People at all times have been looking for an answer about what awaits them after death: is there heaven and hell, do we finally exist or can we be reborn? Currently on Earth there are 4 main ones (Catholic and Orthodox), Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and hundreds of religious movements, as well as many small and large sects. And each promises the righteous life in paradise, and the sinners unspeakable torments of hell.
What heaven looks like for Christians
Heaven in mythology
Ancient peoples also imagined existence after death in different ways:
Among the Slavs: Bird and Snake Iriy (respectively - heaven and hell). Birds fly to Bird Iri every autumn, and from there they bring the souls of newborns;
Among the Scandinavians: the glorious Valhalla, where the souls of warriors end up and where there is an endless feast;
The ancient Greeks only meant torment for sinners, for everyone else - a disembodied, silent existence on the fields of sorrow.
Undoubtedly, the descriptions of heaven in many religions have something in common, there are only slight differences in details. But everyone must answer the question “is there really heaven” for themselves - this knowledge cannot be obtained scientifically, you can only believe or not believe.
Paradise (Gen 2:8, 15:3, Joel 2:3, Luke 23:42,43, 2 Cor 12:4) is a word of Persian origin and means garden. This is the name of the beautiful dwelling of the first man, described in the book. Genesis. The paradise in which the first people lived was material for the body, like a visible, blissful dwelling, and for the soul it was spiritual, like a state of grace-filled communication with God and spiritual contemplation of creatures.
The blessed dwelling of the celestials and the righteous, which they inherit after the Last Judgment of God, is also called Paradise.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev):
Heaven is not so much a place as a state of mind; just as hell is suffering resulting from the inability to love and non-participation in the Divine light, so heaven is the bliss of the soul resulting from the excess of love and light, to which the one who has united with Christ fully and completely participates. This is not contradicted by the fact that heaven is described as a place with various “abodes” and “chambers”; all descriptions of paradise are only attempts to express in human language that which is inexpressible and transcends the mind.
In the Bible, “paradise” (paradeisos) is the garden where God placed man; In the ancient church tradition, the same word was used to describe the future bliss of people redeemed and saved by Christ. It is also called the “Kingdom of Heaven,” “the life of the age to come,” “the eighth day,” “the new heaven,” “the heavenly Jerusalem.”
The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says: “And I saw a new heaven and new land, for the former heaven and the former earth have already passed away, and the sea is no more; And I, John, saw the holy city Jerusalem, new, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, they will be His people, and God Himself with them will be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death: neither crying, nor crying, nor pain will be any more, for the former things have passed away. And He who sat on the throne said: Behold, I am creating all things new... I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; to the thirsty I will give freely from the fountain of living water... And the angel lifted me up in the spirit to great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, which came down from heaven from God. He had the glory of God... But I did not see a temple in him, for the Lord God Almighty is his temple, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of either the sun or the moon for its illumination; for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The saved nations will walk in its light... And nothing unclean will enter into it, and no one devoted to abomination and lies, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:1-6, 10, 22-24, 27 ). This is the earliest description of heaven in Christian literature.
When reading descriptions of paradise found in hagiographical and theological literature, it must be borne in mind that most writers Eastern Church they talk about the paradise that they saw, into which they were caught up by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even among our contemporaries who have experienced clinical death, there are people who have been to heaven and talked about their experience; in the lives of saints we find many descriptions of paradise. St. Theodora, St. Euphrosyne of Suzdal, St. Simeon the Divnogorets, St. Andrew the Fool and some other saints were, like the Apostle Paul, “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2) and contemplated heavenly bliss.
This is what Saint Andrew (10th century) says about heaven: “I saw myself in a beautiful and amazing paradise, and, admiring the spirit, I thought: “What is this?.. how did I end up here?..” I saw myself clothed in the very a light robe, as if woven from lightning; a crown was on my head, woven from great flowers, and I was girded with a royal belt. Rejoicing at this beauty, marveling with my mind and heart at the indescribable beauty of God's paradise, I walked around it and had fun. There were many gardens with tall trees: they swayed with their tops and delighted the eyes, a great fragrance emanated from their branches... It is impossible to compare those trees to any earthly tree: God’s hand, and not man’s, planted them. There were countless birds in these gardens... I saw a great river flowing in the middle (of the gardens) and filling them. On the other bank of the river there was a vineyard... Quiet and fragrant winds breathed there from four sides; from their breath the gardens shook and made a wonderful noise with their leaves... After that we entered into a wonderful flame, which did not scorch us, but only enlightened us. I began to be horrified, and again the one who guided me (the angel) turned to me and gave me his hand, saying: “We must ascend even higher.” With this word we found ourselves above the third heaven, where I saw and heard many heavenly powers singing and praising God... (Rising even higher), I saw my Lord, like Isaiah the prophet once, sitting on a high and exalted throne, surrounded by seraphim. He was clothed in a scarlet robe, His face shone with an indescribable light, and He turned His eyes towards me with love. Seeing Him, I fell on my face in front of Him... What joy then overwhelmed me from the vision of His face is impossible to express, so even now, remembering this vision, I am filled with indescribable sweetness." The Venerable Theodora saw in paradise "beautiful villages and numerous abodes prepared for those who love God,” and heard “the voice of joy and spiritual gladness.”
In all descriptions of paradise, it is emphasized that earthly words can only to a small extent depict heavenly beauty, since it is “inexpressible” and surpasses human comprehension. It also speaks of the “many mansions” of paradise (John 14:2), that is, of different degrees of bliss. “God will honor some with great honors, others with less,” says St. Basil the Great, “because “star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). And since the Father has “many abodes,” he will rest some in a more excellent and higher state, and others in a lower state.”3 However, for each, his “abode” will be the highest fullness of bliss available to him - in accordance with how close he is to God in earthly life. All the saints who are in paradise will see and know one another, and Christ will see and fill everyone, says St. Simeon the New Theologian. In the Kingdom of Heaven, “the righteous will shine like the sun” (Matthew 13:43), become like God (1 John 3:2) and know Him (1 Cor. 13:12). Compared to the beauty and luminosity of paradise, our earth is a “dark prison,” and the light of the sun, compared to the Trinitarian Light, is like a small candle. Even those heights of divine contemplation to which the Monk Simeon ascended during his lifetime, in comparison with the future bliss of people in paradise, are the same as the sky drawn with a pencil on paper, in comparison with the real sky. According to the teachings of St. Simeon, all images of paradise found in hagiographic literature, - fields, forests, rivers, palaces, birds, flowers, etc., are only symbols of the bliss that lies in the unceasing contemplation of Christ.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh:
Adam lost paradise - it was his sin; Adam lost paradise - this is the horror of his suffering. And God does not condemn; He calls, He supports. In order for us to come to our senses, He puts us in conditions that clearly tell us that we are perishing, we need to be saved. And He remains our Savior, not our Judge. Christ says several times in the Gospel: I came not to judge the world, but to save the world (John 3:17; 12:47). Until the fullness of time comes, until the end comes, we are under the judgment of our conscience, we are under the judgment of the Divine word, we are under the judgment of the vision of Divine love embodied in Christ - yes. But God does not judge; He prays, He calls, He lives and dies. He descends into the very depths of human hell, so that only we can believe in love and come to our senses, not to forget that there is heaven.
