title: Mind–body dualism

text: In the scholastic tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a number of whose doctrines have been incorporated into Roman Catholic dogma, the soul is the substantial form of a human being. Aquinas held the "Quaestiones disputate de anima", or 'Disputed questions on the soul', at the Roman "studium provinciale" of the Dominican Order at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum" during the academic year 1265–1266. By 1268 Aquinas had written at least the first book of the "Sententia Libri De anima", Aquinas' commentary on Aristotle's "De anima", the translation of which from the Greek was completed by Aquinas' Dominican associate at Viterbo William of Moerbeke in 1267. Like Aristotle, Aquinas held that the human being was a unified composite substance of two substantial principles: form and matter. The soul is the substantial form and so the first actuality of a material organic body with the potentiality for life.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: While Aquinas defended the unity of human nature as a composite substance constituted by these two inextricable principles of form and matter, he also argued for the incorruptibility of the intellectual soul, in contrast to the corruptibility of the vegetative and sensitive animation of plants and animals. His argument for the subsistence and incorruptibility of the intellectual soul takes its point of departure from the metaphysical principle that operation follows upon being ("agiture sequitur esse"), i.e., the activity of a thing reveals the mode of being and existence it depends upon. Since the intellectual soul exercises its own "per se" intellectual operations without employing material faculties, i.e. intellectual operations are immaterial, the intellect itself and the intellectual soul, must likewise be immaterial and so incorruptible. Even though the intellectual soul of man is able to subsist upon the death of the human being, Aquinas does not hold that the human person is able to remain integrated at death. The separated intellectual soul is neither a man nor a human person. The intellectual soul "by itself" is "not" a human person (i.e., an individual "supposit" of a rational nature). Hence, Aquinas held that "soul of St. Peter pray for us" would be more appropriate than "St. Peter pray for us", because all things connected with his person, including memories, ended with his corporeal life.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The Catholic doctrine of the resurrection of the body does not subscribe that, sees body and soul as forming a whole and states that at the second coming, the souls of the departed will be reunited with their bodies as a whole person (substance) and witness to the apocalypse. The thorough consistency between dogma and contemporary science was maintained here in part from a serious attendance to the principle that there can be only one truth. Consistency with science, logic, philosophy, and faith remained a high priority for centuries, and a university doctorate in theology generally included the entire science curriculum as a prerequisite. This doctrine is not universally accepted by Christians today. Many believe that one's immortal soul goes directly to Heaven upon death of the body.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: In his "Meditations on First Philosophy", René Descartes embarked upon a quest in which he called all his previous beliefs into doubt, in order to find out what he could be certain of. In so doing, he discovered that he could doubt whether he had a body (it could be that he was dreaming of it or that it was an illusion created by an evil demon), but he could not doubt whether he had a mind. This gave Descartes his first inkling that the mind and body were different things. The mind, according to Descartes, was a "thinking thing" (), and an immaterial substance. This "thing" was the essence of himself, that which doubts, believes, hopes, and thinks. The body, "the thing that exists" (), regulates normal bodily functions (such as heart and liver). According to Descartes, animals only had a body and not a soul (which distinguishes humans from animals). The distinction between mind and body is argued in "Meditation" VI as follows: I have a clear and distinct idea of myself as a thinking, non-extended thing, and a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended and non-thinking thing. Whatever I can conceive clearly and distinctly, God can so create.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The central claim of what is often called "Cartesian dualism", in honor of Descartes, is that the immaterial mind and the material body, while being ontologically distinct substances, causally interact. This is an idea that continues to feature prominently in many non-European philosophies. Mental events cause physical events, and vice versa. But this leads to a substantial problem for Cartesian dualism: How can an immaterial mind cause anything in a material body, and vice versa? This has often been called the "problem of interactionism."


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Descartes himself struggled to come up with a feasible answer to this problem. In his letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine, he suggested that spirits interacted with the body through the pineal gland, a small gland in the centre of the brain, between the two hemispheres. The term "Cartesian dualism" is also often associated with this more specific notion of causal interaction through the pineal gland. However, this explanation was not satisfactory: "how" can an immaterial mind interact with the physical pineal gland? Because Descartes' was such a difficult theory to defend, some of his disciples, such as Arnold Geulincx and Nicolas Malebranche, proposed a different explanation: That all mind–body interactions required the direct intervention of God. According to these philosophers, the appropriate states of mind and body were only the "occasions" for such intervention, not real causes. These occasionalists maintained the strong thesis that all causation was directly dependent on God, instead of holding that all causation was natural except for that between mind and body.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: In addition to already discussed theories of dualism (particularly the Christian and Cartesian models) there are new theories in the defense of dualism. Naturalistic dualism comes from Australian philosopher, David Chalmers (born 1966) who argues there is an explanatory gap between objective and subjective experience that cannot be bridged by reductionism because consciousness is, at least, logically autonomous of the physical properties upon which it supervenes. According to Chalmers, a naturalistic account of property dualism requires a new fundamental category of properties described by new laws of supervenience; the challenge being analogous to that of understanding electricity based on the mechanistic and Newtonian models of materialism prior to Maxwell's equations.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: A similar defense comes from Australian philosopher Frank Jackson (born 1943) who revived the theory of epiphenomenalism which argues that mental states do not play a role in physical states. Jackson argues that there are two kinds of dualism:


title: Mind–body dualism

text: He claims that functions of the mind/soul are internal, very private experiences that are not accessible to observation by others, and therefore not accessible by science (at least not yet). We can know everything, for example, about a bat's facility for echolocation, but we will never know how the bat experiences that phenomenon.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: An important fact is that minds perceive intra-mental states differently from sensory phenomena, and this cognitive difference results in mental and physical phenomena having seemingly disparate properties. The subjective argument holds that these properties are irreconcilable under a physical mind.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Mental events have a certain "subjective" quality to them, whereas physical ones seem not to. So, for example, one may ask what a burned finger feels like, or what the blueness of the sky looks like, or what nice music sounds like. Philosophers of mind call the subjective aspects of mental events "qualia." There is something "that it's like" to feel pain, to see a familiar shade of blue, and so on. There are "qualia" involved in these mental events. And the claim is that qualia cannot be reduced to anything physical.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Thomas Nagel first characterized the problem of qualia for physicalistic monism in his article, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?". Nagel argued that even if we knew everything there was to know from a third-person, scientific perspective about a bat's sonar system, we still wouldn't know what it is like to "be" a bat. However, others argue that "qualia" are consequent of the same neurological processes that engender the bat's mind, and will be fully understood as the science develops.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Frank Jackson formulated his well-known "knowledge argument" based upon similar considerations. In this thought experiment, known as Mary's room, he asks us to consider a neuroscientist, Mary, who was born, and has lived all of her life, in a black and white room with a black and white television and computer monitor where she collects all the scientific data she possibly can on the nature of colours. Jackson asserts that as soon as Mary leaves the room, she will come to have new knowledge which she did not possess before: the knowledge of the experience of colours (i.e., what they are like). Although Mary knows everything there is to know about colours from an objective, third-person perspective, she has never known, according to Jackson, what it was like to see red, orange, or green. If Mary really learns something new, it must be knowledge of something non-physical, since she already knew everything about the physical aspects of colour.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: However, Jackson later rejected his argument and embraced physicalism. He notes that Mary obtains knowledge not of color, but of a new intramental state, "seeing color". Also, he notes that Mary might say "wow," and as a mental state affecting the physical, this clashed with his former view of epiphenomenalism. David Lewis' response to this argument, now known as the "ability" argument, is that what Mary really came to know was simply the ability to recognize and identify color sensations to which she had previously not been exposed. Daniel Dennett and others also provide arguments against this notion.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The zombie argument is based on a thought experiment proposed by David Chalmers over the issue of qualia or the hard problem of consciousness. The basic idea is that one can imagine, and, therefore, conceive the existence of, an apparently functioning human being/body without any conscious states being associated with it.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Chalmers' argument is that it seems plausible that such a being could exist because all that is needed is that all and only the things that the physical sciences describe and observe about a human being must be true of the zombie. None of the concepts involved in these sciences make reference to consciousness or other mental phenomena, and any physical entity can be described scientifically via physics whether it is conscious or not. The mere logical possibility of a p-zombie demonstrates that consciousness is a natural phenomenon beyond the current unsatisfactory explanations. Chalmers states that one probably could not build a living p-zombie because living things seem to require a level of consciousness. However (unconscious?) robots built to simulate humans may become the first real p-zombies. Hence Chalmers half-joking calls for the need to build a "consciousness meter" to ascertain if any given entity, human or robot, is conscious or not.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Others such as Dennett have argued that the notion of a philosophical zombie is an incoherent, or unlikely, concept. In particular, nothing proves that an entity (e.g., a computer or robot) which would perfectly mimic human beings, and especially perfectly mimic expressions of feelings (like joy, fear, anger, ...), would not indeed experience them, thus having similar states of consciousness to what a real human would have. It is argued that under physicalism, one must either believe that anyone including oneself might be a zombie, or that no one can be a zombie—following from the assertion that one's own conviction about being (or not being) a zombie is a product of the physical world and is therefore no different from anyone else's.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Howard Robinson argues that, if predicate dualism is correct, then there are "special sciences" that are irreducible to physics. These allegedly irreducible subjects, which contain irreducible predicates, differ from hard sciences in that they are interest-relative. Here, interest-relative fields depend on the existence of minds that can have interested perspectives. Psychology is one such science; it completely depends on and presupposes the existence of the mind.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Physics is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves. On the other hand, the study of meteorological weather patterns or human behavior is only of interest to humans themselves. The point is that having a perspective on the world is a psychological state. Therefore, the special sciences presuppose the existence of minds which can have these states. If one is to avoid ontological dualism, then the mind that "has" a perspective must be part of the physical reality to which it "applies" its perspective. If this is the case, then in order to perceive the physical world as psychological, the mind must have a perspective on the physical. This, in turn, presupposes the existence of mind.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: However, cognitive science and psychology do not require the mind to be irreducible, and operate on the assumption that it has physical basis. In fact, it is common in science to presuppose a complex system; while fields such as chemistry, biology, or geology could be verbosely expressed in terms of quantum field theory, it is convenient to use levels of abstraction like molecules, cells, or the mantle. It is often difficult to decompose these levels without heavy analysis and computation. Sober has also advanced philosophical arguments against the notion of irreducibility.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: This argument concerns the differences between the applicability of counterfactual conditionals to physical objects, on the one hand, and to conscious, personal agents on the other. In the case of any material object, e.g. a printer, we can formulate a series of counterfactuals in the following manner:


