Interaction with Dead

[cloudyday2]

I've heard many personal anecdotes about dead relatives or friends appearing to the living and sometimes even helping them. Of course a grieving person often hallucinates, but sometimes the details make it harder to explain as a hallucination.

Just curious what the various types of Christians think.

 

[MishSill]

Hi Cloudy,

These scriptures might be of help.

Deuteronomy 18:9-13New King James Version (NKJV)
Avoid Wicked Customs
9 “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. (my emphasis)

Luke 16:26New King James Version (NKJV)
26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

This last scripture was based on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

It was referring to people in heaven and hell not being able to cross over. If you read back a bit you will see it in its context.

Blessings
Mish

 

[cloudyday2]

Deuteronomy 18:9-13 is about seeking some interaction through a medium. That's a bit different.
Luke 16:26 is about a gulf between heaven and hell. That doesn't mean there is a gulf between heaven and earth.

Of course some denominations believe in "soul sleep" where the soul requires a resurrected body that isn't available until the second coming. That belief makes interaction with dead loved ones impossible. Of course Catholics and others who ask saints to intercede probably don't believe in "soul sleep".

 

[MishSill]

is about seeking some interaction through a medium. That's a bit different.

I agree with you that there would be a difference between a person seeking out the dead and a supposedly dead person seeking the person out. In the latter you would have to determine that spirit was indeed the deceased person because the devil has the ability imitate deceased loved ones (kind of like the terminator) in order to lure you into the former practice of consulting with the dead.

Luke 16:26 is about a gulf between heaven and hell. That doesn't mean there is a gulf between heaven and earth.

I can't say that I've travelled to heaven in the past 23 years of my knowing God. Have you perchance?

I can tell you why that is not possible. God kicked Adam and Eve out of paradise for a very good reason. By knowing good and evil, Adam and Eve subjected themselves to pain and suffering. This is what we experience in this temporary time zone on this earth. Heaven on the other hand is eternal so if anyone crossed from eternity where there is no pain to earth, they would experience great pain. I believe this is why our loving God separated Adam and Eve and all the rest of us from eternity. Likewise if we cross over into eternity as we are, we would not only experience enhanced pain and suffering but would experience it for an eternity.

If you want me to quote you scriptures on the above, please let me know. Never sure if I'm meant to approach this the way I do Uni studies quoting references all the time.

Of course some denominations believe in "soul sleep" where the soul requires a resurrected body that isn't available until the second coming. That belief makes interaction with dead loved ones impossible. Of course Catholics and others who ask saints to intercede probably don't believe in "soul sleep".

My memory goes back to the thief on the cross next to Jesus who asked him to remember him when Jesus came into His kingdom and Jesus said to the thief that he would be in paradise with Him that day.

When we die, I am of the belief that we go straight to eternity and we have reached the end, even though that eternity is running parallel with this time zone.

Why do so many people have near death experiences and have seen people in hell and in heaven if they are both waiting for time to stop here first before they begin?

 

[cloudyday2]

Thanks, Mish. I hope some others give their opinions too. It is not too uncommon for people to have interactions with friends and loved ones after they die. Sometimes there are concrete results of the interactions that make them hard to explain as hallucinations. (Of course I've never heard of any experiences that are impossible to explain; it's just that the explanations become more strained.)

I'm a little puzzled by the apparent lack of interest in the topic, because it is very commonly experienced.

 

[annafullofgrace]

I do not believe there is interaction after death.

 

[cloudyday2]

I do not believe there is interaction after death.

Do you disbelieve for theological reasons or due to skepticism?

 

[oi_antz]

I'm a little puzzled by the apparent lack of interest in the topic, because it is very commonly experienced.

I am interested. I am watching this thread. I don't have enough certainty at this time. I tend toward believing that the moment we die, we experience resurrection and judgement. I will not know for sure until it happens though. If a deceased loved one encountered me, I would then ask God what was going on.

 

[cloudyday2]

It seems to me that Catholics should believe in this possibility, because there is nothing special about a saint. A saint is just a deceased Christian who the Church decided to recognize as exceptional. I believe it is not uncommon to ask for help from deceased relatives in the Catholic Church just as you would with the official saints.

 

[MishSill]

Thanks, Mish. I hope some others give their opinions too. It is not too uncommon for people to have interactions with friends and loved ones after they die. Sometimes there are concrete results of the interactions that make them hard to explain as hallucinations. (Of course I've never heard of any experiences that are impossible to explain; it's just that the explanations become more strained.)