And heaven was in love; and Adam's sin is that he did not preserve love. The question is not obedience or listening, but that God offered all of Himself, without reserve: His being, love, wisdom, knowledge - He gave everything in this union of love, which makes one being out of two (as Christ speaks of Himself and about the Father: I am in the Father and the Father in Me [John 14:11]; how fire can penetrate iron, how heat penetrates to the marrow of the bones). And in this love, in an inseparable, inseparable union with God, we could be wise with His wisdom, love with all the vastness and bottomless depth of His love, know with all the Divine knowledge. But man was warned: do not seek knowledge through eating the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil, do not seek cold knowledge of the mind, external, alien to love; do not seek the knowledge of the flesh, which intoxicates and stupefies, blinds... And this is precisely what man was tempted to do; he wanted to know what is good and what is evil. And he created good and evil, because evil consists in falling away from love. He wanted to know what it was to be and not to be - but he could know this only by being established forever through love, rooted to the depths of his being in Divine love.
And the man fell; and with him the whole universe was shaken; everything, everything was darkened and shaken. And the judgment to which we are rushing, that Last Judgment that will happen at the end of time, is also only about love. The parable of the goats and the sheep (Matthew 25:31-46) speaks precisely of this: were you able on earth to love with a generous, affectionate, courageous, kind love? Did you manage to feel sorry for the hungry, did you manage to feel sorry for the naked, homeless, did you have the courage to visit a prisoner in prison, did you forget the person who is sick, in the hospital, alone? If you have this love, then there is a way for you into Divine love; but if there is no earthly love, how can you enter into Divine love? If you cannot achieve what is given to you by nature, how can you hope for the supernatural, for the miraculous, for God?.. And this is the world we live in.
The story of paradise is in some respects, of course, an allegory, because it is a world that has perished, a world to which we have no access; we do not know what it is to be a sinless, innocent creature. And on the tongue fallen world one can only indicate with images, pictures, likenesses what happened and what no one will ever see or know again... We see how Adam lived - as a friend of God; we see that when Adam matured, reached a certain degree of wisdom and knowledge through his communion with God, God brought all creatures to him, and Adam gave each creature a name - not a nickname, but a name that expressed the very nature, the very mystery of this creatures. God seemed to warn Adam: look, look - you see right through the creature, you understand it; because you share My knowledge with Me, since you can, with your still incomplete maturity, share it, the depths of creation are revealed to you... And when Adam looked at all creation, he did not see himself in it, because, although he was taken from the earth, although he is a part of this universe, material and mental, through his flesh and soul, he also has a spark from God, the breath of God, which the Lord breathed into him, making him an unprecedented creature - man.
Adam knew that he was alone; and God put him into a deep sleep, separated a certain part from him, and Eve stood before him. Saint John Chrysostom speaks of how at the beginning all the possibilities were inherent in man and how gradually, as he matured, both male and female properties, incompatible in one being, began to appear in him. And when he reached maturity, God separated them. And it was not in vain that Adam exclaimed: This is flesh of my flesh, this is bone of my bone! She will be called wife, because she is, as it were, reaped from me... (Gen. 2:23). Yes; but what did these words mean? They could mean that Adam, looking at Eve, saw that she was bone from his bones, flesh from his flesh, but that she had an identity, that she was a full-fledged being, completely significant, who was connected with the Living God in a unique way, like and he is uniquely connected with Him; or they could mean that he saw in her only a reflection of his own being. This is how we see each other almost constantly; even when love unites us, we so often do not see a person in himself, but see him in relation to ourselves; we look at his face, we peer into his eyes, we listen to his words - and look for an echo of our own existence... It’s scary to think that so often we look at each other - and see only our reflection. We don’t see another person; he is only a reflection of our being, our existence.
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin:
The Lord speaks clearly about who exactly will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. First of all, He says that a person who wants to enter this Kingdom must have faith in Him, true faith. The Lord Himself says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, and whoever does not believe will be condemned.” The Lord predicts the condemnation of people to torment. He does not want this, the Lord is merciful, but at the same time He says that crying and gnashing of teeth awaits people who do not correspond to the high spiritual and moral ideal. We don’t know what heaven will be like, we don’t know what hell will be like, but it is obvious that people who freely chose a life without God, a life that contradicts His commandments, will not be left without a formidable reward, primarily related to the inner mental state of these people . I know that there is hell, I knew people who left this world in a state of ready-made inhabitants of hell. Some of them, by the way, committed suicide, which I am not surprised at. They could have been told that this was not necessary, because eternal life awaited man, but they did not want eternal life, they wanted eternal death. People who have lost faith in other people and in God, having met God after death, would not have changed. I think that the Lord would offer them His mercy and love. But they will tell Him: “We don’t need this.” There are many such people already in our earthly world, and I don’t think that they will be able to change after crossing the border separating the earthly world from the world of eternity.
Why should faith be true? When a person wants to communicate with God, he must understand Him as He is, he must address exactly the one to whom he is addressing, without imagining God as something or someone that He is not.
Now it is fashionable to say that God is one, but the paths to him are different, and what difference does it make how this or that religion or denomination or philosophical school imagines God? There is still only one God. Yes, there is only one God. There are not many gods. But this one God, as Christians believe, is precisely the God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and in His Revelation, in the Holy Scriptures. And by turning instead to God, to someone else, to a being with different characteristics, or to a being without personality, or to a non-being altogether, we are not addressing God. We turn, at best, to something or someone we have invented for ourselves, for example, to “God in the soul.” And sometimes we can turn to beings who are different from God and are not God. These could be angels, people, forces of nature, dark forces.
So, in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you need to have faith and be ready to meet precisely that God who is the King in this Kingdom. So that you recognize Him and He recognizes you, so that you are ready to meet Him.
Further. For salvation, the internal moral state of a person is important. Understanding “ethics” as exclusively the sphere of interhuman relations, especially ─ in the pragmatic dimension of human life: business, politics, family, corporate relations ─ this is a very truncated understanding of ethics. Morality has a direct bearing on what is happening inside you, and this is precisely the dimension of morality that is set by the Sermon on the Mount of Christ the Savior.
The Lord speaks not only about those external norms, the formal norms of the Old Testament law that were given to the ancients. He talks about the state of the human soul. “Blessed are the pure in heart” ─ blessed are those who have no dirt within themselves, no desire to commit vice, no desire to commit sin. And He evaluates this state of the soul as strictly, no less strictly, as the external actions of a person. The God-man Lord Jesus Christ gives new commandments that cannot in any way fit into the framework of everyday morality. He gives them as completely immutable instructions that are not subject to relativization, that is, to declare them relative. This is an unconditional imperative, from which follows an unconditional requirement of a completely new level moral purity from those who become worthy to enter His Kingdom.
The Savior unequivocally and decisively declares intolerable slander towards neighbors, lustful thoughts, divorce and marriage to a divorced woman, swearing by heaven or earth, resistance to evil committed against oneself, ostentatious acts of almsgiving, prayer and fasting, and receiving appropriate moral rewards from people. ─ all those things that, from the point of view of secular ethics, are normal and natural.
