A reader writes:
I have a daughter who will be in middle school next year. She asked me a question yesterday that I didn’t have an answer for.
Basically, she wanted to know this:
Assuming that the Bible story of Adam & Eve is true, then where do dinosaurs and cavemen fit in? What is the explanation for them?
There are basically two possibilities here, depending on whether the six days of creation are understood literally or figuratively.
If they are understood literally then the dinosaurs (I assume that you mean the land-living dinosaurs, not the aquatic or avian ones, who would have been created on the Fifth Day) would have been created on the Sixth Day, the same as mankind. They then died out at some point, the most commonly cited reason being the Great Flood.
(And who could blame Noah if he didn’t want to try to get Tyrannosaurs and Brontosaurs onto the Ark?)
Cavemen (or at least those cavemen who were truly humans), by contrast, would presumably be descendants of Adam and Eve who took to living in caves since they didn’t have the Garden of Eden to live in anymore.
Other, not-quite-human cavemen who later died out presumably were created on the Sixth Day, along with the land animals and mankind.
If one takes the Six Days figuratively–so that they tell us what God did without telling us precisely when God did it–then presumably the common evolutionary account is what happened: God created live and allowed and guided its development over millions of years until eventually the dinosaurs arose. Then they all died (except for those that fought in the Civil War–that’s a joke!) and new life forms developed, leading eventually to the primates, which included not only monkeys and apes but also some species that were quite simliar to humans physically.
Then God took one of these (perhaps at the time of conception, and perhaps with a few new genetic changes) and endowed it with a rational soul to produce the first human.
Some of the almost-humans who didn’t have rational souls may have been some of the cavemen, but also–after the Fall–some true humans also undoubtedly inhabited caves and thus were cavemen, too, before they started building cities to live in.
Hope this helps!
A couple of thoughts…
Since the Fall is an event of Biblical proportions (oh look, a pun!), could there have been some cataclysmic physical events that occured to mark it (like an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out the dinosaurs), or the earth suddenly aging by millenia.
Exactly as I would have tried to explain it. Wll done!
Isn’t it intereting how a child’s innocent, sincere question can stir up the gray matter of adults around them?
Wait ’til you child asks why we need liturgy committees in our parishes.
isn’t this the old “fact” vs “truth” problem?
I know that cavemen and dinosaurs coexisted; I used to read “Alley Oop”. “Hi-Yo, Dino-saw-ah!”
Out here in northwestern Virginia, we have a “historical” dinosaurs vs. Union soldiers exhibit.
Seriously.
No, I think it’s more that “poetry and folktales are different genres than history textbooks” problem.
I would think the very fact that there are parallel but not particularly similar Creation stories included in the Bible would be a clue about this. “In the beginning, God created everything, including us, and here are two stories about Him doing it.” They’re not so much factual news reports as realllly lonnnnnng parallel lines of poetry. Each adds its own special way of saying “God created everything”, and neither can be lost without losing meaning. But you shouldn’t try to force them to be what they’re not.
This is a more of a Protestant problem rather than a Catholic problem
I recommend a very interesting explanation of the creation accounts in “In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall,” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. As usual, he discusses an entire range of opinion on the subject. He not only gives the orthodox Catholic account, but also discusses non-Catholic and non-Judeo-Christian accounts of the origin of the world.
Have you ever seen “The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen”?
It’s at the following.
http://catholic-caveman.blogspot.com/
Perhaps the problem goes far beyond the worship of Scripture as God that pervades Fundamentalist Evangelicalism. Perhaps the problems lies with the fact that, when the accounts of Creation were written, they were primarily designed to counteract the creation myths and stories from the cultures surrounding the Israelites. Remember that cultures used such myths not only to describe their own roots but to define the gods they worshipped. As inspired revelation, Genesis describes the God Who created the universe in a far different light. Perhaps it’s best to consider Yahweh’s attributes as revealed in His act of creation, especially in light of further revelation in the OT.
