In some forms of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
the intermediate state or interim state is a person's existence between death and the
universal resurrection
General resurrection or universal resurrection is the belief in a resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead ( Koine: , ''anastasis onnekron''; literally: "standing up again of the dead") by which most or all people who have died ...
. In addition, there are beliefs in a
particular judgment right after death and a
general judgment or
last judgment
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
after the resurrection.
Christians looked for an imminent
end of the world and many of them had little interest in an interim state between death and resurrection. The
Eastern Church admits of such an intermediate state, but refrained from defining it, so as not to blur the distinction between the alternative definitive fates of
Heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
and
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
. The
Western Church goes differently by defining the intermediate state, with evidence from as far back as the ''
Passion of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their Companions'' (203) of the belief that sins can be purged by suffering in an
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving es ...
, and that
purgation can be expedited by the intercession of the living. Eastern Christians also believed that the
dead can be assisted by prayer.
East and West, those in the intermediate state have traditionally been the beneficiaries of prayers, such as
requiem masses
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...
. In the East, the saved are said to rest in light while the wicked are confined in darkness. In the East, prayers are said to benefit those in ''
Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
'', even
pagans Pagans may refer to:
* Paganism, a group of pre-Christian religions practiced in the Roman Empire
* Modern Paganism, a group of contemporary religious practices
* Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the ''Thief'' video game series
* Pagan's M ...
.
["Dead, prayer for the." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005] In the West,
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
described prayer as useful for those in communion with the church, and implied that every
soul's ultimate fate is determined at death.
In the West, such prayer came to be restricted to souls in ''
Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
'',
which idea has "ancient roots" and is demonstrated in early Church writings.
The
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
offers
indulgences
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence (, from , 'permit') is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' describes an indulgence as "a remission before God o ...
for those in purgatory, which evolved out of the earlier practice of canonical remissions.
["Indulgences." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005] While some
Protestants
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, such as Anglicans and Lutherans, affirmed prayer for the dead,
other
Nonconformist Protestants largely ceased praying for the dead.
In general, Protestants denied the Catholic purgatory.
Luther
Luther may refer to:
People
* Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation
* Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement
* Luther (gi ...
taught
mortality of the soul
Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal and may include the belief that the soul is “sleeping” after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment, a time known as the int ...
, comparing the sleep of a tired man after a day's work whose soul "sleeps not but is awake" ("''non sic dormit, sed vigilat''") and can "experience visions and the discourses of the angels and of God", with the sleep of the dead which experience nothing but still "live to God" ("''coram Deo vivit''").
Calvin depicted the righteous dead as resting in bliss.
[John Calvin]
Psychopannychia
, @ lgmarshall.org
Jewish background
The early Hebrews had no notion of
resurrection of the dead and thus no intermediate state. As with neighboring groups, they understood death to be the end. Their afterlife, ''
sheol'' (the pit), was a dark place from which none return. By Jesus' time, however, the
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology (a ...
() and a prophecy in
Isaiah
Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...
(26:19)
[ Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.] had made popular the idea that the dead in ''sheol'' would be
raised for a last judgment. The
intertestamental literature describes in more detail what the dead experience in ''sheol''. According to the
Book of Enoch, the righteous and wicked await the resurrection in separate divisions of
sheol, a teaching which may have influenced Jesus' parable of
Lazarus and Dives.
History
In the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...
and
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
the authors used the Greek term
Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
for the Hebrew
Sheol, but often with Jewish rather than Greek concepts in mind, so that, for example, there is no activity in Hades in Ecclesiastes. An exception to traditional Jewish views of Sheol, Hades is found in the Gospel of Luke
parable of the Rich man and Lazarus
The rich man and Lazarus (also called the parable of Dives and Lazarus or Lazarus and Dives) is a parable of Jesus from the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Speaking to his disciples and some Pharisees, Jesus tells of an unnamed rich man ...
which describes Hades along the lines of
intertestamental Jewish understanding of a Sheol divided between the happy righteous and the miserable wicked. Later
Hippolytus of Rome expanded on this parable and described activity in the
Bosom of Abraham in ''Against Plato''.
Since
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
, Christians have believed that the souls of those who die either rest peacefully, in the case of Christians, or are afflicted, in the case of the damned, after death until the
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
.
Augustine distinguishes between the purifying fire that saves and eternal consuming fire for the unrepentant,
and speaks of the pain that purgatorial fire causes as more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life. The Venerable Bede and Saint Boniface both report visions of an afterlife with a four-way division, including pleasant and punishing abodes near heaven and hell to hold souls until judgment day.
