Thesis: It is not to be assumed that one’s memory and

personal identity will be carried forward by the soul into a

spiritual hereafter. Anyone who believes in Holy Books
should take the trouble to understand what they really say.

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On the Hereafter
Author: Peter M.K. Chan
This is an excerpt of my book titled Soul, God, and Morality
copyrighted and published 2004
All rights reserved
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Ever since the days of Socrates and Plato,

mainstream religious opinion has always been that
personal immortality must pertain only to the rational
parts of the soul. Its egoistic and emotional parts should
be allowed to let go with the body. The reason behind
this move is not difficult to seek. For one thing, a
personal soul without desires and emotions is more likely
to be peaceful. For another, it is more reasonable to think
that only its more rational or divine-like of aspects are
worthy enough to persist into eternity. But usually, this is
not so explicitly and clearly specified in the dispensations
of local religious clinics. This is why most religious folks
are still under the impression that in addition to their
memories about themselves, their self interests and
feelings for someone would also be carried by the soul
forward into their spiritual hereafter.
What requires pointing out though is that as far
as the more sophisticated of Buddhist teachings are
concerned, personal identity and memory is not really a
desirable commodity. According to this radical point of
view, if eventual freedom from all suffering is really to be
had, to let go of selfish cravings and emotional desires is
not sufficient. Memory and the identity of self that it
entails should also be transcended. For as long as
memory and self-identity persist, personal interests
would continue to lurk—wanted to be seen, to be heard,
to be loved, to be known, and so on and so forth. What
that nurtures again would be psychological torment.
Thus, if all sufferings were really to be overcome, all
personal concerns (and thus memories) should also be
put to rest. To be able to do that, according to this view,
is to enter the state of spiritual emancipation called
nirvana. This is a state of being free not only from the
burden old memory, but also any sense of self that
memory is able to concoct.
It should thus be seen that contrary to popular
understanding, nirvana is not a nostalgic and personal
kind of place. What that implies is that those who enter
would not know who they were. Such a state of being, if
I may say so, is quite analogous to the situation of Adam
and Eve before they ate the fruit of the ‘tree of
knowledge’. Before they ate, according to the story, they
had no sense of themselves -- being unable to recognize
even their own nakedness.

Of course, early Christianity also had much to

say about the burden of our old and depraved selves.
You see, one of its unique claims is that the human race
does not only inherit the genes of Adam and Eve, but
also their original sin (what in fact was the emergence of
memory and self-identity, as I have just indicated). Thus,
one of its key battle cries is about the renewal of one’s
old and depraved self (not unlike the Islamic concept of
self-directed jihad). Further, according to some of its
promoters, this is be brought about by an act of faith
and in virtue of the magnanimity of Divine grace. Only
in this way, or so it is said, could the soul be redeemed
and made ready for the Kingdom of Heaven.

The trouble with such a doctrine is that a couple

of subsidiary wrinkles would need to be ironed out. One
is the belief that departed souls are not amnesiacs. They
need to know who they were for the purpose of final
reckoning. The other is that straight entry for such
personal souls into heaven would bring with them traces
of human depravity unfit for what is supposed to be a
holy kingdom. It is thus a case of ‘either-or’ but not
both.
To tackle this problem, some of those who were
supposedly in the know were smart enough to propagate
the idea that disembodied souls would first be herded
into a sort of quarantined center or transit hall; and that
it is only after the final judgment that those who have
really been redeemed would be admitted into Heaven.
This center or hall is known in Catholic circles as
purgatory – a more sanitary sounding kind of place than
the classical underworld mentioned in Apostle Peter’s
account of where Jesus went before his resurrection.

However, it should be observed that the

introduction of purgatory buys only time but not
solution. At the end of the day, redeemed souls with old
memories and senses of self would still have to be kept in
check. The rebellion of Satan or Lucifer in particular
should be kept in view. In this connection, I should like
to point out that despite other criticisms that one may
level against the Apostle Paul on other issues of doctrine,
he was at least quite clear-headed (in my view) about
this one. It was to his credit to have taken the Genesis
pronouncement of ‘dust to dust’ more seriously than
most, and thereby appeared to have accepted what it
entails. One must take seriously his contention that if
there were not going to be any resurrection of bodies of
an incorruptible kind, his Christian faith and
commitment “would be in vain” (I Corinthians, Chapter
15).
Why, may I ask, should he be so desperate for
an incorruptible body when he already had a
redeemed soul? Let me tell you what I think. He
seemed to be saying that old memories and personal
identities should be allowed to disintegrate with the
body. And the bodies of those who are redeemed
would be resurrected new and incorruptible for the
new heaven and the new earth. He also seemed to be
saying that memory and self-identity are in fact on the
side of the body, and that what is new about these
incorruptible bodies is that they are ready to begin
afresh with new memories of perhaps a more
desirable kind.