I'm a little puzzled by the apparent lack of interest in the topic, because it is very commonly experienced.

I will share with you what I experienced after the passing of my father about 5 years ago.

Within the week of Dad's passing, I went to church in a community centre...upstairs is the community library which is closed on the weekends.

My friend looking after her granddaughter who was just a toddler was trying to calm down the crying child, so about 3 of us went outside the auditorium with her.

A man walked passed us. He had a cap and sunglasses on. He looked an awful lot like Dad and dressed the same way he did. He quietly walked passed us and went up the stairs and came back down again and left. I would have thought I was hallucinating in my grief but my friends said the same thing "oh my god he looks like your father". I was so tempted to call out "dad" to him but was so conflicted knowing that he was dead. I was too emotional to deal with it. There was no purpose that I could see other than perhaps to give me hope that he was resurrected. Another close friend of mine said she saw him in a dream and he was in heaven. She didn't know him well but she described how he was dressed and his gestures were exactly like dad. I knew at that point God was giving me assurance that dad was with Him.

I'm glad to see other people are posting on this thread.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Lutherans have a pretty big discomfort when it comes to "doing theology" about what we call the Deus Absconditus--the Hidden God. That is doing theology about God has not made known, has not revealed, has not presented right before our eyes as it were. We instead "do theology" about the Revealed God, most specifically the God who meets us in and as Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, and thus in the Sacraments.

Here what this would mean is that speculating on whether it is possible to "interact" with the departed is, basically, a non-thing. We would be heavily incredulous about it because we would have no reason, theologically, to accept it. For the same reason we don't place any emphasis on personal spiritual experiences at all really. All such experiences are subjective, and subjective things don't have any solidity to them in the realm of faith. Instead we look to the objective things, namely Scripture, the Gospel, the Sacraments, etc. For example we can't ever say where God isn't found, but we can say where God is found--God is found where He said He'd be found, in His Church through His Word and Sacraments. Further, if any personal experience were to come out and against God's Word and Sacraments we would consider such a thing to be, in a word, diabolical. Maybe not directly, but perhaps implicitly--it is certainly a position of faithlessness and is fundamentally not Christian (from a Lutheran POV); and many of us would point to the warning in Scripture wherein the devil is said as sometimes masquerading as an angel of light. Whether devilish or human the point would be the same: Real faith trusts in the objective word and promises of God, all else is fleeting, fanciful, and false.

Could God permit an "encounter" of some sort? Again, it's not out of question. There is the interesting story about King Saul and his encounter with the medium of Endor (the one that doesn't have an Ewok-filled moon). But this is a cautionary tale. It's simply not ours to speculate about what God might or might not do or let happen or not let happen; but to focus on what God has done and has said and has promised. We should, therefore, be very skeptical about claims of experiences of meeting the ghosts of the departed, or meetings with angels, or any number of assorted supernatural claims and experiences. For Lutherans the Christian life is not bound up in the "supernatural" and "spiritual", but is grounded in the solid, tangible realities of the Incarnate Jesus, His death, His resurrection, the preaching of the Word, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[cloudyday2]

Thanks, Mish and Crypto.

When my father died and they started to tell my niece (who was a toddler), she said he had already told her himself. What she claimed my father had told her, was exactly what I would have expected him to say to her. Of course there are skeptical explanations.

 

[annafullofgrace]

Do you disbelieve for theological reasons or due to skepticism?

I suppose both. When we die, if we are a believer, we are told we go to heaven. Perfect paradise with no tears or pain. Looking down on us from above would be sad. I do not believe sadness is possible in heaven.

Do you disbelieve for theological reasons or due to skepticism?

Crypto did a fine job explaining from a Lutheran perspective.

Here is my personal.

When we die, if we are a believer, we are told we go to heaven. Perfect paradise with no tears or pain. Looking down on us from above would be sad. I do not believe sadness is possible in heaven.

 

[cloudyday2]

Here is my personal.

When we die, if we are a believer, we are told we go to heaven. Perfect paradise with no tears or pain. Looking down on us from above would be sad. I do not believe sadness is possible in heaven.

It is true that if our deceased relatives were aware of our problems, then they would feel concerned and so forth.

 

[Nasrani]

I've heard many personal anecdotes about dead relatives or friends appearing to the living and sometimes even helping them. Of course a grieving person often hallucinates, but sometimes the details make it harder to explain as a hallucination.

Just curious what the various types of Christians think.

