Appendix D

Topical Cross-Reference Map

A Reader's Guide to Where Each Thread Runs

Full-Length Edition

How to Use This Map

This appendix is a guide to the book you are holding. Each entry below names a major topic and then tells you where that topic is developed across the chapters and appendices of Between Heartbeats. Every reference is a working hyperlink. Each one carries a brief note about what that particular chapter or appendix contributes to the topic.

If you want to trace a single thread — say, the philosophy of time, or the question of the unevangelized — through the whole book without re-reading it cover to cover, this map will show you the path. The entries follow the order in which topics first appear in the main text. For definitions of any unfamiliar terms, see Appendix C (Glossary).

The Book's Central Thesis

Chapter 1 introduces the thesis for the first time: every dying person meets the risen Christ at the moment of death, in a fully conscious, fully informed, and fully free encounter that is subjectively extended by the time-dilation reported in near-death experiences. Every subsequent chapter develops, supports, or tests some part of this claim, and Chapter 35 draws the threads together in a final synthesis.

God's Universal Salvific Will

Chapter 2 lays the foundation by developing the biblical and theological case that God genuinely desires the salvation of every person. Chapter 4 presses that claim into the hardest test case — those who never hear the gospel — and asks what God's universal love requires. Briefer citations appear in Chapter 1 (as part of the opening argument), Chapter 18 (as the motive behind the encounter), Chapter 28 (as the ground of optimal grace), Chapter 29 (within the eschatological-neutrality framing), and Chapter 32 (in the special-cases treatment of those who never heard).

The Atonement and Its Universal Scope

Chapter 3 is the primary treatment, arguing that Christ's atoning work extends in its scope to every human being and that this universal reach is the necessary condition for the moment-of-death offer.

The Problem of the Unevangelized

Chapter 4 frames the problem theologically and surveys the major responses — restrictivism, inclusivism, and postmortem opportunity — before positioning this book's distinctive contribution. Chapter 32 returns to the question as a special case, examining five historical positions and showing how the moment-of-death encounter addresses the category directly.

The Moment of Death Defined

Chapter 5 asks what "the moment of death" actually means — medically, philosophically, and theologically — and establishes that the threshold between life and death is not a sharp line but a process with subjective depth.

Near-Death Experience Research

Chapter 6 traces the history of modern NDE research from Raymond Moody through the major studies of Ring, Sabom, van Lommel, Parnia, and Long. Chapter 7 maps the common-core elements — the tunnel, the light, the being of light, the life review, the border, the return — that recur across cultures and traditions. Appendix A provides an annotated bibliography of the primary NDE literature, and Appendix B presents detailed case studies organized by theological significance.

Veridical NDEs and the Case for Substance Dualism

Chapter 8 examines cases in which patients report accurate perceptions of events occurring while they were clinically dead, and argues that these veridical reports support a substance-dualist view of the person.

The Physicalist–Conditional Immortality Critique

Chapter 9 engages the physicalist-CI position directly, arguing that if the soul does not survive as a conscious entity at death, then the moment-of-death encounter this book describes cannot occur — and showing why the NDE evidence and the intermediate-state passages together favor dualism.

Time-Dilation in Near-Death Experiences

Chapter 10 introduces the phenomenon of subjective time-dilation in NDEs — the widely reported experience that minutes on the clock feel like hours, days, or longer to the person in the experience. Appendix I develops the philosophical case for how psychological time can diverge from clock time. Appendix J presents the empirical core, examining the strongest veridical cases of time-dilation one by one.

The Life Review

Chapter 11 examines the life review — the experience, reported across NDE accounts, of reliving one's entire life, often from the perspective of those one has affected — and explores its theological significance as a moment of total self-knowledge. Appendix K treats the life review as the clearest empirical window into subjective time-dilation, since many experiencers report reliving decades in what doctors measure as seconds.

Hellish and Distressing NDEs

Chapter 12 surveys accounts of frightening, dark, or anguished NDEs, explores what they may tell us about the range of dying experience, and introduces the NDE pattern behind the sequenced ("staged") encounter — the observation that some distressing NDEs give way to an experience of light and presence when the person cries out or surrenders.

