1. Definition of “death”
With the term “death” (lat. mors, Gr. thanatos, Hebr. maveth) is understood, according to biblical usage, the “cessation of life”, so that “death” represents the opposite of “life” (lat. vita, Gr. zoé, Hebr. hayyim).
a) In biblical literature, “life” is spoken of in three different ways: the physical life of man, being composed of soul and body, the spiritual life of the soul sanctified with the presence of God, and eternal life, which is the vision of God face to face in heaven. Therefore, in contrast, there are also three types of death, namely:
1. physical death, that is, the separation of the soul-body composite;
2. moral death of the soul, as a consequence of original sin, or mortal sin (in this sense we can say that sin is the “death of the soul”;
3. “eternal death” of damnation, which the apostle Saint John calls, in contrast to the first two types of death, “second death” (lat. mors secunda, gr. déuteros zánathos). Cf. Ap 2,11; 20,6.14; 21.8). This “second death” is identical to what Saint Paul calls “eternal destruction” (2 Thes 1:9), “corruption” (Gal 6:8), “perdition” (Phil 3:19).
The distinction between these three “deaths” does not prevent us, on the other hand, from recognizing the profound connection between all of them: every type of death is a consequence of sin. In any case, both the death of the soul (with mortal sin, or “sin that leads to death”, according to 1 Jn 5:16) and eternal death (hell) are called “death” not in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense.
b) In a strict sense The word “death” is used to indicate physical death, which is nothing other than “the separation of the soul and the body.” Thus Saint Augustine already spoke (De Civitate Dei, XIII, 6), Saint Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 7). The biblical indications of physical death are as numerous as they are eloquent:
With respect to the manifestation of the physical corruption of the dying or the already deceased, we sometimes speak of “dissolution” (Phil 1,23; 2 Tim 4,6), sometimes of “end” (Mt 10,22), sometimes of “exit” (Heb 13,7), sometimes of “return to dust” (Gen 3,19).
When one wants to associate death with sin as its cause, it is called “the work of the devil” (Jn 8:44), the “enemy of Christ” (1 Cor 15:26), something that “God did not do” (Wisdom 1:13), etc.
Taking into account the idea of immortality, death is spoken of as a “sleep” (Dt 31,16; Job 3,13; Psalm 12, 4; Mt 9,24; etc.), a “collapsing of the earthly tent” (2 Cor 5,1; 2 Pet 1,14), a “gathering with their ancestors” (Gen 15,15), “rest” (Rev. 14,13), “return to God” (Prov 12,7), etc.
The way of speaking of the third point is the most important, since it establishes the idea of the immortality of the soul: While the body is corrupted to ashes, the soul is incorruptible and imperishable. The book of Revelation teaches us that the soul-body separation that physical death implies is a situation passenger, since in the resurrection of the dead, the soul will be reunited with its own body (see Rev 20; for the resurrection of the body itself, you can see, for example, 1 Cor 15:53; 2 Mac 7:11). The situation of souls separated from their bodies should not be thought of as an “unconscious” or “semi-conscious” existence as some think, but as a spiritual survival with full consciousness.
2. Doctrine of Scripture on death
God’s Revelation teaches us, regarding death, three fundamental things:
a) death is law for all men; b) death is, in the current plan of salvation, punishment and consequence of sin; c) with death the time of deserving or demeriting before God ends.
to) The Scripture tells us about the universality of death. Thus Rom 5:12: “death passed into all men”; Jos 23,14 and 1 Kings 2,2 speak of death as the “way of all earthly things.” Heb 9,27: “it is appointed for men to die once, and then the judgment.” This is a law of experience: mortality is in the very human constitution: men die from illness (or from violent dissolution, such as in a car accident) or from old age.
However, it is worth asking if in fact all died or all will die, or if, on the contrary, by divine power and privilege, some have not died or will not die. We have some examples that raise doubt.
