Heaven

All UFOs in this world have one source: the Moon, the hatch to the Otherworld that sends them here. // У всех НЛО в мире этом источник один: Луна, люк в шлющий их мир Иной.

Землянину, зрящему поле Луны, дивен плеск иной жизни на этой суровой пустынной планете. Луна, мнится нам – порт миров, с нами дéлящих общий, ей внешний простор, что вселенной зовем мы. Но истина в том, что ЛУНА — ДВЕРЬ В ИНОЕ, портал сутям Неба как Глуби Луны. Из нее, тайной, к нам их поход, жизнь на лунном лице есть РОДНИК ИЗНУТРИ. Люди сей Земли, мы — его капли; Луна, люк Причины — нам Мать, к Миру ключ в мудрой длани. Об этом работа моя.

el-Fevzü’l-azîm adlı risale Abdülmecîd Amasî tarafından hicri 957 yılında kaleme alınmıştır. Konulu tefsir sayılabilecek şekilde “büyük kurtuluşa erenlerin ve cennete gireceklerin özellikleri”ni anlatan, yani içinde “el-fevzü’l-azîm” ifadesi geçen ayetleri bir arada toplamış ve bunları bir bütünlük içerisinde tefsir etmiştir. Tefsirinde öncelikle seçtiği ayetleri kelime yapısı ve dilbilgisi kuralları çerçevesinde incelemekte, ardından onu açıklama amaçlı başka ayetlere ve hadislere yer vermektedir. Açıklamalarında farklı kıraatleri de inceleyen Amasî, anlama katkıları üzerinden muhtemel yorumları da zikretmektedir. Ayrıca bir ayetin siyak-sibak ilişkisine de dikkat eden müellif, ayetleri bir bütünlük içesinde izah etmektedir. Amasî’nin ayetleri açıklarken tarihi olaylardan da yararlandığı görülmektedir. Kaynakları arasında Zemahşerî, Beyzâvî, Nizâmüddîn Neysâbûrî, Râzî öncelikli ve ağırlıklı bir şekilde yer almaktadır. Müellifin tarikata intisabı bulunmasına bağlı olarak tefsir ettiği ayetlerle ilgili yeri geldikçe işâri yorumlara da yer verdiği görülmektedir. Ayrıca kelami konularda Ehl-i sünnetin görüşlerini tercih etmekte, bazen farklı görüşleri de zikredip tenkit etmesinin ardından da kendi görüşünü vermektedir. Bu çalışmada Abdülmecid Amasî ve eserleri kısaca tanıtıldıktan sonra risalenin ilmi neşri yapılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Tefsir, Fevzül-Azîm, Abdülmecîd b. Nasûh, Cennet, Amasî.
This treatise was taken by Abdulmecid Amasî in the year 957. The verses describing the characteristics of those who are in great emancipation and those who will enter the heaven, which can be counted as "commentary on the subject", have gathered together the verses of the expression "fevzül-persis" and explained them in a unity. In his exegesis, he first examines the verses within the framework of the word structure and grammar rules then presents other verses and hadiths related to this verse. Amasi, who also examined different kıraats in his explanations, also mentions possible interpretations through his contribution to understanding. In addition, the Writer, who pays attention to the relationship of siyak-sibak in one verse, explains the verses in the context of unity. It is seen that Amasî benefited from historical events when explaining the verses. Its sources include Zemahsheri, Beyzavi, Nizamüddin Neysaburi, Razi in a priority and predominant manner. It appears that the writer has also included işâri interpretations because of his involvement in the order. In addition, while choosing the opinions of Ahl-i Sunnah in kalami conclusions, he sometimes criticizes other opinions and then gives his opinion. Thic article aims to give a general information on Abdulmajid Amasi and his works with the edition critique of Risala al-Fawz al-Azim.
Keywords: Tafsir, Fevzul-Azîm, Abdülmecîd b. Nasûh, Heaven, Amasî.