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Somewhere along the way from the printer's being made up exactly of the parts and materials which actually constitute it to the printer's being made up of some different matter at, say, 20%, the question of whether this printer is the same printer becomes a matter of arbitrary convention.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Imagine the case of a person, Frederick, who has a counterpart born from the same egg and a slightly genetically modified sperm. Imagine a series of counterfactual cases corresponding to the examples applied to the printer. Somewhere along the way, one is no longer sure about the identity of Frederick. In this latter case, it has been claimed, "overlap of constitution" cannot be applied to the identity of mind. As Madell puts it:


title: Mind–body dualism

text: If the counterpart of Frederick, Frederickus, is 70% constituted of the same physical substance as Frederick, does this mean that it is also 70% mentally identical with Frederick? Does it make sense to say that something is mentally 70% Frederick? A possible solution to this dilemma is that of open individualism.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Richard Swinburne, in his book "The Existence of God", put forward an argument for mind-body dualism based upon personal identity. He states that the brain is composed of two hemispheres and a cord linking the two and that, as modern science has shown, either of these can be removed without the person losing any memories or mental capacities.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: He then cites a thought-experiment for the reader, asking what would happen if each of the two hemispheres of one person were placed inside two different people. Either, Swinburne claims, one of the two is me or neither is—and there is no way of telling which, as each will have similar memories and mental capacities to the other. In fact, Swinburne claims, even if one's mental capacities and memories are far more similar to the original person than the others' are, they still may not be him.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: From here, he deduces that even if we know what has happened to every single atom inside a person's brain, we still do not know what has happened to 'them' as an identity. From here it follows that a part of our mind, or our soul, is immaterial, and, as a consequence, that mind-body dualism is true.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Philosophers and scientists such as Victor Reppert, William Hasker, and Alvin Plantinga have developed an argument for dualism dubbed the "argument from reason". They credit C.S. Lewis with first bringing the argument to light in his book "Miracles"; Lewis called the argument "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism", which was the title of chapter three of "Miracles".


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The argument postulates that if, as naturalism entails, all of our thoughts are the effect of a physical cause, then we have no reason for assuming that they are also the consequent of a reasonable ground. However, knowledge is apprehended by reasoning from ground to consequent. Therefore, if naturalism were true, there would be no way of knowing it (or anything else), except by a fluke.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Through this logic, the statement "I have reason to believe naturalism is valid" is inconsistent in the same manner as "I never tell the truth." That is, to conclude its truth would eliminate the grounds from which to reach it. To summarize the argument in the book, Lewis quotes J. B. S. Haldane, who appeals to a similar line of reasoning:


title: Mind–body dualism

text: In his essay "Is Theology Poetry?", Lewis himself summarises the argument in a similar fashion when he writes:


title: Mind–body dualism

text: But Lewis later agreed with Elizabeth Anscombe's response to his "Miracles" argument. She showed that an argument could be valid and ground-consequent even if its propositions were generated via physical cause and effect by non-rational factors. Similar to Anscombe, Richard Carrier and John Beversluis have written extensive objections to the argument from reason on the untenability of its first postulate.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Descartes puts forward two main arguments for dualism in "Meditations": firstly, the "modal argument," or the "clear and distinct perception argument," and secondly the "indivisibility" or "divisibility" argument.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The argument is distinguished from the zombie argument as it establishes that the mind could continue to exist without the body, rather than that the unaltered body could exist without the mind. Alvin Plantinga, J. P. Moreland, and Edward Feser have both supported the argument, although Feser and Moreland think that it must be carefully reformulated in order to be effective.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The "indivisibility argument" for dualism was phrased by Descartes as follows:[T]here is a great difference between a mind and a body, because the body, by its very nature, is something divisible, whereas the mind is plainly indivisible…insofar as I am only a thing that thinks, I cannot distinguish any parts in me.… Although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, nevertheless, were a foot or an arm or any other bodily part amputated, I know that nothing would be taken away from the mind…The argument relies upon Leibniz' principle of the identity of indiscernibles, which states that two things are the same if and only if they share all their properties. A counterargument is the idea that matter is not infinitely divisible, and thus that the mind could be identified with material things that cannot be divided, or potentially Leibnizian monads.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: One argument against dualism is with regard to causal interaction. If consciousness ("the mind") can exist independently of physical reality ("the brain"), one must explain how physical memories are created concerning consciousness. Dualism must therefore explain how consciousness affects physical reality. One of the main objections to dualistic interactionism is lack of explanation of how the material and immaterial are able to interact. Varieties of dualism according to which an immaterial mind causally affects the material body and vice versa have come under strenuous attack from different quarters, especially in the 20th century. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material—this is the basic problem of causal interaction.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: First, it is not clear "where" the interaction would take place. For example, burning one's finger causes pain. Apparently there is some chain of events, leading from the burning of skin, to the stimulation of nerve endings, to something happening in the peripheral nerves of one's body that lead to one's brain, to something happening in a particular part of one's brain, and finally resulting in the sensation of pain. But pain is not supposed to be spatially locatable. It might be responded that the pain "takes place in the brain." But evidently, the pain is in the finger. This may not be a devastating criticism.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: However, there is a second problem about the interaction. Namely, the question of "how" the interaction takes place, where in dualism "the mind" is assumed to be non-physical and by definition outside of the realm of science. The "mechanism" which explains the connection between the mental and the physical would therefore be a philosophical proposition as compared to a scientific theory. For example, compare such a mechanism to a physical mechanism that "is" well understood. Take a very simple causal relation, such as when a cue ball strikes an eight ball and causes it to go into the pocket. What happens in this case is that the cue ball has a certain amount of momentum as its mass moves across the pool table with a certain velocity, and then that momentum is transferred to the eight ball, which then heads toward the pocket. Compare this to the situation in the brain, where one wants to say that a decision causes some neurons to fire and thus causes a body to move across the room. The intention to "cross the room now" is a mental event and, as such, it does not have physical properties such as force. If it has no force, then it would seem that it could not possibly cause any neuron to fire. However, with Dualism, an explanation is required of how something without any physical properties has physical "effects".