The idea of Purgatory as a physical place was "born" in the late
11th century. Medieval Catholic theologians concluded that the purgatorial punishments consisted of material fire. The Catholic Church believes that the living can help those whose purification from their sins is not yet completed not only by praying for them but also by gaining
indulgences for them as an act of
intercession
Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to a deity on behalf of others, or asking a saint in heaven to pray on behalf of oneself or for others.
The Apostle Paul's exhortation to Timothy specified that intercession prayers sh ...
.
All Souls' Day commemorates the souls in purgatory. The Late Middle Ages saw the growth of considerable abuses, such as the unrestricted sale of indulgences by professional "pardoners" to release the donors' departed loved ones from suffering in purgatory, or the donors themselves.
In the 16th century,
Protestant Reformers
Protestant Reformers were those theologians whose careers, works and actions brought about the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
In the context of the Reformation, Martin Luther was the first reformer (sharing his views publicly in 15 ...
such as
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
and
John Calvin
John Calvin (; frm, Jehan Cauvin; french: link=no, Jean Calvin ; 10 July 150927 May 1564) was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system ...
challenged the doctrine of purgatory because they believed it was not supported in the Bible. Both Calvin and Luther continued to believe in an intermediate state, but Calvin held to a more conscious existence for the souls of the dead than Luther did. For Calvin, believers in the intermediate state enjoyed a blessedness that was incomplete, in anticipation of the resurrection.
Reformed theology largely followed Calvin's teaching on the intermediate state.
Christian teaching
Foretaste of final state
Some theological traditions, including most Protestants,
Anabaptists and Eastern Orthodox, teach that the intermediate state is a disembodied foretaste of the final state. Therefore, those who die in
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
go into the presence of God (or the
bosom of Abraham) where they experience joy and rest while they await their
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
(cf. ). Those who die unrepentant will experience torment (perhaps in
hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
) while they await final condemnation on the
day of judgment ().
Christian mortalism
The neutral historical term for this belief today is usually ''Mortalism'' or ''Christian Mortalism''. The terms ''Soul sleep'' ''Psychopannychism'' are somewhat loaded by their derivation from a tract (1534) by
John Calvin
John Calvin (; frm, Jehan Cauvin; french: link=no, Jean Calvin ; 10 July 150927 May 1564) was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system ...
, though use of the terms are not necessarily polemic or pejorative. Both terms may be used together.
A minority of Christians, including
William Tyndale,
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
["Christian Song Latin and German, for Use at Funerals", 1542, in Works of Luther (1932), vol. 6, pp. 287, 288] some
Anglicans such as
E. W. Bullinger, and churches/groups such as
Seventh-day Adventists,
Christadelphians and others, deny the conscious existence of the soul after death, believing the intermediate state of the dead to be unconscious "sleep".
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
also believe this with the exception of the
144,000
144,000 is a natural number. It has significance in various religious movements and ancient prophetic belief systems.
Religion Christianity
Book of Revelation
The number 144,000 appears three times in the Book of Revelation:
* Revelation 7:3–8 ...
. In this case, the person is not conscious of any time or activity and would not be aware even if centuries elapsed between their death and their resurrection. They would, upon their death, cease consciousness, and gain it again at the time of the resurrection having experienced no time lapse. For them, time would thus be suspended, as if they moved immediately from death to resurrection and the
General Judgment of the
Judgment Day.
*
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...
''De doctrina christiana'' 1:13
*
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book '' Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influ ...
''Leviathan'' ch.38,44,46
*
Richard Overton ''Mans Mortalitie'' (1644)
Hades
The intermediate state is sometimes referred to by the
Greek term ''
hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
'', even in other languages. The term is equivalent to
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
''
sheol'' and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
''infernum'' (meaning "underworld"). This term for the intermediate state is used in
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...
,
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
, and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
theology.
Purgatory
The
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
teaches that all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, undergo ''purification'' so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven, a final purification to which it gives the name "
purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
".
Limbo
Roman Catholic theologians had given the name "
limbo" to a theory on the possible fate of infants who die without baptism. The just who died before Jesus Christ are also spoken of as having been in
limbo until he had won
salvation
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its ...
for them.
Similar concepts in non-Christian religions
Islam
In
Islamic eschatology
Islamic eschatology ( ar, علم آخر الزمان في الإسلام, ) is a field of study in Islam concerning future events that would happen in the end times. It is primarily based on hypothesis and speculations based on sources from ...