I have no problem with theistic evolution except for one thing. I have a hard time reconciling the fall of man, which is what supposedly brought death and suffering into the world, with a theistic-evolutionist account that would presumably inlcude death and suffering before God put a soul in the first man.
The only attempt at a solution to this problem that I’ve read is the one C.S. Lewis offers in The Problem of Pain, that the fallen angels fell before the creation of the world and began corrupting the material world as God shaped it.
I’m interested to hear anyone’s thoughts.
two thoughts
Neil. It is called the GAP THEORY. That between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2 millions or billions of years occurred. v.1 In the Begining, God created the heavens and the earth. v.2 The earth was formless and void.
the theory holds that all the theistic evolution, fall of the angels, etc occurred after v. 1 and before v.2.
In my prod. days (pre-Catholic) when I was in seminary, the point in my Biblical theology class was that many people look for many things in the first few chapters of Genesis, but that is NOT what they were written for (sorry Creation Science fans). The purpose is that there is a King in the Garden… WORSHIP and OBEY HIM!!! Period.
Tim M.,
Maybe Moses in writing Genesis intends: (1) literal history; and (2) to teach a message about how we should love and obey God? They aren’t contradictory.
It’s not surprising that Roman Catholics, now that they have demythologized Genesis, have demytholgized the NT as well (witness the elevation of Brown and Fitzmyer to the Pontifical Biblical Commission).
Tim, I understand all that, but that still doesn’t answer my question about how there could be suffering and death before the fall? I asked my Biblical studies professor in college (who was definitely not a literal six-days creationist) if the problem of suffering and death before the fall was a flaw in theistic evolution. He only answered, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.” (By the way, Jeb, my prof was not a Catholic, but an evangelical Nazarene. Your “argument” cuts both ways.)
I’m not sure if Lewis’ theory answers the question either. If death is supposed to be the result of man’s sin, how can death happen before man could sin? I’m not trying push buttons, I sincerely want to know. Could it be that man’s sin is responsible only for man’s death? Perhaps God, when He finished forming man through evolutionary means, gave Adam and Eve the gift of immortality and placed them in some kind of paradise, where they then lost that gift?
“This is a more of a Protestant problem rather than a Catholic problem”
Which part?
There seems to be a small matter of whether or not God meant it when He spoke from Mt. Sinai and audibly told the Isrealites that He created the world in six days.
Did He mean it figuratively but knew the Isrealites would take it literaly given the seriousness of the occassion and thus intentionally mislead them by omitting “the rest of the story,” or did He mean it literaly to begin with? Or should it have been obvious that God didn’t mean for His words to be taken seriously regardless of the seriousness of everything He had to say at Sinai?
One does not really have to go that far to reconcile the observed data regarding the age of the Earth and the origins of life with either a secular form of the evolutionary theory, a form of theistic evolution, a so-called “young Earth” creation account, the reason for this being that there really isn’t a lot of evidence to begin with.
We find some old rocks in the ground, some petrified bones and decayed matter, and we suddenly understand everything there is to know about the history of the Earth. I think it would be better to take a much more sober, open-minded approach to the study of our Earth’s history.
The theory of evolution has a lot going for it, but it also has some deep flaws. I won’t go into specifics, but I do think that it is within reason to doubt that, say, the Earth might be millions of years old, that men and mould and platypi share a common ancestry, and that even the simplest of life forms could spontaneously arise from nothing.
I just think everyone should keep an open mind about such matters. Is that really too much to ask?
Here’s my take on it:
GENESIS
The war began at Creation. God created the heavens and the earth; He created them perfect and whole. There was no entropy of matter in that perfect universe; there was no arrow of time. There was only Morning and Evening in those eternal Days.
EDEN
Within this perfect universe God “planted a garden” — He created a Place that is all places, an environment for life. This is Eden, the perfect Earth that existed before space and time. Here God put the Earth, and from the Earth sprang forth Life — the eternal and ubiquitous ideals of plants, fish, animals, and other creatures of which we know little.