The historic view of heaven as the abode of the departed saints has recently been criticized as incompatible with the biblical idea of resurrection. The alternative view that heaven melds with earth in a 'resurrected' universe is shown to be based on flawed assumptions. The cosmos is not fallen, so it does not need redemption, and resurrection does not pertain to any but human beings in Scripture. The 'new heavens and new earth' are rather shown to be a new order of God's working within history, the counterpart to ideas of cataclysmic destruction figuratively spoken of in the day of the Lord. The early Christian view had a clear focus on heaven, with the paucity of attention to 'new heavens and new earth' associated with chiliasm, gradations of salvation or the resurrection of humans.

All our merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not.  Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one:  it is rather a new organization which exploits, to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials.’  (Lewis) Tolkien, in his Lord of the Rings trilogy orients the natural towards an ambiguous supernatural culmination.

An argument against the rationality of desiring to go to heaven might be put in the form of a trilemma: (1) any state of being that both lasts eternally and preserves me as the person I am would be hellish and therefore would not be a state of being that I could have any reason to desire; (2) any state of being that lasts eternally and yet fails to preserve my personhood by turning me into a non-person would not be a state of being that I (qua person that I am) could have any reason to desire; and (3) any state of being that lasts eternally and yet fails to preserve my personhood by turning me into some other person would not be a state of being that I (qua person that I am) could have any reason to desire. This paper offers defenses of each of the three horns of this trilemma and concludes that there is no rationally compelling reason for any human being to desire to go to heaven.

Philosophy and mysticism largely converge on the objective of overcoming alienation from reality and thus accessing or tasting, firsthand, deeper joyful dimension of life. Great mystical philosophers may be read as providing a Unitarian view of life where dualism of this world and therworld, body and soul, matter and spirit is transcended. Taking Wittgenstein as a mystical philosopher, the paper seeks to show how he helps us vivify the world or unearth its deeper meaning anchored in the mystical or what transcends conceptual linguistic representations of it. Most Wittgenstein scholars have failed to put in proper perspective the primacy of the mystical leading to difficulties in approaching his views on the religious and the eschatological. Far from being antimetaphysical positivist or fideist, Wittgenstein's transtheistic mystical philosophy invokes a reading of the eschatological that echoes traditional mystical thinkers. Framing his thought in the perspective of major mystical figures and applying the same to the issue of afterlife, it is argued that Wittgenstein helps illumine certain nagging issues in dualistic exoteric religious view of afterlife while questioning simplistic this-worldly immanentist or otherworldly transcendentalist framing. Emphasizing the interface of the mystical with the ethical and the aesthetic in his fundamentally mystical approach to religion and culture, it is shown that we can read mystical philosophers and Wittgenstein in a way that faith in immortality gets a firmer foundation in the existential plane that is explored by mystics against more skeptical or secularist interpretations.

How does online mourning differ from offline mourning? Demographic, social and technological changes alter mourners’ social relationships with both the living and the dead, and hence their experiences of grief. Online technologies comprise the latest chapter in this story; earlier chapters include family/community mourning (pre-industrial), private mourning (twentieth century), and public mourning (turn of the millennium). Pervasive social media in which users generate their own content have significantly shifted mourners’ social interactions and the norms that govern them, partly in new directions (such as enfranchising previously stigmatised griefs; more potential for conflict between mourners and others) but partly returning to something more like the relationships of the pre-industrial village (such as everyday awareness of mortality, greater use of religious imagery, more potential for conflict among mourners). Online, mourners can experience both greater freedom to be themselves and increased social pressure to conform to group norms as to who should be mourned and how.

Th e article discusses the formation of the image of Apostle Peter
as gatekeeper of Heaven: from the Gospels to medieval folklore and literature of the modern period. Th e peculiarities of this character in the
situation of verbal duel against the soul of the deceased seeking to enter
the Paradise are shown. Th e Apostle Peter is often depicted ironically
and even sarcastically. In the poetry of N. Gumilyov and F. Sologub the
irony is overcome: the soul of the deceased does not shame Peter, but
convinces him; the poet is designated as a person worthy of heaven.

This is a pre-publication draft of a chapter in Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven, ed. T. Ryan Byerly and Eric J. Silverman (Oxford UP, 2017).

