#924 The State of the Soul after Death

Dr. craig’s response

I’m so glad that your teacher has found such a creative use of our Questions of the Week, Jamie! Obviously, his goal of getting you to reflect seriously on such matters has been fulfilled! Here I’ll respond briefly to your various questions.

First, I see no biblical grounds for thinking that after bodily death “our soul would stay on earth for a bit until we eventually join God in heaven.” Rather the biblical view is more like your second alternative that “we float around in space or another realm, like a lobby, until we eventually go to heaven,” so long as we understand expressions like “float around” and “lobby” to be metaphorical language. In the biblical conception, souls go to another realm called in the Old Testament Sheol and differentiated in the New Testament into Hades (for unbelievers) and Paradise (for believers). We have a great illustration of this belief in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.19-31. The souls of the departed remain in their respective domains until the resurrection of the dead on Judgement Day. Judaism strictly prohibited necromancy, the practice of trying to contact or raise the dead. Christians accepted this typical Jewish framework but added that believers who die go to be with Christ until the day of his return and the final resurrection (II Corinthians 5.1-10; Philippians 1.21-23). Only after the resurrection has occurred do we go to “heaven,” properly speaking, when God inaugurates the new heavens and the new earth.

“How long is the period between death and being resurrected?” That all depends on when a person dies. The later in history one dies, the closer one’s death is to the day of Christ’s return and the resurrection of the body. Some people may die only the day before Christ’s return and so have scarcely any time to wait! Of course, psychological time passes at a very different rate than time itself (as when we say, “Time flies” or “The hours go crawling by”). So for those who go to be with Christ, the time of disembodiment may well seem very short, whereas for those separated from him in Hades time must seem agonizingly slow. Only someone in Hades can be characterized as “a lost soul.”

Your question about ghosts and souls raises the controversial question of Near Death Experiences. I think that people who believe in ghosts may think that they are souls of the departed (see I Samuel 28.3-25), but since they are seen as bodily apparitions, their bodies would have to be mental projections by the percipient, something only in the mind of the beholder. In Near Death Experiences as the person leaves his body, he often does see his body and surroundings “from a sort of 3rd person perspective” and, upon resuscitation, may describe in detail what went on during his separation from his body. How this is to be explained is a matter of great controversy. Since a disembodied soul has no eyes, it’s hard to understand why it would have a visual perspective (for example, hovering near the ceiling of the room).

When I first heard the message of the Gospel as a non-Christian highschooler, I, too, feared going to hell because I realized that I was headed there, and I’m so glad that you, like me, have found solace and hope in Christ. But you shouldn’t characterize the time between death and resurrection as a “lost period.” Read what Paul says about that state in Philippians 2. The prospect of going to be with Christ is far better than remaining in this sinful, wretched world, even though the resurrection state will be even better! For the Christian things just get better and better! You have a lot to look forward to, Jamie!