The most convenient way to be philosophical, or to at least pretend to be philosophical among other people, is to talk about the subject of death. It is a subject of such ordinariness, yet such unfamiliarity. Everybody is, minimally, witness to several deaths. Even a two year old child in his mother’s arms and chest would see how maple leaves withered outside the glass window by the chill wind of late autumn. Meanwhile, no one among us that is alive has acquaintance with death himself. It is a thing so foreign to us, yet so common in daily conversations and thoughts.
On a topic that is of this breadth and depth, it is not in my ability to give whole-rounded scrutiny, nor my desire to make universal claims about the truth of the definitive meaning of this term, but rather, as it is a word of both wide use and relatively less examination, I want to distinguish three different senses and usages of the word “death” by Christian fellows and secular fellows. By careful thought, it is to be aimed, as Christians, toward understanding more clearly the term “death,” and to know more deeply our Gospel and the callings our Lord sends us.
The first usage of “death” is understood as a realm that is in opposition to the realm of “life.” Death in this sense is not simply the state of lifelessness, but an extension starting from the point of life, through the neutral point that resembles a geometrical ray, and where it progresses in the realm of death.
To say the thing is “lifeless” is divergent from saying the thing is “dead.” To say that a doll is lifeless is not the same as saying a doll is dead, as “lifeless” only aims to describe the doll’s situation of lacking life, but not implying in the smallest degree that there are “breaths of death” coming out from the doll. In fact, this usage of “death,” where it is in the opposite region compared to life, has the neutral point where one can be considered both “lifeless” and “deathless.”
As life is a realm of liveliness, and death is the realm of death, it is well to cognize a “borderline” between the two realms which are neutral. “Death” is the abyss living beings can never gaze through from the cliff of life. Living people can only start from the pole of life, passing through the neutral point of both “lifeless” and “deathless,” and enter into the dark and imaginary land of death. Christians often describe the land of death as hell without the company and blessing of God, where people are burned in despair in their sin and lust; as life is nothing other than God’s blessing and accompaniment in heaven.
“No matter how grieved we are, nevertheless Lestek is dead!”
The second sense, common among secular people, uses the term “death” in opposition to “existence.” Death is the denial, but also the very fulfillment of existence. Death, in this usage, is the state of nonexistence and therefore is the most vehement rejection of one’s existence. When Werther sought suicide, which is to chase his own death, he was not enthusiastic about entering the realm of death in reason of tired of livingness, but to pursue the end by the despise of his own existence.
But in this depiction, death is also the fulfillment of existence. Death, the sheer denial of existence, is also what grants one’s existence value of livelihood. Life will be of no avail without death. Only because of death can existence emerge in comparison.
“I never felt this existing and alive before I witnessed Siemomysł’s death.”
The third way, which is used by Christians and others who believe in life after this stage of living, describes the end of this stage of life, and the entrance of the next life. Different from the first usage that expresses death as a realm in opposition to life, orthodox Christians believe that after the life of this world, through the salvation of the perfect lamb, Jesus, sinners who follow Jesus will be stepping into the next stage of life, of sanctification, blessings, and glories, that is only more lively than the first stage of life.
Also different from the second usage, the secular use of “death” as the opposite of existence, Christians using this idea of death as hope for a better existence rather than any reduction of the degree of existence. Paul wrote, “for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:15).
In one sense, death of this context is almost desirable for Christians, as it resembles retirement, that God found his vessel accomplishing all His plan, permitting his son to retire from this sinful world and rest in the real Sabbath with Him in eternity. He who is allowed to sleep until the day can evade all the sinning, the suffering, and the weakening that one will encounter if he is in the sinful world.
“Doubravka, I sincerely wish my Lord would have allowed me to die yesterday, but it seems like He still has plans for me, and therefore I need to preserve my sword and helmet, until the day I am prepared for my death.”
Our Gospel and salvation have death as an integral part in order to be understood by us, while it is inaccessible to possess a clear and profound understanding of death without knowing the different senses and usages of this word under divergent contexts and people, especially when we are in such a world of complexities and confusions. It is utterly out of my ability to make any description to provide valuable knowledge about death, but if this trivial attempt of examining different usage of the word “death” can be conducive for readers’ own contemplation of our Lord’s Gospel and love, then I would be satisfied that I had accomplished what God might expect me to do in this writing.