ABSTRACT: Many believe that life in heaven will be characterized by perfect joy. One common objection to this view is that if anyone will be suffering in hell, then the inhabitants of heaven either will experience certain negative emotions about those in hell, thus rendering their heavenly joy imperfect, or they won’t, thus revealing them to be unloving or otherwise deficient. Christian philosophers and theologians, represented here by Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and N. T. Wright, have traditionally responded to this objection by denying that those in heaven will experience negative emotions and explaining why such emotions would be inappropriate. In light of the epistemic and moral value of affectively negative (painful) emotions, however, it is plausible that the inhabitants of heaven will experience some negative emotions—for example, heavenly sadness—about the suffering of those in hell and about past evils, without such emotions undermining their perfect heavenly joy.

Le sort de l’homme après la mort… Voilà donc un sujet sur lequel on s’interroge au moins une fois dans sa vie. Qu’est-ce qui attend l’homme après sa mort ? A-t-on vraiment tout imaginé ? L’homme tente-t-il de se donner bonne conscience ? A-t-on inventé l’histoire d’une vie après la mort dans l’objectif de mieux vivre son deuil avec l’espoir de revoir la personne que l’on a perdue dans un nouvel avenir ? Ou bien a-t-on nié l’existence d’une destination future dans l’espoir d’échapper aux conséquences de nos choix terrestres ?
L’Histoire de l’humanité est liée à la théologie de la même manière que l’histoire de la théologie est liée à celle de l’humanité. Voilà pourquoi certaines idées sont ancrées dans le patrimoine culturel ; et ainsi, que chacun le veuille ou non, il s’y trouve des concepts que la société ne peut effacer.
Voilà pourquoi la question du sort de l’homme après sa mort reste encore et toujours d’actualité. Nous comprenons qu’il est nécessaire de creuser la question, afin de discerner la pensée biblique de la tradition historique, et c’est dans ce brouillard informationnel que nous devons discerner l’esquisse de ce tableau biblique.
La question à laquelle ce travail de recherche veut répondre est celle-ci :
« Après des siècles d’histoire du christianisme, dans un monde en constante évolution, comment devons-nous comprendre la conception de la vie après la mort, suite à tous ces siècles d’histoires et d’influences de la part de l’Eglise sur la culture occidentale ? Que nous dit réellement la Bible finalement, quand nous faisons face à tant d’interprétations autant contradictoires les unes que les autres ? »

Este artigo pretende analisar um breve episódio do romance Grande Sertão: Veredas de João Guimarães Rosa. Trata-se do episódio da estada no sítio da Guararavacã do Guaicuí, lugar aprazível e bonito, que se contrapõe aos demais lugares do Sertão rosiano, ásperos e inóspitos. A permanência do protagonista Riobaldo e dos outros jagunços neste lugar, que toma a conformação de um verdadeiro Paraíso Terrestre, ganha um valor espiritual e metafísico que remete para a tradição mítica da Idade de Ouro e literária do locus amoenus.

___________________________________________________

This article analyzes a brief episode in the novel Grande sertão: veredas by João Guimarães Rosa. It is the episode of the stay in the site of the Guararavacã do Guaicuí, a beautiful and pleasant place, which is opposed to all the other harsh and inhospitable places in the novel. The permanence of the protagonist Riobaldo and his fellows in this place, which takes the conformation of a true Paradise on Earth, acquires a spiritual and metaphysical value, that goes back to the mythical tradition of the Golden Age and the literary one of the locus amoenus.

