Ancient afterlife beliefs

  Clement of Alexandria and Origen of Alexandria about post-mortem instruction for souls Clement of Alexandria (d. 215) "And this takes place, whenever one hangs on the Lord by faith, by knowledge, by love, and ascends along with Him to where the God and guard of our faith and love is. Whence at last (on account of the necessity for very great preparation and previous training in order both to hear what is said, and for the composure of life, and for advancing intelligently to a point beyond the righteousness of the law) it is that knowledge is committed to those fit and selected for it. It leads us to the endless and perfect end, teaching us beforehand the future life that we shall lead, according to God, and with gods; after we are freed from all punishment and penalty which we undergo, in consequence of our sins, for salutary discipline. After which redemption the reward and the honours are assigned to those who have become perfect; when they have got done with purification, an...

  Lesser known beliefs in reincarnation Reincarnation without Karma: Pythagoras and the Native Americans In the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy article about Pythagoras, written by Carl Huffman, we read that the ancient Greek philosopher might have believed in a version of reincarnation in which there was no correlation between the conduct of one’s life and the conditions of future lifetimes: “There are significant points of contact between the Greek religious movement known as Orphism and Pythagoreanism, but the evidence for Orphism is at least as problematic as that for Pythagoras and often complicates rather than clarifies our understanding of Pythagoras (Betegh 2014; Burkert 1972a, 125 ff.; Kahn 2002, 19–22; Riedweg 2002). There is some evidence that the Orphics also believed in metempsychosis and considerable debate has arisen as to whether they borrowed the doctrine from Pythagoras (Burkert 1972a, 133; Bremmer 2002, 24) or he borrowed it from them (Zhmud 2012a, 221-238)....

 References to 1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9; Mt 18:14 in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church In what follows I present the paragraphs of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church that quote three New Testament passages that seem to teach that the universal salvific will of God is universal: 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9 and Matthew 18:14. The Catechism seems to indeed interpret these passages as suggesting that the salvific will of God is universal.  Source: https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/catechism/#!/search/1%20Tim%202:4;%202%20Pet%203:9;%20Mt%2018:14 Prologue: “"FATHER, ... this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."1 "God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."2 "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved"3 - than the name of JESUS.  1. Jn 17:3. 2. 1 Tim 2:3-4. 3. Acts 4:12.” “74 God "desires all men t...

 The belief in reincarnation among the Neoplatonists Found an interesting paper about the believe in metempsychosis held by the Neoplatonists and previous Greek philosophers (tracing the belief back to pre-socratic philosophers like Pythagoras and Empedocles), the paper 'Plotinus on Transmigration: a Reconsideration' by Giannis Stamatellos (link: https://www.academia.edu/8428243/Plotinus_on_Transmigration_a_Reconsideration ). Two excerpts: "In Ennead iv 8 Plotinus denies the descend of the soul into the bodies.   He  considers, or even reconsiders, the descent of the soul not as a fall but as a kind of  spiritual mission necessary for self-realisation, and its return to the divine as gained  through self-knowledge and contemplation. The soul as a whole is described in terms of ontological unity and homogeneity: as a single intelligible source that animates  any human, animal or plant form.   The soul is conceived as amphibian, living a  ...

 The dynamic view of the afterlife of Clement of Alexandria It appears to me that in the seventh book of 'Stromata' Clement of Alexandria has a dynamic view of the afterlife, in which souls can be punished medicinally, learn and be prepared for the full contemplation of God: "And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed, because of their wishing to know; and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate boon which comes by Him."(Stromata, book 7, ch. 2; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02107.htm ) "And, on the other hand, He is in no respect whatever the cause of evil. For all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the universe by the Lord of the universe, both generally and particularly. It is then the function of the righteousness of salvation to improve everything as far as practicable. For even m...

The Basilidians and Sethians as supporters of reincarnation Clement of Alexandria reports the opinions of the Gnostic sect of the Basilidians with regards to reincarnation (notice the contrast with the Valentinians): "28 The followers of Basilides refer “God visiting the disobedient unto the third and fourth generation” to reincarnations, but the followers of Valentinus maintain that the three places mean those on the left, while the “fourth generation” is their own seed, and “showing mercy unto thousands,” refers to those on the right." (Excerpta ex Theodoto; source: http://www.gnosis.org/library/excr.htm ) "But the hypothesis of Basilides says that the soul, having sinned before in another life, endures punishment in this — the elect soul with honour by martyrdom, the other purged by appropriate punishment. How can this be true, when the confessing and suffering punishment or not depends on ourselves? For in the case of the man who shall deny, Providence, as held by ...

 A possible defence of the non-universalist views of some versions of eternal perdition Suppose that you are a theist that believes both in (1) a loving Creator God and also believe that there is the (2)  possibility at least that some human beings will be irreversibly damned. In the case of Christianity, in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 5:43-8) and of Luke (Luke 6:27-36) Jesus said that we should love even our enemies because the Father is also impartial in his love. To quote an excerpt of these texts: " But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. " (Luke 6:35-6; NIV translation). Now, suppose that also (2) is true, i.e. that it is at least possible (if not even certain) that some people will be forever excluded from the participation of the divine life i...