Thus, many of the supposed “contradictions” in Orthodox literature concerning the other world exist in the minds of those who try to read this literature in an overly literal manner — for adults who artificially try to understand it in a childish way.
Some other “contradictions,” on the other hand, are not really contradictions at all. That some saints and others whose accounts are accepted in the Church speak of their “after-death” experience and others do not is no more a “contradiction” than the fact that some saints oppose having their relics moved, while others bless such a move: this is a matter of individual need and circumstances. The critic cites the example of St. Athanasius the Resurrected of the Kiev Caves, who would say nothing of what he experienced after death, and uses this to make the categorical assertion: “Nor have such people ever told us anything of what took place” (7:1, p. 31; emphasis his). But the Soldier Taxiotes (Lives of Saints, March 28), St. Salvius of Albi, and many others did speak of their experience, and it is surely a most unscholarly and “selective” use of sources to deny their testimony. Some, like St. Salvius, at first were very hesitant to speak of this experience, but nevertheless they did speak of it; and this fact, far from proving that there is no such thing as experiences after death, only indicate how rich this experience is and how difficult it is to communicate it to the living.
Again, the fact that many Fathers (and the Church in general) warn against the acceptance of demonic visions (and sometimes, due to particular circumstances, they do this in very categorical terms) does not in the least “contradict” the fact that many true visions are accepted in the Church.
Often the critic in his attacks falsely applies a general Patristic statement, divorced from its context, to a particular situation which it does not fit. When St. John Chrysostom, for example, in Homily 28:3 on St. Matthew, states “nor is it possible for a soul, torn away from the body, to wander here any more,” he is speaking specifically against the pagan idea that dead souls can become demons and remain indefinitely on earth; but this general truth in no way contradicts or even touches on the specific fact that, as numerous Orthodox testimonies show, many souls do indeed stay near earth for a few hours or days after death before departing to the truly “other” world. In this same passage St. Chrysostom adds that “after their departure hence our souls are led away into some place, having no more power of themselves to come back again” — and this likewise does not contradict the fact that, at God’s command and for His purposes, some souls do indeed appear to the living (see the article of Photios Kontoglou above in Appendix II).
Again the fact that Christ cleared the air of the malignity of demons, as St. Athanasius the Great teaches, does not in any way deny the existence of the demonic toll-houses in the air, as the critic implies (6:8-9, p. 13); indeed, the critic himself in another place quotes the Orthodox teaching that the evil spirits which are still in the air cause many temptations and fantasies (6:6-7, p. 33). The Church’s teaching is that whereas before our redemption by Christ, no one could pass through the air to heaven, the path being closed by demons, and all men went down to hell, now it has become possible for men to pass through the demons of the air, and their power now is restricted to men whose own sins convict them. In the same way, we know that even though Christ “destroyed the power of hell” (Kontakion of Pascha), any one of us can still fall into hell by rejecting salvation in Christ.
Still again, the fact that our spiritual battle against “principalities and powers” takes place in this life by no means contradicts the fact that this battle occurs also as we leave this life. The section in Chapter Six above entitled “The Toll-Houses Experienced before Death” explains the connection between these two aspects of the Orthodox unseen warfare.
That the third, ninth, and fortieth-day memorials for the dead are sometimes explained by the symbolism of the Trinity, the nine ranks of angels, and the Ascension of Christ, in no way denies the fact that these days are somehow bound up also with what is happening to the soul on those days (according to the “model” described above in Chapter Ten). Neither explanation is a dogma, neither “contradicts” the other; there is no need for an Orthodox Christian to deny either of them.
The undeniable fact that our fate after death depends on what we do in this life is not at all contradicted by the equally undeniable fact that prayer for the dead can alleviate their lot and even change their state, in accordance with the Orthodox teaching set forth by St. Mark of Ephesus and by the Orthodox Church in general (see above, Chapter Ten and Appendix I). The critic is so intent on finding “contradictions” in this teaching that he finds them even in one and the same Orthodox teacher, stating that St. John of Kronstadt sometimes teaches the “Patristic understanding” and sometimes the “Scholastic concept” (7:3, p. 28). St. Mark of Ephesus is also guilty of the same “contradiction”; for, while making statements on prayer for the dead which the critic thinks are “Patristic,” he also teaches clearly that “the souls of the departed are delivered by prayer from confinement in hell as if from a certain prison” (see above, p. 202), which the critic regards as a “Scholastic concept,” since he regards it as impossible that prayers for the dead can change their condition or obtain repose for them (7:3, p. 23).
The answer to all these and many other supposed “contradictions” which the critic thinks he has found in the Orthodox teaching on life after death is to be found in a fairer and less simple-minded reading of the Orthodox texts themselves. The Patristic and hagiographical texts do not “contradict” themselves; if we will read the Orthodox literature on life after death more deeply and thoroughly, we will find that it is not the texts that are a problem, but our own imperfect understanding of them.
2. Is there such a thing as an “out-of-body” experience (whether before or after death), or an “other world” which souls inhabit?
The critic’s opinion about “out-of-body” experiences is categoricaclass="underline" “These things are simply not possible” (5:6, p. 25). He gives no evidence for this assertion, but only his own opinion that all the many Orthodox texts that discuss such things are “allegories” or “moral fables” (5:6, p. 26). Heaven, paradise, and hell are not “places,” according to him, but only “states” (6:2, p. 23); “the soul cannot function on its own, but only by means of the body” (6:8-9, p. 22), and therefore not only can be in no “place” after death, but cannot even function at all (6:8-9, p. 19); “to suppose that this complex realm is yonder beyond one’s repose is sheer madness” (6:6-7, p. 34).
But is it really possible that the soul in itself is nothing but “inwardness” and “repose” and has no “outward” aspect whatever, no “place” where it functions? This is surely a radical teaching for Orthodox Christianity, and, if true, would certainly require (as the critic already suggests) a radical reinterpretation and indeed revision of the Patristic and hagiographical texts which describe the soul’s activities in precisely the “outward” form — as knowing, seeing, communicating, etc.