I enjoy my podcasts and I listen to a lot of them. I try to keep several on the rotation that are outside my normal interest and allow me input to keep thinking. One of these is RadioLab. It is, often, a science-based podcast and has a worldview I don’t share. Two reasons to listen.
In the most recent episode, the producer decided to investigate whether she could outrun death. Her tactics were many: avoid dangerous situations, protect yourself from bad inputs (food, sun, etc) and all the things we tend to fixate on to give us a few more years. Toward the end of the episode it became obvious that death cannot be outrun and thus she was forced to ask the more philosophical question: “why do we have to die?”
And because science and the measurement of the observable can only show you what happens in the observable plane and not why, her ability to answer was limited and she started to interview a bunch of people. And one of the final answers was “Life is death”.
Which in one way is completely understandable. The progression of life as we know it ends in termination: death. But to shorthand it to “life is death” is completely ludacris. Akin to saying 0 is 1. In our observable experience it seems like 1 is subtracted from 1 every time and we get 0 but 0 is not 1. The existence of death is an intrusion on life.
And if we assume a materialist or solely physical box of all that is, we are limited to these poor answers. Life is death because that is what we observe. But that answer is so unsatisfying. Dissatisfying in fact. Because the question is clearly important for us humans, us homo sapiens. It is a question we ask “why do we die?” It is an end we fear. It is something we hate and in our very bones feel is wrong and misaligned with the joy we find in much of life.
The presence of this question demands an inquiry that goes beyond what science can provide. The very fact that we think it worthwhile to record a podcast and ponder the question shows us that something else is going on. The other creatures don’t do this. Your dog doesn’t ponder death and definitely doesn’t produce a show considering the answer. And yet we do.
We are drawn to these types of questions as though life unending is pressed into our souls (another thing that cannot be observed but we all know exists, or spend a lot of time convincing ourselves it doesn’t).
If we limit ourselves to the imminent plane we will limit our ability to answer the questions we have been asking ourselves since the dawn of man. Why is their death? Why are we here? What is after death? Why does the sunrise and the symphony stir my soul? Why do we long to be loved? Why are we willing to give ourselves to others for no gain?
The tools of the imminent plane (science and its method) cannot answer these questions because those questions are outside that plane.
And my soul stirs with the same questions but I have answers because God revealed them. That our souls were imbued with eternity written on our hearts. That we were designed to live forever but we broke the world and invited death in. That we have been stuck in this condition for so long we assume it is only natural and fitting even though our souls are torn with every funeral we attend.
I know that God sent rescue in the person of Jesus. That Jesus stared death in the face in order to give us an answer to our questions. He died and followed the path toward life’s termination, like we all do. But he was raised again. In order to put death in its place on the side lines. He was raised with a new body that will never die, as all were before we invited death in, and his plan is to give us new bodies and to live with us in a new creation. Where the observable world is no longer twisted and broken by death and decay. (And how fun will it be to practice science in that world?)
And the answer to our question “why do we have to die?” is answered in the recitation of our breaking the world but in knowing that story we have an even better hope. Not just a reason why but an answer about what will be. We broke the world but Jesus is putting it back together. And that longing, for life continuous with bodies that no longer die, is exactly the thing he brought about. And while we wait for the rescue we can have answers to our questions now. And that is such a better way to face death.