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Alfred North Whitehead and, later, David Ray Griffin framed a new ontology ("process philosophy") seeking precisely to avoid the pitfalls of ontological dualism.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The explanation provided by Arnold Geulincx and Nicolas Malebranche is that of occasionalism, where all mind–body interactions require the direct intervention of God.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: At the time C. S. Lewis wrote "Miracles", quantum mechanics (and physical indeterminism) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, but still Lewis stated the logical possibility that, if the physical world was proved to be indeterministic, this would provide an entry (interaction) point into the traditionally viewed closed system, where a scientifically described physically probable/improbable event could be philosophically described as an action of a non-physical entity on physical reality. He states, however, that none of the arguments in his book will rely on this. Although some interpretations of quantum mechanics consider wave function collapse to be indeterminate, in others this event is defined as deterministic.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The argument from physics is closely related to the argument from causal interaction. Many physicists and consciousness researchers have argued that any action of a nonphysical mind on the brain would entail the violation of physical laws, such as the conservation of energy.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: By assuming a deterministic physical universe, the objection can be formulated more precisely. When a person decides to walk across a room, it is generally understood that the decision to do so, a mental event, immediately causes a group of neurons in that person's brain to fire, a physical event, which ultimately results in his walking across the room. The problem is that if there is something totally non-physical "causing" a bunch of neurons to fire, then there is no "physical" event which causes the firing. This means that some physical energy is required to be generated against the physical laws of the deterministic universe—this is by definition a miracle and there can be no scientific explanation of (repeatable experiment performed regarding) where the "physical" energy for the firing came from. Such interactions would violate the fundamental laws of physics. In particular, if some external source of energy is responsible for the interactions, then this would violate the law of the conservation of energy. Dualistic interactionism has therefore been criticized for violating a general heuristic principle of science: the causal closure of the physical world.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" and the "New Catholic Encyclopedia" provide two possible replies to the above objections. The first reply is that the mind may influence the "distribution" of energy, without altering its quantity. The second possibility is to deny that the human body is causally closed, as the conservation of energy applies only to closed systems. However, physicalists object that no evidence exists for the causal non-closure of the human body. Robin Collins responds that energy conservation objections misunderstand the role of energy conservation in physics. Well understood scenarios in general relativity violate energy conservation and quantum mechanics provides precedent for causal interactions, or correlation without energy or momentum exchange. However, this does not mean the mind spends energy and, despite that, it still doesn't exclude the supernatural.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Another reply is akin to parallelism—Mills holds that behavioral events are causally overdetermined, and can be explained by either physical or mental causes alone. An overdetermined event is fully accounted for by multiple causes at once. However, J. J. C. Smart and Paul Churchland have pointed out that if physical phenomena fully determine behavioral events, then by Occam's razor an unphysical mind is unnecessary.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Robinson suggests that the interaction may involve dark energy, dark matter or some other currently unknown scientific process. However, such processes would necessarily be physical, and in this case dualism is replaced with physicalism, or the interaction point is left for study at a later time when these physical processes are understood.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Another reply is that the interaction taking place in the human body may not be described by "billiard ball" classical mechanics. If a nondeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct then microscopic events are indeterminate, where the degree of determinism increases with the scale of the system. Philosophers Karl Popper and John Eccles and physicist Henry Stapp have theorized that such indeterminacy may apply at the macroscopic scale. However, Max Tegmark has argued that classical and quantum calculations show that quantum decoherence effects do not play a role in brain activity. Indeed, macroscopic quantum states have only ever been observed in superconductors near absolute zero.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Yet another reply to the interaction problem is to note that it doesn't seem that there is an interaction problem for all forms of substance dualism. For instance, Thomistic dualism doesn't obviously face any issue with regards to interaction.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: This argument has been formulated by Paul Churchland, among others. The point is that, in instances of some sort of brain damage (e.g. caused by automobile accidents, drug abuse, pathological diseases, etc.), it is always the case that the mental substance and/or properties of the person are significantly changed or compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Indeed, it is very frequently the case that one can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that human beings will undergo when specific parts of their brains are damaged. So the question for the dualist to try to confront is how can all of this be explained if the mind is a separate and immaterial substance from, or if its properties are ontologically independent of, the brain.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Property dualism and William Hasker's "emergent dualism" seek to avoid this problem. They assert that the mind is a property or substance that emerges from the appropriate arrangement of physical matter, and therefore could be affected by any rearrangement of matter.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Phineas Gage, who suffered destruction of one or both frontal lobes by a projectile iron rod, is often cited as an example illustrating that the brain causes mind. Gage certainly exhibited some mental changes after his accident. This physical event, the destruction of part of his brain, therefore caused some kind of change in his mind, suggesting a correlation between brain states and mental states. Similar examples abound; neuroscientist David Eagleman describes the case of another individual who exhibited escalating pedophilic tendencies at two different times, and in each case was found to have tumors growing in a particular part of his brain.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Case studies aside, modern experiments have demonstrated that the relation between brain and mind is much more than simple correlation. By damaging, or manipulating, specific areas of the brain repeatedly under controlled conditions (e.g. in monkeys) and reliably obtaining the same results in measures of mental state and abilities, neuroscientists have shown that the relation between damage to the brain and mental deterioration is likely causal. This conclusion is further supported by data from the effects of neuro-active chemicals (e.g., those affecting neurotransmitters) on mental functions, but also from research on neurostimulation (direct electrical stimulation of the brain, including transcranial magnetic stimulation).


title: Mind–body dualism

text: Another common argument against dualism consists in the idea that since human beings (both phylogenetically and ontogenetically) begin their existence as entirely physical or material entities and since nothing outside of the domain of the physical is added later on in the course of development, then we must necessarily end up being fully developed material beings. There is nothing non-material or "mentalistic" involved in conception, the formation of the blastula, the gastrula, and so on. The postulation of a non-physical mind would seem superfluous.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: In some contexts, the decisions that a person makes can be detected up to 10 seconds in advance by means of scanning their brain activity. Subjective experiences and covert attitudes can be detected, as can mental imagery. This is strong empirical evidence that cognitive processes have a physical basis in the brain.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: The argument from simplicity is probably the simplest and also the most common form of argument against dualism of the mental. The dualist is always faced with the question of why anyone should find it necessary to believe in the existence of two, ontologically distinct, entities (mind and brain), when it seems possible and would make for a simpler thesis to test against scientific evidence, to explain the same events and properties in terms of one. It is a heuristic principle in science and philosophy not to assume the existence of more entities than is necessary for clear explanation and prediction.


title: Mind–body dualism

text: This argument was criticized by Peter Glassen in a debate with J. J. C. Smart in the pages of "Philosophy" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Glassen argued that, because it is not a physical entity, Occam's razor cannot consistently be appealed to by a physicalist or materialist as a justification of mental states or events, such as the belief that dualism is false. The idea is that Occam's razor may not be as "unrestricted" as it is normally described (applying to all qualitative postulates, even abstract ones) but instead concrete (only applies to physical objects). If one applies Occam's Razor unrestrictedly, then it recommends monism until pluralism either receives more support or is disproved. If one applies Occam's Razor only concretely, then it may not be used on abstract concepts (this route, however, has serious consequences for selecting between hypotheses "about" the abstract).


title: Christian eschatology

text: Christian eschatology, a major branch of study within Christian theology, deals with "last things". Such eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" () and "study" (-) – involves the study of "end things", whether of the end of an individual life, of the end of the age, of the end of the world, or of the nature of the Kingdom of God. Broadly speaking, Christian eschatology focuses on the ultimate destiny of individual souls and of the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testaments.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Christian eschatology looks to study and discuss matters such as death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, the tribulation, millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New Earth in the world to come.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Eschatological passages appear in many places in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Many extra-biblical examples of eschatological prophecies also exist, as well as extra-biblical ecclesiastical traditions relating to the subject.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Eschatology within early Christianity originated with the public life and preaching of Jesus. Christian eschatology is an ancient branch of study in Christian theology, informed by Biblical texts such as the Olivet discourse, The Sheep and the Goats, and other discourses of end times by Jesus, with the doctrine of the Second Coming discussed by Paul the Apostle in his epistles, both the authentic and the disputed ones. Other escathological doctrines can be found in the Epistle of James, the First Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of John. The Second Epistle of Peter explains that God is patient, and has not yet brought the Second Coming of Christ in order that more people will have the chance to reject evil and find salvation (3:3–9); therefore, it calls on Christians to wait patiently for the parousia and to study scripture. The First Epistle of Clement, written by Pope Clement I in ca. 95, criticizes those who had doubts about the faith because the Second Coming had not yet occurred.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Christian eschatology is also discussed by Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–107 AD) in his epistles, then given more consideration by the Christian apologist, Justin Martyr (c. 100–165). Treatment of eschatology continued in the West in the teachings of Tertullian (c. 160–225), and was given fuller reflection and speculation soon after by Origen (c. 185–254). The word was used first by the Lutheran theologian Abraham Calovius (1612–86) but only came into general usage in the 19th century.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The growing modern interest in eschatology is tied to developments in Anglophone Christianity. Puritans in the 18th and 19th centuries were particularly interested in a postmillennial hope which surrounded Christian conversion. This would be contrasted with the growing interest in premillennialism, advocated by dispensational figures such as J. N. Darby. Both of these strands would have significant influences on the growing interests in eschatology in Christian missions and in Christianity in West Africa and Asia. However, in the 20th century, there would be a growing number of German scholars such as Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg who would likewise be interested in eschatology.


