Life after Death

The question:

Is there any scientific basis for thinking there is life after death?...L.N.R.

The reply:

That's a particularly appropriate question now, as we watch the year, century and millennium pass away, and are held in the grip of mid-winter's cold and darkness.

Indeed life after death is at the heart of every religion in the world: Hindus speak of coming back in different forms, even animals; Buddhists speak of different levels or planes of after-life consciousness; Christ and the bible promise us that our souls will live after our body dies.

Scientists have narrowed down death to two broad causes: damage and decay. Damage is caused by external factors: bacteria, viruses, disease, injury, plaque, trauma. Decay is the steady degeneration of the body as our ability to generate new cells slows down and eventually stops. Neither of these causes can be avoided completely, and our bodies will, one day, fail to work and so we die.

One field of scientific study looks at "near-death experiences". These have been reported in all cultures, although in western cultures there is a high incidence of shared experiences: a tunnel, light at the centre, a feeling of warmth, of safety and of love.

Some psychologists attribute this to a pre-conception, an expectation on the part of people raised in a Christian culture of a warm, loving, light place to receive them when they die. Some physiologists try to explain these experiences by looking at the biological and chemical changes that occur at death. The electrical firings across neural synapses slow down and become concentrated at the centre of our brains (a tunnel of light?) while our brain becomes starved of oxygen (warmth, love?). Some Christian theologians believe these people are experiencing the entry to a Christian heaven - some report seeing a vision of a man clad in bright white clothes at the end of the tunnel.

Recently, it has become more widely known that many people experience a dark, unpleasant near-death experience instead. Often these have gone unreported, as people are reluctant to speak of the fear and guilt associated with this negative experience. Could this be the entry to hell?

Beyond the human sphere, there are much better parallels that science can draw of life after death than these near-death reports. A good example is of spores and bacteria that can lie completely inactive, dormant for thousands of years even, before warmth and light stir life within them.

Another example is all around us this time of year: trees lose their leaves in fall and the circulation in their limbs comes to a halt. They are in effect dead throughout the cold spells of winter, yet come to life in spring.

The apostle Paul used the example of a seed in 1st Corinthians 15: "Someone will say, 'How are the dead raised up?' . . . What you sow is not made alive unless it dies, and what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain." A seed must be sown so that a completely new body grows from that unlikely, unliving thing.

Paul, himself a tentmaker, called our bodies a tent in 2nd Corinthians 5: "our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed - we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Jesus promised us many times - over a dozen in the gospel of John alone - that those who believe in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life. "Today you will be with me in heaven" He promised the thief on the cross next to Him. As the wise King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes: "The day of your death will be greater than the day of your birth."

Certainly the mechanism of moving from bodily death to spiritual life is one we cannot completely understand in this lifetime. But another example from science is that of our first birth - we lie as a fetus in the womb, breathing liquid and living in darkness, and thinking that this must be what life is like, then in a moment the womb bursts, and we are surrounded by air and light. Yet we do not die, but enter a life unbelievably more incredible and beautiful than we could have imagined.

Everything in science points to renewal, to life coming from death, to eternal life. Thanks for your question!

Dr. Science

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