In this issue we continue the study of the book Posthumous Works, published after Allan Kardec disembodied and containing texts written by him. The present work is based on the translation made by Dr. Guillon Ribeiro, published by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation.
Questions for discussion
112. The opinions regarding the future of man after death are resumed into five main alternatives. What are they?
113. What is the Materialist doctrine and what are its consequences?
114. What is Pantheism?
115. What does the Deist doctrine teach?
116. What does Dogmatism teach, i.e., the Dogmatic doctrines?
Answers to the proposed questions
112. The opinions regarding the future of man after death are resumed into five main alternatives. What are they?
The five alternatives are the ones that result from the following Doctrines: Materialism, Pantheism, Deism, Dogmatism, and Spiritism. (Posthumous Works – Humankind’s five alternatives).
113. What is the materialist doctrine and what are its consequences?
According to Materialism, man’s intelligence is a property of matter; it is born and dies with the body. Man is nothing, neither before nor after his physical life.
The consequences of such ideas are: If man is only matter, then only the material pleasures are real; moral affections have no future; at the moment of death, moral ties are broken with no return; the miseries of life have no compensation; suicide is a rational and logical end of life when there is no hope of getting better; it is useless to restrain oneself to overcome bad tendencies; it is logical and natural that one lives and enjoys the best of life while you are here; it is stupid to bother and sacrifice your rest, your well-being, for others, that is, for beings that will also die, when their time comes, and will never ever be seen again; social duties have no basis, good and evil are conventional things; the social brake is reduced to the material power of civil law. (Posthumous Works – Humankind’s five alternatives).
114. What is Pantheism?
According to the Pantheistic doctrine, the intelligent principle or soul, independent of matter, at birth is drawn from the universal in its whole; it is individualized in every being throughout life and with death it returns to the common mass, like raindrops in the ocean.
These are the consequences of these ideas: With no individuality, and without self-consciousness, the being is as if it did not exist and the moral consequences of this doctrine are exactly the same as those of the materialist doctrine.
Let us note that a certain number of pantheists admit that the soul, drawn at birth from the universal in its whole, retains its individuality for an indefinite time, and that it does not return to earth until it has reached the last degree of perfection. But the consequences of this belief are absolutely the same as those of the pantheistic doctrine itself, because it is perfectly useless to bother to acquire some knowledge if it is going to lose consciousness of it when it dies after a short period. (Posthumous Works - Humankind's five alternatives).
115. What does the deist doctrine teach?
Deism comprises two distinct categories of believers: the independent deists and the providential deists.
The independent deists believe in God; they agree with all His attributes as the Creator. God, they say, established the general laws that govern the Universe, but these laws, once created, operate by themselves and their Author does not further interfere in anything else. The creatures do what they want or what they can, with no concern whatsoever about this. There is no Providence; and God, not occupying Himself with us, we have nothing to thank Him or to ask Him.
This belief is the result of pride; it is always the thought of being subjected to a higher power that offends man’s self-esteem and, therefore, he seeks to free himself of this. While some absolutely refuse this power, others consent to recognize its existence, but condemn it to nullity.
The providential deists believe not only in the existence and creative power of God in the origin of things; they also believe in His continuous intervention in Creation and plea to God, but they do not admit external worship and the current dogmatism. (Posthumous Works - Humankind's five alternatives).
116. What does Dogmatism teach, i.e., the Dogmatic doctrines?
According to these doctrines, the soul, independent of matter, is created at the birth of every being; it survives and retains its individuality after death; its fate is, from that moment onwards, irrevocably fixed; its subsequent progress is null; therefore, it will be for all eternity, intellectually and morally, what it was during its life.
Since the evil are condemned to eternal and irredeemable punishment in Hell, in their point of view, repentance is useless. God thus seems to refuse them the opportunity to repair the harm they have done.
The good are rewarded by the vision of God and the perpetual contemplation in Heaven. The cases that may deserve, through eternity, Heaven or Hell, are left to the decision and judgment of fallible men, who have the power to absolve or condemn.
These doctrines also teach the definitive and absolute separation of the damned and the elected ones; the uselessness of moral aid and consolation for those convicted; the creation of angels or privileged souls free from all work to reach perfection.
In the face of such ideas, the following serious problems remain unsolved:
1st. Where do the innate, intellectual, and moral provisions, which make men born good or bad, smart or dumb, come from?
2nd. What is the destiny of those children, who die at an early age? Why do they enter the “happy life” without having to work like the others do for many years? Why are they rewarded without being able to be good, or be deprived of happiness without having done wrong?
3rd. What is the fate of cretins and idiots, who are unaware of their actions?
4th. Where is the justice of misery and disease at birth, since they are not the result of any act performed in this life?
5th. What is the fate of the wild and all those, who are bound to die in a state of moral inferiority, where they are place by Nature itself, if they do not have the opportunity to further progress?
6th. Why did God create souls, who are more favored than the others?
7th. Why does He prematurely call those, who could improve themselves if they had lived for a longer time, considering that after they die they are not allowed to improve themselves any longer?
8th. Why did God create angels, who reached perfection without working, while other creatures are subject to the harshest tests, in which they are more likely to give up than succeed? (Posthumous Works - Humankind's five alternatives).
