The Afterlife, Heaven & Hell Simply OUGHT to Be Real Even If We Can’t Presently Be Sure That They In

By Mesha Oh

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

(The Bible)

Belief in the afterlife—the idea that we continue to live even after we die—is common to every major religion and is perhaps a defining feature of Religion as such. Most, if not all, religions posit the existence of realms beyond the world where we presently live where we will go upon death depending on how we had lived while we were on Earth. These realms are of two sorts: heavenly and hellish. There is a general understanding that if a person has led a virtuous life while on Earth, on death they will enter a heavenly realm, where they will reside in peace and comfort. On the other hand, if they had led a sinful life while on Earth, they will be destined to harsh punishment in a hellish realm.

Religions differ on the number of heavenly and hellish realms that they claim exist, on what they claim are the features of these realms and their duration as well as on what, according to them, counts for good/virtue and evil/sin that qualifies someone to enter a heavenly realm after they die and that makes for someone else to be sent to a hellish realm. Notwithstanding this, they all share a common belief in the reality of the afterlife and in the existence of a heavenly realm as a reward for those who led a virtuous life on Earth and of a hellish realm as the destination for those who had led a life of vice.

*

Probably thousands of volumes have been written down the centuries by votaries of various religions describing, sometimes in graphic detail, the heavenly and hellish realms that are a central article of faith for them. Priests and clerics often preach about Heaven and Hell to their congregations. Belief in Heaven and Hell are likely a major reason for ardent commitment to a particular religion for hundreds of millions of people across the world. The desire to go to Heaven after they die is possibly a principal reason for vast numbers of people to believe in a religion in the first place. The fear of going to Hell if they do not believe in this religion is a related factor that likely powerfully sustains their faith commitment.

*

Here, a thinking person might be led to ask, “Even if these religions and millions of their votaries claim that life continues after death, that heavenly and hellish realms are a reality and that we will go to one of these realms after we die, what evidence do we have that these claims are really true?”

To me, this is a perfectly valid question. The simple answer is that we presently have absolutely no solid, empirically verifiable evidence whatsoever at our disposal about the reality of the afterlife and the existence of heavenly and hellish realms. The fact of the matter is that as long as we are alive, in this present world, and have not as yet crossed over the bridge of death, we simply cannot obtain any such evidence. This means that there is just no way that we can presently know for sure if the claims about the afterlife and the existence of heavenly and hellish realms that the religions posit are true or false. Of course, we may choose to believe what we like about these matters (such as by accepting the claims of one or the other religion in this regard by faith), but the fact is that we simply cannot know if what we might have chosen to believe is really true.

*

This being the case, perhaps the only really honest position in this matter is the agnostic one. The word agnostic denotes ‘not knowing’ (It is derived from the Greek word gnosis, which denotes ‘knowing’, the 'a' in 'agnostic' denoting 'not'). Since as long as we have not experienced death ourselves, we do not (and, moreover, cannot) know if the afterlife and heavenly and hellish realms are a reality or not, to admit to our presently not knowing for sure anything on this score is simply to acknowledge our current predicament.

*

But at the same time as we presently do not (and cannot) know for sure if the afterlife and the heavenly and hellish realms are indeed real, one may be led to insist that they simply OUGHT to be real. There is simply too much evil in this present world that goes unacknowledged and unpunished here for Hell not to be a reality. Conversely, there is simply too much goodness in this world that goes unrecognized and unrewarded for Heaven not to exist. For life to be fair, just and truly meaningful and worth it, there ought to be a hellish realm beyond this present one where the evil that has not received adequate punishment in this world is suitably punished for, and a heavenly realm, where the good that has not receive adequate reward here is suitably rewarded for. Only then, I would like to think, would our passing through this world, with all the many challenges we face, to be truly meaningful and worth it and for perfect justice to prevail eventually.

And so, accordingly, I would say, “While it is certainly true that as long as we have not crossed over to the other shore we cannot be sure that the afterlife, Heaven and Hell are truly real, the fact of pervasive unpunished evil and unrewarded goodness in this world suggests to me that they simply OUGHT to be real—for justice’s sake and for our short stay on Earth, with all the many challenges we go through, to have been truly meaningful and worth it.”