Tuesday lenten contemplation

Lent 2026 is my contemplation season when, among other things, I'm trying to exercise my brain by thinking "outside the box." In my situation, ninety year old long-retired priest, that may involve challenging long-held beliefs that I've brought along in life growing up in the Christian church, resting in my comfortable assumptions that they are knowledge, when actually they are faith beliefs (see Hebrews 11:1). 

This morning in Lent I'm contemplating our faith event of Death, Silence, Life that's Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter. For my mind, and for my blogposts on +Time, this is old hat repetitive, but fine, I'm there again.

Many scholars of the New Testament know St Paul and Jesus as apocalypticists who anticipated the imminent coming of the kingdom of God, when God would overturn world order and send the cosmic Son of Man figure of Daniel 7 to Earth to establish and rule the kingdom of God on Earth. It would be physical here and now in our resurrection bodies, not a spirit life of spiritual bodies in paradise the dwelling place of God beyond the firmament that we call the heavens. 

The developing new Christian church held and taught this, including as St Paul teaches in First Thessalonians 4 (his entire purpose of the book is to assure the Thessalonians who were upset that people were dying and Jesus had not yet returned), and in First Corinthians 15. The second coming of Jesus Christ would be the coming of the Son of Man. Those who died beforehand would sleep in peace. At the End of Days the trumpet would sound and all humans living and dead would be raised to meet Jesus up in the air for judgment into either oblivion or the New Kingdom of God on Earth. A term for the event is Parousia (pronounce it however you prefer), which both Jesus (Mark 9:1) and Paul expected to happen in the generation of their lifetime.

However, the Parousia did not happen then, and apparently has not happened to date two thousand years later. Early on, then, the Christian church started accommodating to that reality, essentially embracing Luke 23:43, Jesus telling the thief "today you will be with me in Paradise" and evolving FROM a Jewish theology of the dead body in a holding pattern in Sheol (or sleeping in Jesus as Paul puts it) TO a Greek theology of a separate soul, that would transfer from earthly life to heavenly life instantly at death.

My uneasiness, which I have recognized here any number of Times, is with our blithe, innocently ignorant assumption that what the church currently teaches is the True Fact that the church has always taught. Not so, and earlier this week I googled to see what AI would say about it.

Mind, AI answers the identical same question differently depending on how it's phrased and put to AI. Here's my question, and the AI answer: 



Q: When did the Christian church change its view of eternal life from at the end of days to at the time of death?



AI:  The Christian view of eternal life shifted from an emphasis on bodily resurrection at the end of time to immediate reward/punishment upon death primarily over the course of the 2nd to the 4th centuries CE, with final codification occurring in the 14th century. 


This shift was driven by the delay of the Second Coming (Parousia), the influence of Greek philosophy, and the need to address the immediate fate of martyrs and deceased believers. 


Key Historical Shifts: 

  • 1st Century (Earliest Church): Early Christians, following Jewish apocalyptic traditions, believed in a physical resurrection of the dead at the end of days when God would establish a new kingdom on earth. Death was described as "falling asleep" until this event.
  • 2nd Century: As Jesus did not return immediately, Christian theologians (such as Origen of Alexandria) began adopting the Platonic concept of an immortal soul that is freed from the body upon death, moving away from strict reliance on bodily resurrection.
  • 4th Century: By the time of Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), the idea of the immortal soul going to heaven, hell, or purgatory while awaiting final resurrection became entrenched.
  • 14th Century (Codification): While the view was widespread earlier, the Roman Catholic Church formally codified the belief in immediate afterlife in 1336 through Pope Benedict XII's papal bull Benedictus Deus, declaring that souls enter heaven immediately after death. 

Factors Influencing the Change: 

  • The Delay of the Parousia: The early expectation that Jesus would return within the lifetime of his followers required a new theology when he did not.
  • Greco-Roman Influence: Conversion of individuals from Greek cultures led to the adoption of the Platonic idea that the soul is immortal and survives the body, rather than the Jewish concept of physical resurrection.
  • Intermediate State Doctrine: The church developed a doctrine of an "intermediate state," where the soul exists consciously in heaven before being reunited with the body at the final judgment, often using verses like "today you will be with me in Paradise" to justify the shift. 

While the "immediate heaven" view became dominant, many early Christians held a mixed view (an intermediate state), and many Protestant reformers later attempted to return to a closer view of the "end of days" resurrection. 


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The art is from Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" scene in the Sistine Chapel, 16th century.


What do I personally believe? What I believe I hold private and personal and is not relevant to this contemplation, the purpose of which was to get outside of what I believe and look around. Seek the Truth, Come whence it May, Cost what it Will.


RSF&PTL

T90