Christ also condemns man’s satisfaction with his moral state, his moral merits. Obviously, such moral standards are not applicable to philistine morality, which comes to terms with a certain amount of evil. Can't accept any amount of evil true Christian, and the Lord forbids doing this. He says that any sinful movement of the soul is a path away from the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Lord also says that a person’s faith and moral state cannot but be expressed in what he does. We know the words of the Apostle James: “Faith without works is dead.” In the same way, the vicious state of man is expressed in evil deeds. We do not acquire irrevocable merits for ourselves by our good deeds, as Catholic jurisprudence says about it. A formally done good deed, expressed in dollars, rubles, the number of services provided, and so on, does not provide a person with salvation in itself. It is important with what intention you do this matter. But a person who is truly a believer cannot refuse to help his neighbor, cannot ignore the suffering of a person in need of help. And the Lord says that the standards He set in the area, including good deeds, must many times exceed the standards given for the Old Testament world. These are His words: “I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What is the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? This is the righteousness of the best people of a society living without God's grace, a society living according to everyday laws, according to the laws of compromise with evil, according to the laws of fallen human nature. Scribes and Pharisees are not the fiends of hell, they are the moral authorities of a society that lived according to the laws of Old Testament morality. These are smart, enlightened people, very active religiously, not prone to vices, who consider themselves entitled to denounce apostates from the very everyday morality of a people or family. These are not publicans who collected the occupation tax, these are not harlots - prostitutes, not drunkards, not vagabonds. This is saying modern language, classic “decent people”. The Pharisees are the moral authorities of this world who are presented on our television screen as the most worthy people. It is their righteousness that a Christian must surpass, because this righteousness is not sufficient for salvation.
It is obvious that the Lord does not consider the majority of people included in God's kingdom. He says: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go there; for narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few find it.” We believe and will always believe in God's mercy for every person, even a sinner, even a criminal, even an unrepentant one. Recently His Holiness Patriarch said that we would discuss in the Church possible forms of prayer for suicides. These will not be the same formulas of prayers that go during an ordinary funeral service or during an ordinary memorial service, when we sing: “Rest your souls, O Christ, with the saints.” This will be a special prayer. Perhaps we will ask that the Lord accept the soul of a person and show him mercy. And we believe in the mercy of God towards every person: the unbeliever, the sinner, the criminal. But entering His Kingdom is a special gift, which, as the Lord clearly says, does not belong to most people.
The Lord Jesus Christ warns people against being carried away by a philistine way of life, He offers His apostles and His followers a different way of life, saying at the same time that not everyone can accommodate it, but He clearly warns about the dangers of a philistine existence. This does not mean that the Lord declares His disciples to be some kind of social or moral elite. The Kingdom of God is open to any person, regardless of educational or intellectual level. But the level of morality required for salvation is radically different from the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, which was revered in the worldly environment or in the Old Testament environment as the highest achievement.
The moral ideal that is given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ is very radical. It cannot be accomplished by human forces. After the Lord answers the man that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, His apostles ask: “Who can be saved?” He answers that this is impossible for man, but everything is possible for God. The high moral standard set in the Sermon on the Mount is unattainable by human forces. The moral requirements in the Gospel are not just a system of prohibitions that the human will can fulfill. They are so high that no will can fulfill them.
Yes, upbringing and external restrictions are important, but they alone are not capable of leading a person to achieve moral ideal, and, therefore, to salvation. Rather, what is important is the free choice of the individual, allowing God to act in him, in the soul, in the heart of a person. Christian ethics speaks, first of all, not about strengthening the will, not about self-improvement, not about forcing one to do good, but about the effect of God’s grace on a person, transforming a person so much that the very thoughts of sin become impossible. Without the action of God, without the Sacraments of the Church, a person cannot become moral in the sense laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. Yes, we must, in synergy with God, work on ourselves, do good deeds, and resist sin. But the decisive factor in the moral improvement of the individual is not the action of man, but of God. And understanding this radically distinguishes Christian ethics from other ethical systems.
The second passage that speaks of heaven is found in the Epistle of the Apostle Paul; he is connected with him personal experience: “And I know about such a person (I just don’t know - in the body or outside the body: he knows) that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words that a person cannot retell” ().
Interpreting this passage, the Monk Nicodemus the Holy Mountain says that “paradise is a Persian word meaning a garden planted various trees..." At the same time, he says that the "rapture" of the Apostle Paul to paradise, according to some interpreters, means that "he was initiated into the mysterious and ineffable words about paradise, which are hidden from us to this day." As St. Maximus the Confessor says, during his contemplation the Apostle Paul ascended to the third heaven, that is, he passed through “three heavens” - active wisdom, natural contemplation and occult theology, which is the third heaven - and from there he was caught up into paradise. Thus he was initiated into the mystery of what the two trees were - the tree of life, which grew in the middle of paradise, and the tree of knowledge, into the mystery of who the cherub was and what the fiery sword with which he guarded the entrance to Eden was, and also into all the other great truths presented in the Old Testament.
The third place is in the Revelation of John. Among other things, the Bishop of Ephesus is told: “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (). According to St. Andrew of Caesarea, the tree of life allegorically means eternal life. That is, God gives the promise to “participate in the blessings of the next century.” And according to the interpretation of Aretha of Caesarea, “paradise is a blessed and eternal life.”
Therefore, heaven, eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven are one and the same reality. We will not now delve into the analysis of the relationship between the concept of “paradise” and the concepts of “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven”. The main thing is obvious: heaven is eternal life in communion and unity with the Trinity God.
The word “hell” (Greek κολασε - torment) comes from the verb κολαζο and has two meanings. The first meaning is “to trim the branches of a tree”, the second is “to punish”. This word in Holy Scripture is used mainly in the second meaning. Moreover, in the sense that it is not God who punishes man, but man himself who punishes himself, because he does not accept the gift of God. Severance of communication with God is punishment, especially if we remember that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and this is precisely the deepest meaning of his existence.
Let's look at this topic in more detail, outlining the teachings of some Church Fathers.
I believe that we should start with St. Isaac the Syrian, who very clearly shows that there is heaven and hell. Speaking about heaven, he says that heaven is the love of God. Naturally, when we talk about love, we mainly mean the uncreated energy of God. The Monk Isaac writes: “Paradise is the love of God, in which is the enjoyment of all bliss.” But when talking about hell, he says almost the same thing: hell is the scourge of divine love. He writes: “I say that those tormented in Gehenna are struck with the scourge of love. And how bitter and cruel is this torment of love!”
Thus, hell is torment from the influence of God's love. The Monk Isaac says that sorrow from sin against the love of God is “more terrible than any possible punishment.” Indeed, what a torment it is to deny someone’s love and go against it! What a terrible thing it is to behave inappropriately towards those who truly love us! If what has been said is compared with the love of God, then it will be possible to understand the torment of hell. The Monk Isaac considers it inappropriate to assert “that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God.”
Consequently, even in hell people will not be deprived of divine love. will love all people - both righteous and sinners, but not everyone will feel this love to the same extent and in the same way. In any case, it is inappropriate to say that hell is the absence of God.
From this it is concluded that people have different experiences of God. Each will be given from the Lord Christ “according to his worth,” “according to his valor.” The ranks of teachers and students will be abolished, and the “sharpness of every aspiration” will be revealed in everyone. One and the same God will equally give His grace to everyone, but people will perceive it in accordance with their “capacity.” The love of God will extend to all people, but it will act in two ways: it will torment sinners, and delight the righteous. Expressing the Orthodox Tradition, the Monk Isaac the Syrian writes: “Love, with its power, acts in two ways: it torments sinners, as here it happens to a friend to suffer from a friend, and it brings joy to those who keep their duty.”
Therefore, the same love of God, the same action will extend to all people, but will be perceived differently.
But how does such a difference arise?
God said to Moses: “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy on, and I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy on” (). The Apostle Paul, citing this passage from the Old Testament, adds: “Therefore he has mercy on whomever he wants; and he hardens whomever he wants” (). These words must be interpreted within the framework of Orthodox Tradition.
Consequently, the fire of Gehenna will not be bright and will be deprived of its ability to enlighten. And the light of the righteous will not burn, it will be deprived of the property of scorching. This will be the result of different perceptions of God's action. In any case, this implies that a person will receive the uncreated energy of God in accordance with his condition.
