(PRIMER) EASTERN ORTHODOXY ON DEATH, AFTERLIFE AND RESURRECTION
High summer may be the best time to bring this up, rather than the dead of winter, so to speak. For the last three episodes of "Search the Scriptures" on Ancient Faith Radio, Dr Eugenia Constantinou has been talking about Eastern Orthodoxy and its views on death, the afterlife and what this practically means for our funeral arrangements and how we deal with this while we are still alive. It is not the sort of thing people talk about easily and putting it off -- sometimes indefinitely -- is usually how we tend to deal with it. As it happens Dr Constantinou's own father moved on to the next life while she was recording part 2.
Last night Dr Eugenia posted her long awaited and hotly contested Great Tollhouse Debate, with her beloved Father Kosta.
Aug. 3, 2025 Ancient Faith: Search the Scriptures Live - The Soul After Death and Tollhouses. Next week part 2 on Embalming.
While we are on the subject, many people outside the Orthodox world have no idea what Christians actually believe about the afterlife. So we are taking the opportunity to set that straight as well.
Dec. 18, 2015 Ancient Faith Radio: Death and the Afterlife, Part I - Fr. Jeremy Davis. Part 2, part 3, part 4.
Eschatological issues like Christ's Second Coming, the Resurrection of the Dead and the Final Judgment are sources of confusion for cradle nones as, particularly in the US, Evangelical Christians have been making up all kinds of stuff on this issue.
Key here is that the anthropology brought on by 'platomind', the notion of a divided body and soul, is false. A few passages from my upcoming e-book on the synthesis of the physical and the spiritual realms.
According to the Aristotelian school body and soul are a unit.
"Substance is comprised of Form + Matter = Soul. Man is a body, animated by soul (one substance, not a body and a soul). Substance is the primary sense of being, and all other categories are secondary and dependent on it.
"The soul is thus partly material and partly immaterial. This philosophical definition means, you do not have a soul (of some unknown substance and in an undefined location), but that you are a soul. The soul animates the body.
According to the Aristotelian school body and soul are a unit.
"Substance is comprised of Form + Matter = Soul. Man is a body, animated by soul (one substance, not a body and a soul). Substance is the primary sense of being, and all other categories are secondary and dependent on it.
"The soul is thus partly material and partly immaterial. This philosophical definition means, you do not have a soul (of some unknown substance and in an undefined location), but that you are a soul. The soul animates the body.
"According to Orthodox anthropology body and soul are indivisible. One without the other makes no sense to either of them. According to Eastern Orthodox doctrine the separation of body and soul in physical death has come about as a result of the Fall.
"Death is an act of mercy on the part of God, enabling us to repent during our lifetimes when we still have free will. Otherwise we would have become like the demons. Death is however a temporary separation, as body and soul are united at the Final Resurrection.
"For Western secularists the idea of synthesis as a religious corollary of the bodily resurrection, may come as a bit of a shock, but it is consistent with Orthodox eschatology."
In the video in the post titled "Dualism versus Integration: The Bodily Resurrection" (link) Father Stephen De Young held a lecture during The Symbolic World Summit 2024 on the issue of bodily resurrection.
Orthowiki on the Resurrection of the dead (link)
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