1. Enoch and Elijah. About Enoch the Bible tells us that “he was translated so that he would not see death” (Heb 11:5; also Gen 5:24; Sir 44:16; 49:16). Of Elijah we read that “a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two [Elijah from Elisha]. And Elijah ascended into heaven in a whirlwind.” We cannot doubt, therefore, that both were carried by God with their bodies, preserved from death. Saint Augustine said about them: “Vivunt Henoch et Elias; translati sunt; ubicumque sunt, vivunt” (“Enoch and Elijah live; they were taken, so that wherever they are, they live”; Sermon 29:11). However, this does not necessarily mean that any of them must never die; In fact, from Tertullian onwards, the sentiment of the Christian people has believed that the “two witnesses” of Rev 11:3ff will be precisely Enoch and Elijah, who will come at the end of time as preachers of conversion, and who will offer their lives as martyrs in the fight against the Antichrist. In any case, this opinion is not shared by all the Fathers of the Church (for example, Saint Jerome).
2. The “survivors”. These are the righteous who will live at the time of the second coming of the Lord. Scripture seems to teach that these will acquire the quality of the resurrected immediately, that is, without going through death. From the letters of Saint Paul we will mention two passages. In the first (1 Cor 15:51) we read: “not all of us will fall asleep, but we will all be transformed.” The second testimony (1 Thes 4:14ff) is even clearer: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus… we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep… and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we, those of us who are alive and who remain, we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will be with the Lord always.” These texts of Saint Paul have given rise, since ancient times, to diverse opinions. Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Jerome, on the one hand, think that the bodies of the just who are still alive will be immediately transformed, without having to go through death; this is the most common doctrine in the Church. On the other hand, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine think that last generation must go through a true “sleep” before going to meet the Lord: in this way the universal law of death would be saved, to which “all men” are subject, as we have seen. In other words, “we will not all sleep” would be interpreted as “we will not all sleep the long dream that most of the dead sleep,” but that we will be killed and immediately resurrected. Finally, some prefer to say that when Paul says “we who are alive” should be taken in the conditional sense, permitted by the grammar of the Greek sentence: “Yeah We lived for then…”
We are therefore faced with an issue whose explanation has not reached unanimity, at least until now. However the text is interpreted, the principle is clear, namely, by nature all men must submit to the law of death; This does not prevent some, by divine design, They do not actually have to go through death to be with the Lord.
In this context we can also add the case of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. We don’t know if he died or not; We know that she was taken to heaven in body and soul. Did the Lord preserve her from death, or resurrect her? Although God, in his infinite omnipotence and wisdom, could do one way or another, the most common doctrine is that Mary really died, like Jesus, and was later resurrected. His “sleep” was “very brief.” Perhaps an image of the “brief sleep” of the righteous of the last generation, of which Saint Augustine spoke?
b) Scripture teaches us that death is punishment-consequence of sin. This is a doctrine clearly taught by the Church already in the first centuries: our first parents, in the paradisiacal situation, were endowed with physical immortality; Death was given to them as punishment for the sin committed. (See Denzinger-Shönmetzer 222 and 372; also 1512 and 1521).
This clearly appears in the Scriptures. God warned our first parents that if they transgressed the command he had given them, they would die (see Gen 2:17 and 3:19). “God did not create death” (Wisdom 1:13), but it entered the world “through the envy of the devil” (Wisdom 2:24). Since the sin of our first parents involved the entire human race, this is why Saint Paul could say that “through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death” (Rom 5:12). Therefore “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). In other words, “in Adam all died” (1 Cor 15:22).
The Church Fathers They are unanimous in preaching the cause-effect relationship that exists between sin and death. A good example is Saint Augustine in his work against Julian, in which he summarizes the position of the Fathers before him.