هذا الكتاب من اجل وضع مبادئ مفهوم جديد للحقائق العلمية التي تحكي عن اصل الكون كما انني امل ان يضيف معلومات وامال جديدة في بحث الانسان التواق لمعرفة خالقه ، هذا الكتاب يستقي فرضياته من القران والسنة النبوية في ربط ماتوصل اليه علم الفيزياء في تفسير الظواهر الكونية.  وفرضياتي التي توصلت اليها هي: 1/ ان الكون مقسم الي جزئين الاول هو العالم المسبب وفيه الاحداث تقع مسببة والثاني هو غير المسبب والذي اختصه الله لنفسه. 2/ الجسور هي جزء من العالم غير المسبب وناتجة من الفتق.3/ لايوجد مايمنع في القوانين الطبيعية في انتقال الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم ومعه سيدنا جبريل عبر هذه الجسور الي العرش وبسرعة مساوية او اقل من سرعة الضوء والانتقالات هي انتقالات زمنية مكانية.4/ اكبر سرعة في هذا الكون هي سرعة الضوء لانه منسوب الي رب العالمين جل وعلا.5/ السموات السبع شبيهة بالارض من حيث قوانين الضوء وهذا ما يوحي ان الكون متساوي الخواص ومنتجانس ولكنها بعيدة جدا الا بواسطة تلك الجسور.6/ عالم الجسيمات الاولية هي الرابط بين عالمنا والعالم الاخر.7/ كما ان المخلوقات الارضية هي تجمع منظم من الفيرميونات فان الملائكة هي تجمع منظم من نوع من انواع البوزونات.اسال الله ان ينفعنا بما علمنا وان يعلمنا بما ينفعنا اللهم امين.

In the evocative book of Revelation. John shares a vision with his 7 scattered churches in Asia. And we have the privilege of listening in on what he saw ads what he told those who received his letters. Eventually he tells of a time near the "end" when Satan is let loose for thousand year period. Is this a case where God loses his mind and throws good judgement to the wind to let his old boy Satan go fly around and have fun before some interminable final destruction? Or is this still a vision where John uses commonly understood imagery to speak about a day of resurrection where the wicked are resurrected. A day when they think they are god with God and then find out they are not....Then what happens? If the wicked are seen as the satanas, as a Hebrew listener and speaker would have thought, is it possible John is telling of a day when they and the wickedness they represent will cease to exist? Email me for an eBook copy of the entire volume This is It Satan.... Is Finished! 613 pages of putting all the references to Satan back into their historical, cultural, and literary context.
jrbrayshaw@scog.ca

This paper examines the Confucian concept of tian, conventionally translated into English as “Heaven.” The secondary literature on tian has primarily focused on the question of what tian is: e.g., whether tian is an anthropomorphic deity or a naturalistic force, or whether tian is transcendent or immanent. Instead, this paper locates tian with respect to the ethical life of human beings, and argues that the two conflicting concepts of “moral economy” and “contingency” are main characteristics of tian. This paper further investigates these characteristics in Kongzi’s and Mengzi’s ethical thought: how they conceptualized moral economy and contingency, and how their different conceptualizations shaped their respective ethical programs: Kongzi’s ethics of faith and Mengzi’s ethics of confidence.

Salvation is often thought to be an all-or-nothing matter: you are either saved or damned.  Paul the Apostle, John of Patmos, Hermas, the Sethians, and the Valentinians did not think this way.  For them, there were multiple levels of salvation.  By examining the reasons and implications for why these important thinkers believed that salvation comes in degrees, this book offers a fresh perspective on ancient thinking about responsibility, especially as it intersects with concerns such as genealogy and determinism.  It shows why Jews and Christians of various kinds – some eventually declared orthodox, others heretical – correlated ethics and soteriology, and argued over how this should be done.