title: Christian eschatology

text: In the 1800s, a group of Christian theologians inclusive of Ellen G. White, William Miller and Joseph Bates began to study eschatological implications revealed in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. Their interpretation of Christian eschatology resulted in the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist church.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The following approaches arose from the study of Christianity's most central eschatological document, the Book of Revelation, but the principles embodied in them can be applied to all prophecy in the Bible. They are by no means mutually exclusive and are often combined to form a more complete and coherent interpretation of prophetic passages. Most interpretations fit into one, or a combination, of these approaches. The alternate methods of prophetic interpretation, Futurism and Preterism which came from Jesuit writings, were brought about to oppose the Historicism interpretation which had been used from Biblical times that Reformers used in teaching that the Antichrist was the Papacy or the power of the Roman Catholic Church.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Preterism is a Christian eschatological view that interprets some (partial preterism) or all (full preterism) prophecies of the Bible as events which have already happened. This school of thought interprets the Book of Daniel as referring to events that happened from the 7th century BC until the first century AD, while seeing the prophecies of Revelation as events that happened in the first century AD. Preterism holds that Ancient Israel finds its continuation or fulfillment in the Christian church at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Historically, preterists and non-preterists have generally agreed that the Jesuit Luis de Alcasar (1554–1613) wrote the first systematic preterist exposition of prophecy, "Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi" (published in 1614), during the Counter-Reformation.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Historicism, a method of interpretation of biblical prophecies, associates symbols with historical persons, nations or events. It can result in a view of progressive and continuous fulfillment of prophecy covering the period from biblical times to the Second Coming. Most Protestant Reformers from the Reformation into the 19th century held historicist views.


title: Christian eschatology

text: In Futurism, parallels may be drawn with historical events, but most eschatological prophecies are chiefly referring to events which have not yet been fulfilled, but will take place at the end of the age and the end of the world. Most prophecies will be fulfilled during a time of global chaos known as the Great Tribulation and afterwards. Futurist beliefs usually have a close association with Premillennialism and Dispensationalism.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Idealism (also called the spiritual approach, the allegorical approach, the nonliteral approach, and many other names) in Christian eschatology is an interpretation of the Book of Revelation that sees all of the imagery of the book as symbols.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Jacob Taubes writes that idealist eschatology came about as Renaissance thinkers began to doubt that the Kingdom of Heaven had been established on earth, or would be established, but still believed in its establishment. Rather than the Kingdom of Heaven being present in society, it is established subjectively for the individual.


title: Christian eschatology

text: F. D. Maurice interpreted the Kingdom of Heaven idealistically as a symbol representing society's general improvement, instead of a physical and political kingdom. Karl Barth interprets eschatology as representing existential truths that bring the individual hope, rather than history or future-history. Barth's ideas provided fuel for the Social Gospel philosophy in America, which saw social change not as performing "required" good works, but because the individuals involved felt that Christians could not simply ignore society's problems with future dreams.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Different authors have suggested that the Beast represents various social injustices, such as exploitation of workers, wealth, the elite, commerce, materialism, and imperialism. Various Christian anarchists, such as Jacques Ellul, have identified the State and political power as the Beast. Other scholars identify the Beast with the Roman empire of the first century AD, but recognize that the Beast has significance beyond its identification with Rome. For example, Craig R. Koester says "the vision [of the beast] speaks to the imperial context in which Revelation was composed, but it does so with images that go beyond that context, depicting the powers at work in the world in ways that continue to engage readers of subsequent generations." And his comments on the whore of Babylon are more to the point: "The whore [of Babylon] is Rome, yet more than Rome." It "is the Roman imperial world, which in turn represents the world alienated from God." As Stephen Smalley puts it, the beast represents "the powers of evil which lie behind the kingdoms of this world, and which encourage in society, at any moment in history, compromise with the truth and opposition to the justice and mercy of God."


title: Christian eschatology

text: It is distinct from Preterism, Futurism and Historicism in that it does not see any of the prophecies (except in some cases the Second Coming, and Final Judgment) as being fulfilled in a literal, physical, earthly sense either in the past, present or future, and that to interpret the eschatological portions of the Bible in a historical or future-historical fashion is an erroneous understanding.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Expositors of the traditional Protestant interpretation of Revelation known as Historicism have often maintained that Revelation was written in AD 96 and not AD 70. Edward Bishop Elliott, in the "Horae Apocalypticae" (1862), argues that John wrote the book in exile on Patmos "at the close of the reign of Domitian; that is near the end of the year 95 or beginning of 96". He notes that


title: Christian eschatology

text: Domitian was assassinated in September 96. Elliot begins his lengthy review of historical evidence by quoting Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp. Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John. Irenaeus mentions that the Apocalypse was seen "no very long time ago [but] almost in our own age, toward the end of the reign of Domitian".


title: Christian eschatology

text: Other historicists have seen no significance in the date that Revelation was written, and have even held to an early date while Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., makes an exegetical and historical argument for the pre-AD 70 composition of Revelation.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Most futurists are expecting a rapture of the Church, an antichrist, a Great Tribulation and a second coming of Christ in the near future. But they also accept certain past events, such as the rebirth of the State of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem as prerequisites to them, in a manner which the earlier historicists have done with other dates. Futurists, who do not normally use the day-year principle, interpret the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks in Daniel 9:24 as years, just as historicists do. Most historicists have chosen timelines, from beginning to end, entirely in the past, but some, such as Adam Clarke, have timelines which also commenced with specific past events, but require a future fulfillment. In his commentary on Daniel 8:14 published in 1831, he stated that the 2,300-year period should be calculated from 334 BC, the year Alexander the Great began his conquest of the Persian Empire. His calculation resulted in the year 1966. He seems to have overlooked the fact that there is no "year zero" between BC and AD dates. For example, the year following 1 BC is 1 AD. Thus his calculations should have required an additional year, ending in 1967. He was not anticipating a literal regathering of the Jewish people prior to the second coming of Christ. But the date is of special significance to futurists since it is the year of Jerusalem's capture by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Premillennialism can be divided into two common categories: Historic Premillennialism and Dispensational Premillennialism. Historic Premillennialism is usually associated with post-tribulation "rapture" and does not see a strong distinction between ethnic Israel and the Church. Dispensational Premillennialism can be associated with any of the three rapture views but is often associated with a pretribulation rapture. Dispensationalism also sees a stronger distinction between ethnic Israel and the Church.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Premillennialism usually posits that Christ's second coming will inaugurate a literal thousand-year earthly kingdom. Christ's return will coincide with a time of great tribulation. At this time, there will be a resurrection of the people of God who have died, and a rapture of the people of God who are still living, and they will meet Christ at his coming. A thousand years of peace will follow (the millennium), during which Christ will reign and Satan will be imprisoned in the Abyss. Those who hold to this view usually fall into one of the following three categories:


title: Christian eschatology

text: Pretribulationists believe that the second coming will be in two stages separated by a seven-year period of tribulation. At the beginning of the tribulation, true Christians will rise to meet the Lord in the air (the Rapture). Then follows a seven-year period of suffering in which the Antichrist will conquer the world and persecute those who refuse to worship him. At the end of this period, Christ returns to defeat the Antichrist and establish the age of peace. This position is supported by a scripture which says, "God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." [1 Thess 5:9]


title: Christian eschatology

text: Midtribulationists believe that the Rapture will take place at the halfway point of the seven-year tribulation, i.e. after 3½ years. It coincides with the "abomination of desolation"—a desecration of the temple where the Antichrist puts an end to the Jewish sacrifices, sets up his own image in the temple, and demands that he be worshiped as God. This event begins the second, most intense part of the tribulation.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Some interpreters find support for the "midtrib" position by comparing a passage in Paul's epistles with the book of Revelation. Paul says, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor 15:51–52). Revelation divides the great tribulation into four sets of increasingly catastrophic judgments: the Seven Seals, the Seven Trumpets, the Seven Thunders (Rev 10:1–4) and the Seven Bowls, in that order. If the "last trumpet" of Paul is equated with the last trumpet of Revelation and the revelation of the scroll of the Seven Thunders, the Rapture would be in the middle of the Tribulation. (Not all interpreters agree with this literal interpretation of the chronology of Revelation, however.)


title: Christian eschatology

text: Posttribulationists hold that Christ will not return until the end of the tribulation. Christians, rather than being raptured at the beginning of the tribulation, or halfway through, will live through it and suffer for their faith during the ascendancy of the Antichrist. Proponents of this position believe that the presence of believers during the tribulation is necessary for a final evangelistic effort during a time when external conditions will combine with the Gospel message to bring great numbers of converts into the Church in time for the beginning of the Millennium.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Postmillennialism is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring "after" the "Millennium", a Golden Age in which Christian ethics prosper. The term subsumes several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to premillennialism and, to a lesser extent, amillennialism.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Postmillennialism holds that Jesus Christ establishes his kingdom on earth through his preaching and redemptive work in the first century and that he equips his church with the gospel, empowers her by the Spirit, and charges her with the Great Commission (Matt 28:19) to disciple all nations. Postmillennialism expects that eventually the vast majority of people living will be saved. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ's return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations. After an extensive era of such conditions Jesus Christ will return visibly, bodily, and gloriously, to end history with the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the eternal order follows.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Postmillenialism was a dominant theological belief among American Protestants who promoted reform movements in the 19th and 20th century such as abolitionism and the Social Gospel. Postmillennialism has become one of the key tenets of a movement known as Christian Reconstructionism. It has been criticized by 20th century religious conservatives as an attempt to immanentize the eschaton.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Amillennialism, in Christian eschatology, involves the rejection of the belief that Jesus will have a literal, thousand-year-long, physical reign on the earth. This rejection contrasts with premillennial and some postmillennial interpretations of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The amillennial view regards the "thousand years" mentioned in Revelation 20 as a symbolic number, not as a literal description; amillennialists hold that the millennium has already begun and is identical with the current church age. Amillennialism holds that while Christ's reign during the millennium is spiritual in nature, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgment and establish a permanent reign in the new heaven and new earth.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Many proponents dislike the name "amillennialism" because it emphasizes their differences with premillennialism rather than their beliefs about the millennium. "Amillennial" was actually coined in a pejorative way by those who hold premillennial views. Some proponents also prefer alternate terms such as "nunc-millennialism" (that is, now-millennialism) or "realized millennialism", although these other names have achieved only limited acceptance and usage.