Divine Temporality

Chapter 13 opens the question of God's relationship to time and why it matters for the moment-of-death thesis. Chapter 14 distinguishes subjective from objective time and asks how long a moment can be. Chapter 15 brings the biblical material on time, eternity, and the dying moment into the conversation. Appendix F makes the full philosophical case for dynamic divine temporality — the view that God exists within time and acts at every moment — and shows why this view best supports a real encounter at the moment of death. Appendix G asks whether the encounter can survive on a timeless view of God and argues that it can, though with greater difficulty.

A-Theory, B-Theory, and Relativity

Chapter 14 introduces the A-theory and B-theory distinction and its bearing on whether the dying moment has real temporal depth. Appendix H develops the case that an A-theory framework — in which the present is ontologically privileged — best explains how the dying soul lives through the encounter in real subjective time. Appendix N addresses the challenge from physics: if relativity implies a block universe in which all moments are equally real, does subjective time-dilation lose its meaning?

Biblical Theology of Time

Chapter 15 introduces the biblical vocabulary of time — chronos and kairos, aiōn and aiōnios — and connects it to the dying moment. Appendix L is the full treatment, examining these terms in their biblical contexts and showing how they bear on the claim that a brief clinical moment can hold a qualitatively different kind of time — not merely stretched clock-time, but a different order of experienced duration.

Boros's Hypothesis of a Final Decision

Chapter 16 presents Ladislaus Boros's Endentscheidung hypothesis in depth — the claim that at the moment of death the soul awakens to full self-possession and makes its definitive choice for or against God. Chapter 17 traces the line from Boros's mid-twentieth-century philosophical theology to the empirical NDE literature, showing how the phenomena Boros predicted on philosophical grounds are now reported by those who have been clinically dead.

The Christological Encounter and Its Dynamics

Chapter 18 argues that the moment-of-death encounter must be Christological — it is the risen Christ, not an abstract divine light, whom the dying person meets. Chapter 19 explores the dynamics of the encounter itself — how it unfolds, how it persuades without coercing, and how its phased structure allows for the darkness-before-dawn pattern. Appendix M develops the Incarnation as the theological precedent: if God has already entered time and taken on flesh to meet humanity, then a personal meeting at the moment of death is not a novelty but a continuation of the same pattern. Appendix O builds a working model of the encounter's architecture, integrating the NDE phenomenology, the philosophy of time, and the theological framework into a unified account.

The Two-Stage History and the Descent of Christ

Chapter 20 establishes the two-stage biblical history of the afterlife — Hades before Christ and the new situation after Christ's descent — and reads the Bosom of Abraham and the Old Testament understanding of Sheol within this framework. Chapter 21 provides the primary exegesis of 1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6, the key descent passages, showing that Christ preached to the dead. Chapter 22 examines Ephesians 4:8–10 and the claim that Christ descended to the lower regions before ascending, leading captivity captive.

Luke 16:19–31 (The Rich Man and Lazarus)

Chapter 23 is the full exegesis of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, asking whether the great chasm is a statement about the permanent state of the dead or a feature of the pre-resurrection intermediate state. The Bosom of Abraham imagery behind the parable is treated in Chapter 20.

Hebrews 9:27

Chapter 24 engages the passage most often cited against any postmortem opportunity — "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that the judgment" — and argues that the verse, read in its full context, does not rule out an encounter at the moment of death but rather presupposes exactly the kind of decisive threshold this book describes.

Talbott's Universalist Argument

Chapter 25 engages Thomas Talbott's argument that no one can freely and finally reject a God who is fully known — the strongest philosophical case for universal reconciliation. The chapter tests Talbott's claim against the book's own commitment to libertarian freedom and genuine refusal. Chapter 29 places Talbott's position within the eschatological-neutrality framing the book adopts.

Manis's Divine Presence Model

Chapter 26 is the primary treatment of R. Zachary Manis's Divine Presence Model, which explores how God's presence itself constitutes the persuasive element of the encounter. Chapter 19 draws on Manis's model when describing the dynamics of the encounter — how the sheer reality of Christ's presence confronts the soul without overriding its freedom.

