Personal Eschatology
Module 1: Hope, the afterlife and meaning

From the lecture, I have gained a clearer understanding of personal eschatology which is the study of the “last things” as they relate to individuals, particularly the Christian afterlife. The instructor emphasizes that our view of Heaven shapes and reflects how we read the Bible and understand God’s redemptive plan.

Rather than seeing Heaven as merely an ethereal realm or a place where disembodied spirits float on clouds, the biblical vision presents a more holistic picture that unites the physical and spiritual. This perspective is rooted in the goodness of creation, as affirmed in Genesis 1, the physical resurrection of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15, and the incarnation in John 1:14.

I also learned about the dangers of theological distortions like Gnosticism, which devalues the material world, and global dualism, which wrongly pits spirit against matter. The early church fathers strongly rejected these ideas because they undermine the biblical truth that God created the physical world as good. Christianity does not teach an escape from the body but promises a future bodily resurrection, affirming that salvation is an embodied, holistic experience. This is a sharp contrast to philosophical notions like Plato’s view of the body as a prison for the soul. The resurrection guarantees not only life after death but also the restoration and renewal of all creation. The key point I took away is that the Christian hope is not about abandoning the physical world but about its redemption and transformation, a future in which Heaven and earth are united, and believers experience eternal life in resurrected bodies within God’s renewed creation. This truth deepens my understanding of Heaven as part of God’s ongoing mission to restore what was intended from the beginning.