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Divine judgment means the judgment of God or other supreme beings and deities within a religion or a spiritual belief.
In ancient Sumerian religion, the sun-god Utu and his twin sister Inanna were believed to be the enforcers of divine justice. [1] : 36–37 Utu, as the god of the sun, was believed to see all things that happened during the day [2] : 184 and Inanna was believed to hunt down and punish those who had committed acts of transgression. [1] : 162–173 After she was raped in her sleep by the gardener Shukaletuda, she unleashed a series of plagues upon the whole world before tracking him down and killing him in the mountains. [1] [3] In another story, she hunted down the old bandit woman Bilulu, who had murdered her husband Dumuzid, and turned her into a waterskin. [1] : 166 [2] : 109 [4] The Sumerians, as well as later Mesopotamian peoples, believed that all mortals went to the same afterlife: Kur, a cold, dark, cavern deep beneath the earth. [5] Kur was miserable for all people [5] and a person's actions during life had no impact whatsoever on how he or she would be treated in the afterlife. [5]
The idea of a final readjustment beyond the grave, which would rectify the sharp contrast so often observed between the conduct and the fortune of men, was prevalent among all nations in pre-Christian times. Such was the doctrine of metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls, as a justification of the ways of God to man, prevailing among the Hindus of all classes and sects, the Pythagoreans, the Orphic mystics and the Druids among the Celts. The doctrine of a forensic judgment in the unseen world, by which the eternal lot of departed souls is determined, was also widely prevalent in pre-Christian times. [6]
The Pharaonic Egyptian idea of the judgment is set forth with great precision of detail in the "Book of the Dead", a collection of formulas designed to aid the dead in their passage through the underworld. [6]
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The "Book of the Dead" ( Nekyia ) in the Odyssey depicts judgment in the afterlife by Minos, the "radiant son of Zeus" who in his mortal life had been king of Crete. [7] Three egregious sinners are singled out for eternal punishment, but the theological implications of the scene are unclear. Plato elaborates on the concept in the myth of Er at the end of the Republic . Each misdeed receives a tenfold penalty, with rewards also proportional. Elsewhere, [8] Plato names the judges as Minos and Rhadamanthys, but he also draws on the tenets of Orphic religion. A third judge was Aeacus; all three were once mortal kings whose excellence as rulers among the living was transferred to the dead. [9] Vergil's depiction of the afterlife in the Aeneid [10] is consonant with the Homeric view as well as that of Plato, and he makes it clear that everyone faces judgment.
The mystery religions of the Hellenistic era offered initiates the hope of salvation through confession, judgment, and forgiveness, as well as ritual purity. The Isaic mysteries were influenced by the traditional religion of ancient Egypt, which had symbolized the judgment of the soul through its weight on the scale of truth. [11] Orphic initiates were buried with devotional texts that provided instructions for navigating the hazards of the underworld and addressing the judges; the soul who speaks correctly will be given a drink from the pool of Memory before joining the heroes who have gone before. [12]
Justice and righteousness are such essential attributes of God as to have led to the conviction upon every believer that every evil deed will meet with its due punishment. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do righteous judgment?" (Gen. 18:25). Great catastrophes as Noah's flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the earthquake that swallowed up Korah and his followers, the plagues of Egypt and the evil that came upon other oppressors of Israel are represented in the Bible as Divine judgments. The end of history, therefore, was conceived to be the execution of the divine judgment upon all the nations. This divine judgment is to take place, according to the Biblical view, on earth, and is intended to be particularly a vindication of Israel. [13]
This Day of Judgment ("Day of the Lord") is portrayed vividly in the Book of Jubilees and particularly in Enoch. The leading idea in Enoch is that the Deluge was the first world-judgment, and that the final judgment of the world is to take place at the beginning or at the close of the Messianic kingdom. The one at the beginning of the Messianic kingdom is more national in its character; the one at the close is to consign all souls either to Paradise or to Gehenna. The fire of the latter consumes the wicked, the heathen often being represented as types of wickedness, while the Israelites are supposed to be saved by their own merit or by that of their fathers. The divine judgment described in the Testament of Abraham is one concerning all souls in the life to come. [13]