This understanding of heaven and hell is characteristic not only of St. Isaac the Syrian and St. Basil the Great, but this is the general teaching of the holy fathers of the Church, who interpret eternal fire and eternal life apophatically. When we talk about apophatics, we do not mean that the holy fathers allegedly reinterpret the teachings of the Church, reasoning too abstractly, philosophically, but that they offer an interpretation that is not associated with the categories of human thought and images of sensory things. Here there is an obvious difference between the Orthodox Greek fathers and the Franco-Latins, who perceived the reality of the future century as created.
This important truth, which, as will become clear, is of great importance for the spiritual life of the Church, is developed by St. Gregory the Theologian. He invites his listeners to perceive the teaching about the resurrection of bodies, judgment and reward for the righteous in accordance with the tradition of the Church, that is, in the perspective that the future life “for those who are purified in mind is light,” given “to the extent of purity,” and we call this light the Kingdom Heavenly. But “for the blind in the sovereign” (i.e., the mind) it becomes darkness, which in reality is alienation from God “to the extent of local myopia.” That is, eternal life is light for those who have purified their minds; it is light for them to the extent of their purity. And eternal life becomes darkness for those who are blind in mind, who have not been enlightened in earthly life and have not achieved deification.
We can understand this difference using the example of sensory objects. The same sun “enlightens the healthy eye and darkens the sick.” Obviously, it is not the sun that is to blame, but the condition of the eye. The same thing will happen at the Second Coming of Christ. One and the same Christ “lies for the fall and the rising: for the fall of the unbelievers, and for the rising of the faithful.” The same Word of God now, in time, and even more so then, in eternity, “both by nature it is terrible for those who are unworthy, and for the sake of love for mankind it is suitable for those who have adorned themselves properly.” For not everyone is worthy of being in the same rank and position, but one is worthy of one, and another of another, “to the extent, I suppose, of his purification.” In accordance with the purity of their hearts and their minds, people will each, in their own measure, taste the same uncreated energy of God.
Consequently, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, both heaven and hell are the same God, because everyone tastes His energy in accordance with their mental state. In one of his doxologies, Saint Gregory exclaims: “O Trinity, by whom I have been honored to be a servant and preacher without hypocrisy! O Trinity, Who will one day be known by all, some in radiance, others in torment.” So, the same Trinity is both illumination and torment for people. The words of the saint are direct and unambiguous.
I would also like to mention St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, who also insisted on this teaching. Turning to the words of John the Baptist, which he said about Christ, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (;), Saint Gregory says that here the Forerunner reveals the truth that people will perceive, respectively, either the tormenting or the enlightening properties of grace. Here are his words: “He, says (the Forerunner), will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire, revealing an enlightening and tormenting property, when each person receives what is appropriate for his disposition.”
Of course, this teaching, expressed by St. Gregory Palamas, must be considered in conjunction with the teaching about the uncreated grace of God. The saint teaches that all creation participates in the uncreated grace of God, but not in the same way and not to the same extent. Thus, the sharing of God's grace by the saints differs from the sharing of it by other rational creatures. He emphasizes: “Everything participates in God, but the saints participate in Him to the greatest extent and in a significantly different way.”
In addition, from the teaching of the Church we know that the uncreated grace of God receives different names depending on the nature of the action it performs. If it purifies a person, it is called purifying; if it enlightens him, it is called enlightening; if it deifies him, it is called deifying. Also sometimes it is called natural-giving, sometimes life-giving, and sometimes wisdom-giving. Consequently, all creation partakes of the uncreated grace of God, but partakes in different ways. Therefore, we must distinguish for ourselves the deifying grace that the saints partake of from other manifestations of the same divine grace.
Everything that has been said applies, of course, to the action of God’s grace in eternal life. The righteous will partake of the enlightening and deifying energy, while sinners and the unclean will experience the scorching and tormenting action of God.
We find this same teaching in the ascetic works of various saints. For example, let us cite St. John the Sinaite. He says that the same fire is called both “a consuming fire and an illuminating light.” This refers to the holy, heavenly fire of God's grace. The grace of God that people receive in this life “sears some for lack of purification,” while others “enlightens them to the extent of perfection.” Of course, the grace of God will not cleanse unrepentant sinners in eternal life - what St. John of Sinai says is happening at the present time. The ascetic experience of the saints confirms that at the beginning of their journey they feel the grace of God as a fire scorching passions, and later, as their hearts are purified, they begin to feel it as light. And modern God-seers confirm that the more a person repents and in the process of his feat receives the experience of hell by grace, the more this uncreated grace can, unexpectedly for the ascetic himself, be transformed into light. The same grace of God, which first purifies man as fire, begins to be contemplated as light when he reaches a great degree of repentance and purification. That is, here we are dealing not with some created realities or subjective human sensations, but with the experience of experiencing the uncreated grace of God.
HEAVEN AND HELL IN CHURCH LIFE
The writings of the holy fathers of the Church (we analyzed the testimonies of some of them above) have significance for us only within the framework of church life. After all, the holy fathers are not just thinkers, philosophers, reflecting on doctrinal topics. No. They express the experience of the Church and interpret the Revelation entrusted to it.
I'll give two simple examples to show that the above teaching is the conviction and experience of the whole Church.
The first example is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Divine Communion operates in accordance with the human condition. If a person is unclean, it scorches him, but if he struggles for his purification, or even more so is already in a state of deification, it acts in a different way.
The Apostle Paul writes about this to the Corinthians: “Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord ().” Below he confirms his thought: “That is why many of you are weak and sick, and many die” (). And this happens because “whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks condemnation for himself” (). Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, becoming life for purified and deified people, for the unclean it is condemnation and even bodily death. Many illnesses, and sometimes even death, as the Apostle Paul claims, are caused by unworthy Communion of the Honest Gifts. Therefore, the Apostle gives this advice: “Let a man examine himself, and in this way let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup” (1 Cor. I: 28).
The phrase of the Apostle Paul “let him try” should be compared with the spirit of all his Epistles. According to them, the grace of God should enlighten a person’s heart, which is confirmed by the following quote: “For it is good to strengthen hearts by grace” (). From here it is obvious that, when approaching Divine Communion, a person must experience what spiritual state he is in. For for those who are purified, Communion becomes purification, for those who are enlightened - radiance, for those who are deified - deification, and for the unclean and unrepentant - judgment and condemnation, hell.
That is why the priest in liturgical prayers begs God that divine Communion would not be for judgment and condemnation, but for the remission of sins. Saint Chrysostom is very indicative: “Grant us to partake of Your heavenly and terrible Mysteries, sowing sacred and spiritual meals, with a clear conscience, for the remission of sins, for the forgiveness of sins, for the communion of the Holy Spirit, for the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, for boldness towards You, not to court or to condemnation."
We see this same spirit of repentance in the prayers of “Following to Holy Communion.”
When God appears at the Second Coming, the same thing will happen that is already happening now during Holy Communion. For those who have cleansed themselves and repented, it will become paradise. For those who have not purified themselves, God will become hell.
Another example comes from icon painting, which, of course, is a visible expression of the teachings of the Church. In the image of the Second Coming, as it is presented in the vestibules of monastery churches, we see the following: from the throne of God comes light, embracing the saints, and from the same throne of God comes a river of fire, scorching unrepentant sinners. The source of both light and fire is the same. This is a wonderful expression of the teaching of the holy fathers of the Church - the teaching we discussed above about two actions of divine grace - enlightening or scorching - depending on the state of a person.
THEOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL ASCETICIAN CONCLUSIONS
Everything that has been said is not an abstract theoretical truth, but has a direct connection with church life. After all, the teaching of the holy fathers about heaven and hell is the key to understanding both the Holy Scriptures and the patristic works, and church life in general. In this chapter we will take a closer look at the spiritual and practical consequences that flow from the Orthodox understanding of heaven and hell.
The Orthodox Fathers teach that heaven and hell exist not as reward and punishment from God, but as, respectively, health and illness. The healthy, that is, those who have been cleansed of passions, experience the enlightening effect of divine grace, while the sick, that is, those who have not been cleansed, experience a scorching effect.
In some cases, heaven is called not only light, but also darkness. From a linguistic point of view, these words express opposite meanings: light is the opposite of darkness, and darkness is the opposite of light. But in the patristic tradition, divine light “because of its superior light” is sometimes called darkness. Hell is also described in the image of “fire-darkness.” Although these two words are also opposite to each other.
That is, hell is neither fire nor darkness in any of the senses known to us. Likewise, heaven is neither light nor darkness as we know it. Therefore, the holy fathers, in order to avoid confusion of concepts, prefer apophatic terminology.
One thing is clear: both heaven and hell are not created realities - they are uncreated. Both the righteous and the sinners will see God in the future life. But while the righteous will remain in blissful communion with Him, sinners will be deprived of this communion. This is evident from the parable of the crazy rich man. The rich man saw Abraham and Lazarus in his bosom, but had no communication with God and therefore burned in fire. He perceived God as an external scorching action. That is, this parable expresses the actual state of affairs. conveyed in the form of allegory.
b) The difference in the experience of perceiving divine grace will depend on the spiritual state of people, on the degree of their inner purity. Therefore, purification is required already in this life. Purification, according to the holy fathers, must be accomplished mainly in the heart and mind of a person. The mind is the “dominant” of the soul; through the mind, a person communes with God. As a result of the Fall, man's mind became darkened. He was identified with logical thinking, merged with passions, mixed with the world around him. Now it is necessary to cleanse the mind.
Saint Gregory the Theologian speaks about this succinctly: “Therefore, first cleanse yourself, and then talk with the Pure One.” If someone wishes to reach God and acquire knowledge of Him, without first going through the appropriate test, which consists in cleansing the heart, then what we see so often in the Holy Scriptures will happen, which is what St. Gregory speaks of. What will happen is what happened to the people of Israel, who could not look at the face of Moses shining with the grace of God. What happened to Manoah, who exclaimed: “We perished, wife, because we saw God” (cf.). What happened to the Apostle Peter, who after the miracle of catching fish said: “Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful man" (). The same thing will happen as with the Apostle Paul, who, not yet cleansed, suddenly saw Christ being persecuted by him and lost his sight. What happened to the centurion who asked Christ for healing may also happen. He trembled and therefore prayed to the Lord not to enter his house, for which he received praise from Him. Citing the last example, the saint makes one remark. If one of us is still a “centurion,” that is, working for the “prince of this world” and therefore unclean, let him acquire the feelings of a centurion and say with him: “I am not worthy for You to come under my roof” () . However, let him not always remain in this conviction. But having desired to see Christ, let him do what Zacchaeus did: having first climbed the fig tree, that is, “mortifying his earthly members and surpassing the body of humility,” let him accept God’s Word into the home of his soul.
We need awareness of our impurity and a feat to cleanse and heal it. Having cleansed our soul, we need to decorate it, enlightened by Christ's power and Christ's action. For if we protect our soul with every guardianship, if we apply sobriety to our heart and thereby prepare it for spiritual ascents, then “we ourselves will be enlightened by the light of knowledge and we will proclaim the wisdom of God, hidden in mystery, and we will shine forth to other people.” In conclusion, Saint Gregory the Theologian aptly notes: “For now, let us try to purify ourselves and thus make a sacrifice to the Word, for first of all we should benefit ourselves by accepting the coming Word and becoming God-like.”
Thus, Orthodoxy, in accordance with the teachings of Christ, always speaks of cleansing and repentance: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near” (). Only through repentance does a person experience God, because knowing God is not an epistemological theory or idea, but active contemplation.
V) The most important work of the Church is the healing of a person, the cleansing of his mind and heart. Having purified himself, a person must acquire an enlightened mind in order not only to see God, but to become for him paradise and the Kingdom of Heaven.
This happens thanks to the sacraments and feat. And indeed, the sacraments and ascetic deeds must be combined with each other. The feat, as the patristic tradition says, precedes Baptism and follows it, precedes Communion and follows it. When we separate the sacraments from the ascetic deed, and the deed from the sacraments, then we distort church life.
If you carefully study the Orthodox missal, you can be convinced that it represents a course of treatment. It is, to put it figuratively, a spiritual and medical collection on the therapy of the human soul. And this therapy, as is clearly seen from the prayers of the sacraments, is aimed mainly at treating the mind, at enlightening it. Therefore, performing the sacraments is not “selling tickets” to heaven, but healing a person, so that God, when he sees Him, becomes heaven for him and not hell (but all of us - both righteous and sinners - will see God). Upon careful study of Latin “asceticism” it becomes clear that its goal is the vision of God. But this is not the problem - after all, in any case, all people will inevitably see God, everyone will meet Him “face to face” (in the Gospel reading about the future Judgment, the Lord Himself speaks about this). The problem is different: it is necessary for a person to see God while being spiritually healthy.
Orthodoxy has a method of healing. This is emphasized by the subtitle of the Philokalia: “The Philokalia of the Holy Fathers, in which through action and contemplation the mind is purified, enlightened and becomes perfect.”
G) We should not strive at all costs to see the glory of God, like some overly curious people who are ready to use any methods, even Eastern meditation, to achieve this goal. Such curiosity can not only lead a person astray, but also directly plunge him into a state of spiritual delusion. In the Orthodox Church, the most important task is the purification of the soul, and precisely for the reason that for the unclean, the vision of God becomes hell. Purification of the soul leads to the healing of a person, and healing is, of course, the acquisition of selfless love.
d) Hell is not the absence of God, as is often said, but His presence, the vision of Him as fire. And, as already mentioned, we can taste heaven or hell now. To be more precise, the nature of our meeting with God at His Second Coming will completely depend on the experience of contact with Him that we already have.
According to the Venerable Elijah the Presbyter, heaven is the contemplation of mental things. He who has acquired purity and knowledge of God “enters through prayer into contemplation as into his home.” But an active husband, that is, still going through the stage of purification, “looks like a passer-by,” because although he has a desire to enter, he cannot - his young spiritual age serves as an obstacle to him. there is dispassion, which in reality is the transformation of the desirable part of the soul. The Venerable Elijah the Presbyter says that the paradise of dispassion is hidden within us, and it is “an image of that paradise that will receive the righteous.”
According to St. Gregory of Sinaite, the fire, darkness, worm and tartarus that make up hell are “various voluptuousness, the all-consuming darkness of ignorance, an unquenchable thirst for sensual pleasure, trembling and the fetid stench of sin.” Thus, voluptuousness and sensuality, ignorance and darkness, the thrill of passion and the stench of sin already here become a taste of hell. All this is “pledges and thresholds of hellish torment” even in this life
CONCLUSION
From the analysis carried out, the following final conclusions can be drawn. is a hospital, a clinic that heals a person. Healing souls is the most important work of a priest. Of course, while doing it, you can do other things: participate in solving earthly problems, do charity work, give alms, and the like. However, the main occupation of a priest remains the spiritual healing of a person.
This is an exclusively humane matter, for it has eternal consequences. What is the use of being interested in earthly needs and remaining indifferent to your eternal future? A secularized Church ceases to be Christ’s. After all, man was not created by God so that his life would be exhausted only by this transitory world. Human life continues in another eternal world. And the Church is obliged to take care of the whole person, consisting of soul and body.