Fıtratında sonsuzluk düşüncesi olan insanoğlunu ebedilik arzusu epeyce meşgul etmiş ve bu alanda araştırma yapmaya sevk etmiştir. Nitekim cennet ile cehennemin kıyamet sonrası var olacağı hususunda problem yokken; şu anda mevcut olup olmadığı, Hz. Âdem'in konulduğu cennetinin ebediyet cenneti mi yoksa yeryüzünde bir bahçe mi olduğu hususlarına cevaplar aranmıştır. Bununla birlikte cennet ile cehennemin ebedi mi yoksa fani mi olduğu konusu sürekli tartışılmış ve ortaya farklı yorumlar çıkmıştır. Biz de tezimizde bu soruların doğru cevaplarını bulmaya gayret ettik. Çalışmamız giriş ve iki bölümden oluşmaktadır. Giriş kısmında ebedilik anlamı taşıyan, ebediliği çağrıştıran ve birlikte kullanıldıklarında da sonsuzluk vurgusu yapan kelimelerin dilbilimsel incelemesini yaptık. Birinci bölümde, Hz. Âdem'in yaratılıp konulduğu, sonra da çıkarıldığı cennetin ebediyet cenneti olup olmadığı hususunu ve cennet ile cehennemin şu anda yaratılmış olup olmadığı konusunu inceledik. Asıl konumuz olan cennet ile cehennemin ebediliğine ayırdığımız ikinci bölümde ise cennet ile cehennemin sonsuzluğu hakkındaki görüşlere yer verip, delilleri sıraladık ve son olarak da konu ile ilgili delilleri değerlendirmeye gayret ettik. Neticede Hz. Âdem'in konulduğu cennet ebediyet cennetidir. Cennet de cehennem de yaratılmıştır ve içindekilerle birlikte ebedidir, sonsuza dek var olacaklardır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Hz. Adem, Cennet, Cehennem, Ebediyet, Fanilik.
The eternal desire has made quite busy the human being that has eternity idea in his nature and has led to research in this area. Indeed, There is no problem on the issue that the hell and the heaven will be after the Doomsday. But the replies have been searched whether if the heaven that Prophet Adam was placed has been an eternity heaven or a garden on earth. However, it has been constantly argued whether if the heaven and the hell are forever or mortal thus different comments have came out. In our thesis, we have endeavored to find the correct answers of the questions.Our work consists of introduction and two sections. In the introduction, The linguistic analysis was done of the words which mean and remind the eternity and make the stress of eternity when used together. In the first section, it was diagnosed the heaven whether if the heaven was eternity heaven or not that Prophet Adam was created, placed and then was taken out. We also have examined the heaven and the hell have been created now or not. In the second section, which is separated for our actual topic, we have given place the opinions about the eternity of the hell and the heaven, have sorted the evidences and finally we have endeavored to evaluate the evidences.Eventually, the Heaven where Prophet Adam was placed is an eternity heaven. Both the Heaven and The Hell have been created and both of them are forever with theirs in them. They will be forever.
Key Words: Prophet Adam, Heaven, Hell, Eternity,Transiency.

- A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, ITS DIFFERENT STATES OF EXISTENCE, AND THE DESTINY OF GOOD AND EVIL MEN AS SEEN IN VISIONS BY SADHU SUNDAR SINGH

To read in a small screen of a phone you may will prefer to download the Big Fonts version above (VISIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD Big Fonts to read with cell-phones)

This paper compares modern Advaita (nonduality) Vedānta and Roman Catholic afterlife beliefs, with special attention to the dialogue of Swami Vivekananda, formal Roman Catholic teachings, and the thought of Edith Stein. It draws also on other commentators and includes some brief reference to other forms of Vedānta. It analyzes significant congruences, parallels, differences, and critical issues. The paper begins with a focus on essential similarities

Mortalism is the belief that human beings are not naturally immortal, and that at death they are unconscious rather than continuing to exist consciously as an 'immortal soul'. Conditional mortality is the belief that immortality is only granted by God at the resurrection and judgment. Historically, belief in conditional immortality (either as 'soul sleep' or 'soul death' ), has been held marginally throughout the history of Christianity. However, during the modern era mainstream theologians have increasingly identified the Bible as teaching mortalism and conditional immortality, rather than the immortality of the soul.

In this essay, I hope to explore the idea of the supernatural and its uses in Mozi’s doctrines. Mohism is often characterised as having a belief or rather, utility for the use of the supernatural in its dogma. Supernatural in the context of this essay, would be taken to be in reference to the two main entities that is frequently mentioned in the Mozi, that is ghosts/spirits as well as, Heaven (tian). I would try to explore the philosophical implications of the usage of this supernatural device and also bearing in mind the other prevailing dogmas of the times such as Daoism and Confucianism. I would critique these two particular strands of thought and attempt to argue for the practicality and accessibility of Mozi’s ideas in comparison to both Daoism and Confucianism.

