In the theories of Plato and Aristotle we have the two poles of occidental philosophical thought. All that follows orbits in some degree about one of these two understandings of how reality is constructed, and how we come to know it. Yet, as a culture we have another corpus of consideration regarding the ideas of god and soul, the Jewish and Christian scriptures. They are not philosophies, but spiritual speculations (or according to some, revelations) conveyed in socio-religious imagery and ethical codes. They, like philosophy, attest to the search for meaning, at first tribally, then individually, and finally universally.
In Judeo-Christian thought we find a vision of god quite at odds with that arrived at in Greek philosophy. At first there is a primitive vision of a powerful tribal deity among other tribal deities. This deity gradually becomes elevated to a status above all others deities, and finally to a position so potent it renders the being of all other claimants to divinity false. Concomitantly, this God is not an abstract principle, but the creator of all (matter, mind and spirit) out of the void, the nothingness, and this by solemn and free command—“Let it be!”. The personality of this God matures with the times form tribal protector to war-lord to loving father of a people.
Simultaneously, Judaism encoded in itself its expectations of the individual, the rules of etiquette—moral, social, religious. These also mature over the ages, and with that so too the idea and the valuation of the individual in the light of the eternal.
This evolution of understanding is reflected in the depiction of the destiny of man. At first there is no abiding sense of immortality. The question is dismissed, for the first statement listed reminds man that “from dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return”. The bluntness of this vision still tinctures our rituals of penitence and mourning. But where goes the “breath” God had breathed into the nostrils of the “earthling” to make him man? Does it return to God? That question does not yet arise, for next we encounter the idea that the dead sleep. Then there is a place where they sleep, a land of dark and shadow. Then the good sleep in peace while others wander in restlessness in a realm of dark and shadow. Finally there comes the idea of a final judgment, but even here the question of immortality is not definitively addressed. Is it a matter of nature or is it a divine boon? Christian scriptures embrace the idea of immortality, but again, they do not define its basis as either nature or divine gift.
In part, the indefinability of the issue rests in the Judeo-Christian valuation of the world. God has created the world by act of free will and pronounced it good. There is no Greek dichotomy twixt the abstract good and the ever deficient realm of matter. Body is not the prison of soul. Body is the soul acting. Soul means life, and body is the modus operandi of life. The separation of the two aspects is inherently, by definition, the end of the two aspects. The ideas of resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul historically, thus, arise together, because the two elements of concern here are understood to be one reality. The nature of immortality is never systematically given. There are again the visions of death as sleep, of being hidden in God, of being gathered about God in worshipful prayer and supplication for the world, of awaiting the climax of time and the establishment of a new creation. There is no philosophical concern in scriptures to provide definitions; the object is heuristic vision. Later, some Christian theologians will take such vision into the realm of theory and stress the soul awaiting resurrection of the body is in a hiatus and in some degree wanting, for soul needs body, and body needs soul, the relationship being animate, intimate and necessary.
An Excursus: It must be noted by both them that would dele all scriptural talk of immortality and them that would attempt to reconcile all its images, that there are three essential points made by the sacred texts regarding immortality. First, the dead sleep or are at rest. Some may claim they sleep or rest in the bosom of Abraham, some in God or his Christ. The fundament of orthodoxy (that is, proper understanding) is that the dead sleep. Second, they all sleep or rest until the end of time. There is a cessation of activity until time ends. Some may argue that time ends when eternity is entered, and philosophically that is correct. Some may say the rest in the divine involves the activity of worship, and theologically that is true. But that which takes place outside of time, takes place beyond our experiential field. We have no compass regarding the locus of the end of time; it is both an indefinite and an absolute. Third, death creates an absolute of a past. At the point of death, present and future cease, leaving past absolute to man, closed from extension or amendment. The value of the past is also absolutized to man. Whatsoever good or ill might be reckoned to one’s mortal activities is now closed to man. The parameters of valuation for one’s existence are now evermore set, nothing can be added or subtracted. Herein, some have found the basis to argue for reward, punishment, and purgation, but those are value judgements based upon the will, not experience. All talk of the meaning of death and the after-death is either a matter of faith, or a matter of valuation. In the scriptures themselves, even the experience of the risen Christ is spoken of as a manifestation, a revelation, a gift of God-graced vision. Believers must be careful not to express the items of joy and hope as literal empiric truths, and non-believers ought to be careful to not so meanly define humankind as to deny it the abilities of vision and hope, items always expressed poetically, symbolically. (Cf:“on Time”, March 2012.)