ADAM
God created an image of Himself to inhabit Eden. This was Man, the Adam Kadmon, the ur-Man who is all human beings of all times and places. This unified Man was created from the physical substances of the Universe by Divine Will, and set to the task of knowledge — of communing with all life, of knowing life intimately and directly. There were no barriers between souls in those days, so Adam could apprehend each living thing directly, knowing and naming each in a complete and perfect way.
EVE
Then God introduced polarity — the Tao — into Reality: he split the Adam Kadmon into two equal and complimentary parts: male and female, yin and yang, Adam and Eve. Together, these two persons could combine at will into the full human Being God had created in His image.
And God walked with His children in His perfect world, witholding from them nothing of His love or knowledge. “Only love me,” He asked them, “And we will live together forever. But cease to love me, and your eternal life will end.”
THE COSMIC REBELLION
And God rested from creation, and called forth the Great Ones in His service to revel in His creation. “Behold, I have made a Being in My Image,” he told the angels; one by one, each bowed to the Adam in honor of the Divine Image. All but one. “I am the greatest of all Beings,” said the Lightbringer. “I bow to no one, not even the Maker of All Things. I will reign in my own right, or be cast down. I will destroy Man, the Image of God, and I will be God! Will you not join me, brothers?” Immediately, a third of the Great Ones rallied to him.
“You have chosen,” said God. And there was war in Heaven. The Warrior, Prince of the Great Ones, gathered those like himself who had remained loyal to God and confronted the Lightbringer. “Twin brother!” said the Warrior, “Your rebellion has undone you! Who is Like God?”
“I,” said Lightbringer. “God has given me power above all creatures, including Man. He who can destroy a thing controls a thing. I will therefore destroy the Image of God, and in doing so bring even the Maker under my Will.”
“Never!” cried the Warrior Prince. “For God and His Kingdom — to battle!” And with that, the Warrior Prince and his host attacked. The Rebels fought back, but armed with the Power of God the Warrior Prince was invincible, and the Rebels were driven from Eternity. Stripped of their heavenly essences and with nowhere else to go, the Cosmic Rebels entered the Universe and took possession of the sentient creatures they found there. Soon Eden was surrounded; with a stern heart, the Cosmic Rebel began his attack on Man.
THE FALL
One of the sentient creatures God had made was the Serpent. This ur-Serpent was neither man nor angel; he was a Wise Beast, knowing and curious but not made with the eternal Image of God burning within him. The Cosmic Rebel seduced them with little difficulty; their keen minds and inquisitive natures made them his ideal puppets. At his command the Serpent entered Eden and approached the Human Being from its yin side — the receptive, absorbent, passive Eve. “Are you God?” asked Serpent. “No,” said Eve. “Why not?” asked Serpent. “I don’t know,” replied Eve. “Let me show you,” replied Serpent, and revealed to her the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge — science.
“This is knowledge. Knowledge is Power.Seize it,” said Serpent. “God has no right to limit you. He fears you, for He knows you can become His equal.Control your own destiny, and make of yourself an equal to God.”
“We must not do that,” said Eve. “If we do, we will forfeit eternal life.”
“You must do that,” replied Serpent. “This garden, this Eden, is His prison. Unless you seize Ultimate Knowledge and become as one of us — a god — you will never escape it and discover your true destiny.”
“I can become more than I am?” asked Eve. “Yes,” replied Serpent. “You can transcend what He made you and become free from Him.”
“How will I do this?” asked Eve.
“Let me kiss you,” said the Serpent. And she did; and his kiss smelled of apples and death.
And Adam was one with Eve. Just as Eve contained within her all of Adam, so Adam Eve. “Take this, all of you, and eat it,” said Serpent, as the three became one. “This is my Body; which I have taken from Him for you.”
