Because of the victory over sin and death through Jesus’ resurrection, death “takes on a new, less terrible meaning,” writes Msgr. Lopez-Gallo. (Sebastiano Ricci/Wikimedia)
From the beginning, Christians have thought, prayed and spoken about the end of earthly life and what follows death.
You will perhaps be skeptical if I tell you that we have five realities, which we must consider because in one way or another they will be influenced by our conduct during life.
These realities are death, the last judgment, hell, purgatory, and heaven. How we view each of them is the subject of my next series of articles.
First, death. There is continuity in the teaching on death in the Old and New Testaments. In both, death is seen to be the consequence of sin. Yet in the New Testament, because of the victory of Christ over sin and death, it takes on a new, less terrible meaning.
The theology of death needs to be considered under three aspects: (a) the problem of death, contained in divine revelation; (b) the mystery of death; (c) the theological understanding of death, or how revelation responds to the problem of death.
Man’s knowledge of death on the human level comes only from external observation. No one has experienced death and then explained to other people the nature and meaning of this experience.
In the Church’s teachings we have several examples of people being resurrected: Lazarus, Jesus’ friend; the daughter of Jairus, the Blessed Virgin Mary (although Pius XII defined her assumption, he does not speak of death but of a “dormition” or falling asleep; and the death of Jesus himself. But none of them explained the effects of their death.
As one observes the phenomenon of death, two apparently contradictory judgments come to mind, constituting the problem of death. On one hand, death for us seems entirely natural and in keeping with what we are. On the other, death seems completely absurd and a contradiction of the uniqueness that distinguishes man from other creatures in the material universe.
Sacred Scripture and sound theology provide some insight into the mystery of death. St. Paul eloquently says: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Rom 11:33).
In the case of Christ’s death, Jesus died because God sent his son into the world “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3). The Son of God became a mortal man, sinless in himself, but freely accepting death in a spirit of loving dedication to his Father’s will.
For mankind, death is a fearful and terrifying event – the dissolution of the human personality. But the death of a Christian, one who is in Christ, is immeasurably different from the death of a sinner who dies in Adam.
Death is of man’s making, not God’s. The Book of Wisdom expresses the profound and consoling truth. “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wis 1:13). In dying, Jesus “destroyed our death, and rising he restored our life” (Preface for Easter). Paul, vibrant and with joy, exclaims: “Death, where is your victory?” (1 Cor 15:15)
Martin Luther’s famous phrase “God is dead,” referring to Christ’s bodily death, was transformed by Friedrich Nietzsche into a striking expression of man’s total rejection of Christianity. Nietzsche was the son of a Lutheran pastor and wanted to prove the philosophy of nihilism. An enemy of Christianity, he wrote many books on philosophy, three of the most important being Thus Spake Zarathustra, God is dead, and The Antichrist.
Nietzsche launched a radical attack on traditional theology, metaphysics, and morality and saw the idea of God and absolute Truth as nothing but “projections” of man’s most precious qualities into an illusory beyond. “God is dead” he proclaimed and dramatically analyzed this in his writing The Story of the Madman.
He finally implemented his early thinking with the deadly gospel of biological and social Darwinism, professing that sublimation (channelling negative urges and impulses into socially accepted behaviour) could generate a super man.
Nietzsche eventually lost his sanity, and after being an invalid for nearly 12 years he died Aug. 25, 1900. Many of his friends were philosophers, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, whose atheism and depreciation of reason in favour of the will attracted Nietzsche.