Since the very first spiritual experience of Ignaitus of Loyola in XVI Century, Ignatian Spirituality and Jesuit missions were deeply involved with historic and even secular matters. Among so many dfferent activities and apostolates the Jesuits had to keep alive and transparent the transcendent and religious dimension of all they works. How did they understand and communicate the reality of "Heaven" (Glory) in Time and Place (Encarnation)?

In this study, I present the interpretation that the attack from the messenger of Satan occurs during (not before or after) Paul's third heaven experience, as does his request for the Lord to take the thorn (or better, a stake) in the flesh away. The "thorn" ends when his experience does. The purpose of speaking about the experience was that Paul was attempting to defend his competency as a minister of Christ against Corinthian critics, influenced by his boasting opponents. Part of establishing his authenticity involved the words of Jesus to him during the experience, which he then applies to his own hardships as a minister: strength in weakness.

This is an excerpt from my commentary, Exploring Second Corinthians: Death and Life, Hardship and Rivalry (RRA 3; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). My commentary goes on to affirm that implicit in this experience---which is part of Paul's so-called "Fool's Discourse"---is that Corinthian accusations against him centered on the notion that Paul's hardships, mediocre persona and preaching style, inconsistencies, and refusal to accept their financial support all counted as evidence that he may not have been called by God to proclaim the gospel. They expected that a person called by God would be successful and not suffer such adversities, would be a great orator, have a pleasant persona, and request money for preaching, similar to Paul's sophist opponents in this letter who claim to be Jewish Christ-followers.

This is a brief(ish) response to the theological problems that Michael McClymond identifies with universal salvation in his two-volume work "The Devil's Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism" (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018). I argue that his theological arguments fail to undermine Christian universalism.

Is Satan real? Where does that idea come from? When you boil down any one of the stories in religion about Satan, you will find they all come from the story that Lucifer is a fallen angel. But maybe Lucifer is not the famous fallen angel of ill repute when we look carefully at that story. You can find the whole story here.
Tons of free reading from all four of my books are at the imaginenosatan.com web site. Don't miss this link to "Lucifer's Fall In Isaiah" http://imaginenosatan.com/Volume%201/...


Find all the answers about Satan, devils, demons, hell and even the Beast and the Dragon in just released Volume 4 of the Imagine No Satan Series. - "This Is It...Satan Is Finished!"
Well you deserve to know the facts. Is Lucifer an Angel? Did God kick his favorite creation out of Heaven only to let him try to take over the world? Do you believe in Satan? If you do then you are you believing in more than one God.

The Quran has used the term ‘sama’ for space or heaven. It has used both the singular (sama’) and the plural (samawaat) form of it. In one of the verse it states that there are seven heavens and each one has its own earth. The objective of this paper was to explore what these two terms mean scientifically.

The analysis of the Quranic verses suggest that the Quranic term as-sama’-ad-dunya stands for the scientific term the observable universe. It is the innermost heaven (sama), which includes all the zodiacal signs/constellations (brooj), tracks (hobook), stars (kawakib), lamp (masabeeh), meteorites (shohoba) and etc. we observe or could observe in the future. On top of this heaven (samat) are staked six more heavens (samawat).  These could have been partitioned based on the horizons or dimensions.

The first horizon (sama) is called the event horizon. It is a conceptual boundary between particles that are moving slower and those that are moving faster than the speed of light. Since the light from the particles which are beyond it will never reach us, we would never be able to observe them. The particles that are within the event horizon belong to the observable universe (as-Sama-ad-Dunya). Beyond this horizon, there could be six more horizons (samawat).  In each of these the speed of the moving particles is faster than the speed of light. However, the speed in each of the successive horizons (samawat) could be faster than the speed in the previous horizon (sama). The speed of the moving particles within the seventh horizon (sama) could be the fastest. These horizons were probably partitioned after the universe  began to expand at a faster rate about four billion years ago.

Alternatively, the universe could have been partitioned in terms of dimensions. Just as our heaven has three dimensions, other heavens (samawat) could have four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine dimensions. Since we the humans cannot perceive dimensions higher than three, these heavens (samawat) with higher dimension will never be accessible to us.