In Christianity all the scriptural currents regarding god, soul, immortality, and morality converge in one idea: the Christ. The Christ is the incarnate aspect of the divine creative. Christ is God. In Christ all is created, reconciled and re-valued. Thus, in Christ rests the basis of all action, and as this involves even eternity, in Christ is also the basis of immortality. The fundament, the raison d’etre of this Christ and all that hinges on Christ is the Divine Will that it be so, the supreme love of God to create and to perfect creation, to in and through Christ-life draw creation to its maturation, fulfilment, and transcendence. We have a romantic tendency to define love as some emotion or attraction, and therein denigrate its root: the act of will, the will that values, acknowledges, embraces, accepts, and creates, the power of being to decree not merely “I am” (the Hebrew divine name), but also “let it be”, “it is good”, “I forgive”, the sheer singularity of affirmation that is the heart of all vitality.
With this, the stage is potentially set to radicalize philosophy, religion and ethics by opening up theory and practice to the supremacy of will, interpreting the universe, cult, and human relationships according to the constant dynamic and ever changing parameters of loving creativity: the philosophical vision that Will interpreted as love is the creative force, the religious vision that Christ or the Christian is the individual incarnate agency of the creative affirmative in the world, and that all value systems need be accordingly based on a radical, embracing, dynamic, personal, and situational approach because the world is a constant flux of situations. Said in more scriptural parlance: God so loves the world he creates it and destines it to its perfection, and the agent of that perfection is the Christ whose mission is to be in the world, the in-carn-ate one, ever at-one with the Spirit of God and ever at-one-ing with the flux, the changeability, the particularities of the world.
An Excursus: As I am discussing the divine and the moral principles as love, I believe it is incumbent upon me to provide a caveat on a term muchly befuddled in the modern mind. Love has nothing to do with some self-loathing celebrities rutting about like a clowder of oestrous cats rubbing themselves over anything that might suffice for comfort. I cede that such activity reveals the yearnings for love of self and other, but such activity also obliterates the real, the volitional, nature of love. Nor is love exemplified by an embonpoint television hostess playing dicast and oozing caespitose cordiality with tosses of hugs and kisses and “I love you”. Have we really fallen so far apart that a stranger’s touch serves for the affirmation we crave? Have all our chattering modes of communication so far divorced us from ourselves and others that such is for us “love”? Have we no inherent self-esteem? Have we lost the grace to affirm and treasure one another personally, as persons? Have we been ambushed by technology into an ersatz world of mechanical relationships? The questions being rhetorical, there is no need to wonder why “love” is the most misunderstood word in the language. Love is not all warm and fuzzy. There is joy in love, but it comes not from titillation, but from keeping the treasure of love ever with one as treasure. The joy is in the one cherished, the one cherished for the essence of goodness within, not for some fleeting bit of pretty, desirable or concupiscible. Love is the disciplined focus of will that says I am here and I am here for you. Admittedly, being biological entities, affections have a role to play in many aspects of this act of will, this singularity of acceptance and commitment, but as with all bodily functions, affections, their pervasiveness and potency, wane. The power to will does not. If confidence can move mountains, affirmation can create them. Thus, it is given to the divine to be termed love, and it is given the divine to say “I am”, “let it be”, “it is good”.