Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

• Revelation 20:14-15

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

• Revelation 21:3-4

“We ourselves are among the objects formed in this way. A group of particularly fine atoms comes together to make a body and a mind in the form of a single entity, a human being, whose eventual dispersal is inevitable. But this dispersal is not to be feared. Such a dissolution of the human being means that the entity that we are ceases to exist when we die, and therefore there is no one to whom being dead happens: so long as we exist, death is not, and when death is, we are not. Nor is there anyone to whom those terrors, that so many religions threaten people with after their deaths, can happen. ‘Death is nothing to us,’ says Epicurus and anyone who genuinely grasps that truth, deep down, is liberated from fear of death.”

• Bryan Magee, The Story of Philosophy

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Epicurus (341-270BC) was the Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism.  Epicurus devoted his philosophy to a life with no fear nor pain.  But he was reported to be joyful on his day of death in excruciating pain from a kidney stone blockage.  If you consider fear to be a state of the mind, he seemed to have conquered that part, but the pain is often physical.  You can block out some pain by your will, but not for long.

But I focus on the book’s author once again.  The author characterizes the philosophy of Epicurus to be the cure for the fear of death, if you only believe it.  He calls the “philosophy” of Epicurus “truth.”

At best, it is a theory.

No one except for Jesus Christ has mentioned what the afterlife is like.  The few that Jesus Christ and others resurrected have left no eyewitness accounts.  Thus, in believing the Bible, there is eyewitness accounts of life after death.

In believing Epicurus, we have wishful thinking or a theory.  No proof at all.

Yet, the author lumps Christianity with other religions and characterizes their proof as being scare tactics, while unproven theories as being “truth.”

We cannot reach Jesus totally on an intellectual level.  Theologians come a little closer than pure philosophers, but even then, there is that spiritual divide, other than the eyewitnesses of Christ’s return in the first century.  So, the author’s disbelief is simply that, disbelief and the amount of secular darkness in the world.

God works within our lives on earth, giving the victory of the believer to be sweeter than simply a victory in the next life.

But if the victory in the next life were the only thing, I would consider Pascal’s wager.  If Epicurus is true, then it makes no difference whether you believe him or not.  But if Christianity is true and you must believe, then believing does you no harm if Epicurus is right, and there is great reward if Christianity is right.

But Pascal’s wager ignores that God gives us small victories, and sometimes large ones, here on earth.  Enduring trials, large and small, are easier to handle knowing that God is stronger than we are and He is there with us through the trial.  And we know God loves us.  The Great Void is “void” therefore there is nothing to love you there.

So, characterizing an unproven theory as the savior from the fear of death is an exaggeration at best.

But all, including Epicurus, would “fear” the manner in which we die.  God tells us not to worry.  We have no control over that, but I have heard of great Christian figures that had trepidation in that regard.  But they knew that once past that moment, or prolonged moments, of pain, we would be with Jesus where there was no death, no pain, no suffering at all.  And that is better than a return to the void.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.