title: Christian eschatology

text: There were different schools of thought on the afterlife in Judea during the first century AD. The Sadducees, who recognized only the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) as authoritative, did not believe in an afterlife or any resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees, who not only accepted the Torah, but additional scriptures as well, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and it is known to have been a major point of contention between the two groups. The Pharisees based their belief on passages such as Daniel 12:2, which says: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt."


title: Christian eschatology

text: Some traditions (notably the Seventh-day Adventists) teach that the soul sleeps after death, and will not awake again until the resurrection of the dead, while others believe the spirit goes to an intermediate place where it will live consciously until the resurrection of the dead. By "soul", Seventh-day Adventists theologians mean the physical person (monism), and that no component of human nature survives death; therefore, each human will be "recreated" at resurrection. The biblical Book of Ezekiel provides substantiation for the assertion that souls experience mortality, "Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4)


title: Christian eschatology

text: This alludes to the Catholic belief in a spiritual state, known as Purgatory, in which those souls who are not condemned to Hell, but are also not completely pure as required for entry into Heaven, go through a final process of purification before their full acceptance into Heaven.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism do not believe in Purgatory as such, though the Orthodox Church is willing to allow for a period of continued sanctification (the process of being made pure, or holy) after death. While the Eastern Orthodox Church rejects the term "purgatory", it acknowledges an intermediate state after death and before final judgment, and offers prayer for the dead. In general, Protestant churches reject the Catholic doctrine of purgatory although some teach the existence of an intermediate state. The general Protestant view is that the Bible, from which Protestants exclude deuterocanonical books such as 2 Maccabees, contains no overt, explicit discussion of purgatory.


title: Christian eschatology

text: There are many passages in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, which speak of a time of terrible tribulation such as has never been known, a time of natural and man-made disasters on an awesome scale. Jesus said that at the time of his coming, "There will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever will be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened." [Mt 24:21–22]


title: Christian eschatology

text: Furthermore, the Messiah's return and the tribulation that accompanies it will come at a time when people are not expecting it:


title: Christian eschatology

text: Paul echoes this theme, saying, "For when they say, 'Peace and safety!' then sudden destruction comes upon them."


title: Christian eschatology

text: The abomination of desolation (or desolating sacrilege) is a term found in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Daniel. The term is used by Jesus Christ in the Olivet discourse, according to both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark. In the Matthew account, Jesus is presented as quoting Daniel explicitly.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Many biblical scholars conclude that Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 are prophecies after the event about the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Roman general Titus (see Dating of the Gospel of Mark).


title: Christian eschatology

text: Preterist Christian commentators believe that Jesus quoted this prophecy in Mark 13:14 as referring to an event in his "1st century disciples'" immediate future, specifically the pagan Roman forces during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Futurist Christians consider the "Abomination of Desolation" prophecy of Daniel mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 as referring to an event in the end time future, when a 7-year peace treaty will be signed between Israel and a world ruler called "the man of lawlessness", or the "Antichrist" affirmed by the writings of the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Other scholars conclude that the Abomination of Desolation refers to the Crucifixion, an attempt by the emperor Hadrian to erect a statue to Jupiter in the Jewish temple, or an attempt by Caligula to have a statue depicting him as Zeus built in the temple.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Many interpreters calculate the length of the tribulation at seven years. The key to this understanding is the "seventy weeks prophecy" in the book of Daniel. The Prophecy of Seventy Septets (or literally 'seventy times seven') appears in the angel Gabriel's reply to Daniel, beginning with verse 22 and ending with verse 27 in the ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel, a work included in both the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Bible; as well as the Septuagint. The prophecy is part of both the Jewish account of history and Christian eschatology.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The prophet has a vision of the angel Gabriel, who tells him, "Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city (i.e., Israel and Jerusalem)." [Dan 9:24] After making a comparison with events in the history of Israel, many scholars have concluded that each day in the seventy weeks represents a year. The first sixty-nine weeks are interpreted as covering the period until Christ's first coming, but the last week is thought to represent the years of the tribulation which will come at the end of this age, directly preceding the millennial age of peace:


title: Christian eschatology

text: This is an obscure prophecy, but in combination with other passages, it has been interpreted to mean that the "prince who is to come" will make a seven-year covenant with Israel that will allow the rebuilding of the temple and the reinstitution of sacrifices, but "in the middle of the week", he will break the agreement and set up an idol of himself in the temple and force people to worship it—the "abomination of desolation". Paul writes:


title: Christian eschatology

text: The rapture is an eschatological term used by certain Christians, particularly within branches of North American evangelicalism, referring to an end time event when all Christian believers—living and dead—will rise into Heaven and join Christ. Some adherents believe this event is predicted and described in Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, where he uses the Greek "harpazo" (ἁρπάζω), meaning to snatch away or seize. Though it has been used differently in the past, the term is now often used by certain believers to distinguish this particular event from the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Earth mentioned in Second Thessalonians, Gospel of Matthew, First Corinthians, and Revelation, usually viewing it as preceding the Second Coming and followed by a thousand-year millennial kingdom. Adherents of this perspective are sometimes referred to as premillennialist dispensationalists, but amongst them there are differing viewpoints about the exact timing of the event.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The term "rapture" is especially useful in discussing or disputing the exact timing or the scope of the event, particularly when asserting the "pre-tribulation" view that the rapture will occur before, not during, the Second Coming, with or without an extended Tribulation period. The term is most frequently used among evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the United States. Other, older uses of "rapture" were simply as a term for any mystical union with God or for eternal life in Heaven with God.


title: Christian eschatology

text: There are differing views among Christians regarding the timing of Christ's return, such as whether it will occur in one event or two, and the meaning of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4. Many Christians do not subscribe to rapture-oriented theological views. Though the term "rapture" is derived from the text of the Latin Vulgate of 1 Thess. 4:17—"we will be caught up", (Latin: rapiemur), Catholics, as well as Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and most Reformed Christians, do not generally use "rapture" as a specific theological term, nor do any of these bodies subscribe to the premillennialist dispensationalist theological views associated with its use, but do believe in the phenomenon—primarily in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven after his Second Coming. These denominations do not believe that a group of people is left behind on earth for an extended Tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Pre-tribulation rapture theology originated in the eighteenth century, with the Puritan preachers Increase and Cotton Mather, and was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further in the United States by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 20th century. Some, including Grant Jeffrey, maintain that an earlier document called Ephraem or Pseudo-Ephraem already supported a pre-tribulation rapture.


title: Christian eschatology

text: These false Christs will perform great signs and are no ordinary people "For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." (Revelation 16:14) Satan's angels will also appear as godly clergymen, and Satan will appear as an angel of light. "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." (2 Corinthians 11:13–15)


title: Christian eschatology

text: After Jesus meets his followers "in the air", the marriage of the Lamb takes place: "Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints" [Rev 19:7–8]. Christ is represented throughout Revelation as "the Lamb", symbolizing the giving of his life as an atoning sacrifice for the people of the world, just as lambs were sacrificed on the altar for the sins of Israel. His "wife" appears to represent the people of God, for she is dressed in the "righteous acts of the saints". As the marriage takes place, there is a great celebration in heaven which involves a "great multitude" [Rev 19:6].


title: Christian eschatology

text: The word "resurrection" comes from the Latin "resurrectus," which is the past participle of "resurgere," meaning "to rise again." Although the doctrine of the resurrection comes to the forefront in the New Testament, it predates the Christian era. There is an apparent reference to the resurrection in the book of Job, where Job says, "I know that my redeemer lives, and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though... worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I will see God" [Job 19:25–27]. Again, the prophet Daniel writes, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt" [Dan 12:2]. Isaiah says: "Your dead will live. Together with my dead body, they will arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the dead" [Isa. 26:19].


title: Christian eschatology

text: This belief was still common among the Jews in New Testament times, as exemplified by the passage which relates the raising of Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus told Lazarus' sister, Martha, that Lazarus would rise again, she replied, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day" [Jn 11:24]. Also, one of the two main branches of the Jewish religious establishment, the Pharisees, believed in and taught the future resurrection of the body [cf Acts 23:1–8].


title: Christian eschatology

text: An interpretation of the New Testament is the understanding that there will be two resurrections. Revelation says: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him a thousand years" [Rev 20:6]. The rest of the dead "did not live again until the thousand years were finished" [Rev 20:5].


