Peter Berg thinks:
"How sorry I feel for these my friends, who don't know they will meet their beloved afresh!" (p. 38)
Slow down there, Pete. Spiritualists claim knowledge of, even communication with, a hereafter but their claims are not (yet) on a par with, e.g., an astronomer's claim to knowledge about the compositions of stars and other planets. However, Christians can claim only to believe that there is a hereafter.
But suppose that there is one and that it is roughly as described in Catholic belief. That hereafter has three realms. Which realm will your beloved be in? Suppose that you and she do wind up in the same realm. Are you guaranteed to meet her among the large population that is already there? Can I travel from Europe to the United States and immediately meet someone I knew that went there years ago? CS Lewis makes this point in his A Grief Observed. Any assumptions about a hereafter are indeed massive assumptions.
Sometimes we comment on Poul Anderson's texts. At other times, we use them as springboards into other discussions. Either way, we always find something worth discussing.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I really don't think the soul of Peter berg;s wife will be in any worse "place" than Purgatory. And I think that is true of Berg as well--because they both strike me as very decent, well meaning persons.
Well, Catholics believe there were or are times when apparitions of the saints, by definition deceased persons, have appeared to various persons. That would be considered as evidence for the existence of the soul after death.
And philosophers like Plato have used philosophic reasoning to argue for the immortality of the soul.
Ad astra! Sean
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