The study of postmortem salvation draws on a wide range of theological, biblical, and philosophical vocabulary. Many of these terms carry centuries of meaning, and some have been used in very different ways by different traditions. This glossary provides clear, accessible definitions of the most important terms used throughout this book. Where a term is discussed at length in a particular chapter, the reader is directed to that chapter for a fuller treatment.
How to Use This Glossary: Terms are arranged alphabetically. Greek, Hebrew, and Latin terms are transliterated and, where helpful, the original script is provided in parentheses. Cross-references to chapters in the main text are included so the reader can explore each concept more deeply.
Aiōn (αἰών) is a Greek noun typically translated "age," "eon," or sometimes "world." It refers to a period or era of time, not necessarily to eternity in the abstract, endless sense that modern English speakers often assume. Aiōnios (αἰώνιος) is the corresponding adjective, most often translated "eternal" or "everlasting" in English Bibles. However, this translation is debated. Many scholars argue that aiōnios more accurately means "pertaining to the age" or "age-long"—that is, belonging to or characteristic of a particular age—rather than necessarily meaning "without end." The Hebrew equivalent, olam (עוֹלָם), functions similarly in the Old Testament. It can mean "forever" in some contexts but frequently refers to a long, indefinite period with a beginning and an end (for example, the "everlasting" Aaronic priesthood, which did in fact come to an end). The interpretation of these terms is crucial for debates about the duration of hell. If aiōnios punishment means "age-long" rather than "unending," this changes how we read passages like Matthew 25:46. See Chapter 20 for a thorough treatment.
The view that those who ultimately reject God will be completely destroyed—that is, they will cease to exist entirely—rather than suffering conscious torment forever. Annihilationism holds that the "second death" described in Revelation 20:14 is a real, final death: the permanent end of the person's existence. This view is closely related to conditional immortality (see below), though the two terms are not perfectly synonymous. Annihilationism describes the fate of the lost (destruction), while conditional immortality describes the underlying anthropology (humans are not inherently immortal). A person can hold to annihilationism without affirming postmortem opportunity—most annihilationists believe death ends all salvific possibility—but the author of this book argues that combining annihilationism with postmortem opportunity produces the most coherent and compassionate framework. See Chapters 30–31 for the integrated argument.
A Greek term meaning "restoration" or "restitution of all things." It comes from Acts 3:21, where Peter speaks of the apokatastasis pantōn—the "restoration of all things"—which God promised through the prophets. In theological usage, apokatastasis refers to the belief that God will ultimately restore all of creation to its original goodness, including all human beings and perhaps even the devil and fallen angels. This is the technical term for what is popularly called "universal salvation" or "universalism." Several early church fathers—most notably Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and (arguably) Clement of Alexandria—taught some form of apokatastasis. The term should be distinguished from modern liberal universalism, which denies the reality of hell entirely. Patristic apokatastasis typically affirmed that the wicked would be punished, but that the punishment was corrective and would eventually lead all beings to repentance. See Chapters 14, 24, and 25.
The theological view that human beings are not inherently or naturally immortal. Instead, immortality is a gift that God grants to those who are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. On this view, the soul does not possess eternal existence by its own nature; rather, God sustains it in being. Those who finally reject God are not sustained forever in a state of torment but are ultimately destroyed. Conditional immortality provides the anthropological basis for annihilationism: because humans are not inherently immortal, God is not "required" to keep the unsaved in existence forever. Importantly, conditional immortality does not require physicalism. The author argues that the soul is a real, immaterial substance (substance dualism) but that this soul is not inherently indestructible—God could allow it to cease existing. This allows for a conscious intermediate state (necessary for postmortem opportunity) while maintaining that final destruction is possible for those who irrevocably reject Christ. See Chapters 8 and 31.
Latin for "the descent to those below" or "the descent into hell." This phrase comes from the Apostles' Creed, which states that after His death, Jesus Christ "descended into hell" (descendit ad inferos). The descensus refers to the belief that between His crucifixion and resurrection—during the triduum mortis (the three days of death)—Christ descended to the realm of the dead. What He did there is debated. Some traditions hold that He merely proclaimed His victory; others believe He preached the gospel to the dead, offering them salvation. The key biblical texts are 1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6, along with Ephesians 4:8–10. The descensus tradition is important for postmortem opportunity because it provides a biblical precedent: if Christ preached to the dead in Hades, this demonstrates that salvific opportunity can extend beyond physical death. See Chapters 11–13 for the full argument.