And suddenly the wholeness was shattered; a barrier of absolute terror slammed down between Adam and Eve; they were no longer one being but two — naked, vulnerable, and alone. Frantically, they began their quest to become complete again. From their union with Serpent came the race of Man, this time individual rather than One, each Adam and Eve naked, alone, and afraid. Driven by fear and lonliness, the children of Eve and Serpent began to delve into the secrets of the universe, in their researches learning to harness its mightiest powers of the universe. These they turned towards their quest to gain ultimate power. And as they crossed the final thresholds of knowledge, and reached out to grasp ultimate knowledge, the Maker spoke.
“Children,” said God to Adam and Eve, “You have diisobeyed me and reached out to grasp the fruit of ultimate knowledge. Yet I forgive you, and welcome you back into my arms.”
“We are incomplete!” cried humanity “Our beings are solitary and naked in the light of Your Presence. This and much more has Serpent taught us. Now, we will seize Your power and form our own Deity, and our nakedness before you will end.”
“Serpent made you incomplete. Serpent made your hearts naked. Yet you call him ‘friend’?” asked God. “He seeks your destruction. He wishes to use My Image within you to attain My Power and set himself above Me. You are merely tools to be used by him to this mad end.”
“He showed us the Truth,” they replied, “And the truth is that we are your slaves.”
“You are not my slaves,” said God. “You are my children.”
“No longer,” said the race of Adam. “We prefer to stand on our own feet and choose our own fate, as Serpent has taught us.Soon we will be Your equal.”
“By your choice shall you live,” said God. And then all around them, Eden began to dissolve, replaced by a harsh landscape of dust and rock. As the perfect world shrank away to nothingness, God quickened the dust around them; the physical substances of the living creatures of Eden became enmeshed with mortal animal forms. “Inhabit these aprons of skin,” said God. “You have cast yourselves out of Eden. From now on you are of the Earth — creatures of dust. Your physical forms will die, and through dying you will change and evolve, as will those creatures you communed with in the Garden. Your choice has even severed the Earth from me; from now on there is entropy, and chos, and death awaiting you and all things as time flows.”
HOPE
“But know this!” He told them “Although your act of will has brought death to your kind, your rebellion will serve Me still! Although you are no longer One being by nature, I command you to become one through the act of marriage. By this means may the primordial Human Being be created anew. And from your evolution will come a race of humans who will till and conserve the Earth, a people whose wanderings and wrestlings with Me will take them from the primordial dust to the farthest stars — and among whom will be a new Eve, who through an act of will brings a new Adam to mankind!
“As Eve came from Adam, so now will Adam come from Eve. Your daughter, this second Eve, will bear a son — a Man, a Second Adam, my Son and yours. Through her act of will I will walk among you once more; As Adam consigned all humanity to death by an act of total disobedience, so will the new Adam resurrect humanity by His total obedience. In the end, ever human will have the opportunity to choose life or death, will or love. By Him Serpent shall be crushed, and mankind will be reunited with Me once more.”
Eden disappeared. Adam, the primordial Man, became Man. Clothed in the bodies of animals, man began his life on Earth. And so Time began, and Space; and predation and death followed after. The War had begun.
As far as I can tell, in Exodus 20, God is simply making a reference to the familiar Genesis accounts both to reinforce his identity to his audience and to illustrate the principle about the Sabbath. Unless one already determines that the Genesis account is a literal history in all respects, I don’t see how that amounts to a declaration that He created the world in a historically literal six days. I also wouldn’t want to confuse the literal with the serious. We don’t take Jesus’ teaching any less seriously because he sometimes employed entirely made-up parables to do it, do we? Genesis isn’t some made-up parable, of course, but it doesn’t use the literary form that the Israelites would have recognized as a conventional history either.
