A few days ago, on 7th October 2014, “The
Telegraph” reported an intriguing study in afterlife (life after death), “… scientists at the University of
Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered
cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria. And they found that
nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’
during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were
restarted. One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his
resuscitation from the corner of the room. Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’
for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted
the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the
machines...”1 Apparently experts agree that this study concurs
with the emerging thoughts in resuscitation medicine about death and its
reversal.
Also
recently, a team of psychologists and medical doctors associated with the
Technische Universität of Berlin claimed that they have proven existence of
life after death. 2 Therefore, studies into afterlife are not a
recent phenomenon; much has been discussed and debated.
There is
widespread unbelief in God and afterlife among a vast majority of scientists. Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross offers an
intriguing insight into the reason behind scientists’ unbelief in afterlife.
3
He reckons that
45% of scientists believe in God and afterlife, and offers a distinction
between scientists belonging to life sciences and physical sciences. While the
percentage of unbelief in God and afterlife is a miserable 5-10% among life-scientists,
a vast majority of physical scientists believe in God and afterlife.
There exists
a huge disparity in the numbers of life scientists (3 million) and physical
scientists (e.g. 12, 000 research astronomers). A vast majority of 12,000
research astronomers (physical scientists) in this world, who believe in God
and afterlife, pale in comparison to the vast majority of the 3 million
research biologists (life scientists), who do not believe in God and afterlife.
Dr. Hugh
Ross also provides a fascinating reasoning to the unbelief of the life
scientists. The life scientists study the day-seven of creation (the day God
rested from creation, which extends to the present day) whereas the physical
scientists study the first six days of creation (the data of the past).
This is an
excerpt of his reasoning, ““On the
seventh day he rested from all his work.” (Gen 2:2, NIV). God’s rest on the
seventh day carries great theological significance (e.g. establishing the
Sabbath), but it also helps clarify the nature of the creation days. The author
of Genesis closes each of the first six days with an "evening and
morning" but not the seventh day. Passages such as Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4
declare that we all have an opportunity to enter God’s rest, implying that the
seventh day extends to the present time. Long creation days integrate well with
evidence from creation. During the first six days of creation, as Psalm 104
explains, God created animals, caused them to go extinct and then created new
animals. On the seventh day God ceased His creation of new animals, and today,
the day of rest, we see evidence only of variation and extinction.”4
Why do I mention
the fact of unbelief of the vast majority of scientists in afterlife? It’s
because one can expect a series of rebuttals (sense or nonsense
notwithstanding) to the recent affirmation of afterlife by science.
So the
question we ask is if we, as Christians or theists, should rejoice when science
affirms the biblical truth of afterlife (heaven and hell).
Christians
have often appealed to modern science to corroborate biblical truth, and in our
context - the afterlife. Dinesh D’Souza, the author of Life After Death: The Evidence, posits the evidence of afterlife
through String Theory.5 He says, “…revolutionary
discoveries in the past 25 years suggest that there is dark matter and dark
energy that make up 95 percent of all the matter in the universe. All
materialist generalizations about matter are immediately rendered partial,
because how can you claim to know something if you've seen only 5 percent of
it?
Scientists now posit through string
theory the presence of multiple realms, multiple dimensions. One of the
implications of the big bang is that space and time had a beginning, and that
space and time are properties of our universe. If that's true, then outside our
universe or beyond our universe, there would be different laws of space and
time, or no space and no time.
The idea that our universe may not
be the only one and that there may be other universes operating according to
different laws is now coming into the mainstream of modern physics. So the
Christian concept of eternity, which is God outside of space and time, is
rendered completely intelligible. It opens up possibilities that would have
seemed far-fetched even for science fiction a century ago.”
Most surely
there is no problem whatsoever in appealing to science to corroborate biblical
truths. Although we respect and appreciate science for all its developments,
science does not and cannot arbitrate theological truths for the simple fact
that science is not omniscient.6
Let alone
theology, science does not even offer an adequate explanation to the everyday
aspects of life. Do we eat butter or not? 7 Science is yet to offer
a decisive conclusion. We do not reliably know what actually happened to the
227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard Malaysian airlines MH370 that
virtually disappeared into thin air. All that science offered us was a
speculation based on a possible satellite communication that the flight ended
in the southern Indian Ocean.