There is also a divine judgment which takes place in this world and is continual. "Man is judged daily," says Rabbi Yose. [14] According to the Mishnah, "There are four seasons of the year when the world is judged: in spring (Passover) regarding the yearly produce; in early summer (Shavuot) regarding the fruit of the trees; on Sukkot regarding the winter's rain; and on Rosh Hashana, when man is judged." [15] Due to these views, the 1st of Tishri became-the Day of Judgment in the Jewish liturgy. Not yet recognized as such in the time of Josephus and Philo, this season of repentance and penitential prayer removed from the Jew that gloom and dread of the Last Judgment Day so prevalent in Essene life and literature and gave to Jewish ethics its more practical, healthy character. [13]
In Catholic doctrine, divine judgment (Latin judicium divinum), as an imminent act of God, denotes the action of God's retributive justice by which the destiny of rational creatures is decided according to their merits and demerits. This includes:
In the beginning, God pronounced judgment upon the whole race, as a consequence of the fall of its representatives, the first parents (Genesis Genesis ). Death and the infirmities and miseries of this were the consequences of that original sentence. Besides this common judgment there have been special judgments on particular individuals and peoples. The fear of God is such a fundamental idea in the Old Testament that it insists mainly on the punitive aspect of the judgment (cf. Proverbs 11:31; Ezekiel 14:21).
There is also a judgment of God in the world that is subjective. By their acts a person adheres to or deviates from the law of God, and thereby places themselves within the sphere of approval or condemnation. In a sense then, each individual exercises judgment on themselves. Hence it is declared that Christ came not to judge but to save (John 3:17; 8:15; 12:47). The internal judgment proceeds according to a person's attitude: towards Christ (John 3:18).
The eternal destiny of creatures will be decided at the end of time. As there is a twofold end of time, so there is likewise a twofold eternal judgment: the particular judgment, at the hour of death, which is the end of time for the individual, and the general judgment, at the final epoch of the world's existence, which is the end of time for the human race.
The idea that God is now and will be at the end the judge of every human life is both biblical teaching or doctrine that is fundamental to understanding Christian faith according to the Presbyterian view. The Lord's present judgment of human life anticipates that perfect and final judgment that he will impose upon mankind at the end of the age. Christians will also have to face the judgment of the Lord and receive what is due them for the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. [16]
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St Gildas interpreted the Saxon invasions of England in 5th-6th centuries as just punishment for the sins of the Britons. The Viking attacks of the 8th-11th centuries were widely interpreted as being divine punishment upon Christians. [17] [ full citation needed ] Plagues, earthquakes and other similar disasters were also often looked upon as punishment in much of Christian history. The Reformation was sometimes interpreted by Catholics as a divine punishment upon the Church.
In his Second Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln cited the then on-going war as Divine Judgment visited upon the nation for the offense of slavery.
The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. [18]
The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.
Hades, in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side.
Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish theology concerned with events that will happen in the end of days and related concepts. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the resurrection of the dead. In Judaism, the end times are usually called the "end of days", a phrase that appears several times in the Tanakh.
In philosophy, metempsychosis is the transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. The term is derived from ancient Greek philosophy, and has been recontextualized by modern philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Kurt Gödel, Mircea Eliade, and Magdalena Villaba; otherwise, the term transmigration is more appropriate. The word plays a prominent role in James Joyce's Ulysses and is also associated with Nietzsche. Another term sometimes used synonymously is palingenesis.
Damnation is the concept of divine punishment and torment in an afterlife for actions that were committed, or in some cases, not committed on Earth.
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord is a concept found across the Abrahamic religions and the Frashokereti of Zoroastrianism.
Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal and may include the belief that the soul is "sleeping" after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment, a time known as the intermediate state. "Soul sleep" is often used as a pejorative term, so the more neutral term "mortalism" was also used in the nineteenth century, and "Christian mortalism" since the 1970s. Historically the term psychopannychism was also used, despite problems with the etymology and application. The term thnetopsychism has also been used; for example, Gordon Campbell (2008) identified John Milton as believing in the latter.
