I found an interesting set of quotes the other day regarding Martin Luther. Although never dogmatic, and apparently not always easy to work out what he believed, he seemed to lean heavily toward ‘soul-sleep’ for those who have died.
Lutheran scholar Kantonen (The Christian Hope) quotes Luther as writing:
For just as one who falls asleep and reaches morning unexpectedly when he awakes, without knowing what has happened to him, so we shall suddenly rise on the last day without knowing how we have come into death and through death… We shall sleep, until He comes and knocks on the little grave and says, Doctor Martin, get up! Then I shall rise in a moment and be happy with Him forever.
Not sure Jesus will actually call him ‘Doctor’ Martin but aside from that very cute indeed!
I have always vacillated between the two positions of ‘soul-sleep’ (though don’t like the word ‘soul’ in that context) and an interim bodiless existence post death in ‘heaven’. Why vacillate? Because one view might just have the vote biblically, the other I think wins it theologically. That kind of dilemma illustrates why it is not always easy to be certain. On this issue it does not matter too much – we will all find out one day! It does not greatly affect the here and now. Gender issues (male / female relationships… not to mention the complications that arise when we consider the gender spectrum) would be something that cuts a lot deeper with respect to the here and now; our view of the planet, the economy etc., now those are critical issues.
As above on Luther’s view a theology that enables us to interpret texts will be essential; and that theology has to be nuanced through listening to the voices of science for such studies are not intrinsically anti-Scripture, far from it! And we cannot just adopt a theology that ignores the texts.
So I continue to vacillate on the post-death issue that I started with, and probably on more issues than I care to admit. On post-death there seems to be a big empty space in Scripture, for the texts are predominantly shaped by a focus on quality of life here and now, and on life in the age to come – life post-post-death, post the parousia of Jesus, what I describe as the ‘here and then’. For this reason it is probably best to be agnostic and focus on life here (being human, truly human) and on life then – when we will be truly embodied humanity.
I am partly interested in this as I am wrestling with how to write volume 5 of my short series. I wanted it to be an introduction to our hope, but was going too quickly down the line of bashing through a bunch of texts, instead (a heads up coming) I am thinking of just a broad sweep suggesting the reasons why I don’t believe in an antiChrist, a millennium, a great tribulation, a rapture, eternal punishing (note the last three letters, happy to replace with four others), a rebuilt temple, blah blah blah. I would certainly include prophetic writings where in the same book of the Bible that contains the prophecies the outcome is mentioned, and the outcome is vastly different to the prophetic word (that messes with one’s head for sure, and I think is a lack in the works that suggest the apostles are the equivalent of the prophets of the Old Testament… a view not sustainable by Scripture, but one I suspect is motivated to endorse a view of inspiration). I might write about ‘there could be a future antiChrist that matches the description in the Bible, but even if so I don’t consider the Bible taught us to believe that there will be one, it did not predict it.’
And I will probably write a chapter on the only concern we have, and the only delay in Jesus’ appearing is that we have not supplied enough building material yet for the new creation.
Or I might just say ‘deeply agnostic on all the above but consider that what we do here and now is shaped by what we believe will be here and then, and what we do now will shape here and then.’
If I choose the latter and no more that truly is a booklet. Maybe this post is the fifth book(let).