title: Christian eschatology

text: The Gospel authors wrote that our resurrection bodies will be different from those we have now. Jesus said, "In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven" [Mt 22:30]. Paul adds, "So also is the resurrection of the dead: the body... is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" [1 Co. 15:42–44].


title: Christian eschatology

text: According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the body after resurrection is changed into a spiritual, imperishable body:


title: Christian eschatology

text: In some ancient traditions, it was held that the person would be resurrected at the same spot where they died and were buried (just as in the case of Jesus' resurrection). For example, in the early medieval biography of St Columba written by Adomnan of Iona, Columba at one point prophesies to a penitent at the monastery on Iona that his resurrection would be in Ireland and not in Iona, and this penitent later died at a monastery in Ireland and was buried there


title: Christian eschatology

text: Although Martin Luther personally believed and taught resurrection of the dead in combination with soul sleep, this is not a mainstream teaching of Lutheranism and most Lutherans traditionally believe in resurrection of the body in combination with the immortal soul.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Several churches, such as the Anabaptists and Socinians of the Reformation, then Seventh-day Adventist Church, Christadelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and theologians of different traditions reject the idea of the immortality of a non-physical soul as a vestige of Neoplatonism, and other pagan traditions. In this school of thought, the dead remain dead (and do not immediately progress to a Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory) until a physical resurrection of some or all of the dead occurs at the end of time. Some groups, Christadelphians in particular, consider that it is not a universal resurrection, and that at this time of resurrection that the Last Judgment will take place.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Megiddo is mentioned twelve times in the Old Testament, ten times in reference to the ancient city of Megiddo, and twice with reference to "the plain of Megiddo", most probably simply meaning "the plain next to the city". None of these Old Testament passages describes the city of Megiddo as being associated with any particular prophetic beliefs. The one New Testament reference to the city of Armageddon found in Revelation 16:16 also makes no specific mention of any armies being predicted to one day gather in this city, but instead seems to predict only that "they (will gather) the kings together to ... Armageddon". The text does however seem to imply, based on the text from the earlier passage of Revelation 16:14, that the purpose of this gathering of kings in the "place called Armageddon" is "for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty". Because of the seemingly highly symbolic and even cryptic language of this one New Testament passage, some Christian scholars conclude that Mount Armageddon must be an idealized location. R. J. Rushdoony says, "There are no mountains of Megiddo, only the Plains of Megiddo. This is a deliberate destruction of the vision of any literal reference to the place." Other scholars, including C. C. Torrey, Kline and Jordan argue that the word is derived from the Hebrew "moed" (), meaning "assembly". Thus, "Armageddon" would mean "Mountain of Assembly," which Jordan says is "a reference to the assembly at Mount Sinai, and to its replacement, Mount Zion."


title: Christian eschatology

text: The traditional viewpoint interprets this biblical prophecy to be symbolic of the progression of the world toward the "great day of God, the Almighty" in which the great looming mountain of God's just and holy wrath is poured out against unrepentant sinners, led by Satan, in a literal end-of-the-world final confrontation. Armageddon is the symbolic name given to this event based on scripture references regarding divine obliteration of God's enemies. The hermeneutical method supports this position by referencing Judges 4 and 5 where God miraculously destroys the enemy of His elect, Israel, at Megiddo, also called the Valley of Josaphat.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "a thousand years"), or "chiliasm" (from the Greek equivalent), is the belief that a Golden Age or Paradise will occur on Earth prior to the final judgment and future eternal state of the "World to Come".


title: Christian eschatology

text: Christian millennialism developed out of a Christian interpretation of Jewish apocalypticism. Christian millennialist thinking is primarily based upon the Book of Revelation, specifically 20:1–6, which describes the vision of an angel who descended from heaven with a large chain and a key to a bottomless pit, and captured Satan, imprisoning him for a thousand years:


title: Christian eschatology

text: The Book of Revelation then describes a series of judges who are seated on thrones, as well as his vision of the souls of those who were beheaded for their testimony in favor of Jesus and their rejection of the mark of the beast. These souls:


title: Christian eschatology

text: Thus, Revelation characterizes a millennium where Christ and the Father will rule over a theocracy of the righteous. While there are an abundance of biblical references to such a kingdom of God throughout the Old and New Testaments, this is the only reference in the Bible to such a period lasting one thousand years. The literal belief in a thousand-year reign of Christ is a later development in Christianity, as it does not seem to have been present in first century texts.


title: Christian eschatology

text: According to the Bible, the Millennial age of peace all but closes the history of planet Earth. However, the story is not yet finished: "When the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea." [Rev 20:7–8]


title: Christian eschatology

text: There is continuing discussion over the identity of Gog and Magog. In the context of the passage, they seem to equate to something like "east and west". There is a passage in Ezekiel, however, where God says to the prophet, "Set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him." [Ezek 38:2] Gog, in this instance, is the name of a person of the land of Magog, who is ruler ("prince") over the regions of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. Ezekiel says of him: "You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you..." [Ezek 38:2]


title: Christian eschatology

text: Despite this huge show of force, the battle will be short-lived, for Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation all say that this last desperate attempt to destroy the people and the city of God will end in disaster: "I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed. I will rain down on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him: flooding rain, great hailstones, fire and brimstone." [Ezek 38:22] Revelation concurs: "Fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." [Rev 20:9] It may be that the images of fire raining down are an ancient vision of modern weapons, others would say a supernatural intervention by God, yet others that they refer to events in history, and some would say they are symbolic of larger ideas and should not be interpreted literally.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Following the defeat of Gog, the last judgment begins: "The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" [Rev 20:10]. Satan will join the Antichrist and the False Prophet, who were condemned to the lake of fire at the beginning of the Millennium.


title: Christian eschatology

text: Following Satan's consignment to the lake of fire, his followers come up for judgment. This is the "second resurrection", and all those who were not a part of the first resurrection at the coming of Christ now rise up for judgment:


title: Christian eschatology

text: John had earlier written, "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power" [Rev 20:6]. Those who are included in the Resurrection and the Rapture are excluded from the final judgment, and are not subject to the second death. Due to the description of the seat upon which the Lord sits, this final judgment is often referred to as the Great White Throne Judgment.


title: Christian eschatology

text: A decisive factor in the Last Judgement will be the question, if the corporal works of mercy were practiced or not during lifetime. They rate as important acts of charity. Therefore, and according to the biblical sources (Mt 5:31–46), the conjunction of the Last Judgement and the works of mercy is very frequent in the pictorial tradition of Christian art.


title: Christian eschatology

text: But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The focus turns to one city in particular, the New Jerusalem. Once again, we see the imagery of the marriage: "I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" [Rev 21:2]. In the New Jerusalem, God "will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God..." [Rev 21:3]. As a result, there is "no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." Nor is there a need for the sun to give its light, "for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its light" [Rev 21:22–23]. The city will also be a place of great peace and joy, for "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there will be no more pain, for the former things have passed away" [Rev 21:4].


title: Christian eschatology

text: The city itself has a large wall with twelve gates in it which are never shut, and which have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel written on them. Each of the gates is made of a single pearl, and there is an angel standing in each one. The wall also has twelve foundations which are adorned with precious stones, and upon the foundations are written the names of the twelve apostles. The gates and foundations are often interpreted as symbolizing the people of God before and after Christ.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The city and its streets are pure gold, but not like the gold we know, for this gold is described as being like clear glass. The city is square in shape, and is twelve thousand furlongs long and wide (fifteen hundred miles). If these are comparable to earthly measurements, the city will cover an area about half the size of the contiguous United States. The height is the same as the length and breadth, and although this has led most people to conclude that it is shaped like a cube, it could also be a pyramid.


title: Christian eschatology

text: The city has a river which proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb". Next to the river is the tree of life, which bears twelve fruits and yields its fruit every month. The last time we saw the tree of life was in the Garden of Eden [Gen 2:9]. God drove Adam and Eve out from the garden, guarding it with cherubim and a flaming sword, because it gave eternal life to those who ate of it In the New Jerusalem, the tree of life reappears, and everyone in the city has access to it. Genesis says that the earth was cursed because of Adam's sin, but the author of John writes that in the New Jerusalem, "there will be no more curse."


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: Matthew Darren Evans (born 11 April 1981), known professionally as Matt Ryan, is a Welsh actor. He is known for portraying Edward Kenway in the Ubisoft video game "", and John Constantine in NBC's "Constantine" and The CW's Arrowverse, as well as voicing the character in the DC Animated Movie Universe and its CW spin-off web series "."


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: He attended schools in Penyrheol before moving on to Gorseinon College, where he completed a BTEC Performing Arts course. He graduated from the Bristol Old Vic in 2003 and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2004.


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: When he was 10, Ryan appeared as Gavroche in the West End production of "Les Misérables". He played Mick Rawson on the CBS series "", a character that had been introduced in the "Criminal Minds" episode "The Fight".