Some people condemn her for being indifferent to the needs of society and not doing any socially useful things. Of course, no one will contradict that the Church should extend its activities to these needs as well. But here it is appropriate to pose the following question. Isn't death a problem for society? Not only is each of us depressed by the inevitability of our own death, which we carry within ourselves from birth, so that it seems that we are born only to die. But the death of the people we love brings us immeasurable mental anguish. So is death really neither a personal nor a social problem? So the Church deals with this terrible problem and helps a person overcome it through life in Christ.
Even the very fact that he is constantly engaged in spiritual “therapy” of the human mind and human heart directly affects society. Spiritually healthy man peaceful, sincere, selfless. As a result, he is a good family man, a good citizen and the like. Therefore, just as the hospital continues its work during various social upheavals, so the Church, despite any upheavals, must not forget its most important “therapeutic” ministry and treat people spiritually and morally.
Living in the Church, we must be treated by taking advantage of what it offers. medicinal products- sacraments and feats - so that already here and now, but mainly then, at the Second Coming of Christ, the grace of God acts in us as light and salvation, and not as darkness and torment.
Application
ABOUT TORMENTALS
Some argue that the idea of "ordeals and aerial spirits" came from Gnosticism and pagan myths that were widespread at the time.
Indeed, the fact that such a teaching can be found both in Gnostic texts and in pagan - Egyptian and Chaldean - myths does not raise any doubt. However, it must be taken into account that the Christian fathers, borrowing the doctrine of ordeals, cleansed it of pagan and Gnostic elements and placed it within the church framework. The Holy Fathers were not afraid of such creative reworking.
There is no doubt that in a number of other particular provisions of their teaching, they just as creatively and effectively assimilated many theories and views of the pagan world, giving them church content. It is known that, for example, the fathers adopted the idea of the immortality of the soul and its tripartite nature, its contemplative ability and dispassion, and much more from ancient philosophers and from ancient religious traditions. But it is also obvious that they gave these ideas a completely different perspective and filled them with different content. After all, we cannot reject the immortality of the soul only for the reason that ancient philosophers spoke about the same thing. No. But we must see in this presentation the content that the holy fathers put into it.
The same can be said about the doctrine of ordeals. Of course, no one disputes that ancient pagan legends and Gnostic heresies spoke about both the “chiefs of the cosmic sphere” and the “gates heavenly path", and about "air spirits". Similar phrases can be found in the Holy Scriptures and in the works of the Holy Fathers. And as we have already noted, although many Church Fathers spoke about ordeals and aerial spirits, they put a completely different meaning into these images. The patristic teaching on ordeals should be understood based on the following four provisions.
First. For the symbolic language of Scripture it is absolutely necessary correct interpretation. Stopping only at literally understood images distorts the Gospel message. For example, the statements of Holy Scripture about hell by themselves, without identifying their deep theological meaning, cannot be correctly understood. This is also true with regard to the doctrine of ordeals. When we talk about them, we should not at all imagine in our minds the image of a modern border customs through which each of us will have to pass. The symbolic image is intended to give us only some idea of spiritual reality, but in order to understand its true meaning, this image must be interpreted Orthodoxy.
Second. Demons - angels of darkness - are individuals and therefore free. If a person uses his freedom for evil, they, by God’s permission, gain dominion over him. After the departure of his soul from his body, due to his unrepentance, they gain power over it and demand it as their own. In Christ’s famous parable about the crazy rich man there is a phrase: “Mad! this night your soul will be taken from you; who will get what you have prepared? (). Those who took the soul of the crazy rich man after its departure from the body are, according to the patristic interpretation, demons.
Third. Demons have no power over the people of God. Those who are united with God, that is, those in whose souls the uncreated divine energy resides, cannot be under their domination. Thus, deified souls will not go through ordeals.
Fourth. According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers, demons act through passions. Passions that can no longer be satisfied after the soul leaves the body become spiritual suffocation for it.
So, the idea of ordeals is appropriate and justified, if, of course, we consider it in precisely this theological context. Based on any other views, this idea will undoubtedly lead us astray from the right path.
D For the God-fearing there is a place of salvation - gardens and vineyards, and full-breasted women of the same age, and a full cup. There they will not hear either chatter or accusations of lies... In the gardens of grace there is a crowd of the first and a few of the last, on embroidered beds, leaning on them against each other. Eternally young boys walk around them with bowls, vessels and goblets from a flowing source - they do not suffer from headaches or weakness from it... among the lotus, devoid of thorns, and the tallha, hung with fruits, and the outstretched shade, and flowing water, and abundant fruits, нe иcтoщaeмыx и нe зaпpeтныx, и кoвpoв paзocтлaнныx, Mы вeдь coздaли иx твopeниeм и cдeлaли иx дeвcтвeнницaми, мyжa любящими, cвepcтницaми... (Коран 78.31-35; 56.12-19; 28-37).
And I John saw the holy city Jerusalem, new, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband. It has a large and high wall, has twelve gates and twelve Angels on them... The street of the city is pure gold, like transparent glass. Its gates will not be locked during the day, and there will be no night there. In the midst of its street, and on both sides of the river, is the tree of life, bearing fruit twelve times, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. And nothing will be cursed; but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will serve Him. And they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no night there, and they will have no need of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God illuminates them; and they will reign forever and ever (Apoc. 21:2;12;21;25; 22:2-5).
Even with a quick glance, the cardinal difference between these two images immediately catches the eye - in contrast to the Koranic ever-blooming idyll - the apocalyptic image of hail. Moreover, this image is characteristic not only of the Apocalypse, but also of the entire New Testament - in My Father’s house there are many mansions (John 14:2), says the Lord, and to the Apostle Paul, “who knew a man caught up into Paradise” (2 Cor. 12:2 ).
The main reason for the difference between these two images is that for a Muslim, Paradise is a return to the state of Adam before the Fall, hence the image of the Gardens of Eden: “the primordial Paradise is identical to the future Paradise”; whereas For a Christian, achieving Paradise is not a return to Eden; the Incarnation raised human nature to an incomparably higher level of closeness to God than was the case with our first parents - “at the right hand of the Father”: the first man Adam became a living soul; and the last Adam is a life-giving spirit. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second person is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, so are the earthy; and as is the heavenly, so are the heavenly; and just as we have borne the image of earth, we will also bear the image of heaven (1 Cor. 15:45;47-49), therefore a Christian does not strive to return to the state of Adam, but longs to unite with Christ; a person transfigured in Christ enters a transfigured Paradise. And the only “object” of the old Paradise, Eden, transferred to the new Paradise, Heavenly Jerusalem, is the tree of life (Gen. 2:9; Apoc. 22:2), only emphasizes the superiority of the New Paradise: Adam was expelled so as not to eat its fruits , but they are quite accessible to the residents of Heavenly Jerusalem, however, not for pleasure or satisfying hunger, but for healing. By Christian tradition "The tree of life is the love of God, from which Adam fell away"(St. Isaac the Syrian).
Apart from parallels with Eden, Muslim image of Paradise generally alien to the eschatology of both the Old and New Testaments, and rather at this point has its source not in Christianity, but in Zoroastrianism, describing the fate of the righteous in a similar way: “They have their beds decorated, fragrant, full of pillows... they have maidens sitting, decorated with bracelets, their waists are girded, beautiful, long-fingered, and so beautiful in body that it is sweet to look at (Avesta. Ard-yasht II.9;11)". A similar connection was also pointed out by Byzantine polemicists, in particular, the author of the message of Emperor Leo the Isaurian to Caliph Omar II (720), who wrote verbatim the following: “We know that the Koran was compiled by Omar, Abu Talib and Solman the Persian, even if rumors circulated around you that he was sent from heaven by God." Solman Persian is a Zoroastrian who converted to Islam under Muhammad.