The Rationality of Refusal

Chapter 27 takes the hard question head-on: can a fully informed person, standing in the presence of Christ, still rationally say no? The chapter argues that genuine libertarian freedom requires this possibility, however tragic. Chapter 28 picks up the thread with the concept of transworld damnation — the Molinist category for a person who would freely reject Christ in every feasible world.

Molinism, Middle Knowledge, and Optimal Grace

Chapter 28 is the primary and extended treatment. It integrates Molinism (God's middle knowledge of what every free creature would do in every possible situation) with the moment-of-death encounter, arguing that God composes each soul's encounter using optimal grace — the individually tailored approach most likely to win a free yes. One-sentence beats connecting this material appear in Chapter 2, Chapter 4, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 30, Chapter 32, and Chapter 34.

The Sequenced ("Staged") Encounter

Some souls may experience darkness or felt separation before Christ appears or is cried out to. Chapter 28 provides the theological rationale for why God might compose an encounter that opens in darkness — not as punishment but as a form of mercy tailored to that person's deepest need. Chapter 12 documents the NDE pattern: distressing experiences that resolve when the person cries out. Chapter 19 integrates the darkness-before-dawn pattern into the phase model of the encounter. Appendix O incorporates the sequenced encounter into the full working model.

Eschatological Neutrality

Chapter 29 is the primary treatment. This book describes the mechanism — every dying person meets Christ — and deliberately leaves open the downstream eschatology. Eternal conscious torment, conditional immortality, and universal reconciliation are each compatible with the encounter model. The chapter explains why the book takes this stance and how the reader's own convictions on final outcomes can sit alongside the thesis.

Babies and Children Who Die

Chapter 30 asks how the moment-of-death encounter applies to infants and young children who have not yet reached the age of conscious moral choice, and argues that the encounter is tailored by God's middle knowledge to reach the child at whatever level of awareness is present.

The Cognitively Impaired

Chapter 31 extends the argument to persons with severe cognitive disabilities, asking how the encounter reaches a soul whose earthly faculties never developed the capacity for abstract thought — and arguing that the encounter meets the person at the level of the soul, not the brain.

The Unevangelized (The Five Positions)

Chapter 32 is the full special-cases treatment, surveying five historic positions on the fate of those who never hear the gospel and showing how the moment-of-death encounter addresses the problem directly — every person, regardless of earthly exposure to the Christian message, meets Christ face to face.

Objections by Tradition

Chapter 33 takes up the major objections raised from within the Catholic, Reformed, and evangelical traditions — including concerns about the finality of death, the sufficiency of general revelation, and the risk of diminishing the urgency of earthly evangelism — and offers sustained responses. Appendix E provides a quick-reference version: common objections with brief answers and cross-references to the chapters where the fuller treatment lives.

Pastoral Application

Chapter 34 brings the entire argument to the bedside. What does this thesis mean for the grieving parent, the hospice chaplain, the person facing a terminal diagnosis? The chapter draws the pastoral implications and shows how the theology translates into real comfort and real hope without trading away honesty.

The Working Model of the Encounter

Appendix O is the synthetic model, pulling together the NDE phenomenology, the philosophy of time, and the theological framework into a single structured account of what the encounter may look like from the dying person's perspective — stage by stage, from the onset of clinical death through the final decision. Chapter 35 incorporates this model into the book's concluding synthesis.

Going Further

Readers who want to explore the NDE literature in greater depth will find an annotated bibliography in Appendix A and a set of detailed case studies in Appendix B. For definitions of key terms, see the Glossary (Appendix C). For quick answers to common objections, see Appendix E. The full philosophical, empirical, biblical, and theological case for the time-architecture of the encounter runs through Appendices F through O. And the published scholarship cited in the footnotes throughout this book — Boros, Talbott, Manis, Walls, Stratton, Craig, van Lommel, Parnia, Long, and many others — will take the reader deeper still.