IMO, total literalism is appealing because it seems like a safe position that preserves the moral content of the text, especially as it’s quite clear that the opposing “it’s all a lot of nice made-up stories” provides an out for people who would rather pretend moral law and sin (and God, for that matter) didn’t exist. But literalism isn’t always sustainable — and then if some of it isn’t literal, then what is? Where is the line drawn? The real limit at least has to be at what must be treated literally to preserve the moral and theological content of the Bible. By that measure, a historical 144-hour creation is not important, but the historicity of Jesus’ life, works, death, and resurrection is absolutely crucial. But that is probably not conservative enough by itself.
Ultimately I think we have to trust in Christ’s promise and submit to the teaching authority of the Church (against which the gates of hell, and quack theologians for that matter, will not prevail). Some things she has reserved judgement on (e.g. whether the days in Genesis were literal 24-hour periods, or whether one species of animal might be descended from another), and others she has firmly established as non-negotiable (e.g. that our First Parents were real, historical persons, and that there is a real ontological gap between man and animal which cannot be accounted for by anything other than an act of special creation).
Which familiar Genesis accounts? The biblical account had yet to be written by Moses and, at least as far as I’m aware, no creation accounts speak of the world being created in six days except the biblical account. When God spoke from Sinai He was telling the Israelites something they could not have known.
That’s because we know they are parables. If he actually told us he did something he didn’t really do then that would be another matter.
This doesn’t really matter since it wasn’t written until after Sinai.
Like the Middle Ages’ unending discussion of the number of angels that oould dance on the head of a pin, the discussions and libraries of books about Genesis never seem to end.
The most important part of Genesis is “In the begining, GOD…” all else is superflous.
Um… I’m not really up on the theories, but maybe “death entered the world” refers to human death only?
Oh, and wasn’t the “angels dancing on a pin” thing a snide joke, originally?
Jack, are you really suggesting that Genesis was totally new information to the Israelites when Moses set it down? Everywhere else in Exodus where God makes reference to something recorded in Genesis, He appears to do so with the assumption that His audience is already familiar with the material, making brief references and simply mentioning names without needing to recount their stories. Why should the mention of a six-day creation and resting on the seventh day be different?
I would have to say that maybe the time figure is metaphoric, but proportional, but definitely not the almost humans.
It is so laboratory like, and God is so infinitly majestic, He is Majesty. I can’t imagine God creating the world with almost humans. Such an eccential little bit of information would not be ignored by the writers of the Genesis. It lacks beauty, which the Creation is, a mirror of the Beauty, which is God.
And the answer to the angel joke is not actually possible. All the angels created could be where the tip of the pin is, as they are pure spirit and “are”where they act. But as for dancing, you can’t dance without a body.
No, not all of it. God intoduced (or reintroduced) the Isralites to things they either never knew or had forgotten. I very much doubt they kept a sabbath previous to the exodus. If that was the case why would they have had any reason to think of God creating in six days and resting for one?
where did god come from? who created god ? where did he get his powers? why createonly 1earth
And some people think there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
Oh, I don’t know, the questions were so poorly typed that they could be a code or something, rather than a random troll who can’t express himself coherently.
Read 2nd book of Esdras chapter 7 versus 75-140 in the Good News Bible and you will know exactly what happens to your soul when one dies, that is for the righteous and the condemned in detail It is found in the amplified version of the bible in the Deuterocononical / Apocrypha section. It is near the 2 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manassah. Since time is of the essence, leave the Adam & Eve story alone, praise Jesus first, help others and then you will recieve grace and happiness. The acronym JOY- Jesus, Others, and then YOU.
Read this and think about it.
Though a man may disregard God’s holy commandments during his earthly life, he will have to account for them sooner or later. The greatest catastrophe, which can befall a person, is an unprovided death. At present he or she can help himself themselves by admitting God’s truth and living it out through service to the needy. Though they had a lifetime to take advantage of God’s love and mercy they now face His justice. The Divine Justice will reward the person according to their earthly life and they will go to Heaven or hell.