What to say about the Salvation that Christ brought us? Certainly, the saving work of Christ produces, for those who believe, the cancellation of the ethical death of the soul, that is, of sin, and consequently also entails the cancellation of the “second death”, that is, of eternal damnation. But Christ did not return to the human race the preternatural gift (which our first parents enjoyed before the fall) of physical immortality (see Rom 5:17ff). By Baptism, however, death loses its punishment value, since in the justified there is nothing left that deserves condemnation. The Council of Trent teaches it this way:
“God certainly hates nothing in those who have been reborn; for condemnation absolutely ceases with respect to those who, actually buried by baptism with Jesus Christ into death (Rom 6:4), do not live according to the flesh (Rom 8:1), but having put off the old man and putting on the new man, which is created according to God (Eph 4:22ff; Col 3:9f), they become innocent, without spot, pure, without guilt, and friends of God, his heirs and sharers with Jesus Christ in the inheritance of God (Rom 8:17).” (Denzinger-Shönmetzer 1515)
Paul proclaims: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1)
But those justified in Christ Jesus also die! Yes, but death in them is not the punishment of their sins, but rather takes on the character of a “consequence” of the current situation of sin: God does not free them from physical death by a wise design of his will for the testing and purification of his chosen ones. Only in Christ and Mary death did not have the character of punishment for sin nor was it a consequence of it.
c) Scripture teaches us that with death it ends definitively for the time of deserving or demeriting. The situation of those who die is now definitive: they have reached the end of their careers. And this is so due to the very nature of the human being: while we live in the body, we can choose, repent, go back. Not so when the spirit separates from the body, since then the spirit irreversibly decides for or against God. The human spirit continues to use its freedom, but the new condition allows its decisions to be irrevocably lasting, in a similar way as happens with the angels: they “decided” for God or against God (the latter became demons) and this decision, for both, is irreversible, even if both maintain their free will.
This teaching is opposed by the holders of the doctrine of reincarnation (or metempsychosis) and the doctrine of apocatastasis (final conversion of all demons and damned).
The reincarnation of souls is a doctrine that probably comes from Hinduism, passing through Greece (Pythagoras, Plato, Neoplatonists…). According to this doctrine, the soul would migrate, after death, to another body, be it of the same race or another race, an animal or a plant, of a high or low level on the scale of living beings, healthy or sick body, always depending on the merits (good behavior) that it had acquired in the previous life. This process would continue until, completely purified, the soul would achieve freedom from all corporality and would thus be completely happy. Today this doctrine is also maintained by Buddhism and other currents, generalized under the name of New Age.
The apocatastasis (from the Greek = restoration, repair) was maintained, most likely, by Origen. According to this teaching, all The spirits, souls and demons, purified in the afterlife, would end up contemplating God in the glory of Paradise. This doctrine, emphasized above all by the followers of Origen, finds no support among the other Fathers.
The Church He condemned the teaching of apocatastasis or universal salvation as early as the synod of Constantinople in 543 (Denzinger-Schönmetzer 411). On many other occasions the Church confirmed eternity in its official teaching, both of the reward (“heaven”) and of the punishment (“hell”).
The Holy Scripture, using serious and repeated warnings, exhorts us to use the present tense to do what is good and right. So in the Old Testament as in the New (see particularly Mt 24,42-46; 25,13ff; Mc 13,35ff; Lk 12,40; compare these texts with Rev 16,15). In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16:19) it is proclaimed that, after life on this earth, the distance between those who are “in the bosom of Abraham” and those who are in “the torments” is an “insurmountable” distance, that is, there is no possibility of “conversion” (Abraham reminds the rich man in torments: “there is a great abyss placed between us and you, so that those who want to pass from here to you will not can, and no one can cross from there to us either”). Paul teaches the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:10) that each one will receive from the Lord the reward “for his deeds while in the body, according to what he did, whether good or bad.”
