THE HEAVENS—Calling it one of the greatest mysteries in life, the Lord God Almighty, Our Heavenly Father, admitted Wednesday that He often wonders what happens to human beings after they die.
The Creator of Heaven and Earth, who said He has often grappled over the millennia with the uncomfortable reality that humans never come back after they die, told reporters He had “absolutely no idea” what, if anything, people experience once their vital organs permanently cease to function.
“Some say that when people die, that’s the end, but who knows?” said the Supreme Being, adding that no one in the world could say with any degree of certainty whether one’s existence completely ceases with death. “Others say that at the moment they die, people walk toward a bright light and into another world, but the thing is, only the people who die are the ones who know. I just know that it would be awfully sad to think that when they pass on they’re gone forever.”
“I want to believe that human beings continue on in some form after their deaths,” He continued, “but who am I to say, really?”
The God of Abraham said that the varied religious and spiritual beliefs about the afterlife held by His 7.1 billion human creations were “nothing more than speculation,” before noting that He doesn’t think science and philosophy have all the answers, either. He emphasized that He understands intellectually that human beings are physical things that He made from atoms like everything else, but that He couldn’t help but wonder if they each also possessed some unique eternal essence that continued living on after their bodies died.
He Who Commanded Light to Shine Out of Darkness went on to state that accepting death as a natural part of human life did not make it any less frightening for Him to contemplate, remarking that it was “pretty scary” to think that once the people He brought into this world die, He might never see them again.
“Of course it’s comforting to imagine that [Cincinnati resident] Doris [Hughes], [Volgograd, Russia, resident] Mikhail [Pavlychko], and [Derby, U.K., resident] Fran [Grimmell] are smiling down on me from somewhere,” the Divine Creator said. “If I’m being honest with myself, though, I really can’t say where any of those people are now.”
“That’s the troubling thing,” He added. “They’re living and breathing one minute with all their thoughts and desires known to me, and then they’re gone forever the next.”
Concluding that when it came to what He described as “the great, unknowable beyond” His guess was “as good as anyone’s,” the Lord said there was no point in worrying too much about such an inscrutable thing.
“My view—take it or leave it—is that you can talk and argue as much as you want about death, but when it comes down to it, all anyone can do is guess what’s on the other side,” God Almighty said. “In the meantime, humans should enjoy themselves, try to live honestly, be good to one another, and make the most of their time on earth.”
“Because, like it or not, I’ll end all of their lives sooner or later,” He added. “There’s simply no escaping that.”