Appendix C

Glossary

Plain-English Definitions of Key Terms

Condensed Edition

This book uses a number of technical terms from theology, philosophy, and biblical languages. I have tried to define each one on first use. But a reader who picks up the book in the middle may want a quick refresher. That is what this glossary is for. Every entry is written in the plainest English I can manage. Where a term gets its full treatment in a specific chapter, I have noted that chapter so you can go deeper.

The entries are listed in alphabetical order. Greek and Hebrew terms appear under their transliterated forms.

A

Aiōn / Aiōnios (Greek). The Greek noun aiōn means "age" or "era." The adjective aiōnios means "of the age," "age-long," or "pertaining to the age to come." Many English Bibles translate aiōnios as "eternal" or "everlasting," but the word does not always carry the sense of "never-ending." In Matthew 25:46, for example, Jesus speaks of kolasin aiōnion ("eternal punishment") and zōēn aiōnion ("eternal life"). Some scholars argue that both phrases point to the quality or character of the age to come, not to a duration without end.¹ Others insist that the parallel requires both to last forever. The lexical question is real, and this book takes it seriously. The word can carry the sense of unending duration. But it can also mean "belonging to the coming age." The right reading must come from the context, not from a blanket assumption. See Chapter 27 for the full treatment.

A-Theory of Time. The view that time really flows. The present moment is special. The past is gone, the future is not yet real, and the "now" is genuinely moving forward. Most people experience time this way in daily life. Compare B-theory of time. See Chapter 9 and Appendix F.

Apokatastasis (Greek). Literally, "restoration of all things." In Christian theology, it refers to the hope or doctrine that God will ultimately restore every person to right relationship with Himself. The idea goes back to Origen and Gregory of Nyssa in the early church. This book treats it as a genuine hope, not a settled doctrine. See Chapter 17 and Chapter 28.

B

B-Theory of Time. The view that all moments in time are equally real. Past, present, and future all exist in the same way. The flow of time is an illusion. On this view, the universe is more like a frozen block with every event fixed in its place. Compare A-theory of time. See Chapter 9 and Appendix F.

C

Conditional Immortality (CI). The view that human beings are not naturally immortal. Only those who receive eternal life through Christ live forever. Those who finally and freely reject God are not tormented without end. Instead, they cease to exist. They are destroyed, not tortured. This is the author's working view of the fate of those who refuse Christ even at the last judgment. See Chapter 24.

D

Descent, The / Harrowing of Hell. The ancient Christian teaching that between His death and resurrection, Christ descended to the realm of the dead. There He preached the gospel, freed the righteous who had died before His coming, and "led captivity captive" (Ephesians 4:8). The descent is affirmed in the Apostles' Creed ("He descended into hell") and has deep roots in both Western and Eastern Christianity. This book reads the descent as the ground for postmortem opportunity. The God who once preached to the dead is still the God who holds the keys of Death and Hades. See Chapter 15 and Chapter 16.

Divine-Presence Model. A model of hell developed by R. Zachary Manis. On this view, hell is not a place far from God. It is the experience of God's full, unshielded presence by a person who refuses His love. The same divine love that is heaven to the willing heart is agony to the unwilling one. The fire is not God's absence. It is God Himself, met by a soul that is not ready to receive Him. See Chapter 21 and Chapter 26.

Divine Timelessness. The classical view that God exists entirely outside of time. On this view, God has no "before" or "after." He sees all of time in a single, unchanging "eternal now." This book respectfully sets aside divine timelessness. It favors dynamic divine temporality instead. A timeless God could not pursue a soul through time in the relational way this book describes. See Appendix F.

Dynamic Divine Temporality. The view that God experiences real time. He has a genuine "before" and "after." He responds, acts, and pursues in real sequence. But His experience of time is not limited by our clocks. He transcends creaturely time while still being temporal. This is the view of God and time that this book adopts. It makes the whole pursuit at the deathbed, in Hades, and at the judgment a genuine, interactive encounter. See Chapter 9 and Appendix F.

E

Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT). The traditional view that those who die without Christ suffer conscious, unending punishment in hell forever. This book does not hold this view. The author regards it as the least satisfying of the three major options and argues that the lake of fire is better understood through the divine-presence model and conditional immortality. The book's argument for postmortem opportunity, however, is compatible with ECT. See Chapter 24 and Chapter 25.