,
Barzakh ( ar, برزخ) is the intermediate state in which the
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...
of the deceased is transferred across the boundaries of the mortal realm into a kind of "cold sleep" where the soul will rest until the ''
Qiyamah'' or End Time (
Judgement Day
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
). The term appears in the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , si ...
Surah 23, Ayat 100.
Barzakh is a sequence that happens after death, in which the soul will separate from the body. Three events make up ''barzakh'':
*The separation of the soul and the body, in which the soul separates and hovers over the body.
*Self-review of one's actions and deeds in one's life.
*The soul rests in an interspace in which one will experience a manifestation of one's soul resulting in a cold sleep state, awaiting the Day of Judgement.
In
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
all human beings go through five steps of age:
*''The age in the world of souls'' is where a human soul has been created and the soul waits until being imbued into a chosen fetus by an Angel.
*''The age in the womb'' is where the body acquires its soul. The fetus is imbued with a soul from God. The soul however, is completely innocent and totally lacking of any worldly knowledge, which is reflected by a baby's helplessness.
*''The age in the mortal world'' is the stage of life from the moment of birth from the womb to the moment of death.
*''The age of the grave'' is the stage after death in the mortal world, where the soul is stored in Barzakh (midst) which results in a cold sleep state, awaiting the Day of Judgement.
*''The age of the hereafter or rest of eternity'' is the final stage commencing after the Day of Judgement and all of humanity has received their judgement from God. If they were righteous and did good deeds based on their own circumstances, regardless of professed religion, they go to
Jannah (heaven) and if they have attained little in life, and were unrighteous in their actions—or were despite all evidence shown to them, bent on denying the truth of life once it was presented to them based on their own circumstances they shall go to
Jahannam (a spiritual state of suffering). This stage of life commences officially after the embodiment of Death is brought up and is slain, thus Death dies literally, and no one will ever experience or behold the concept of Death everafter. Based on the verdict received which is brought upon by each person's individual deeds, actions, and circumstances in life, the Day of Judgement on which everyone is judged with the utmost sense of justice, each human will spend this stage of life in heaven or hell (which will be a place for purification of the soul so that one realizes the wrongs committed in life). However, those in hell are eligible to go to the state of heaven after being purified by that state described as hell if they "had an atom's worth of faith in them" and the soul is repentant.
Indigenous Indonesian beliefs
According to the native Indonesian beliefs, the soul of a dead person will stay on the
earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
for 40 days after the death. When the ties aren't released after 40 days, the body is said to jump out from the grave to warn people that the soul need the bonds to be released. Because of the tie under the feet, the ghost can't walk. This causes the ''
pocong
(from jv, ꦥꦺꦴꦕꦺꦴꦁ, pocong, wrapped-in-shroud) is a Javanese ghost that is said to be the soul of a dead person trapped in their shroud. (Indonesia) Known in Indonesian as ''kain kafan'', the shroud is the prescribed length of cl ...
'' to hop. After the ties are released, the soul will leave the earth and never show up anymore.
Buddhism
In some schools of
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
, ''bardo'' is an intermediate, transitional, or
liminal state between death and
rebirth. It is a concept which arose soon after the Buddha's passing, with a number of earlier Buddhist groups accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it. In
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
, ''bardo'' is the central theme of the ''
Bardo Thodol'' (literally ''Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State''), the ''Tibetan Book of the Dead''. Used loosely, "bardo" is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth.
Taoism
In Taoism a newly deceased person may return (
回魂) to his home at some nights, sometimes one week (
頭七) after his death and the seven ''
po'' souls would disappear one by one every 7 days after death. They may return home as a ghost, an insect, bat or bird and people avoid hurting such things.
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See also
* Gehenna
The Valley of Hinnom ( he, , lit=Valley of the son of Hinnom, translit=Gēʾ ḇen-Hīnnōm) is a historic valley surrounding Ancient Jerusalem from the west and southwest. The valley is also known by the name Gehinnom ( ''Gēʾ-Hīnnōm'' ...
* Munkar and Nakir
Munkar and Nakir ( ar, منكر ونكير) (English translation: "The Denied and The Denier") in Islamic eschatology, are angels who test the faith of the dead in their graves.
Description
These angels are described as having solid black eyes ...
* Spirit world (Latter Day Saints)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Intermediate State
Christian eschatology
Afterlife in Christianity
Christian terminology