One of the most profound, deeply affecting questions we face as
human beings is the matter of our mortality--and its connection to
immortality. Ancient animist ghost cultures, Egyptian
mummification, late Jewish hopes of resurrection, Christian eternal
salvation, Muslim belief in hell and paradise all spring from a
remarkably consistent impulse to tether a triumph over death to our
conduct in life.
In After Lives, British scholar John Casey provides a rich
historical and philosophical exploration of the world beyond, from
the ancient Egyptians to St. Thomas Aquinas, from Martin Luther to
modern Mormons. In a lively, wide-ranging discussion, he examines
such topics as predestination, purgatory, Spiritualism, the
Rapture, Armageddon and current Muslim apocalyptics, as well as the
impact of such influences as the New Testament, St. Augustine,
Dante, and the Second Vatican Council. Ideas of heaven and hell,
Casey argues, illuminate how we understand the ultimate nature of
sin, justice, punishment, and our moral sense itself. The concepts
of eternal bliss and eternal punishment express--and test--our
ideas of good and evil. For example, the ancient Egyptians saw the
afterlife as flowing from ma'at, a sense of being in harmony with
life, a concept that includes truth, order, justice, and the
fundamental law of the universe. "It is an optimistic view of
life," he writes. "It is an ethic that connects wisdom with moral
goodness." Perhaps just as revealing, Casey finds, are modern
secular interpretations of heaven and hell, as he probes the place
of goodness, virtue, and happiness in the age of psychology and
scientific investigation.
With elegant writing, a magisterial grasp of a vast literary and
religious history, and moments of humor and irony, After Lives
sheds new light on the question of life, death, and morality in
human culture.
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