The article examines the War in Heaven scene depicting the Fall of the Rebel Angels in the 1200s Anglo-Norman group of illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts, key in the development of Apocalypse illustration as far as quality, quantity, and art historical heritage are concerned. The iconography of the crucial War in Heaven scene shows a variety in the manuscript group; the compositions, divided into three well-defined groups at Satan’s pivotal moment of defeat, are depicted in three principal compositional types: one manuscript group focuses on the narrative of the battle, the second fuses the battle and its victorious result, and the third type focuses on the victory itself. The article establishes further subgroups on the basis of compositional similarities, and results occasionally strengthen or weaken existing theories about the traditional grouping of the manuscripts. The highlighted iconographical similarities provide new material for the reconsideration of the manuscripts’ artistic relations and dating.

The paper describes, analyzes, and responds to Norman Gulley's presentation and argument for the Adventist understanding of the nature of personhood and the state of deceased believers and his opposition to the immortality of the soul. Twenty arguments are identified and critiqued, and their weaknesses are demonstrated. In response, a biblical argument is made for the traditional understanding of the intermediate state of believers.

According to a traditional Christian doctrine, the soul of the person continues to exist in a disembodied state between bodily death and bodily resurrection. This doctrine places theoretical constraints on a Christian metaphysics of the human person (the nature of her body and her soul). In this paper, I consider seven different philosophical anthropologies and try to adjudicate which one is the more suited to account for the doctrine of the Intermediate State. I argue that a kind of "Compound Dualism" is the best candidate.

Christopher Buck, “Sapiential Theosis: A New Reading of Ephrem the Syrian’s Hymns on Paradise.” Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society 9.2 (1995): 80–125. 

ABSTRACT

A fresh reading of the Hymns on Paradise (HdP) discloses how Ephrem the Syrian reworked soteriological presuppositions and thought-forms current in fourth-century Syria to effect a transformation of the doctrine of theōsis (deification), freeing it from its substantive categories, to lay emphasis on divinization at the sapiential level. See, for instance, HdP XII.15, where Ephrem states that “the human person can become / the likeness of God, / endowed with immortal life [i.e. theōsis] / and wisdom [i.e. sapience] that does not err” (HdP XII.15, HyP 166). While the form of the doctrine with its anthropological considerations was kept intact, the manner of Ephrem’s affirmation of theōsis was tantamount to its sophistication, in what amounted to a reformulation of the doctrine itself. In Ephrem’s eschatological scheme—which exalts form over substance—body, soul and spirit are rarefied beyond physicality, while corporeality is maintained. Even the argument for the body’s afterlife existence—the instrumentality of the senses being required for the soul’s ability to perceive—is effectively undermined by the obviation or precluding of the senses in the soul’s immediate cognition of the delights of Paradise. This innovation lent Ephrem’s doctrine of theōsis a greater potential for realization, in which eschatological Paradise came to enjoy a more edifying immediacy among the faithful.

The Resurrection, therefore, in Ephrem’s conception of it, is not simply an “arising” in the sense of revivification. It is an “arising” in the sense of a spiritual ascent, in which the whole tripartite being of man is “raised” to new life and to new heights. In what manner may we conceive of this? In this present life, in what really amounts to a realized eschatology for Ephrem, “the mind ... is spiritual” and it is the mind in mystic transport, and, at the eschaton, something like the mind into which the resurrection body is transformed, that can attain the environs of Paradise and, by the blessing of its Creator, enter into its Garden. There is in fact the suggestion that the metaphors Ephrem employs for his portrayal of Paradise may be decoded. From HdP VI.6 and elsewhere, we may thus infer: Symbols of Paradise (Symbol = Referent): Bud = Heart; Produce = Rational Speech; Fruit = Words (Deeds, VI.11); Plants = Truth; Sweet Scents = Love; Blossoms = Chastity (VI.12); Beauty = Mind (VI.13); Flowers = Virtuous Life (VI.13); Garden = Free Will (VI.13); Earth = Human Thought (VI.13); Trees = “Victors” (VI.14); Treasure Store = Hidden Mysteries (VI.25).

