Faith vs. the Fear of Death

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FatherMerrin

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I’m sure this question has been posed here many times before, but it’s a recurring problem that I think most Catholics/Christians need an answer to sooner or later.

Is my desire to believe in God and Christ born purely out of my fear of death - not just for myself, but my loved ones? Is it something that cheap, that selfish? Strangely, every time I ask this of myself, I never seem to get a straight-up “yes.” Maybe the response just isn’t that simple. All these churches, all this art, all this effort over the centuries, boils down to something as blunt and crude as thanatophobia? I would really like someone to provide a real justification for their faith that no atheist (or at least, any atheist of the Dawkins/Hitchens variety) can cheerfully hand-wave away with the old “afraid to die” card. Christianity should be more than that.
 
Rather than a fear of death, perhaps it would be good to look at it from the perspective of preparing for Judgment.

When you have your Judgment, there’s no fooling God, there’s no fooling yourself, there’s no reasoning, there’s no excuses. There’s just the Facts. There’s the Accuser, who puts forth the Facts as evidence that you’ve separated yourself from God. And so what you want to do is put yourself in a situation where you have something to counter that argument— some sort of evidence that someone else has claim to you. Because just like you can’t make excuses or argue, neither can the Accuser, when confronted with Additional Facts. There’s no fuss, there’s no arguing, there’s just Reality.

I presume you’ve been with someone as they were passing away? If so, how did it strike you? It was interesting, because it’s very definitely a transition, a process, very unlike Hollywood. I was really, really shocked to discover that it was a whole lot like childbirth. And it felt like a very thin place, if that makes sense. If I had discovered that earlier in life, I totally would have gone into hospice nursing for a career path— I know there’s good deaths and there’s bad deaths, and I was fortunate enough to be with individuals who experienced good passings while surrounded by loved ones, but it was an experience that I wanted more of.

So, death has been around us forever. It’s only been relatively recently that death has been something that exists in isolation, if that makes sense? Just like the vast majority of us are unlikely to help out with a childbirth where we’re not one of the two parents, the same thing is true with death— so many people’s first brush with it these days is their own. So I think it is erroneous to extrapolate our modern instincts, to avoid death, to avoid the dying and the ill, and to not face our own mortality-- and to project that onto our ancestors, who not only encountered death all around them, but went out of their way to remind themselves of their mortality.

Because acknowledging your own mortality is a healthy thing-- in that you live your life differently when you understand you’ll need to give an accounting of it. But that’s very, very different from mere “fear of death”. “Fear of death” is fear of the transition from one reality to the next, just like a child in the womb has no concept of airplanes or mountains. There’s nothing we can do about that. But keeping in mind the Four Last Things-- Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell-- has always been a Catholic tradition, not because we’re paranoid, but because it’s the prudent path, just like you don’t want to show up to your annual job review after having slacked off at work all year. 🙂
 
FatherMerrin said:
I would really like someone to provide a real justification for their faith that no atheist (or at least, any atheist of the Dawkins/Hitchens variety) can cheerfully hand-wave away with the old “afraid to die” card. Christianity should be more than that.
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This is actually a separate issue from fear of death.
You’re assuming that Joe Atheist is just sitting over there, ripe for evangelization, if only you had THE ARGUMENT to prove them false.
Well, there are heaps of books and videos and evidence out there that anybody can see the make an excellent case for God.
But you’re going on the assumption that people are actually logical!

If a person is dead set entrenched in their beliefs, there may be other factors that pure logic going on.

Follow Jesus, cling to the truth, agape/love your fellow man , and pray without ceasing.
 
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I’m not looking to evangelize anyone. I’ve had enough arguments with the more “hardcore” variant
of atheists before (both online and in real life) to know it’s a fool’s errand. I’m not trying to convert, but defend.
 
I like Peter Kreeft’s apologetics books.
Also Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.
 
Nah
Back before I became faithful to the Church, I wasn’t that afraid of death.
My fear of death hasn’t changed, but I can say my happiness in life sure has!
The sacraments are a gift for life on Earth, not just after we’re done here.
 
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FatherMerrin said:
I’m sure this question has been posed here many times before, but it’s a recurring problem that I think most Catholics/Christians need an answer to sooner or later.
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Not at all, some people have actually “tasted” of His goodness, and so have a bit “nobler” or informed reason for believing. But either way, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. And that fear is more than awe, but includes fear/ acknowledgement of His power of life over death, His absolute power over our very existence.

