Thinking about Death

This week I read Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein's short and mostly humorous book Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between. Catchart and Klein have written other books in a similar vein, using jokes and philosophy to explore various topics. I was interested since death is one of those things that my mind seems to wander towards (perhaps to an abnormal degree). On on the one hand, it seems preposterous that I could continue to exist after death, while on the other hand, the idea that my consciousness could cease permanently seems almost absurd as well. I'm obviously not the only one who has wondered at the looming figure of death and what does or does not lie beyond it.

Cathcart and Klein make frequent reference throughout the book to Ernest Becker's influential book The Denial of Death. I have not had the opportunity to read Becker's book, so I anything I say is based off of reading a bit of secondary literature on it and from the summaries provided by Cathcart and Klein. Becker's thesis seems to be that fear of death is the most fundamental drive of human beings, and that as a result civilization itself is driven by the need to create structures that defy death. Catchart and Klein speak of "immortality systems" like groups and religions that are created to provide a means of escape from the looming spectre of death.

This is a provocative thesis, and Becker's book has been widely read since its publication in 1974. However, it makes me think some of the same thoughts that happen when I encounter the belief that the origins of religion can be rooted in wish fulfillment. Simply put, if religion is about creating an immortality system, then historically they seem not to have done such a great job. Ancient Greek and Hebrews both seemed to see the afterlife as Hades/Sheol, a place not of punishment or reward, but simply the place where souls went after death. It generally appears to be somewhat gloomy and not a terribly inviting place. If religion serves to provide an immortality system, it seems that many have gotten away with not offering their adherents much. This isn't even touching upon Eastern religions where "immortality," if we can even call it that, looks very strange indeed to Western eyes.

Plus, it seems that belief in immortality is not dependent on a belief in God. It seems, to use the Greeks again as an example, that they simply believed in an afterlife in which the things of this world (people, things, and yes the gods) continued to exist. The gods were part of this world and of the next. The gods did not secure the existence of the afterlife. Perhaps Becker was moving the right direction towards recognizing that a belief in immortality seems to be almost foundational for humans. I just don't think religions secured belief in immortality. Simply put, we don't seem to "need" immortality systems and religions to arrive at a belief in the afterlife.

Western civilization has produced many images of the afterlife through the works of Milton and Dante and a host of lesser known figures who have created deeply-ingrained images of heaven and hell that are easily called to mind. While these images have a basis in passages of the Bible, as Catchart and Klein show with tongue-in-cheek humor, they represent an enormous amount of exaggeration and extrapolation. This just shows that the New Testament really doesn't provide all that much detail about what the life to come will be like. If it's all about immortality, then why didn't Jesus focus more on it? Jesus speaks about a future resurrection as if its a foregone conclusion, not a new revelation and not something that seems to need additional fleshing out.

In light of Jesus' resurrection, Christianity has recognized the centrality of resurrection as the culmination of history and the sign of new creation and a reordering of the universe. When I die I'll do so in the hope of this resurrection that raised Our Lord from the dead as the first fruits of things to come, as Paul wrote. Until then, we live in a world where death is central and unavoidable, yet the inclination to believe that it is not the end remains difficult to shake. My specific hope for the future lies in Jesus Christ, but I think my belief in a continuation of life after death has a deeper history that may be a glimpse of God's presence in creation.