The problem of Hell is an ethical problem in the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, in which the existence of Hell (Jahannam) for the punishment of souls in the Afterlife is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient supreme being. Also regarded as inconsistent with such a just being is the combination of human free will, and the divine qualities of omniscience and omnipotence, as this would mean God would determine everything that has happened and will happen in the universe—including sinful human behavior.
Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned. This type of journey is called a katabasis and is the basis of several hero worships and journeys. Orphics revered Dionysus and Persephone. Orphism has been described as a reform of the earlier Dionysian religion, involving a re-interpretation or re-reading of the myth of Dionysus and a re-ordering of Hesiod's Theogony, based in part on pre-Socratic philosophy.
The concept of an immaterial and immortal soul – distinct from the body – did not appear in Judaism before the Babylonian exile, but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. Accordingly, the Hebrew word נֶ֫פֶשׁ, nephesh, although translated as "soul" in some older English-language Bibles, actually has a meaning closer to "living being". Nephesh was translated into Greek in the Septuagint as ψυχή (psūchê), using the Greek word for "soul". The New Testament also uses the word ψυχή, but with the Hebrew meaning and not the Greek.
The Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades, also called Against Plato on the Cause of the Universe, is a short treatise believed to be the work of Hippolytus of Rome. It was erroneously attributed to the Jewish historian Josephus since at least the 9th century and was first published in a translation of Josephus' works by William Whiston. As Whiston's translation is in the public domain, it appears in many present-day English editions of Josephus' work without any noting of its erroneous attribution.
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations, the biggest examples of which are Christianity and Islam, whereas religions with reincarnation usually depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations, as is the case in the Dharmic religions. Religions typically locate hell in another dimension or under Earth's surface. Other afterlife destinations include heaven, paradise, purgatory, limbo, and the underworld.
Particular judgment, according to Christian eschatology, is the divine judgment that a departed (dead) person undergoes immediately after death, in contradistinction to the general judgment of all people at the end of the world.
Hades, according to various Christian denominations, is "the place or state of departed spirits", borrowing the name of Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. It is often associated with the Jewish concept of Sheol.
In some forms of Christianity the intermediate state or interim state is a person's existence between death and the universal resurrection. In addition, there are beliefs in a particular judgment right after death and a general judgment or last judgment after the resurrection.
The idea of purgatory has roots that date back into antiquity. A sort of proto-purgatory called the "celestial Hades" appears in the writings of Plato and Heraclides Ponticus and in many other pagan writers. This concept is distinguished from the Hades of the underworld described in the works of Homer and Hesiod. In contrast, the celestial Hades was understood as an intermediary place where souls spent an undetermined time after death before either moving on to a higher level of existence or being reincarnated back on earth. Its exact location varied from author to author. Heraclides of Pontus thought it was in the Milky Way; the Academicians, the Stoics, Cicero, Virgil, Plutarch, the Hermetical writings situated it between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon; while Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists thought it was located between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth.
Purgatory is a passing intermediate state after physical death for purifying or purging a soul. A common analogy is dross being removed from metal in a furnace.
Judgement in an afterlife, in which one's deeds and characteristics in life determine either punishment or reward, is a central theme of many religions. Almost all religions are greatly devoted to the afterlife, emphasizing that what you do in your current life affects what happens to you after death.
In Christianity, heaven is traditionally the location of the throne of God and the angels of God, and in most forms of Christianity it is the abode of the righteous dead in the afterlife. In some Christian denominations it is understood as a temporary stage before the resurrection of the dead and the saints' return to the New Earth.
Christian universalism was a theology prevalent in the early United States coinciding with the founding of the Latter Day Saint movement in 1830. Universalists believed that God would save all of humanity. Universalism peaked in popularity during the 1820s and 1830s, and the idea of universal salvation for all humanity was hotly debated. Several revelations of the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith, dealt with issues regarding Universalism, and it was a prominent heresy in the Book of Mormon. Smith's father was a Universalist, while his mother was a traditional Calvinist, creating strain in the Smith family home.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Divine Judgment". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