Few things in this earthly life are absolutely certain. The most undebateable of these is death. Every person, even the atheist, will admit this much. Think often of it, and remember that time lost will never return. We do not have a lasting dwelling on this earth. In this life we are like travelers. We will never find rest united we are united with the ultimate Law Maker.
Like a river that flows ever onward toward the sea, the current of daily life moves ever onward toward the Day of Judgment. On that day, the Just shall stand against those who annoyed and persecuted them. Those who humbly bore the judgments of their fellow men will rise to judge the rest on that day. The poor and the humble will have great confidence and joy, but the proud and the selfish lovers of this world will have many reasons to be afraid. All wrongdoing will be silenced and condemned, while every suffering endured with patience, will bring joy and gladness. The unreligious will be sad. Many will thank God for the hardships and trials, which they bore on earth. God’s loyal followers will have greater merit than the human might of this world. Simple obedience to My laws will be more highly praised than all earthly cleverness. In the Day of Truth a pure and good conscience will bring more joy than mere learning. The person who refused to sin for earthly gain, will be the envy of those who lived for this world. In refusing to follow God’s ways, a person chooses to exist without Him. They turn their backs on Him as the fallen angels did. If he or she dies in this condition, they condemn themselves to hell. The jury, which convicts a person, is his or her own sinful life. God merely pronounces sentence on what they have chosen.
All the sufferings known to people are nothing in comparison with the sufferings of hell. The wise person would rather bear any trial on earth than place himself or herself in danger of hell. One single hour of hell is harder than a hundred years of suffering on earth. In this earthly life people have some rest from their labors and trials. They get some measure of consolation from their friends. In hell, however, there is no rest, no consolation, and no friends. The fires of hell will never die. There will be no end to suffering. One will find no comfort in knowing that he has been there a thousand years. He or she can never hope for an end to their tortures. All the other sufferings would be bearable if only the damned could hope for relief. Despair is hell’s bitterest pain.
In hell a person will be punished through the same faults by which they sinned on earth. Each sin will have its own particular torment. The lazy will be forced to work continuously, the glutonous will be tormented with extreme hunger and thirst. The proud will be filled with confusion, and the greedy will feel the pinch of miserable want. And yet the worst pain of hell is none of these. The people in hell would gladly bear all of this and much more if only they could hope for God’s friendship and love, no matter how long it may take, be it even a billion years from now. Their keenest torment is that they have forever lost Me, the Source of all true joy and perfect happiness. This suffering makes hell the home of despair and undying hatred.
THE MESSAGE:
We are all born imperfect and we must use the opportunities and events in this earthly life to perfect ourselves as far as possible. We must use them according to the direction of our intelligence and according to the wisdom of God’s law. Temptation simply brings out what is in a person. One knows him or her best when they deal with temptation. It proves their faults and tests their virtues and just how much they really desire to earn Heaven. It is seen by what they do to reach it. How much one person loves GOD is seen by how much they are willing to do for Him and if we have a daily relationship with Him whether be it through prayer or just regular talk via conversation. It means nothing to GOD if a BILLIONAIRE donates money for a good cause if that person had an ulterior motive or has no idea of really what’s going on, on the spiritual level. If that person does have a relationship with God then it is a blessing and their reward in heaven will be great.
Jesus Christ is the son of GOD. God transformed Himself into a human (without sin), performed miracles, loved others, preached words of TRUTH then was sacrificed by a beating and death on the cross. Jesus Christ didn’t defend Himself and sacrificed His life for us. He wants us to know that HE (GOD) knows what we experience as humans. As a result we have a chance at LIVING after death. His mother, Mary the Virgin Mother was with Christ and the Holy Spirit on with God at the beginning of time. She is most feared in hell and Satan’s head will be crushed under her heel. Jesus’ relationship with His mother on earth was a wholesome, beautiful relationship. She bore Him without intercourse because She was pre-selected by God. And for those who blame God for today’s problems, you need to blame Satan and Adam from the Garden of Eden who truly cursed the human race with pains, labors, trials, and controversies.