Paradise and paradigm:

Images and ideas are the twin hemispheres of the religious mind. The bicameral interaction of the imaginal and the abstract focus the believer on the archetypes of belief. To give a more complete description of any religious worldview, concepts should be complemented by conceits. In Ephrem, the Church is imagistically conceived of as Paradise. Since it is an extended metaphor, its imagery is extensible. Individually and collectively, paradise imagery can represent different facets of church life and experience. The phrase from the Lord’s Prayer—“on earth, as it is in Heaven”—perfectly expresses both imagistically and ideologically the Ephrem’s artifice at work in the HdP.

Ephrem’s Paradise is at once ecclesiastical and eschatological. Its imagery expresses a paradigm of purity. This is a purity that “cures.” It cleanses the soul of the “disease” of mortality. It restores primordial immortality. Life in Paradise, in both worlds, is for the pure. The pure in heart are Christians who are sexually pure and morally stainless. On this point, perhaps Ephrem and Bardaiṣan might agree. In a quote from Theodore bar Koni, Bardaiṣan, in one of his lost songs, taught: “And lo, the natures, all of them—with created things they hastened, to purify themselves and remove what was mingled with the nature of evil” (Segal 1970, 38). Although Ephrem rejects Bardaiṣan’s creation myth, the pursuit of ethical purity in both systems is, in nonascetic terms, comparable. In fine, Syriac Christianity’s response to Late Antiquity is the quest for purity, in which chrism, baptism, and the Eucharist become the ointment, fountain, and elixir of immortality, while the imagery of Paradise ennobles the sanctified soul.

Heaven and hell are not, and have never been static concepts. Just like the doctrine of the Trinity and the nature of Christ were not revealed in their final form, but developed over hundreds of years in response to theological challenges, the concepts of heaven and hell have changed over the centuries and have differed between various Christian traditions in order that they adapt to particular social, historical and spiritual circumstances. An illustration of this can be seen in the Catholic concept of purgatory, where the dead are purified of their sins before entering heaven. This concept can be seen as a development within Catholicism which did not make the transition to Protestantism where it was rejected as unnecessary for the salvation of souls. Frithjof Schuon observes that in eschatological logic, “the Catholic dogma of purgatory results from the idea of justification through works whereas the Protestant denial of purgatory results from the idea of justification through faith.”  From this point of view, heaven and hell are ends whereas the means vary according to theological emphasis. The use of the term purgatory and the concept which it represents, far from being found within the New Testament, did not come into use until much later than the concept of hell, and as Keck points out, these words – heaven and hell - do not simply appear but are part of “larger complexes of ideas that have important histories.”  This essay will explore some of those histories and developments.

This paper focuses on the doctrine of differences among the blessed in heaven: all enjoy the beatific vision of God, but "some more perfectly than others, according to the diversity of merits". The development of this idea is analyzed in the Fathers, and then in Aquinas and Palamas, to underline the differences of perspectives in the West and the East. Particular attention is placed on the ecumenical council of Florence, where this definition was discussed and approved, following the explicit request of the Byzantine participants. The purpose is to explain the reasons and the meaning of such a request, for a correct understanding of the conciliar definition.

Many scholars hold that the Letter to the Hebrews portrays heaven as God's true tabernacle, the original from which the Mosaic tabernacle was derived. Recently Philip Church, building on work by Lincoln Hurst, has argued that the heavenly tabernacle instead represents God's eschatological dwelling with his people, and that the Mosaic tabernacle (and the temple that followed it) was a prior sketch and foreshadowing of this yet-future reality. They advance a number of important arguments which have not been systematically addressed by those who read the true tabernacle as primarily heavenly in a spatial and 'vertical' sense. This article examines and rebuts the arguments of Hurst and Church. First, the case for the 'eschatological dwelling' position is outlined; then I make two wider points regarding the cosmological presuppositions that underlie this view; next, the meaning of the key terminology in Hebrews 8-9, especially ὑπόδειγμα, is examined; finally, Hebrews' perspective on the heavenly tabernacle is articulated with an eye to both cosmology and eschatology. Only by integrating spatial and temporal categories can a satisfactory account of God's heavenly dwelling be offered.