I recently read somewhere that even if life after death were possible or real, life without death in this world is not, and therefore life without loss (and associated pain) is not. I find it half true. The truth in it is that in this world and in my life, there is death and there is loss. And this death and loss are painful – often unbearably painful, maddeningly hurtful and despair-producing. The part that is not true is twofold namely 1. that i have to wait till some future “time” to have life “after death” and 2. belief in this “life after death” can console me somewhat and help me bear the loss and death i experience in this life but it can’t take this loss away permanently and 3. believing in life after death, ideally, should take away loss and pain once and for all. All these points are not true.
- I should not have to (and cannot gratefully and with a sound heart) wait till some future time to overcome the pain and loss of death in experience here and now. If I do not experience life without death here, there is no reason or evidence for me to be sure there is such a life in some future.
- Mere consolation is not enough and, lacking reality, a dishonesty that hurts and accuses the soul. It creates despair and desperation.
- life after death is a truth-claim that has meaning within the conditions of this world i.e. within the conditions of death and loss. the notion that some belief will take care of a recurring and permanent feature of human existence as we experience it (death) in a non-recurring fashion is a baseless assumption and fails to recognize believing as an active choice of a free agent at any given moment. It fails to recognize that there will be a non-revelational stance that a person could take to the experience of loss/death and an alternative, entirely different revealed stance that a person can take to that same experience (created by the maker who should also then reveal the meaning of what he has created i.e. death/loss AND my pain with that loss and therefore a need in me for help with this pain). For a person who “reads” their pain with death/loss as the maker asks him to read it, he reads it (to use one term from the Quran about it), God’s retribution (fa’intiqamna) for not seeing the sign poiting to Him in the loss and pain. Every death raises the sense of loss as its “pair” but this is half the story. The second half is to say: I can either choose to give this loss some meaning on my own OR I expect my creator and the creator of this death and loss to tell me what the meaning of this creation is. He has already created the loss (what ‘is’ is by His command for it to be and could not ‘be’ by itself or by no one’s will or command). What then, I will ask is the meaning of this death and loss? And the meaning of pain together with death points to (is a sign that) God has willed for the soul (already) eternal life. I see His will in the loss that He makes me experience and the pain he makes me experience with loss when i look at the loss ‘not as a sign pointing to Him’. My pre-revelation response is His creation (my deep pain with loss) and it only becomes a problem that i wish to solve ‘once and for all’ because I do not see how every instance of that problem is necessary and perfect for making me aware of Him and His will, to furnish me with fresh evidence and real awareness of life without death and not just a consoltatory ‘wish’ for such a life.
People who do not read revelation as actually revealing something that they can know to be true and that addresses their pre-revelation perspective on their experience, take their pre-revelation perspective to be real and final and turn revelation’s claims into consolatory promises about some future time. The mistake is theirs. I should instead acknowledge my position as pre-revelation, juxtapose it with the perspective revelation is offering (i have to read revelation as offering a different description of the same experience/reality and asking me to choose which is more worthy for my soul to follow or adopt). From the perspective that revelation offers me, i (can and should) experience life without death everytime i look at the pain and loss of ‘life with death’ but every time that i fail to look at ‘life with death’ from the perspective revealed to me, i do not experience life without death and must, wishfully (and not patiently) wait for it. to patiently wait is to know what is coming but isn’t here yet – that is patience. It’s not here yet precisely because the experience of ‘life without death’ also passes – it remains so long as revelation’s perspective remains with me as a a reminder. When it goes away and i lose it, i return to experiecing ‘life with death’ as loss and pain. I am not powerful over keeping a ‘life without death’ persepctive and can only seek it from my maker and experience it to the extent and for only as long as he gives it to me. It is not mine to keep and sustain.
So yes, ‘life with death’ is a necessary feature of my life here and now. But it is not the final word just like ‘life without death’ too is not a permanent experience here but only an answer to my choice/prayer of taking up revelation’s perspective on life, death and loss and pain. Revelation offers life without death here and now but as a sign, as an experience that helps the heart patiently anticipate and look forward to and walk/run towards God, the ever-living as his only refuge, the only one that can satisfy the heart and only one worthy of praise and adoration. and to experience everything other than him i.e. all ‘life with death’ as not worthy of love and not worthy as an end in itself.
The Quran as Revelation 