PLEASE REMEMBER THERE IS NO FREE, EASY RIDE TO ETERNAL FREEDOM.
Some people feel that because they are from a good moral family and they carry the family’s last name they are automatically saved and will be rewarded Heaven. This is incorrect; you cannot ride on another’s coat tails. Everyone is responsible for his or her own destiny. Many people are too interested in following their daily occupations and interests to bother how God wants them to follow these things. People do not deny God’s wisdom in theory. They simply disregard it in practice. People are afraid of losing some worldly advantage or earthly enjoyment. They want to get to Heaven with the least possible inconvenience to themselves. They work, sweat, and sacrifice for their earthly interests. Their only check is their fear of hell, not their love for God. Some are so distracted by the pursuit of knowledge that they no longer consider their faults and defects. If we were as diligent in rooting out vices and acquiring virtues, as we are eager for knowledge, the world would be a better place. Some preferred to be honored rather than be humbled, and they are lost in their own self-centered imaginings. They are ruined through vain learning and unprofitable knowledge because we most of the time forget God. It is better to be great that merely to be considered great. You will be great if you learn God’s words and act on them in our daily lives. If we merely talk about a holy life, you may impress people, but God knows us for what we are-a failure forever. Knowledge is of no value unless it makes you a better person in God’s eyes.
This lives of ours are a spiritual battle with good and bad spirits unseen, that is unless you are someone like me and many others who witnesses a strange frightening demon spirit.
If you do not believe in God, then believe in Hell. Either way your life will improve because to avoid hell is to live for God and vice verse.
Though a person may disregard God’s Holy Commandments during his earthly life, they will have to account for them sooner or later. The greatest catastrophe, which can befall a person, is an unprovided death. At present he or she can help himself themselves by admitting God’s truth and living it out through service to the needy. Though they had a lifetime to take advantage of God’s love and mercy they now face His justice. The Divine Justice will reward the person according to their earthly life and they will go to Heaven or hell.
Few things in this earthly life are absolutely certain. The most undebateable of these is death. Every person, even the atheist, will admit this much. Think often of it, and remember that time lost will never return. We do not have a lasting dwelling on this earth. In this life we are like travelers. We will never find rest united we are united with the ultimate Law Maker.
Like a river that flows ever onward toward the sea, the current of daily life moves ever onward toward the Day of Judgment. On that day, the Just shall stand against those who annoyed and persecuted them. Those who humbly bore the judgments of their fellow men will rise to judge the rest on that day. The poor and the humble will have great confidence and joy, but the proud and the selfish lovers of this world will have many reasons to be afraid. All wrongdoing will be silenced and condemned, while every suffering endured with patience, will bring joy and gladness. The unreligious will be sad. Many will thank God for the hardships and trials, which they bore on earth. God’s loyal followers will have greater merit than the human might of this world. Simple obedience to His laws will be more highly praised than all earthly cleverness. In the Day of Truth a pure and good conscience will bring more joy than mere learning. The person who refused to sin for earthly gain, will be the envy of those who lived for this world. In refusing to follow God’s ways, a person chooses to exist without Him. They turn their backs on Him as the fallen angels did. If he or she dies in this condition, they condemn themselves to hell. The jury, which convicts a person, is his or her own sinful life. God merely pronounces sentence on what they have chosen. It is final and sets the final seal on truth for all to see.
All the sufferings known to people are nothing in comparison with the sufferings of hell. The wise person would rather bear any trial on earth than place himself or herself in danger of hell. One single hour of hell is harder than a hundred years of suffering on earth. In this earthly life people have some rest from their labors and trials. They get some measure of consolation from their friends. In hell, however, there is no rest, no consolation, and no friends. The fires of hell will never die. There will be no end to suffering. One will find no comfort in knowing that he has been there a thousand years. He or she can never hope for an end to their tortures. All the other sufferings would be bearable if only the damned could hope for relief. Despair is hell’s bitterest pain.