Alongside
science, yet another element cannot arbitrate theological truths. When we
consider contemporary Christianity, we necessarily have to include the gross
heresies of Christian cults, liberals and postmoderns. Some heresies of these
so-called progressive thinkers, who in actuality redefine biblical truths
maliciously to suit their personal preferences, preclude the possibility of
heaven and hell. Hence, when we consider contemporary Christianity, these
heretics exclude themselves from the historic Christian comprehension of
afterlife that most definitely includes literal, physical and eternal realms of
heaven and hell.
The
historic Christian doctrine of afterlife is aptly summarized by Dr. William
Lane Craig, “When a person dies, his body
lies in the grave until the return of Christ. The souls of those who belong to
Christ are drawn into a closer, more intimate fellowship with Him in this
disembodied state. We really don’t know what this disembodied existence is
like. It’s possible that souls in this disembodied condition project mental
images of each other and themselves as bodily, so that they can relate to one
another. The souls of unbelievers, by contrast, enter into a state of conscious
torment and separation from God which is called Hades. When Christ returns, He
will bring with Him the souls of the departed believers, and their remains will
then be raised from the dead and transformed into glorious, powerful, resurrection
bodies, and their souls will be reunited with their bodies. After appearing
before the judgment seat of Christ for rewards, they will then be ushered into
the new heavens and the new earth. Unbelievers will also be raised from the
dead and reunited with their bodies, and then after being judged by God, they
will be cast into hell.” 8
Simple
aided reasoning reasonably establishes the existence of afterlife:
1. God should
be and is an uncaused maximally great being.
2. So God should
live transcendentally outside space-time coordinates and immanently [within
us]. In other words, God is an eternal being.
3. Because God
is a maximally great eternal being, by sheer entailment, HE should create human
beings, know us before our birth, and sustain our existence.
4. God then
should not only sustain our existence in this temporal world, but should
provide a means of a continued or an eternal existence post our temporal
existence in this world. Provision of an eternal existence is the most logical
sequence to a temporal existence, which perfectly completes the purpose of
creation. (The doctrine of Annihilationism posits a horrendous blemish in divine
creation.)
5.
Therefore afterlife - an eternal life with God in heaven or without God in hell
- is indeed reasonable.
Christians
subscribing to and assimilating the doctrinal comprehensions of Historic
Christianity celebrate God’s revelation through HIS eternal Word – The Bible.
Affirmation or denial of biblical truths by science and the liberal and
postmodern cults, which maybe heartwarming or heartrending, should not play a
definitive role in a Christian’s life.
It does not
matter if a vast majority of the scientists do not believe in afterlife. It
really does not matter when cultic, liberal and postmodern Christians
maliciously redefine the Bible to deny the presence of heaven or hell or even
posit universalism. All that should matter to us is God’s revelation to us
through the Bible, and God’s establishment of his revelation through the
promptings of HIS precious Holy Spirit.
Having said
this, a Christian lives by faith while [divinely] aided-reason and science
merely complements his faith. The Bible univocally calls for faith in a
Christian, “For I am not ashamed of the
gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall
live by faith” (Romans 1: 16-17, NASB, Emphasis Mine).
Let nothing
come between God and us – neither science nor anything. While we praise God for
science and scientists, we do not allow science to dictate our faith in God. There
is life after death. Amen.
Endnotes:
1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/11144442/First-hint-of-life-after-death-in-biggest-ever-scientific-study.html
& http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/fulltext
2http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/german-scientists-prove-there-is-life-after-death/
3 http://www.reasons.org/videos/navgen-bonus-7
4 http://www.reasons.org/rtb-101/creationdayseven
& http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-continuation-of-creation-day-seven
5 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/december/19.38.html
6 http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/10/20/can-science-answer-all-questions/
7 http://time.com/2863227/ending-the-war-on-fat/
8 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/transcript/what-happens-when-we-die#ixzz3FtU1ruFK
1 comment:
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