Afterlife judgment

6 passages · search this phrase →

Often appears with: the fear of death · justice as a virtue · judgment, heaven, and hell · immortality of the soul · the problem of evil and theodicy · the nature and attributes of God · tenfold punishment and reward · suffering of wrongdoing · souls assigned directions · rewards of justice · resurrection from death · punishments for injustice

Usually: confronting death (4) · narrative (3) · exhortation (3) · argument (2) · reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · censure (1) · lament (1) · resignation (1)

Quotable

“And put thou thy trust in God, for a sufficient guardian is God.” Muhammad (Al-Qur'an content traditionally attributed; Rodwell as translator), The Koran (Al-Qur'an) · precept

“Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the world below.” Plato, The Republic · observation

“For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair, But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:” Rudyard Kipling, Verses 1889-1896 · observation

The Koran (Al-Qur'an) primary

Muhammad (Al-Qur'an content traditionally attributed; Rodwell as translator) · c. 610–632 CE (revelations compiled into the Qur'an after the prophet’s death)
Book carefully concocted from various sources, and with much extraneous aid, and published as a divine oracle, then it would seem that the author is at once open to the charge of the grossest imposture, and even of impious blasphemy. The evidence rather shews, that in all he did and wrote, Muhammad was actuated by a sincere desire to deliver his countrymen from the grossness of its debasing idolatries–that he was urged on by an intense desire to proclaim that great truth of the Unity of the Godhead which had taken full possession of his own soul–that the end to be attained justified to his mind the means he adopted in the production of his Suras–that he worked himself up into a belief that he had received a divine call–and that he was carried on by the force of circumstances, and by gradually increasing successes, to believe himself the accredited messenger of Heaven. The earnestness of those convictions which at Mecca sustained him under persecution, and which perhaps led him, at any price as it were, and by any means, not even excluding deceit and falsehood, to endeavour to rescue his countrymen from idolatry,–naturally stiffened at Medina into tyranny and unscrupulous violence. At the same time, he was probably, more or less, throughout his whole career, the victim of a certain amount of self-deception. A cataleptic13 subject from his early youth, born–according to the traditions–of a highly nervous and excitable mother, he would be peculiarly liable to morbid and fantastic hallucinations, and alternations of excitement and depression, which would win for him, in the eyes of his ignorant countrymen, the credit of being inspired. It would be easy for him to persuade himself that he was "the seal of the Prophets," > Book had believed, it had surely been better for them! Believers there are among them, but most of them are perverse. (28/73)

The translator’s framing argues Muhammad was sincerely driven by monotheism but later hardened into violence, then the text shifts to Qur’anic teachings on accountability, God’s oneness, the afterlife, and humility before divine judgment.

saith to a man, "Be an infidel:" and when he hath become an infidel, he saith, "I share not thy guilt:5 verily, I fear God the Lord of the Worlds." Of both, therefore, shall the end be that they dwell for ever in the fire: This is the recompense of the evil doers. O ye who believe! fear God. And let every soul look well to what it sendeth on before for the morrow. And fear ye God: Verily, God is cognisant of what y…

The City of God, Volume I primary

Augustine (Aurelius Augustine), Saint of Hippo · composed 413–426; published/issued in installments during composition
BOOK I. > BOOK FIRST. (14/36)

He argues that death is not an evil but an end common to all, since the only real harm depends on what follows after death, and Christians need not fear long dying.

11. _Of the end of this life, whether it is material that it be long delayed._ But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the longest…

The Republic primary

Plato · composed c. 360 BCE
Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, > BOOK X (14/19)

He repeats the promised social and personal outcomes for the just and unjust in this life, then claims these are nothing compared to the far greater rewards and punishments after death.

True. And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I …

The Republic primary

Plato · composed c. 360 BCE
Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, > BOOK X (15/19)

Er of Pamphylia, after reviving on the funeral pyre, reports a post-mortem journey where judges separate just souls upward and unjust souls downward, with punishments and rewards scaled tenfold over long spans.

SOCRATES Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, …

The Republic primary

Plato · c. 380 BCE
BOOK I. > BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. (7/70)

Er, the soldier Armenius’s son, is resurrected after ten days to describe judgment: the just ascend by a heavenly way, the unjust descend, and punishments and rewards proceed in proportion to deeds.

and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence. But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared with those which await good men after death. ‘I should like to hear about them.’ Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a valiant man. He was …

Verses 1889-1896 primary

Rudyard Kipling · 1889-1896
(42/87)

Tomlinson dies in Berkeley Square, is judged by Peter at Heaven’s Gate, and is condemned for relying on borrowed moral stories rather than personal deeds.

TOMLINSON Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair -- A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away, Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way: Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease, And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.…