In hell a person will be punished through the same faults by which they sinned on earth. Each sin will have its own particular torment. The lazy will be forced to work continuously; the gluttonous will be tormented with extreme hunger and thirst. The proud will be filled with confusion, and the greedy will feel the pinch of miserable want. And yet the worst pain of hell is none of these. The people in hell would gladly bear all of this and much more if only they could hope for God’s friendship and love, no matter how long it may take, be it even a billion years from now. Their keenest torment is that they have forever lost God, the Source of all true joy and perfect happiness. This suffering makes hell the home of despair and undying hatred.
When God Most High has pronounced the final decree that a person shall die the soul leaves the body to return to the one who gave it. Immediately it praises the glory of God Most High. For people who have no use for the ways of God and hated those who worshipped Him there is no place to rest. They wander around in torment, grief, and sorrow. Their torment will progress in seven stages. The first is that they ignored the Laws of God; second they can no longer make a sincere repentance and obtain life. Third, they see the reward stored our for those who put their faith in the covenants of God. Fourth, they think about the torment that has been stored up for them in the last days. Fifth, they see angels guarding the homes of other souls in complete silence. Sixth, they recognize that they soon will be tormented. Seventh and worse of all, when they see the glory of God they are sick with remorse and shame. They cringe in fear, because while they were living they sinned against God. And now they are about to come before Him to be judged on the last day. For those who followed the ways of God in their lives, after the soul leaves their mortal bodies they will enter their rest in seven stages of joy. The first is to have struggled hard and won the victory over the evil impulse, which was formed in them, but did not succeed in leading them from life to death. The second is to see the endless wandering of the souls of the wicked and the punishment that is waiting for them. The third is to know what a good report God has given about them, that during their lifetime they kept the Law that was entrusted to them. The fourth is to appreciate the rest that they are to enjoy in the places where they have been brought together, guarded by angels, in complete silence, and with the glory that is waiting for them at the last day. The fifth is to rejoice that they have now escaped the corrupt world and that they will receive the future life as their possession, They can now see the narrow, troubled world from which they have been freed and the spacious world they will receive and enjoy forever. The sixth is to be shown how their faces will like the sun and how they are to be like the light of the stars that never die. The seventh joy and the best of all is when we rush to God to meet Him face-to-face, with perfect trust and happiness, without any shame or fear.
At times you hear people say they are too busy to bother with religion. People who say these things do not understand God, nor themselves, nor their daily life. They do not realize that religion is as necessary an activity as eating, sleeping, and working. The person who neglects this part of their life is abnormal, that is, they are not what he or she ought to be. They are neglecting something, which is natural and normal for them, something that perfects them more than they realize. Think of death as a gateway to Heaven. Learn to look upon your earthly life as a great opportunity to make a worthy preparation for Heaven. Never forget these words: “Blessed is the servant whom the Lord finds watching when He comes. Indeed I tell you, He will place him over all His possessions.”
THE KEYS TO FREEDOM: Respecting oneself and others, repentance for wrongdoing, helping others who are needy only because you thank God for what He has given you, forgiving others and yourself. Forgiving oneself is important, after we have received forgiveness from God first. This allows us to have that spring in our step and to shine like a beacon of light to the weary, the lonely hearted, the oppressed, the widows and widowers, the orphans and the ignorant. To understand fully that we are forgiven if we are sorry for our wrongdoings and instantly we are renewed. Pray in the beginning of the day for your daily bread and you will find at least one interesting event / happening which will get you through each day of our lives to sustain us, chin up, shoulders back, confident.
Certain paragraphs have been repeated on purpose so that the information sinks in. The 2nd Book of Esdras, the resurrected soul and the place of Gehenna, Hell are either black or white there is no gray area when it comes to spirituality. Read every word from beginning to end, copy and paste it and pass it on.