To proceed further, it is necessary to understand what the image of the city means: what significance it has for the Bible and why it was chosen to depict the Kingdom of Heaven.
The first city was built by Cain (Gen. 4:17). This is an emphatic invention of man, and fallen man at that. This fact seems to push towards a negative assessment of the invention itself: “urban planning, cattle breeding, the art of music... - all this was brought to humanity by the descendants of Cain as a kind of surrogate for the lost heavenly bliss. But is it only bliss? Rather, this is still an attempt to somehow compensate the lost unity with the Creator that was in Paradise.
Returning to the idea of Paradise, we can say that if the garden is essentially the entire creation of God, then the image of the city as a human creation marks the participation of humanity in the Kingdom of God. The use of the image of a city in the description of the Kingdom of Heaven means that humanity participates in salvation: “This city, having Christ as its chief cornerstone, is made up of saints.”(St. Andrew of Caesarea). In Islam, such participation is unthinkable, so the use of a floral image is quite natural - so much so that in the Koran, in general, the word “al-Janna” (Garden) is usually used to designate Paradise.
Other, less noticeable, but no less the fundamental difference lies in the idea that there is a heavenly state in relation to man. Actually Muslim Paradise resembles a boarding house where veteran soldiers rest- everything that fills their heavenly existence is the enjoyment of all kinds of pleasures, bodily and aesthetic. In one of the hadiths attributed to the “prophet” himself, he describes the believer’s day of paradise as follows: “In the middle of the gardens of eternity are palaces made of pearls. In such a palace there are seventy rooms made of red yacht, in each room there are seventy rooms made of green emeralds, in each room there is a bed, on each bed there are seventy beds of all colors, on each bed there is a wife made of big-eyed black-eyed ones. In every room there is a table set, on every table there are seventy types of food. There are seventy servants and maids in each room. And every morning the believer is given such strength that he can cope with all this.”
Of course, Muhammad did not take this description literally, so really everyone a person in Paradise must serve 343,000 houris daily and eat 24,000,000 types of food. This is precisely the image of the fact that Paradise is pleasure (including bodily pleasure!), exceeding any mind.
The Bible is completely different. There is no talk of any eternal rest associated with receiving certain pleasures. The Lord settles Adam in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Gen. 2:15), and it is said about the inhabitants of heavenly Jerusalem that they will serve Him (Rev. 22:3). Staying in Paradise according to the Bible is invariably associated with some activity on the part of man, and is depicted not as a static state of blissful idleness, but as a constant dynamic of ascent from glory to glory.
It can be said that The Qur'anic concept of Paradise is decisively rejected by the New Testament: In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the Angels of God in heaven (Luke 22:30); The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:27).
Also incorrect, or at least incomplete, is the interpretation according to which this description of Paradise is considered only as an incentive to piety: “faith and righteousness are stimulated in the Koran vivid descriptions future rewards, depicted in the form of sensual pleasures, which gives the entire Islamic teaching the features of utilitarianism."
No, there is a very definite internal logic in creating just such a description - all these images that confuse a Christian are a justification for the resurrection of the flesh from the point of view of Islam. A person of Christian culture constantly remembers that in Everyday life he deals with human nature corrupted by the Fall, which is very far removed from the ideal state, while for a Muslim there is nothing like it: for him its nature is identical to the nature of the primordial Adam, as a result of which those phenomena that in Christianity are considered as bearing the stamp of the Fall are perceived in Islam as natural attributes of human nature created by God, therefore their transfer to the heavenly state seems quite natural.
This difference also stems from the different understanding of the purpose of man (including his flesh) in Christianity and Islam - the Koran says on behalf of God: I created... people only so that they would worship Me(Quran 51:56); whereas According to the Bible, God creates people so that they love Him: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind(Luke 10:27; Deut. 6:5), and that He would love them: for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Upon further examination, attention is drawn to the strange at first glance fact that in such a theocentric religion as Islam, there is such an anthropocentric idea of Paradise. God in such a Paradise is, as it were, placed outside the brackets, the enjoyers are left to each other and to their own pleasures; if God appears, it is only to greet the vacationers (Quran 36:58) and ask if they want anything else. Their relationship is well expressed in the phrase repeated throughout the Qur'an: Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Allah. This is a great profit!(Quran. 5.19; 59.22; 98.8).
Christian Paradise, despite the fact that, as we said above, implies the formative participation of humanity, is strictly and emphatically theocentric: I have a desire to resolve and be with Christ(Phil 1:23); We wish rather to leave the body and be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8); the whole meaning of the future blessed life for a Christian lies in being with a beloved and loving God, contemplating Him: and they will see His face (Apoc. 22:4) and communion with His nature: great and precious promises have been given to us, so that through them we may become partakers of the Divine nature ( 2 Pet. 1:4).
This difference follows from the difference in the distance between man and God from the point of view of Islam and from the point of view of Christianity. Islam in general places a high value on man: “man is the best and most perfect creation. Man is appointed as God's vicegerent on earth. The man is a prophet and friend of God. Man is the essence of the Universe." despite this, the distance between man and God in Islam is disproportionately greater, and the quality of relationships is fundamentally different than in Christianity: and He who sat on the throne said: ...he who overcomes will inherit everything, and I will be his God, and he will be My son(Apoc. 21:5;7). God for a Christian is a Father by grace, while Muslims say: “O Allah! You are my master, and I am your slave.”“Islam affirms the radical inaccessibility of God to man... (and therefore) man’s relationship to God is conceived primarily in the category of “servant of God.” Of course, a Muslim can say that “metaphorically, we are all children of God,” but for a Christian this is not a metaphor : We have truly acquired adoption as sons from God through union with His only begotten Son, who became man: therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ (Gal. 4:7).
The next difference concerns the question of the space-time relationship of Paradise. If in Islam the righteous reach Paradise strictly after the Resurrection and Judgment(although it still exists) t o in Christianity, a person’s closeness to Paradise is determined not chronologically, but personally: the Kingdom of God is within you(Luke 17:21); today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43). Personal entry into Paradise during earthly life is mandatory for a Christian: “Whoever does not try to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven and enter into it while he is in this life, even at the time when his soul leaves his body, will find himself outside this Kingdom”; " The Kingdom of Heaven, which is within the believer, is the Father, Son and Spirit(St. Simeon the New Theologian) ". Thus " Heaven is not so much a place as a state of mind." and not only the soul, but also the body.
What will happen to me after death? Every person asked himself this question. And even the most inveterate atheist probably periodically has doubts: what if everything doesn’t end in death? And if so, what will happen after it?
Since childhood, we have all heard about hell and heaven from various sources. In heaven there are bliss prepared for the righteous, and in hell the souls of sinners will be consigned to eternal torment. Both hell and heaven, as a rule, acquire very concrete realities in our heads during our lives, which often and, it seems to me, quite naturally cause a smile in a sane person. Well, you must admit, it’s hard to imagine a place where numerous devils fry tormented sinners in frying pans. Wherein different cultures and different religions sometimes give completely different pictures of the afterlife. Thus, Catholics have an idea of purgatory, where the souls of dead sinners can supposedly be cleansed of the sins they committed during their lifetime. In Orthodoxy there is the concept of ordeal, which every soul goes through after death. But it is difficult to imagine that all people living on Earth have their own posthumous “fate,” which will depend on the religious and cultural views of their people.