The problem with this scenario, I should like to

point out, is that as far as personal immortality is
concerned, this kind of hereafter is as good as none.
For in the absence of old memories, new bodies and
brains, incorruptible or otherwise, would not be able
to know who they were or suppose to replace. That
renders empty the hope of reuniting with friends and
kin. It goes without saying therefore that this Pauline
scenario is not very palatable to most. Thus, for
purpose of making the hereafter more marketable,
some later theoreticians were daring enough to
suggest that these incorruptible bodies would in fact
be reunited with their souls with old memories that
have been kept waiting in purgatory.

But the trouble of this move is that it is taking

everything sort of back to square one. I said ‘sort of’
because the end result might turn out to be worse
rather than better. Let me explain. Since the new
incorruptible bodies and old souls with egos and
memories are now both destruction-proof, who is to
say what new complications might eventually ensue?
Many new dramas of Eden and their aftermath, if I
may be allowed to suggest, could in fact be played into
eternity. This is why I said that the Apostle Paul was
clear-headed about this one. At least, what he
envisioned was that in the complete passing away of
all that which is old, a new game would be set for
incorruptible brains and new memories. That, I
suppose, is the only way to erase permanently the
quilt of a tormenting soul (with respect to the terrible
Roman cruelties he had once personally inflicted or
helped to inflict on the early Christians). Some people,
you see, would rather completely forget than to carry
their past for an eternity.
For those who are not religiously in the know,
let me also point out that this scenario is in fact
consistent with the Biblical pronouncements (in the
book of Genesis) that “from dust thou art, to dust thou
shalt return”, and that to die is to return to “the place
of one’s ancestors” – a polite label for the ancient
family graveyard. For those who are biblically in the
know, let me also say that anyone that takes these
pronouncements seriously should also accept what
they literally entail. It is that there will not be any
personal hereafter, and that this is what is meant to be
a human creature. What comes into being, in other
words, must in the course of time also peters away.
The laments of King Solomon (in the book of
Ecclesiastics) on the futility of human existence, if I
may also point out, are lamentations about this very
fundamental fact. That borrowed breath from God,
the one that is supposed to be the original wherewithal
of the human soul, or so he seemed to be saying, is not
really the personal property of anyone. According to
him, what comes from God will have to be returned
(as a borrowed entity of sorts) to God (Ecclesiastics
12:7).
This is also the right time and a good place to
point out that for what the Bible has to tell, the
classical Judaic view of what may exist in the
hereafter had always been in the form of visible
bodies rather than invisible spiritual soul. It should
be recalled that Elijah and Jesus were both said to
have gone bodily stock and barrow, visible to the
naked eye, straight into heaven. There is no mention
whatsoever that it was their souls that had made the
trip. Call these bodies transformed, new, and
incorruptible if you like. But visible bodies they were
(as depicted), not invisible spiritual souls.
Eote should also be taken that what the ew
Testament writers hoped for was not to go to heaven as
spiritual souls, but for the “second coming” that
would bring about the destruction of all that which is
old in favor of the new. As for those who are already
dead, the idea was that their bodies would have to be
resurrected for the final judgment. And there is also
no mention that such resurrected bodies would be
judged only after they are team up with their souls,
previously disembodied either (I Thessalonians
Chapter 4, and Revelation Chapters 20-21). These
canonical passages only says that those who are
redeemed would be given new bodies of the
incorruptible kind to enter the “new heaven and the
new earth”. It is in this light, I believe, that the Eew
Testament scenario on what is really to be had in the
hereafter has got to be understood.

In this connection, allow me also to point out

that when Apostle Paul took the trouble to say that
the body is to be looked upon as the ‘temple of God’,
what should have come through is that our Paul the
Apostle was actually theorizing not just within his
Judaic tradition, but also like an Aristotelian or
minimal dualist of sorts (one who hold that only the
active intellect or power of consciousness would
persist after bodily death). It is in this light, I believe,
that the Eew Testament scenario on what to be had in
the hereafter had got to be understood. Care should
be taken not to let spectacles of a Platonic kind to get
in the way.
Unfortunately, for reason of our human desire
for more time to perpetuate our existing personal
identity into a spiritual hereafter, this basic point has
remained difficult for many to accept. It is distinctive
of human nature not to take literally what it does not
like. Besides, the neighborhood of truth is always less
comfortable than the familiar circle of falsehood. This
is also why religious dualism of the Platonic kind (with
memories attached) is still able to attract and
‘hypnotize’ the immortality crowd.

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Peter M.K. Chan is the author of The Mystery of Mind (published
2003), and Soul, God, and Morality (published 2004). Recently, he has
also competed any work titled The Six Patriarchs of Chinese
Humanism (not yet in print). For details regarding the above, please
visit http://sites.google.com/site/pmkchan/home
http://sites.google.com/site/ancientchinesehumanism/home
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