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The concept of spiritual death has varying meanings in various uses and contexts.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2010) |
The concept of spiritual death has varying meanings in various uses and contexts.
Although Buddhists occasionally use the term 'spiritual death,' there is no consensus about the meaning because the Buddha himself never used the term, hence the controversy. It has crept into use in recent decades. The closest he came to it, is in the term Parābhava, meaning 'spiritual ruination.' The various ways to spiritual ruination is expounded in the Parābhava Sutta. [1] For example, the Sutta says: ‘If a man is fond of sleep, fond of society, and does not exert himself, but is idle and ill-tempered, that is the cause of spiritual ruination.’
The Sutta concludes:
'‘Having contemplated these ruined men in the world, the wise and noble man with perfect vision of things according to reality partakes of the world of the fortunate.'
For Buddhadasa spiritual death stems from attachment to good and evil, and means dukkha , i.e. 'suffering'. [2] He says: "Once we know about good and evil, we attach to them ... This causes dukkha [suffering] and dukkha is death, spiritual death." (ibid, p.9)
Thus, for Buddhadasa spiritual death stems from attachment to good and evil, and equals suffering; whereas for Christianity, it stems from sin, and equals either separation from God, or the death of the soul. It is hard to see, from Buddhadasa's point of view, in spiritual death, what actually dies.
Sangharakshita uses the term "spiritual death" to describe insight meditation practice. [3] In this case, spiritual death is something good, favourable.
He says: "The term 'spiritual death' may be slightly off-putting, but it isn’t meant to suggest physical death. What ‘dies’ are all our illusions and delusions about who we are and how things are. This is usually spoken of as ‘insight practice’ (vipassana)." (ibid).
In Christian theology, spiritual death is separation from God caused by sin. [4]
"Your sins have separated you and God" (Isaiah 59:2).
This spiritual death is alternatively regarded as the death of the soul:
"The soul that sins shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4).
Ezekiel 18:4 is translated as "The soul that sins shall die," by both Christians and Jews. But the nature of the soul in Judaism is uncertain. [5] So how Jews understand Ezekiel is a matter of controversy. [6] [7] [8]
And therefore what Spiritual Death means in Judaism is uncertain. Nonetheless, if spiritual death is the death of the soul, sin is the cause of it, whatever it is.
Spiritual death is dealt with in the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16, which says that those of demoniac nature engage in harmful, horrible works meant to destroy the world. They become envious of God, who is situated in their own bodies. Being the lowest among men, they are cast into demoniac life, and never approach Krishna. Gradually they sink down to the most abominable type of existence. [9] Here death means rebirth in the demonic realm, as well as separation from God. Whether the soul is destroyed in unclear, but certainly the Hindus and Christians are united on the cause of spiritual death, namely evil conduct or sin.
For theosophists, spiritual death stems from sinfulness, and equals the death of the soul, or separation between one's higher and lower nature, or between the soul and the body. Here is a quote from Blavatsky:
"While yet in the body which has lost its higher “Soul” through its vices, there is still hope for such a person. He may be still redeemed and made to turn on his material nature; in which case either an intense feeling of repentance, or one single earnest appeal to the Soul that has fled, or best of all, an active effort to mend one’s ways, may bring the Soul back again. The thread or connection is not altogether broken, so it is not yet beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal."
And this is from Geoffrey Hodson:
"When a person deliberately and without due thought of the consequences—especially broken vows—gives up the whole enterprise of endeavoring to quicken the rate of evolutionary development for the sake of all humankind, he becomes traitorous... When a person does fall by continuing to direct attention to material goals; to assume old and undesirable habits of body; and to take pleasure in uncontrolled, sensual emotions and selfish, possessive, prideful thinking, then inevitably a curtain or veil is drawn across the hitherto gradually thinning barrier between his higher and the lower natures, thereby shutting off communication between the immortal, spiritual soul and the mortal, personal human being."
Socrates taught that whereas single acts of wrongdoing injure the soul, multiple or serious acts of wrongdoing, or those that go unpunished, threaten ultimately to ruin it.
"The most exquisite and devastating damage one can do to one's soul, then, is through wrongdoing." [10]
Latter-Day Saints say there are two forms of spiritual death. Firstly, humans are spiritually dead until they are redeemed:
“All mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual”
Secondly, spiritual death comes as a result of disobedience. Sins make humans unclean and unable to dwell in the presence of God.
