Since at least the time of Epicurus, philosophers have debated whether death could be bad for the one who has died, since death is a permanent experiential blank. But a different puzzle about death’s badness arises when we consider the death of a person who is paradise-bound. The first purpose of this paper is to develop this puzzle. The second purpose of this paper is to suggest and evaluate several potential attempts to solve the puzzle. After rejecting two seemingly attractive (...) suggestions, I argue that there are two types of solution to the puzzle that can succeed. The first type of solution simply denies that death can be bad for the paradise-bound. I argue that the main worry for this type of solution, namely that it gives up the common-sense view about death’s badness, is only a prima facie worry. The second type of solution maintains that death can be bad for the paradise-bound because it can deprive her of certain goods, which allows those who are attracted to this type of solution to adopt the deprivation account of death’s badness. I consider three views of the relation between the paradise-bound and paradise that are consistent with the deprivation account, connecting my discussion of paradise with the extant literature on death’s badness. (shrink)

Does it make sense to think of eternal life not as an unending continuation of life subsequent to death but as fully actualized in one’s present mortal and finite life? After outlining conceptual and moral reasons for being troubled by the notion of an endless life, this article draws upon the thought of major Christian theologians and philosophers of religion to expound the idea of eternal life as a possession exclusively of the life one is presently living. Supplementing the claims (...) of religious thinkers with notions of four-dimensionalism and eternalism from theoretical physics and the philosophy of time, and considering important objections to the conception of eternal life in question, I argue for both the conception’s intelligibility and its ethical and spiritual profundity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue from a number of positions that are, while not uncontested, at least common among analytic philosophers of religion for the possibility, and indeed the plausibility, of a doctrine of limbo. The account of limbo that I advocate is substantially different than the element of Catholic speculative theology that goes by the same name. According to that doctrine, the limbus infantium is a place or state of perfect natural happiness for those who, prior to the age (...) of reason, die without baptism. Given the possibility of ‘baptism by desire’, the need for limbo, as I shall develop it, is not based on whether or not an agent has received the sacrament of baptism. Instead limbo is, I argue, a place where individuals who have not had sufficient opportunity to be reconciled to God in the present life will be given the opportunity to do so in the next life. Limbo, so understood, is a place which allows for the post-mortem healing and growth of individuals so that they are able to choose either for or against God in the way required for redemption in this life. On this view, limbo is not a place of ‘second-chances’, but rather a place of first-chances for those who were denied them in their terrestrial life. (shrink)

W artykulejego autor stara się wykazać, żejeśli istnieje wolna wola, której efektami są dobro lub zło, to musi istnieć również i Sąd Ostateczny, gdyż musi istnieć odpowiednie rozliczenie uczynionego dobra lub zła. Istnienie wolnej woli, mogącej wytwarzać dobro i zło, byłoby czymś całkowicie anomalnym i bezcelowym, gdyby nie istniał Sąd Ostateczny, a w świecie, jak widzimy, nie ma rzeczy bezcelowych. Uzasadniana jest także zależność odwrotna: jeśli w dziejach kultur ludzkich, w dziejach systemów religijnych, od bardzo dawnych czasów, przynajmniej od starożytnego (...) Egiptu, funkcjonuje przekonanie o sądzie, któremu podlegają osoby umierające, to taki sąd ma sens tylko wtedy, gdy osoby te posiadały wolną wolę w czynieniu dobra lub zła. W ten sposób idea Sądu Ostatecznego wspiera przekonanie, że istnieje wolna wola. (shrink)