G

Gehenna (Greek, from Hebrew gē-hinnōm). The word Jesus used most often for the place of final judgment. It comes from the Valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where child sacrifices were once offered to Molech (2 Kings 23:10). By the time of Jesus, the name had become a symbol for divine judgment and destruction. Gehenna is distinct from Hades: Hades is the waiting place between death and judgment, while Gehenna (or the lake of fire) is the final destination after the judgment. See Chapter 25.

H

Hades (Greek). The Greek term for the realm of the dead, roughly equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol. In the New Testament, Hades is the place where the dead wait between death and the final judgment. This book reads Hades not as a sealed prison but as a place of continued divine presence and pursuit. After Christ's descent, Hades became a dynamic waiting place where God still draws the unresponsive soul toward Himself. See Chapter 8 and Chapter 14.

I

Intermediate State. The period between a person's physical death and the final judgment. During this time, the soul is conscious and exists apart from the body. On this book's reading, the intermediate state is not a gap of nothingness. It is a real, experienced time in which the soul is either with Christ in joy or in Hades, still being pursued. The intermediate state ends at the final judgment, when Hades is emptied and the final destiny begins. See Chapter 8.

K

Kēryssō / Euēngelisthē (Greek). Kēryssō means "to proclaim" or "to herald." Euēngelisthē means "the gospel was preached." These words appear in the key descent passages, 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6. In those verses, Christ is said to have preached to the spirits in prison, and the gospel was preached "even to those who are dead."² The presence of gospel-proclamation language in these verses is central to the biblical case for postmortem opportunity. See Chapter 15.

L

Libertarian Free Will. The view that a genuinely free choice is one the person could have made differently. Freedom is not just doing what you want. It requires real alternatives. You could truly have chosen otherwise. This book holds that human free will is libertarian, both before and after death. God's offer is always persuasive, never coercive. A real "yes" requires a possible "no." See Chapter 22 and Chapter 23.

Life Review. A common feature of near-death experiences. The person relives key moments of their life, often seeing them from the perspective of the people they affected. Many who go through a life review describe it as deeply cleansing. They feel the pain they caused others and the love they gave. This book reads the life review as part of God's purifying encounter with the soul at death. It is not a courtroom trial. It is more like standing in a light that shows you everything, gently and completely. See Chapter 13.

M

Middle Knowledge. The idea that God knows not only what is and what will be, but also what would freely happen in any possible set of circumstances. For example, God knew that the men of Keilah would surrender David to Saul if David stayed (1 Samuel 23:11–13), even though David left and that future never happened. Middle knowledge sits logically between God's knowledge of necessary truths and His knowledge of what actually occurs. See Molinism. See Chapter 23.

Molinism. A theological system named after the sixteenth-century Jesuit Luis de Molina. It holds that God possesses middle knowledge and uses it to govern the world without overriding human freedom. God knows what every free creature would do in every possible situation. He then creates the world that best achieves His purposes while leaving every creature genuinely free. In this book, Molinism provides the architecture that explains how God can compose the best possible sequence of appeals for each soul, from the deathbed to the final judgment.³ See Chapter 23.

N

Near-Death Experience (NDE). An experience reported by some people who come close to death or who are briefly clinically dead and then revived. Common features include leaving the body, passing through a tunnel, meeting a being of light, encountering deceased loved ones, and undergoing a life review. Some NDEs are distressing, involving darkness, isolation, or fear. This book does not claim that NDEs prove the afterlife. It does argue that the strongest cases, especially the veridical ones where patients report details they could not have known, provide evidence that consciousness can exist apart from a functioning brain. See Chapter 5, Chapter 6, and Appendix A.

O

Olam (Hebrew). The Hebrew word often translated "everlasting" or "forever." Like the Greek aiōnios, it does not always mean "without end." Its basic sense is "a long duration" or "an age whose end is hidden from view." The Old Testament uses olam for things that clearly did come to an end, such as the Aaronic priesthood (Exodus 40:15) and the period of a servant's labor (Deuteronomy 15:17).⁴ Context decides whether the word points to endless time or to a long but bounded period. See Chapter 27.

Optimal Grace. A concept developed by Jerry Walls. A perfectly loving, all-knowing God does not offer the gospel in a one-size-fits-all way. He tailors His approach to each person. God presents the truth in the manner, at the moment, and in the sequence most likely to win a free "yes" from that particular soul. Walls writes that this grace is "deeply personal and individual" and that "what would be highly effective in converting one person might make another more resistant."⁵ In this book, optimal grace is the motive that drives God's pursuit from the deathbed through Hades to the final judgment. See Chapter 23.

