Immortality

1. ‘Immortality’ denotes an eternal duration of life, an existence without end and death. Principally, it counts as a characteristic of God or the gods, and constitutes one of the most important differences between their existence and that of human beings,1 who are therefore called ‘mortals.’ However, there are various approaches and transitions. The gods can die—only after a very long life, granted—as they, too (e.g. in certain Eastern religions), are caught in the chain of rebirths (samsara). In addition, most religions celebrate extraordinary persons, who are snatched away at their death and—like Hercules—deified, in an ‘apotheosis.’ Human immortality is duration beyond death, and requires that the latter not have occurred, or have been overcome, and existence to have been transformed: rebirth or resurrection. Human immortality is usually connected with the supposition of a soul.

History of Religions in General

2. In most societies, the first concern in a case of death is a ritually correct → funeral or burial. Only when the ceremonies of transition have been executed for the dead, and they have been ascribed their new status, is solidarity of the survivors ensured, and the group protected against the potential hostility of the dead. They will now join the society of their ancestors, live in heaven, or in or under the earth, and need not wander as ghosts or baneful spirits. Thus, Moses will sleep with his fathers (Deut 31:16), and Abraham, old and weary of life, be gathered to his (Gen 25:8). Individual immortality as such plays no role; the dead live on in their families, tribe, or people. One keeps mindful of one's death, or succumbs to forgetfulness, and dies for good and all. The scriptural religions definitively modify this basic notion of tribal and traditional societies.

Greece

3. Specific religions: a) The ancient high cultures—for which Greece is taken here as prototypical—know only a shadowy, dreamlike existence in the underworld for the overwhelming majority of their dead (Odyssey, 11, 207–208). There they find a country without a return, terrible and hideous, repulsive to the very gods (Iliad, 20, 65). It is true, a → hero can gain immortality by the renown of his deeds. Although he is remembered in epic and song, however, still he leads a joyless life in the underworld. Achilles had rather toil as a drudge on earth than rule as lord of the dead (Odyssey, 11, 488–491). Only some few, like Menelaus, are rapt to Elysion—a kind of isle of paradise (Odyssey 4, 561). A change occurs (sixth to fifth centuries BCE) with the → Mysteries, over which Demeter and Dionysus preside. These assure the initiate, the mystai, of a blessed life in the beyond (→ Hereafter), independently of origin and regardless of previous behavior (Burkert). Perhaps Plato owes his considerations on the immortality of the soul—especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus—to mystery traditions and the ‘Orphics,’ although he concurs with them, and as a philosopher, seeks to transcend them.

Egypt

b) Pharaonic → Egypt is a case apart. Immortality is a privilege of kings, and ensures the survival of the kingdom. After the fall of the Old Kingdom (end of the third century BCE), it is gradually democratized, and begins to include the group of the courtiers and administrators. Tombs and rites—like → mummification, and inscription in the Book of the Dead—make for immortality's ‘outer stabilization,’ inasmuch as the dead now live in memory. As for the ‘inner,’ the dead must first win immortality themselves, before a Court of the Dead. Here their hearts are weighed. If they are found in balance with Ma'at, justice, then the dead shall live; otherwise the dead-eater, a composite monster, devours them.

Judaism

c) Abraham lives on, for he is to become a great people (Gen 12:2, etc.). By contrast, individual immortality is attested in Judaism only from Hellenism onward (Dan 12:2, 2 Macc 7), doubtless even occasioned by cases of martyrdom. It is inherited by the Western religions, although it is not based on the majority of the Hebrew Bible conceptions. All details aside, Paul's conviction prevails: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26; cf. Rev 20:14). While Paul still regards new life after death as newly created by God (‘new creation,’ kainé ktísis), Christianity receives the immortality of the individual soul according to Plato's conceptualization, through Tertullian (c. 200 CE). The soul is immortal, and the resurrection of the flesh is awaited for the end of the ages. After a judgment in the afterlife, a twin destiny awaits the dead—every one according to his or her deeds or faith or predestination or promise—redemption or reprobation, a blessed life or eternal torment. In Catholicism, besides → heaven and → hell, purgatory is added, as a possible interim state of purification.

Hinduism/Buddhism

d) Models of immortality in Hinduism and Buddhism receive their orientation from the concept of an annihilation of mutability. Both religions are familiar with the concept of rebirth (and re-death). Hindu teaching on rebirth takes its point of departure in an individual soul, that—in certain circumstances, after a long sojourn in an interim realm—enters another body. Buddhism has it that the conditions for later lives are posited in earlier ones, without the continuity of a traveling ‘soul.’ The crucial factor here is karma, the sum of one's good and evil deeds, which determines where rebirth is to arise; the same notion occurs in Hinduism. The ultimate goal is not to be reborn again, since each new birth also entails one's suffering and eventual death. Hindu conceptualizations of immortality include the ascent of each soul's individual atman, or earthly personhood, into the impersonal, highest principle Brahman. The goal of the Buddhist salvific path is the ‘deathless’ (in Pali, amata) nirvana.

Modern Age

4. Hans Jonas has established that “the person of today is not inclined to the thought of immortality.” Sigmund Freud judges oppositely that, “in the unconscious, each of us is convinced of [our own] immortality.”But the contradiction is only apparent: it is only that, now that the answers of religion have been discarded, and science and technology have made their own impression, a hope in immortality has become privatized. The visible side, here, is a cult of youthfulness, practiced in recreation, trends, and sports. More recently, cloning has aroused a hope of immortality through reduplication.

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