In my last post, I offered near-death experiences (NDEs) as evidence in favor of life after death, suggesting they give us a hint and a hope of eternal existence. Though by no means confirmatory, many of these testimonies have features difficult for skeptics to dismiss wholesale or scientists to explain away. They come from the mouths of innocent children and seemingly sincere adults, all relating events that happened while undergoing cardiac resuscitation or while comatose. Included are details impossible to ascertain from their particular vantage point at the time—prone, unresponsive, and surrounded by medical personnel and equipment. As a whole, these NDE testimonies are devoid of exaggeration and boastfulness. In fact, researchers conducting interviews have noted how these people tend to relay their stories with a characteristic reluctance and restraint, as if cherishing a private memory. For sure, a few near-death stories seem a bit fanciful and adorned, but most—particularly those accepted by impartial investigators—are just the opposite. They appear to be real experiences that happened to real people at real moments of real death, and they all point to the same conclusion: the reality of life beyond the grave.
Besides NDEs, additional evidence can be offered in support of an afterlife. Today, I will briefly summarize four more reasons I embrace the life beyond.
1. The Resurrection of Jesus
I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the tomb. I think this is by far the best interpretation of the historical data presented us, far more rational and reasonable than any other explanation. I will not at this time outline the evidence in favor of its veracity. That is a later topic. All I will do now is state the obvious: if Jesus did rise from the dead, then life after death—in his case, at least—is real.
2. The Post-Resurrection Appearances of Jesus
It is not disputed, except by the most rabid critic, that the disciples of Jesus claimed to have seen him on numerous occasions after his death. According to Paul, he and over five hundred people were eyewitnesses of Jesus post-resurrection. All four gospel writers describe in some detail his appearance and activities during these days.
Again, I believe these accounts to be true. To trust their historical reliability seems to me the most sensible conclusion. All other explanations, in comparison, are illogical or improbable. If I am right, the answer to the question of life after death becomes rather obvious.
3. The Fulfillment of Eternal Desire
According to atheists, everything about us has to be explained by nature, for nature is all there is. We are mere human machines, a conglomeration of chemicals. At death our machines simply stop running, and our molecules are reabsorbed into nature. There is no life afterward.
But a philosophical weakness exists in this line of thinking. If nature is all there is, then everything—even our desires—must come to us from nature. This includes our desire for eternity. Nature must the source of that longing, too. Therefore, to be consistent, the atheist must believe that nature is lying to us, deceiving us, giving us a desire for something that does not exist.
This, of course, goes against all we know about human desires. In the natural world there is no desire for which fulfillment is impossible. Humans hunger (desire food); food exists. We thirst (desire drink); drink exists. We crave sexual pleasure; sexual intercourse exists. There is a valid object to every desire. Why, then, do we humans, almost every one of us, desire eternal life? Shouldn’t there be an object for that desire, too? Shouldn’t eternal life exist?
Herein lies one of the problems with atheism. It claims that all our desires are products of nature, then it proceeds to say that our desire for eternal life is unnatural.
The other option, the one I espouse, is the supernaturalist view. I claim that there is a Reality beyond and above nature. I believe that this supernatural Reality, or God, is infinite and eternal and has created me and given me life. I believe that I long for eternity because eternal life exists, that my desire has an obtainable object, a potential fulfillment, a reachable end-point of satisfaction. This afterlife I yearn for is not a dream, a myth, or a mirage, but a premonition of and movement toward Reality Itself.
4. A Personal Experience
In over a quarter century as a physician, I have observed hundreds of people at death or immediately afterwards. I have not, however, witnessed firsthand any near-death phenomena. This may come as a surprise to you, but it should not. There are reasons such testimonies are rare. For one thing, most patients do not survive cardiac resuscitation and therefore do not live to speak of a near-death experience. Add to this the tendency of those with NDEs toward privacy, and you can see why most physicians have not witnessed such events in their medical careers.
This notwithstanding, I do remember an odd incident over a decade ago in our local ER, one that is hard to dismiss as a coincidence or fabrication. I was on duty late one afternoon when paramedics brought in an elderly man in the midst of cardiac resuscitation. The patient, it turned out, was the uncle of one of our local family physicians. Despite our efforts, he could not be revived, so I pronounced him dead and immediately telephoned his nephew. While I was on the phone, a nurse interrupted me with some startling news: the man’s heart had begun to beat again! (In my years of directing cardiac resuscitation attempts, this is the only time I’ve declared a patient dead and then had to reverse the pronouncement.) Amazingly, the man lived long enough to be admitted to the ICU, where he died an hour or two later.
By this time, the nephew was at the bedside of the patient. From there he called his wife, who had not yet heard of their uncle's ambulance ride and ER visit. When told of the events, she was surprised and perplexed. She said she had driven by his house a short while earlier and had seen him walking in his yard beside the barn. On further questioning, it was determined that she had observed him in his yard during the very minutes I had pronounced him dead, just before his unexpected revival.
Coincidence? Fabrication? A near-death phenomenon, a hint of a life beyond? I'll let you be the judge.
In summary, then, the weight of the evidence supports the afterlife. I embrace life after death because this is the best explanation of near-death testimonies, including the one above from my own personal experience. I believe in the life beyond because the historical reliability of Jesus' resurrection and post-resurrection appearances points precisely in that direction. I think eternal life is real because, philosophically, our desire for eternity would not exist unless something existed to fulfill that desire.
What do you think?
-If God Is "I AM", then Who Am I? (Day 25)
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