have “a lifespan.” Laws of Thermodynamics,” “Energy processing,” or “Energy Transformation,” demand that every thing that operates in Nature, must also have a beginning and an end. Thermodynamics thus requires “cycling of reiterative events” or of “patterns of processing,” falling within the frame of “the Organizing Principle.”
In short, there has to be “a method to the operations,” or “modus operandi” for each phenomenon that impacts our life-support systems on the Earth.
And in durations of Time, we measure these “rates of change” or “cyclical changes” thereof, e.g., We’re born; we mature and age; and then we grow old and die. Yet, we must continue to live! God blessed us with life as an indescribable gift! A blessed endowment which we are commanded to cherish and nourish in the love and admonition of the Lord! Once we accept the brevity of our existence, as a prized blessing from our Creator, we can then “navigate through” or “negotiate” the different cycles of repetitive events that characterize our life-span!
Don’t we continuously inhale and exhale the Atmosphere into our Lungs that then extract Oxygen there-from to nourish our blood that’s circulating throughout our body’s organs? In the same manner, we have “sleep and wake cycles;” “labor and rest cycles;” “consumption and waste-disposal cycles.”
Thus, some people might conclude that “Life is its own justification;” and hence, the reason why, that suicide and murder, are not only unthinkable, but also not committable or performable. We will die ultimately anyway; so why accelerate the process!
But as “the physical” has its own destination (Genesis 3:19); so does “the spiritual” (Luke 12:4–5). What is physical is physical; what is spiritual is spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:42–50).
Nonetheless, we choose to hope “to die only of natural causes.” (Psalms 79:11; Ecclesiastes 3:2).
Some people might want to debate or open for discussion, if we choose to do so, “where we were,” that is, before conception and birth. However, because we’re already here, we have a life, we think and do, we ponder and act, we have a life-span, then, “where we’re going” also matters.
But “Where are we going?” matters, in a way that, “Where did we come from?” cannot be framed.
For we did not know then, but, now, we do know! — that is, we didn’t know “when we came into being;” or, “when we were formed” in our mother’s wombs, nor when we were “created into a living being;” nor when we were born, or came out, of our mothers’ wombs!
For, we did not know then; we could not have known then! But NOW, we do know that we’re alive, moving, breathing, thinking, and doing! We do know! And that “makes all the difference” in the whole world, in the whole Universe! (Matthew 13:40–43; Matthew 15:17–20; Luke 6:45; John 15:22–25).
Thus, in the same manner that we are unaware of our biological-physical birth conditions, yet, the Word of God tells us: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:22–31).
Why are they different situations, “different paradoxes,” or “different conundrums?” Our ignorance at birth; and our understanding at death?
We could not self-consciously witness our own conception or birth, nor when we came out of our mothers’ wombs. But, now, things are different. We are living now while fully knowing that our lives are temporary and will eventually end!
Because “we are in-the-know,” because we are self-aware, (e.g., self-consciousness of good and evil, and the difference between them), and because we are aware of other Humans, — thus, we are also aware of other things, of society, of our physical environment; and of the very thoughts and ideas such knowledge and understanding generate in our hearts and minds, souls and spirits.
We are also self-conscious of such things as, the very “flawed patterns of operations” undergoing in our minds and our bodies — what we think, how our body’s organs are working, and what we freely choose to do!
Even those of us who would claim “not to believe in the after-life,” will entertain some form of doubting at one time or another; because the ways in which we apprehend, perceive, or understand “Reality” — or how we reckon with “Reality” (1 Corinthians 13:11–13) — through our “perceptual lenses” that often err because they rely on appearance: Our ways-and-means of apprehending Reality, limited and mortal, are also independent of the existence of that “Reality;” or disconnected from “the realness of the thing in itself” — “Der Ding an sich” (Immanuel Kant). These limited and mortal ways-and-means of apprehending “Reality,” are insufficient for dismissing “Reality” as “a non-existent illusion.”
But if we utilize a microscope, we might then discover the more precise ways in which things that appear, are well-ordered, according to “the Organizing Principle” that God has “embedded” within the operations of His Creation, e.g., Through “X-ray crystallography,” biologists Creek and Watson were able to put together the “discovery” that our DNA has a double-helix structure.
In the same vein, as we socially relate to one another, God entreats us to “judge righteously” and not “according to appearance.” (1 Samuel 16:6–7; John 7:14–24).
We have “inner-self internal consciousness” (we know that we exist; we know that we are); as well as “outer-other-self-consciousness” (we know that we are aware, that others are, or that others also exist.)
And we also possess “outer-external other-consciousness” (we know that others are aware that they also exist).
In short, (1) We know that we exist; (2) We know that we know that we exist; (3) We know that others exist; (4) And we know that we know that others do exist; (5) And we know that we know that others also know that we do exist and that they also exist!
That means, whether or not there is indeed “an after-life,” its existence is independent of “our belief systems.” God does not seek His own interest; for He is self-sufficient! But we are not! We are “created beings:” We have a beginning, a life-span, and an end! We exist “from the diaper,” until comes, our time “for the coffin.”
And given that we can know, and do know, that we can neither verify its existence, nor confirm its non-existence: Then, we have to take God’s Word seriously concerning this matter! No one can die and return to life to tell us whether “the after-life” exists or not!
Our “belief systems,” e.g., “Existentialism;” or “thought systems,” e.g., “Marxian Dialectics,” “Epiphenomenalism,” etc. . .., are irrelevant to the true authentic existence of that “after-life Reality.” We will be “long gone” before the discussion ends. (Matthew 18:7 Luke 11:28; John 9:39–41).
The group of believers called “Existentialists,” will answer those questions by saying that: No mortal Human Being can prove that there is no “after-life!” That’s called “a double negative” or that “we cannot disprove there is no after-life.”
But, before we were conceived and born, we did not exist; and after we die, we will no longer exist. We’re conceived to be born, to live, and then to die! “Point final!” And that’s that! Period! Though these supposed assurances will be uttered by “Scientists,” — or people who believe that only the material-physical Universe which we can “handle with our biological senses” is real, — but such pretenses of certainty without valid reproducible proof are, “not scientific.” For, a principle of the