It is therefore clear that “while we are in the body” we deserve or undeserve. Is there any possibility of reincarnating into other beings before reaching our final destination? No, “for it is decreed that men should die once and after judgment” (Heb 9:27).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church brings the following texts when it teaches us about death; We want to finish this little work with your own words (numbers 1005-1014):
DYING IN CHRIST JESUS
To be resurrected with Christ, it is necessary to die with Christ, it is necessary to “leave this body to go and dwell close to the Lord” (2 Cor 5, 8). In this “departure” (Phil 1, 23) that is death, the soul separates from the body. He will be reunited with his body on the day of the resurrection of the dead.
death
“In the face of death, the enigma of the human condition reaches its peak.” In one sense, bodily death is natural, but by faith we know that it really is “the wages of sin” (Rom 6:23). And for those who die in the grace of Christ, it is a participation in the death of the Lord in order to also participate in his Resurrection.
Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, age and, as in all living beings on earth, in the end death appears as the normal outcome of life. This aspect of death gives urgency to our lives: the memory of our mortality also serves to make us think that we only have a limited time to complete our life: “Remember your Creator in your youth…, until the dust returns to the earth, to what it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Qo 12, 1.7).
Death is a consequence of sin. Authentic interpreter of the statements of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, the Magisterium of the Church teaches that death entered the world because of man’s sin. Although man possessed a mortal nature, God destined him not to die. Therefore, death was contrary to the designs of God the Creator, and entered the world as a consequence of sin. “The temporal death from which man would have been freed if he had not sinned,” is thus “the last enemy” of man that must be defeated.
Death was transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also suffered death, typical of the human condition. But, despite his anguish before her, he assumed it in an act of total and free submission to the will of the Father. Jesus’ obedience transformed the curse of death into a blessing.
The meaning of Christian death
Thanks to Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning. “For me, life is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21). “This statement is true: if we have died with him, we will also live with him” (2 Tim 2:11). The essential novelty of Christian death is there: through Baptism, the Christian is already sacramentally “dead with Christ”, to live a new life; and if we die in the grace of Christ, physical death consummates this “dying with Christ” and thus perfects our incorporation into Him in His redemptive act:
“For me it is better to die in (“eis”) Christ Jesus than to reign from one end of the earth to the other. I seek Him, who has died for us; I want Him, who has risen for us. My birth is approaching… Let me receive the pure light; when I get there, I will be a man.” (Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, 6,1-2)
In death, God calls man to Himself. For this reason, the Christian can experience a desire towards death similar to that of Saint Paul: “I wish to depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1, 23); and he can transform his own death into an act of obedience and love towards the Father, following the example of Christ:
“My earthly desire has been crucified…; there is a living water in me that murmurs and that says from within me “come to the Father.” (Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, 7,2)
“I want to see God and to see him it is necessary to die. I do not die, I enter life.” (Saint Teresa of Jesus, Life, 1)
The Christian vision of death (see 1 Thes 4:13-14) is expressed in a privileged way in the liturgy of the Church:
“The life of those of us who believe in you, Lord, does not end, it is transformed; and, as our earthly dwelling is dissolved, we acquire an eternal mansion in heaven.” (Roman Missal, Preface to the Mass for the Dead).
Death is the end of man’s earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy that God offers him to carry out his earthly life according to divine design and to decide his final destiny. When “the only course of our earthly life” has ended (Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium 48), we will no longer return to other earthly lives. “It is appointed for men to die once” (Heb 9:27). There is no “reincarnation” after death.
The Church encourages us to prepare for the hour of our death (“From sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us Lord”: ancient Litany of the Saints), to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us “at the hour of our death” (Hail Mary), and to entrust ourselves to Saint Joseph, patron of a good death:
“You would have to organize yourself in everything as if you were going to die later. If you had a good conscience you would not fear death much. It would be better to flee from sins than from death. If you are not ready today, how will you be ready tomorrow?” (Imitation of Christ, I,23,1)
“And through sister death, praise my Lord! No living person escapes its persecution; woe if it surprises the sinner in serious sin! Blessed are those who fulfill the will of God!”
(Saint Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures).
Taken from Apologetica.org
