Christianity and the Reality of Death

Christianity and the Reality of Death

"Die before you die. There is no chance after." C. S. Lewis

I recently heard some talk over a program airing on television that demonstrated that psychologist have the ability to manipulate and stimulate a subject’s mind in such a way, I assume through electronic signal, that the subject begins to believe he or she is having a religious experience. Specifically, the subject assumes he or she is in the presence of God. Once again, this is hearsay, but as it was reported to me, the thrust of the program was set out to prove that humans have naturally developed the concept of a divine being so that we might feel comforted in light of certain fears, such as the reality of death and persecution. Of course, this is nothing new. Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud are among many who have suggested such theories, both for various reasons.

I do not have much time to watch such programming, nor do I have much to say on the matter, mainly because I think these sorts of theories warrant little attention due to their distortion of the issue. However, out of frustration, I do feel the need to briefly address this topic and share what I think is an obvious, albeit theological, rebuttal to such notions. The one major fact that secular psychology is overlooking is that the claim that Christianity is a religion that somehow comforts us in the knowledge of inevitable death is a straw man. If one has this sort of understanding of Christianity, he or she is missing the point.

For many persons struggling with doubt or disbelief in the divine and the supernatural, this program seems to offer some major implications as to how we are to understand the phenomenon of religion. However, are the results from such experimentation really detrimental to Christian belief? Are not the scientists’ analysis of the results presupposing that such a result, manipulation of mind in a certain way produces the feeling of the divine, points to there not being a God. Why should it be the case that the “discovery” of the mind’s having a natural, built-in concept of God be understood as pointing to a mechanism developed by evolution that helps humans cope with fears? Have not theologians been suggesting that humans have the natural concept of God precisely because God gave humans this capability?

However, my own issues with this line of thought are not even based in the question of whether or not we are given this sense or not. I find the assumption that Christianity is a crutch for humans to deal with the concept of death to be a gross misunderstanding of the true message of the faith.

Christianity, in many ways, is a call to death. Death is not an avoidable reality. Instead, we are called to die to self so that we might become Christ-centered beings. We are to become so Christ like, as Saint Paul suggests, that when we act and live, it will be Christ who is living in and through us (For more on this topic, please refer to my essay, “If Christ is All, What Does that Make Me?”). Persons entering into the faith, as well as Christians at various points in our walk MUST face death. We are called to become radically new beings that result from a giving up of all the self wants and desires, which is to keep the status quo.

Secular psychology is not interested in this fact. Spirituality might be taken into consideration in evaluating humans, and I do not want to belittle any secular psychologist who does consider the possibility of the life-changing aspect of faith. However, I doubt many psychologists do take such accounts of one becoming a new creation seriously. Therefore, they study men and women in their natural state. In our natural state, humanity has been left wanting, knowing there must be something else out there, but also knowing of the ultimate reality of death. This does lead to fear, but Christians have never denied the fact, as these scientists seem to be presupposing, that each and ever person must face this fear and die. We only suggest that death might be more than what the secular definition seems to suggest. Death is frightening because we lose ourselves. The self wants to survive, but it cannot. Christians affirm this, and our faith does not suggest any way around this fact. We merely suggest that this sort of death can happen during this life. The natural self (the sin-oriented self) can, in this very life, die and be born anew, but we still lose that self that so desperately wishes to be in control, or at least we should.

Psychologists by-and-large have been suggesting, as the television program suggested, that humans must find a way to cope with the void left by the self-realization of our finitude, but Christians do not find that finitude is the root of the void. Instead, there exists a hole left by our separation from God.

Therefore, to commit to Christ, one must be willing to give up his or her life as he or she wishes it to be, and this is a very scary reality to face indeed. All the self-oriented desires must pass away. In a real sense, to pass into Christianity is to face, once-and-for-all, the finitude of the self. It is at the moment of committing to Christ that we die to self and begin life anew, reborn and converted to a new way of life. We do not die in a mere metaphorical sense; it is a true passing into another life. While physical death still awaits us, that does not deny the fact that we have already faced the reality of death. Maybe this reality is more hopeful than the secular understanding, but that does not mean it is wrong.

Thus, secular psychology gets it wrong when it suggests Christians are not willing to let go. For letting go is the very purpose we are called into this faith. It is the very essence of the faith. So, what then do I make of the claims of this television show? What if science has proven that it is in our very nature to have the desire for a divine presence in our life? Well, that makes sense to me. Does it not to you? God has given us the ability to desire and know of Him. As for such claims that we, or better yet, evolutionary process created our notion of God, well, I do not have much more time to discuss such nonsense.