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: He performed the voice and motion capture of Edward Kenway in Ubisoft Montreal's video game "". In February 2014, it was announced that Ryan was cast as John Constantine in NBC's pilot for "Constantine". He starred in all 13 episodes of the series' only season. He reprised his role in a crossover episode of The CW's "Arrow", as well as the 2017 animated film "Justice League Dark". On 8 January 2017, The CW announced an animated series of "" on the CW Seed app with Ryan confirmed to reprise the character. He later reprised the role in several episodes of the third season of "Legends of Tomorrow". Ryan was promoted to series regular for the fourth season of "Legends of Tomorrow".


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: In the 2015 production of Helen Edmundson's adaptation of "Thérèse Raquin" at the Roundabout Theater at Studio 54 he played Laurent opposite Keira Knightley, Judith Light, and Gabriel Ebert.


title: Matt Ryan (actor)

text: In August 2017, he appeared on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in the play "Knives in Hens" by David Harrower and directed by Yaël Farber.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Manu () is a term found as various meanings in Hinduism. In early texts, it refers to the archetypal man, or to the first man (progenitor of humanity). The Sanskrit term for 'human', मानव (IAST: mānava) means 'of Manu' or 'children of Manu'. In later texts, Manu is the title or name of fourteen rulers of earth, or alternatively as the head of dynasties that begin with each cyclic "kalpa" (aeon) when the universe is born anew. The title of the text "Manusmriti" uses this term as a prefix, but refers to the first Manu – Svayambhuva, the spiritual son of Brahma.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the earliest mention of Manu, in the Rigveda, Manu is only the ancestor of the "Five Peoples", or "Páñca Jánāḥ" (the five tribes being the Anu, Druhyus, Yadus, Turvashas, and Purus). The Aryans considered all other peoples to be a-manuṣa.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Later, in the Hindu cosmology, each "kalpa" consists of fourteen Manvantaras, and each Manvantara is headed by a different Manu. The current universe, is asserted to be ruled by the 7th Manu named Vaivasvata. Vaivasvata was the king of Dravida before the great flood. He was warned of the flood by the Matsya (fish) avatar of Vishnu, and built a boat that carried the Vedas, Manu's family and the seven sages to safety, helped by Matsya. The tale is repeated with variations in other texts, including the Mahabharata and a few other Puranas. It is similar to other floods such as those associated with Gilgamesh and Noah.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: There are fourteen Manus that rule in succession during each "Kalpa" (day of Brahma). The current "Kalpa" has the following Manus:


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The first Manu. He was the mind born son of the god Brahma, and husband of Shatarupa. He had three daughters, namely Akuti, Devahuti and Prasuti. Devahuti was given in marriage to sage Kardama and she gave birth to nine daughters, and a single son named Kapila. Prasuti gave birth to several daughters including Khyati, Anasuya amongst many, and Akuti gave birth to one son named Yajna and one daughter. Both Kapila and Yajna, who were sons of Devahuti and Akuti respectively, were incarnations of Vishnu. Svayambhuva Manu, along with his wife, Satarupa, went into the forest to practice austerities on the bank of the River Sunanda. At some point of time, Rakshasas attacked them, but Yajna, accompanied by his sons, the demigods, swiftly killed them. Then Yajna personally took the post of Indra, the King of the heavenly planets. Svayambhuva Manu's abode is Brahmavarta, with the town of Barhismati as the capital. Barhismati was formed when Visnu in his cosmic boar form (Varaha) shook his body, there fell large hair, which turned into the town. The small hairs which fell turned into kusa and kasa grass.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In this Manvantara, the Saptarshis were Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vashishtha.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The second Manu, whose name was Svarocisha, was the son of Agni, and His sons were headed by Dyumat, Sushena and Rochishmat. He invented clothing and made it for mankind. At his deathbed, Devala Rishi was born from Shiva's third eye to succeed Svarochisa Manu in making clothes for mankind. and In the age of this Manu, Rochana became Indra, the ruler of the heavenly planets, and there were many demigods, headed by Tushita. There were also many saintly persons, such as Urjastambha. Among them was Vedasira, whose wife, Tushita, gave birth to Vibhu. Vibhu was the incarnation of Vishnu for this Manvantara. He remained a Brahmachari all his life and never married. He instructed eighty-eight thousand dridha-vratas, or saintly persons, on sense-control and austerity.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The Saptarshis for this Manvantara were Kaukundihi, Kurundi, Dalaya, Sankha, Pravahita, Mita, and Sammita.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Uttama, the son of Priyavrata, was the third Manu. Among his sons were Pavana, Srinjaya and Yajnahotra. During the reign of this Manu, the sons of Vashista, headed by Pramada, became the seven saintly persons. The Satyas, Devasrutas and Bhadras became the demigods, and Satyajit became Indra. From the womb of Sunrita, the wife of Dharma, the Supreme Lord Narayana appeared as Satyasena, and killed all the evil Rakshasas who created havoc in all the worlds, along with Satyajit, who was Indra at that time.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Tapasa/Tamasa, the brother of the third Manu, was the fourth Manu, and he had ten sons, including Prithu, Khyati, Nara and Ketu. During his reign, the Satyakas, Haris, Viras and others were demigods, the seven great saints were headed by Jyotirdhama, and Trisikha became Indra. Harimedha begot a son named Hari, who was the incarnation of Vishnu for this Manvantara, by his wife Harini. Hari was born to liberate the devotee Gajendra.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In Raivata-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Vaikuntha, not to be confused with Vishnu's divine realm, of the same name.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Vaikuntha came as Raivata Manu, the twin brother of Tamasa. His sons were headed by Arjuna, Bali and Vindhya. Among the demigods were the Bhutarayas, and among the seven brahmanas who occupied the seven planets were Hiranyaroma, Vedasira and Urdhvabahu.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Ajita came as Chakshsusa Manu, the son of the demigod Chakshu. He had many sons, headed by Puru, Purusa and Sudyumna. During the reign of Chakshusa Manu, the King of heaven was known as Mantradruma. Among the demigods were the Apyas, and among the great sages were Havisman and Viraka. He had a daughter named Jyothismati, who wished for the most powerful being as her husband. When asking Indra, the king of gods, Indra replied that his storms could be pushed away by Vayu. Vayu said that his winds could not push away the earth, and thus Bhumavat, the male personification of the earth, was stronger. Bhumavat said that Adishesha, who holds both Vishnu and the earth, is the strongest. Adishehs told Manu and Jyothishmati that his second avatar on earth would be stronger than himself, and thus Jyothishmati was reborn as Revati to marry that avatar, Krishna's brother Balarama.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Saptarshis list: Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vashishtha , and other likeJamadagni, Kashyapa, Gautama, Vishvamitra, Bharadvaja. During Vaivasvata-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar is called Matsya.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The seventh Manu, who is the son of Vivasvan, is known as Sraddhadeva (or satyavrata) or Vaivasvat (son of Vivasvan). He has ten sons, named Ikshvaku, Nabhaga, Dhrsta, Saryati, Narisyanta, Dista (Nabhanedista), Tarusa (Karusha), Prsadhra, Vasuman (Pramshu) and Ila (Sudyumna). In this manvantara, or reign of Manu, among the demigods are the Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Visvedevas, Maruts, Asvini-kumaras and Rbhus. The king of heaven, Indra, is known as Purandara, and the seven sages are known as


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Saptarshis list: Diptimat, Galava, Parasurama, Kripa, Drauni or Ashwatthama, Vyasa, and Rishyasringa. In Savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Sarvabhauma.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the eighth Manu, the Manu is Surya Savarnika Manu. He is the son of Surya by his second wife, Chhaya. He is thus the half-brother to Shraddhadeva Manu. His sons are headed by Nirmoka, and among the demigods are the Sutapas. Bali, the son of Virochana, is Indra, and Galava and Parasurama are among the seven sages. In the age of this Manu, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Sarvabhauma, the son of Devaguhya.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The ninth Manu is Daksha-savarni. He is the son of Lord Varuna. His sons are headed by Bhutaketu, and among the demigods are the Maricigarbhas. Adbhuta is Indra, and among the seven sages is Dyutiman. Rishabha would be born of Ayushman and Ambudhara...


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the tenth Manu, the Manu is Brahma-savarni. He is the son of Upsaloka( The son of lord Kartikeya) Among his sons is Bhurishena, and the seven sages are Havishman and others. Among the demigods are the Suvasanas, and Sambhu is Indra. Vishvaksena would be a friend of Sambhu and will be born from the womb of Vishuci in the house of a brahmana named Visvasrashta.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the eleventh Manu, the Manu is Dharma-savarni, the son of Satya Yuga. He has ten sons, headed by Satyadharma. Among the demigods are the Vihangamas, Indra is known as Vaidhrita, and the seven sages are Aruna and others. Dharmasetu will be born of Vaidhrita and Aryaka.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the twelfth Manu, the Manu is Rudra-savarni, whose sons are headed by Devavan. The demigods are the Haritas and others, Indra is Ritadhama, and the seven sages are Tapomurti and others. Sudhama, or Svadhama, who will be born from the womb of Sunrita, wife of a Satyasaha.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the thirteenth Manu, the Manu is Deva-savarni. Among his sons is Chitrasena, the demigods are the Sukarmas and others, Indra is Divaspati, and Nirmoka is among the sages. Yogeshwara will be born of Devahotra and Brihati.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: In the period of the fourteenth Manu, the Manu is Indra-savarni. Among his sons are Uru and Gambhira, the demigods are the Pavitras and others, Indra is Suci, and among the sages are Agni and Bahu. Brihadbhanu will be born of Satrayana from the womb of Vitana.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Almost all literature refers to the first 9 Manus with the same names but there is a lot of disagreement on names after that, although all of them agree with a total of 14.