But as we come to then know Him, beginning with this gift of faith, we should increasingly come to love Him. In fact, the more we know Him the more we love Him; it can’t be helped and this very revelation, Jesus revealing the true nature and will of the Father, is why He came:
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

Here we begin to shake off the default position we have of God, as either non-existent or as an angry and maybe even whimsical God, aloof in His superiority, and “jealous of His prerogatives” as the catechism puts it. This is all part of the distorted concept of God that the catechism also teaches man gained at the Fall. “They hated Me without reason”, Jesus tells us, speaking of man’s attitude towards Him and the Father by quoting Psalms.

In any case Basil of Cesarea, a 4th century bishop, summed things up this way:
"If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children"

And incidentally, existence is a gift, a good one, and one that we should continue to desire and cherish. IOW it’s not selfish to fear death, because, especially with little or no faith, as you said, death looms as the threat of annihilation. And most of the anti-God, faith-is-a-crutch kind of rhetoric comes from a human weakness known as pride, which itself is related to shame and fear.
 
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Death. As in, total oblivion. At least with hell, you still have some manner of existence, even if it’s the worst kind imaginable. I’d almost prefer punishment to annihilation (not that I’m going to go out of my way to be punished, obviously).
 
All of us are on our way Home! As we wind on down the road, let us choose Heaven and the immorality of the soul to be our most cherished and centralized beliefs. May we permanently place them in the forefront of our minds where they radiate an unfailing and ever enlightening Light! “And the forest will echo with laughter!”
 
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That’s probably because you didn’t have much choice in the matter. Personally speaking, I have too many good memories that I don’t desire to be extinguished.
 
Faith helps you to live life; even if you have a perceived death sentence hanging over you.

In 2011 I had tests done for cancer, about a month later the doctor phoned and said he urgently wanted to see me, it was non – Hodgkin Lymphoma. This was a name I recognised, our friend had this cancer, and died a few months later. I prayed for the wisdom, strength, peace and serenity to do God’s will, whether the cancer was a death sentence, or just an inconvenience. I can only say that from the moment of making this prayer, I have experienced a profound sense of peace, and the thought of cancer has never troubled me for a moment.

Cancer could be a truly worrying process, you wait a month or two for tests, you wait for the results, and you wait for more tests, but the prayer to do God’s will sort of handed the problem to God, and I have never had to worry. I have never once prayed for healing, at the age of 62, the prayer for healing seemed too complicated, it might or might not be my time to go. Recognising this profound sense of peace comes from God, gives me reason to be thankful.

I could not imagine this sense of peace without a faith and trust in God. I can only say, from the moment of hearing about my cancer and making that prayer, I could talk about cancer in the same way as I talk about going shopping.
 
On the contrary, I find the principle of nothingness after death, more comforting than the possibility of being judged after death, given all the sins that I commit recurrently, despite my efforts.
So if i just have to look for a comforting idea, I would be an atheist, or I could be Protestant (the faith alone saves), but certainly not Catholic.
 
Yes. I second this.
Christian beliefs in themselves as presented in the Church are probably the most uncomfortable scenario. Some atheists argue this against the Church that it rules using fear of the unknown. I disagree I think if the Church wanted to manipulate they would have constructed an all pleasing story and be popular.
But the argument that Christianity is just compensation for fear of death simply makes no sense at all. Maybe other beliefs but not this one.
I take it as a gift from Heaven to be attacked with such a weak illogical idea.
 
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This question perplexes me. Thanatophobia, an abnormal fear of death, can not be washed away simply by believing in God and Christ. Many atheists have a fear of death, more so than Christians, because they believe the end is the end. Then again, many don’t fear death. Many Christians have a fear of death, many don’t. Hindus believe in reincarnation but fear death, wondering what their next life will be. How a person reconciles why they believe what they believe is a personal conviction. Like I tell my grandson, there are some questions that simply don’t have an answer. I look forward to being reunited with my husband, my parents, all who have passed. I’m still afraid of death, afraid of leaving those who love me, afraid of being forgotten. We are physical and live for the here and now, but with a purpose to the future. That is what being a Christian is to me.
 
Some atheists believe or at least speculate that life continues after death, as a natural process, a continuation of the life/ existence we already possess.
 
That’s very interesting. I don’t know how anyone can prefer total annihilation of oneself to judgement, but I also understand it’s my own perspective. Isaac Asimov once compared death to “an eternal dreamless sleep,” but that’s total claptrap. Death isn’t sleep, death is death. Even asleep you still retain a degree of consciousness.

All the same, when it comes to “judgement,” I think Father Barron has one of the better views on the subject:

 
FatherMerrin said:
All the same, when it comes to “judgement,” I think Father Barron has one of the better views on the subject:
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it’s his point of view, which is not necessarily the truth about it. There are even others who have much more comforting theories. But if i have to choose the most comforting theories I would have left Catholicism since.
 
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