As I see in posts above, there is a general lack of experiences with that sort of thing and someone may conclude from this that Christians are the wrong people to ask. I do not ask Gd in prayer to reveal spirits, demons, nor angels to me. I believe "no temptation has seized you (brothers in Christ) beyond that which is common to man". I appreciate that Gd has "transformed the Christian mind with peace, patience, love towards others, and Self-control".

Other religions may be more revealing in this matter. For example in islam, jinn or Genies, are apparitions that can speak to men (though no one can confirm this) and even be intimate with humans (works by Arabian Ibn Khaldun). For protection from jinn, the holy book of islam recommends throwing shooting stars at them (sura 67.5). I do not know at what point they decide to inhabit the human nose (hadith bukhari 4.54.516) but there is a remedy for that, wash the nose out 3 times early in the morning. At times jinn urinate in human ears (bukhari 4.54.492) but I do not see a remedy for that. At other times jinn can accompany a human's passing wind but only when it accompanies noise (bukhari 4.54.505).

These plagues accompany non-Christians for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

 

[cloudyday2]

Thanks, Nasrani. Maybe I need to start another thread in the World Religions forum to get the perspective of non-Christians too.

I was especially curious about Christians, because some Bible verses can be understood to be saying that interacting with dead loved ones is impossible or sinful. On the other hand, some denominations tell stories of saints appearing to people to help them in various ways.

To clarify, I'm not talking about Ouija boards or séances. I'm talking about minding your own business and experiencing something that would appear to be an interaction with a deceased person. Of course, I'm not aware of any unassailable evidence of this type of experience.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

For my perspective. I believe in the spirit world. That their are fallen angels, that wish to oppose God, they will use any method they can to throw doubt on God's word and the authority of the bible. They follow us through life, and know everything about us. It is not hard for them to speak into peoples minds. I have had both demons and God speak to me. This has happened many times. But once I was told by a voice that a very famous person would die, about a month latter they died, killed by an animal. Then soon after another voice tried to convince me that the dead person had a message for thier grieving family, asking them "to continue with the work he had started". This was all very surreal, and me being very open to this kind of thing, thought at the time it must all have been God. But looking back I don't know if the voice was God, or a devil. All I say from all of this, is there is more to life than we can possibly reason out with our minds.

 

[cloudyday2]

For my perspective. I believe in the spirit world. That their are fallen angels, that wish to oppose God, they will use any method they can to throw doubt on God's word and the authority of the bible. They follow us through life, and know everything about us. It is not hard for them to speak into peoples minds. I have had both demons and God speak to me. This has happened many times. But once I was told by a voice that a very famous person would die, about a month latter they died, killed by an animal. Then soon after another voice tried to convince me that the dead person had a message for thier grieving family, asking them "to continue with the work he had started". This was all very surreal, and me being very open to this kind of thing, thought at the time it must all have been God. But looking back I don't know if the voice was God, or a devil. All I say from all of this, is there is more to life than we can possibly reason out with our minds.

Thanks, FutureAndAHope. a couple of years ago I had a dream that seemed to be the name of a person and the name of a building that was both verbalized and pantomimed symbolically. That's basically all the dream was - a person's name and a building's name. I googled and found the name of an apartment building in Chicago and a registered sex offender in Illinois. I wondered if that might be a clue to finding a murder victim's body or something. Then I imagined how difficult it would be to reach the supposed murder investigators and convince them to take it seriously. "Well I had this weird dream..." LOL. I assume it was just a weird dream and the ability of google to find a match for almost any query.

 

[CGL1023]

I've heard many personal anecdotes about dead relatives or friends appearing to the living and sometimes even helping them. Of course a grieving person often hallucinates, but sometimes the details make it harder to explain as a hallucination.

Just curious what the various types of Christians think.

The Christian answer should be to attribute these situations to the works of the Satanic world. A rule I was taught in this regard is that if a supernatural event is not clearly, overtly attributable to God, as revealed in the bible, then it is satanic by default.

 

[football5680]

It is not impossible but I would be very skeptical and most likely reject the testimony of anybody who claims that this has happened to them. If this happened then it could only occur through the power of God and I don't think God would do this for some arbitrary reason. I think whatever message is being conveyed would have to be important and there would have to be a reason why God chose the particular soul of an individual to deliverer it. In the Old Testament, God allowed Samuel to deliver a message to Saul after he had died. The message that was delivered was important and we know why God would choose Samuel to deliver it. Saul was committing a sin by seeking help from a medium which is forbidden so God allowed Samuel to appear and tell Saul he was doomed.