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: The texts ascribed to the Svayambhuva Manu include "Manava Grihyasutra", "Manava Sulbasutra" and "Manava Dharmashastra" ("Manusmṛti" or "rules of Manu").


title: Manu (Hinduism)

text: Jain theology mentions the 14th patriarch named Nabhiraja, mentioning him also as Manu. This, state scholars, links ancient Jain tradition to Hindu legends, because the 14 patriarchs in Jain tradition are similar to the 14 Manus in Hindu legends. The Manu of Jainism is the father of 1st "Tirthankara" Rishabhanatha (Adinatha). This ancient story is significant as it includes one of earliest mentions of "ikshu" (sugarcane) processing.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Samantha Zoe Womack ("née" Janus; born 2 November 1972) is an English actress, singer, model and director who has worked in film, television and stage. Womack initially planned a career in singing and she represented the United Kingdom in the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest. Her song for the contest, "A Message to Your Heart", was released as her first (and only) single in April 1991 and reached number 30 in the UK Singles Chart.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack made her name in the mid-1990s with her role as Mandy Wilkins in "Game On" (1995-1998) leading onto roles in the BBC One drama "Pie in the Sky" (1995–1996) and the sitcom "Babes in the Wood" (1998). She has since become known for playing the role of Ronnie Mitchell in "EastEnders" (2007–2011, 2013–2017). Her portrayal of Ronnie gained her more prominence and acting roles after some time out of the limelight. She also played Tanya Porter in Sky One comedy-drama "Mount Pleasant" from 2013 until the final episode in 2017. Womack has also toured across the United Kingdom playing Morticia in the stage musical "The Addams Family".


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack was born in Brighton. Her singer-songwriter father, Noel Janus (born Janes), left the family when she was six, and soon after, her model-actress mother, Diana O'Hanlon, married a doctor and the family moved to Edinburgh.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack lived on the "QE2" with her choreographer grandmother, Sheila Holt (a former actress and choreographer to magician David Nixon for a short time). Womack has a younger half-sister, Zoe. During an appearance on "Big Star's Little Star" in 2014, it was revealed that she attended the same school as members of All Saints, sisters Nicole and Natalie Appleton. before going to the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London. At the age of 15, as a self-confessed ‘wild child’, she left home for a life squatting, drinking, smoking and taking drugs.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack is the niece of Angie Best, her father's sister and former wife of footballer George Best. Angie's son, Calum Best, is Womack's cousin. As revealed on an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" in 2012, Womack's great-great-grandmother Jessie Ryder was an actress in New York City in the early 20th century.


title: Samantha Womack

text: The actress first came to prominence in March 1991 aged 18, when she won the annual "A Song for Europe" competition to represent the United Kingdom in the "Eurovision Song Contest". She finished joint tenth and the song, "A Message to Your Heart", peaked at number 30 on the UK Singles Chart. Despite her achievements, her entry into the Eurovision is frequently remarked upon. She has said regarding the experience that her failure in the contest devastated her at the time and thought it would spell the end of her career. She has also called her appearance 'ridiculous', in that she was dressed in a pink mini-dress while singing about starving children and says the lyrics of the song are burned into her memory forever.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack developed her first love of acting, appearing in episodes of "The Bill" and "Press Gang"; in 1993 she appeared in "Demob" with Griff Rhys Jones and Martin Clunes; and took to the West End stage, replacing Debbie Gibson as Sandy in "Grease."


title: Samantha Womack

text: From 1994 to 1998 Womack played Mandy in the BBC Two sitcom "Game On" opposite Ben Chaplin (later replaced by Neil Stuke). She remained on the show until its end in 1998. In between series of "Game On", she had a part in the BBC One drama "Pie in the Sky" from 1995 to 1996 as Nicola Dooley, a waitress.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack then appeared in the pilot for "The Grimleys" with Jack Dee, and the film "Up 'n' Under" with Neil Morrissey. In 1998 she starred in the ITV1 series "Liverpool 1" with her future husband Mark Womack. She then returned to comedy in the sitcom "Babes in the Wood" co-starring another Sylvia Young Theatre School student, Denise van Outen, it was critically panned despite respectable ratings, and Womack left after the first series.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 1999 Womack starred as Cinderella in the ITV Christmas pantomime alongside Harry Hill, Alexander Armstrong, Frank Skinner, Paul Merton, Ronnie Corbett and many more.


title: Samantha Womack

text: A popular choice for photo shoots in men's magazines such as "FHM", she came 21st in the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll in 1998 and 41st in 1999.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 1990, she appeared as a guest in two episodes of the CITV comedy sitcom "Spatz"; Series 1 Episode 2 and 3. It is rumoured that a possible falling out may have occurred leading to her swift exit from the show after such a brief stint. This is fuelled by her reluctance to admit for many years that she was part of the show.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 2002 she returned to TV in BBC One drama "Strange" and she appeared in films "The Baby Juice Express", "Lighthouse Hill" and "Dead Man's Cards".


title: Samantha Womack

text: In January 2005 she narrated "Jordan & Peter: Laid Bare" for ITV2. She later directed an anti-bullying music video for Liverpool band Just 3, entitled "Stand Tall". The video starred her and Liverpool F.C. footballer Jamie Carragher. The video was heavily backed by Childline ambassador Esther Rantzen.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 2006, Womack starred in the BBC One comedy "Home Again" as Ingrid, and as Miss Adelaide in the West End production of the musical "Guys and Dolls" at London's Piccadilly Theatre, initially with Patrick Swayze and then "Miami Vice" star Don Johnson. She reprised the role at the Sunderland Empire opposite Alex Ferns in 2007.


title: Samantha Womack

text: On 11 May 2007 it was announced that she would be joining "EastEnders" as Ronnie Mitchell, a cousin of the well known Mitchell brothers. She had previously appeared in the soap in a minor role as a girlfriend of Simon Wicks.


title: Samantha Womack

text: During her first stint, Womack's character Ronnie was central to many storylines including the controversial baby-swap story which was aired during 2011. It was reported that this is the reason why Womack quit the soap, although this has never been confirmed. Womack made her final appearance as Ronnie on 7 July 2011 when the character was sent to prison.


title: Samantha Womack

text: Since appearing on "EastEnders" she has made regular television appearances on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", "The Paul O'Grady Show", "Richard & Judy" and "Loose Women". In November 2007, she sang with "EastEnders" co-stars in the 2007 "Children in Need" charity appeal.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In May 2013, it was confirmed that Womack would return to "EastEnders" as Ronnie Mitchell. Womack's character Ronnie Mitchell was later killed off on the episode broadcast 1 January 2017 when she was trying to save Roxy Mitchell from drowning and drowned herself. Her last appearance was on the episode broadcast 19 January 2017 when Ronnie was shown as a corpse lying in her coffin.


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 2011 Womack played the lead role, Ensign Nellie Forbush, a US Navy nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, in the Lincoln Center production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "South Pacific" at the Barbican Theatre in London. In March 2013, Womack starred opposite her husband on stage in the world premiere of "Hope" at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool.


title: Samantha Womack

text: From September 2013, Womack played the regular role of Tanya in series three of Sky Living's "Mount Pleasant". She continued in this role until the final episode in 2017. Altogether, Womack appeared in 25 episodes as Tanya Dawson (later Porter when the character married).


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 2015, she appeared in the film "" as lead actor Taron Egerton's character's mother. This was Womack's first main role in such a high-profile film. In 2017 Womack reprised the role in a smaller appearance in "".


title: Samantha Womack

text: In 2017, Womack toured as Morticia Adams in the musical-comedy "Addams Family" as Morticia around the UK and Ireland. She was announced to reprise the role in 2021 for a tour around UK and Ireland, however she did not reprise the role on tour for unknown reasons. The role of Morticia Addams was instead played by Strictly Come Dancing champion Joanne Clifton


title: Samantha Womack

text: In September 2018, it was announced that she would be playing Fairy Bow Bells in the pantomime "Dick Whittington".


title: Samantha Womack

text: Womack appeared in "Silent Witness" in early 2019. On an episode of "Loose Women" in February 2019, Womack confirmed that offers had been made to her about a project with co-star and best friend Rita Simons. In response to this, they both said that they would wait for the right one to come along.