what they have done? Can Christianity assert on the one hand that God is loving, and yet equally willing to condemn people to hell?

This contradiction is a common criticism of Christianity. The cartoonist Scott Adams sums this up in one of his earlier books when he illustrates a conversation between a believer and a skeptic. “What happens to the four billion people who don’t know that God loves all his children?” asks the skeptic. “Eternal hell!” says the believer. [Dogbert’s Clues for the Clueless, p.95]

However, logical and moral arguments both face the same difficulty: reconciling Biblical and traditional theology with either a universalist or annihilationist stance. Exponents of traditional teaching on hell are quick to emphasise Jesus’ warnings about hell as a tangible reality that lasts for eternity (see Matthew chapter 26, verse 46). The teaching of the early Church found in the New Testament epistles also regards hell as a real place, and the destination of unbelievers.

It is worth noting, though, that while some sort of afterlife (‘sheol’; the pit) was hinted at in the Old Testament, the concept of hell developed mainly within Christianity. It possibly drew on other negative views of the afterlife, such as Hades (which is the actual word used in some of the original Greek texts). Certainly the notion of hell being ‘below’ is a borrowed concept, common to many cultures of the time, about an ‘underworld’ which was the abode of the dead.

But ‘Hades’, like ‘sheol’, seems to be a neutral place where the souls of dead people dwell. In only three instances (out of 10) Hades is described as a place of suffering (Matthew chapter 11, verse 23; Luke chapter 10, verse 15 and chapter 16, verse 23). The more common term for a place of suffering after death is ‘Gehenna’.

This distinction between a place of suffering and a place where the dead wait until judgement/resurrection possibly informed later Christian concepts such as Limbo and Purgatory. In Revelation chapter 20, verses 11-15, the dead are judged and those who’s names are not “found in the book of life” are thrown into the “lake of fire”, which is described as “the second death” (verse 14). In this passage, ‘the sea’, ‘Hades’ and ‘death’ all appear to be resting places for souls awaiting judgement, and no mention is made of punishment.

Revelation chapter 20, verse 14, is open to a number of interpretations.“The second death” has often been cited as final – possibly an indicator of the annihilation of the wicked. But the fiery lake described in Revelation has also contributed to the image of hell as a place of torment, where heat and fire are used to torture the sinful.

If the concept of hell still seems abhorrent morally, or illogical, it is worth recalling that the emphasis on God as holy and wrathful is also a Biblical reflection, that is often only expounded in ‘fire and brimstone’ fundamentalist circles. Any discussion of God’s love does need to take into account this other aspect of God’s character attested to in the Bible – both Old and New Testaments. It may be that feeling uncomfortable with traditional teaching on hell is grounded in an over-emphasis on God’s love and mercy at the expense of an equally valid portrayal of holiness and judgement.

The reverse is also true, of course. God’s love and mercy often seem to be ignored by preachers who seem very certain about who is destined for hell. If anything, Christ’s teaching on this is ambiguous, and dependent very much on God’s mercy – in fact, if the judgement scene in Matthew 26 is anything to go by, some religious people will be judged as unrighteous and assigned to a place of eternal punishment. And those who never knew they were serving Christ when they performed acts of kindness will go to “everlasting life”.

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ER: Is there wine in heaven?
BR: If so, is it alcoholic, as some people say that ‘wine’ in the Bible was merely grape juice?

While the Bible is never fully clear on the subject of what ‘heaven’ is like, there are references to eating and drinking. In Luke chapter 22, verse 18, Jesus is reported as saying of a cup of wine that “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Whether this is a reference to his appearances after the resurrection, or in heaven is hard to know. However as he was predicting his death, it would seem that he expected to drink wine at some point after death.

“Wine” mentioned in the Bible was alcoholic, although it would have no doubt varied in strength. Archeological evidence of the time has revealed alcoholic wine stored in amphorae (clay jars). Evidence of cultivated vineyards has been found dating back beyond 3000BC, although there is little evidence to support the story in Genesis regarding Noah planting the first vineyard after the flood (Genesis chapter 9, verses 20-27) and becoming intoxicated shortly afterwards!

Drunkenness is frequently regarded as sinful by Biblical writers, in both the Old and New Testaments. While there was other ‘strong drink’ besides wine (mentioned both in the Bible and again discovered during archeological excavations), it is likely that wine was the common cause for drunkenness. In Acts chapter 2, the apostles are specifically accused of ‘having too much wine’ when they speak in tongues following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see verse 13). So wine was certainly regarded as a likely cause of drunkenness in Biblical times and wasn’t just grape juice.

Thanks for your questions ER and BR.