I really want to understand this issue and clearly understand: what awaits our soul after death, what is the view of the Orthodox Church on existence after earthly life? What determines the posthumous fate of a person? It is also important to understand how people living in this world were able to form an idea of what awaits us after death.
What exactly are hell and heaven? If these are specific places where our souls will go, then where are they located? Or do the words “hell” and “heaven” rather designate a certain state in which our souls will remain, depending on what the experience of our entire life has been? And where will the souls of non-believers end up or is there no afterlife for them?
Death as a condition for immortality
Marxism has spoken its weighty word:
Matter does not disappear.
A student will die - on his grave
A huge burdock grows (Anastasia Krasnova. Student song. Mechanics and Mathematics of SSU. 1970s)
There are disgusting toads here
The grass is falling into the thick grass.
If not for death,
then I would never
I didn’t understand that I was living... (O. Mandelstam)
Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov once noted that the entire spiritual life of a person is determined by the contradiction between the knowledge of the inevitability of death and the inability to accept this as something due and necessary. At the deepest level, no person, no matter what beliefs he holds, can agree that his personal death is a completely regular event, which, due to its inevitability, should be treated calmly and indifferently.
With all the banality of death, with its everyday proximity and repetition, even a desperate positivist experiences some confusion when reporting the death of another person, puts on a significant face and stops joking. But why does the obvious always appear as incredible? Probably because, firstly, every death seems to be an invasion of the other world, which in the depths of spiritual experiences even to an atheist is revealed to at least the reality of non-existence, and secondly, any death is inevitably projected onto its own fate, reminding of finitude and its only life.
The fact that death is essentially unnatural, that, being a law of nature, it violates some other law of human existence, is proven by the presence of the fear of death itself. Where does it come from? If we do not have an internal experience of death, but rationally consider it simply the cessation of personal existence, then why are we afraid of it?
If you think about it, the entire human culture is a protest against death. The trace of a palm or the sinuous lines drawn by the fingertips, imprinted for millennia in the frozen clay of primeval caves - what is this if not evidence of the desire to leave behind something that will exist after a person doomed to early death disappears?
Apparently, this is the deep basis of all creativity, especially artistic creativity: to separate oneself from oneself, to express one’s inner world in autonomous forms, in order to ensure its existence in the form of a work of art after the physical death of the author.
“No, I won’t all die!” - Pushkin assures. Christian church guesses where this confidence, in one form or another inherent in every person, comes from. This is a genetic memory rooted in the Divine revelation that was given to our universal ancestor Adam. And although for thousands of years nature convinced man of the opposite, this memory and this confidence, despite everything, repeated: “No, all of me will not die! Not a single entity created by God can be destroyed! Man is doomed to immortality.”
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The Holy Scriptures speak very sparingly about death as such, and even more so about posthumous existence. The reason is that to understand such things you need appropriate experience, and a living person fundamentally cannot have the experience of dying.
Let us note, in parentheses, that the vaunted science has not made much progress in understanding the phenomenon of death: neither in the biological, nor in the psychological, nor even in the philosophical aspect.
The Old Testament, avoiding sensual images, communicates the most important things about death.
Firstly, death is not an immutable law of existence: “God did not create death and does not rejoice in the destruction of the living, for He created everything for existence, and everything in the world is salvific, and there is no harmful poison, and there is no kingdom of hell on earth” (Wis. 1:13-14).
Secondly, death is a consequence of human sin: “Righteousness is immortal, but unrighteousness causes death: the wicked attracted her with hands and words, considered her a friend and wasted away, and made a covenant with her, for they are worthy to be her lot” (Wis. 1 :15-16).
Thirdly, the posthumous fate of a person is entirely determined by his earthly life: “Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart taste joy in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the vision of your eyes; only know that for all this God will bring you to judgment" (Eccl. 11:9).
Posthumous existence in this era seemed uniquely bleak.
New Testament opens with the joyful news of the Resurrection of Christ. death on the cross The Savior, His descent into hell and His subsequent Resurrection are a victory over the kingdom of Satan and death itself. The whole essence of the New Testament is contained in the main hymn of Easter:
Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling death upon death,
And to those in the tombs
Gave me a life.
Belief in the coming general resurrection is the main content Christian faith, everything else is secondary. The Apostle Paul speaks about this very emotionally: “If in this life only we hope in Christ, then we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19).
The 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew speaks quite clearly and unambiguously about the general resurrection and subsequent the Last Judgment: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all nations will be gathered before Him” (Matthew 25:31-32).
The New Testament convinces us that every person who has ever lived on earth will be resurrected. “...All who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29). It says "everything". The Apostle Paul writes: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall live” (1 Cor. 15:22).
Thus, death and subsequent resurrection become just the boundaries of an endlessly lasting life. It is very important that the coming general resurrection will be the resurrection of man in the unity of spirit, soul and body. Orthodox Church does not profess the immortality of the soul, like many ancient religions, but precisely the bodily resurrection. Only now the body will be different, transformed, free from imperfections, diseases, deformities that are the consequences of sin. The Apostle Paul convincingly speaks about this coming transformation: “we will not all die, but we will all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51).
Probably, what awaits a person in eternal life is not some static state, but new activity. After all, the Kingdom of Heaven is called Eternal Life, and life is always activity... From the hints of the Apostle Paul, we can even guess what this activity will consist of - in the endless knowledge of the Infinite God. And isn't this the highest bliss?
But there is another eternity. Eternity with the opposite sign, an eternity of hell. The word "hell" itself probably goes back to the ancient Greek Hades - the joyless kingdom of the dead. In the description of hell, the common people's imagination of the Middle Ages created many impressive images that made the blood run cold in the veins. Holy Bible tells about hell much more restrained.
Speaking about the eternal torment of sinners, Christ uses the image of “fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22), “a never-sleeping worm and an unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:44), which was well understood by His contemporaries. Gehenna was a garbage dump in the vicinity of Jerusalem, where insects were always swarming and fire was constantly burning, which became the main symbol of hellish torment.
Many theologians considered eternal torment not as endlessly lasting physical pain, but as mental pain, pangs of conscience, or eternal annoyance at missed opportunities, at an incorrectly spent earthly life. The basis for such a “humane” interpretation can be the words of Jesus Christ Himself, who says that hell is filled with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). Truly unbearable physical pain involves screams and screams, and crying and gnashing of teeth are signs characteristic, rather, of emotional experiences.
The opinion of the remarkable Russian thinker Evgeniy Nikolaevich Trubetskoy is interesting. In the epilogue to the book “The Meaning of Life,” he suggests that perhaps eternal torment is an eternal subjective experience of the moment of death. What actually happens in a moment is experienced by the condemned sinner as eternity.
Be that as it may, all this is just speculation. Let us not rush into trying to find out what essentially is afterlife. In due time, everyone will know for sure about this.
It is important to understand one thing - death helps a person realize the greatest value of life, awakens the ability to see behind everyday life the great miracle of God's Providence for man. And at the same time, physical death is a condition of metaphysical immortality, a guarantee Eternal life, in which man becomes not only the image, but also the likeness of God.
This optimism of Christianity is expressed with extraordinary force in the final words of the Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century! Amen.” The Church Slavonic word “expect” means to expect with faith, to expect with effort. “I’m looking forward to the resurrection of the dead” means I’m not just passively waiting, but seriously preparing for this event, making efforts to change myself, realizing that our earthly life is, among other things, also a preparation for Eternal life, for the fullness of being with By God and in God!