P

Physicalism. The view that a human being is entirely physical. There is no immaterial soul. The mind is what the brain does, nothing more. When the brain dies, the person ceases to exist until God raises the body at the resurrection. This book argues that physicalism cannot support a postmortem encounter at the moment of death, because on the physicalist view there is no conscious soul to meet Christ between death and resurrection. See Chapter 7.

Postmortem Opportunity. The view that God continues to offer salvation to people after their physical death. On this reading, the door does not close when the heart stops. The offer opens at the moment of death, continues through the intermediate state, and reaches its climax at the final judgment. The end of the final judgment is the true deadline. This is the central thesis of the book. See Chapter 1.

R

River of Fire. An image from Eastern Orthodox tradition. In Orthodox icons of the Last Judgment, a river of fire flows from the throne of Christ. It is not a weapon of revenge. It is the outpouring of God's love. As the Orthodox theologian Alexandre Kalomiros writes, the river of fire is the same river that "came out from Eden to water the paradise" of old.⁶ The fire makes the saints shine and burns those who are not ready to receive it. The difference is in the person, not in God. See Appendix G and Chapter 26.

S

Sheol (Hebrew). The Old Testament term for the abode of the dead. In early Israelite thought, Sheol was a shadowy place beneath the earth where all the dead went, regardless of how they had lived. By the intertestamental period, the concept had developed into a two-chambered realm: a place of comfort for the righteous and a place of distress for the wicked. The Greek equivalent is Hades. See Chapter 25 and Chapter 14.

Staged (Sequenced) Approach. The idea that God's best approach to some souls may begin not with gentleness but with felt darkness. Some people will not respond to kindness alone. They need to taste what life apart from God really feels like before the light breaks through. On this reading, the dark passage reported in some near-death experiences is not God's cruelty. It is love taking the only road a particular heart will walk. The darkness comes first; then the cry; then the rescue. This pattern is the book's distinctive way of connecting hellish NDEs to God's optimal pursuit. See Chapter 10 and Chapter 23.

Substance Dualism. The view that a human being is made up of two kinds of reality: a physical body and an immaterial soul. The soul is not a product of the brain. It is a distinct thing that can exist apart from the body. This book relies on substance dualism because it makes sense of the evidence that consciousness can continue during clinical death, as near-death experience research suggests. See Chapter 6.

T

Threefold Offer. This book's name for God's full pursuit of each soul across three stages: the encounter at the moment of death (the deathbed), the continued pursuit through the conscious intermediate state (Hades), and the final, unveiled encounter at the Great White Throne judgment. The three stages are not three separate trials. They are one continuous pursuit by the same loving God. The end of the final judgment is the true deadline. See Chapter 1 and Chapter 23.

Transworld Damnation. A concept from the philosophy of religion, related to Alvin Plantinga's "transworld depravity." A person suffers from transworld damnation if that person would freely reject God in every possible set of circumstances God could create.⁷ If such persons exist, then even an all-knowing, all-loving God who gives the best possible appeal cannot save them without overriding their freedom. This book takes the idea seriously as the hard edge of the argument: some may refuse God even after receiving every possible advantage. See Chapter 23.

Tsedaka (Hebrew). Often translated "righteousness," but its meaning runs deeper. Tsedaka carries the sense of restorative justice, of setting things right, of making whole what was broken. When the Old Testament speaks of God's justice, it uses this word. God's justice is not cold punishment. It aims to heal, restore, and put things back the way they should be. This understanding shapes the book's reading of divine judgment as an act of love, not revenge. See Chapter 25.

U

Universal Restoration / Universalism (UR). The Christian hope or belief that God will ultimately bring every person to freely accept His love. On this view, no one is finally lost. The purifying fire of God's presence eventually breaks through every wall of resistance, and all say "yes" in the end. This book's author holds genuine openness to this hope, but does not teach it as settled doctrine. The mechanism the book argues for (the threefold offer from deathbed to judgment) is compatible with universalism but does not require it. See Chapter 28 and Chapter 24.

Universal Salvific Will. The theological affirmation that God genuinely desires the salvation of every human being without exception. Paul writes that God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). Peter adds that God is "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The threefold offer is the mechanism by which this universal will reaches every soul, regardless of when they lived, where they were born, or whether they ever heard the gospel. See Chapter 2.