Through the Atonement, Jesus Christ offers redemption from both types of spiritual death. [11]
Followers of Ascended Master movements such as the Theosophical Society, I AM Foundation, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet have a different definition of the second death, the final extinguishing of the identity of a soul deemed by God to be beyond redemption. In this theology, people are believed to continue to reincarnate for many lifetimes on Earth with one of two final outcomes: 1) Reunion with God in the ritual of the Ascension, like Jesus, or 2) Final judgment at the "court of the sacred fire," where the soul would be destroyed forever.[ citation needed ]
John B. Calhoun saw the social breakdown of a population of mice given ample resources as a second death. He saw this as a metaphor for the potential fate of man in an overcrowded but resource rich environment and made reference to the second death of the Book of Revelation. [12] Conservative Christian writers, such as Bill Perkins, have echoed this warning. [13]
In his famous anti-war address "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," delivered 4 April 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City, Martin Luther King Jr. observed that "[a] nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Duḥkha, commonly translated as "suffering", "pain," or "unhappiness," is an important concept in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Its meaning depends on the context, and may refer more specifically to the "unsatisfactoriness" or "unease" of mundane life when driven by craving/ grasping and ignorance.
In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". The truths are:
Karma is a concept of action, work or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptively called the principle of karma, wherein intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect): Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and happier rebirths, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and bad rebirths. As per some scripture, there is no link of rebirths with karma.
Original sin is the reformed Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3, in a line in Psalm 51:5, and in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21.
Salvation is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, salvation generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its consequences. The academic study of salvation is called soteriology.
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. There are currently differing definitions of these concepts. The best known presentation of the problem is attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus. It was popularized by David Hume.
Theodicy means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in the world". Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework wherein God's existence is also plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work Théodicée, though various responses to the problem of evil had been previously proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the history of moral theodicy in his 1966 work, Evil and the God of Love, identifying three major traditions:
The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things God is said to hate in the Book of Proverbs. Behaviours or habits are classified under this category if they directly give rise to other immoralities. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, which are contrary to the seven capital virtues. These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions.
Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for something, or circumstance while already having a significant amount of the desired object. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality, money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.
In Christian theology, spiritual death is separation from God caused by sin.
The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. The doctrine of the Fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis, chapters 1–3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and becoming immortal.
The Kesamutti Sutta, popularly known in the West as the Kālāma Sutta, is a discourse of the Buddha contained in the Aṅguttara Nikaya (3.65) of the Tipiṭaka. It is often cited by those of the Theravada and Mahayana traditions alike as the Buddha's "charter of free inquiry."
Sukha means happiness, pleasure, ease, joy or bliss. Among the early scriptures, 'sukha' is set up as a contrast to 'preya' (प्रेय) meaning a transient pleasure, whereas the pleasure of 'sukha' has an authentic state happiness within a being that is lasting. In the Pāli Canon, the term is used in the context of describing laic pursuits and meditation.
The Summa Theologiae or Summa Theologica, often referred to simply as the Summa, is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church, intended to be an instructional guide for theology students, including seminarians and the literate laity. Presenting the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, topics of the Summa follow the following cycle: God; Creation, Man; Man's purpose; Christ; the Sacraments; and back to God.
The New Church is any of several historically related Christian denominations that developed as a new religious group, influenced by the writings of scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
The theology of the Cross or staurology is a term coined by the theologian Martin Luther to refer to theology that posits “the cross” as the only source of knowledge concerning who God is and how God saves. It is contrasted with the Theology of Glory, which places greater emphasis on human abilities and human reason.
Eastern Orthodox theology is the theology particular to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is characterized by monotheistic Trinitarianism, belief in the Incarnation of the essentially divine Logos or only-begotten Son of God, a balancing of cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by a Sacred Tradition, a catholic ecclesiology, a robust of the person, and a principally recapitulative and therapeutic soteriology.
The Hebrew term kareth, or extirpation, is a form of punishment for sin, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish writings. Kareth in its simplistic meaning refers to an individual being expelled from the Nation of Israel. In the Talmud, kareth means not necessarily physical "cutting off" of life, but can also mean the extinction of the soul and denial of a share in the world to come.
In Christianity, sin is an immoral act considered to be a transgression of divine law. The doctrine of sin is central to the Christian faith, since its basic message is about redemption in Christ.
Religious responses to the problem of evil are concerned with reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism whose religion is based on such a God. But the question of "why does evil exist?" has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.