A theological model, developed most fully by R. Zachary Manis, which holds that both heaven and hell are experiences of God's full, unshielded presence. On this view, God does not banish the wicked from His presence; rather, the saved and the lost both encounter the same God. The difference lies in the person's disposition toward God. For those who love God, His presence is experienced as joy, warmth, and glory—this is heaven. For those who hate God or refuse to submit to Him, that same presence is experienced as agony and torment—this is hell. The fire is not something God inflicts upon the wicked as an external punishment; it is God's love itself, which purifies the willing and torments the resistant. This model draws on Eastern Orthodox theology (see the River of Fire tradition) and is closely related to the author's own view of the Lake of Fire. See Chapters 23, 23A, 23B, and 23C.
The traditional majority view in Western Christianity regarding the fate of the unsaved. ECT holds that those who die without saving faith in Christ will be consigned to hell, where they will suffer conscious, unending torment for all eternity. The punishment never ends, the person is never destroyed, and there is no possibility of repentance or escape. This view has been the dominant position in Roman Catholic, Protestant, and most evangelical theology since at least the time of Augustine (fifth century). The author rejects ECT on the grounds that it is incompatible with the character of God as revealed in Scripture, is not clearly taught by the key biblical texts when the meaning of aiōnios is properly understood, and creates insurmountable moral and philosophical problems (such as the injustice of infinite punishment for finite sin). See Chapters 20–22 for the detailed critique.
The view that explicit, conscious faith in Jesus Christ during one's earthly lifetime is absolutely necessary for salvation—no exceptions. On this view, anyone who has not heard the gospel message and placed personal faith in Christ before the moment of physical death is eternally lost. Restrictivism is the strictest form of exclusivism. While this book affirms the exclusivity of Christ (no one is saved apart from Jesus), it rejects the restriction of salvific opportunity to earthly life alone. The author agrees that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation but argues that God can and does extend the opportunity for that faith beyond physical death. Key restrictivists engaged in this book include Ronald Nash, Wayne Grudem, and R.C. Sproul. See Chapters 1, 4, and 26–28.
A hypothesis proposed by the Jesuit philosopher-theologian Ladislaus Boros in his work The Mystery of Death (1965). Boros argued that the moment of death is not the end of decision-making but is, in fact, the supreme moment of decision. At the point of death, the soul achieves its fullest self-awareness and self-possession, encountering God in an intensely personal way. In that encounter, the person makes a definitive choice—for or against God—with a clarity and freedom that was never possible during earthly life. This hypothesis provides a philosophical framework for understanding how a postmortem encounter with God might work. While the author does not adopt Boros's hypothesis uncritically, it forms one important component of the book's broader framework for postmortem opportunity. See Chapter 10.
The Greek term often translated "hell" in the New Testament. Gehenna derives from the Hebrew Gē-Hinnōm (גֵּי הִנֹּם), meaning "Valley of Hinnom," a physical valley south of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament, this valley was associated with the abominable practice of child sacrifice to the pagan god Molech (2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31). By the intertestamental period, the valley had become a powerful symbol of divine judgment and the destruction of the wicked. In Jesus' teaching, Gehenna refers to the final state of punishment—not the intermediate state. It is the place of ultimate destruction, associated with unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43–48). Gehenna should be carefully distinguished from Hades (the intermediate state) and from the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20), though the three concepts are related. See Chapter 21 for the full taxonomy.
The Greek term for the realm of the dead, roughly equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol. In the New Testament, Hades is the intermediate state—the place where the dead reside between physical death and the final judgment. It is not the same as Gehenna or the Lake of Fire, which are the final state of punishment. In Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), Hades is depicted as having two compartments: a place of comfort (Abraham's bosom or paradise) and a place of torment. On the author's view, Hades is a conscious waiting state where the unsaved dead are aware, capable of thought and feeling, and where God's love continues to pursue them. The postmortem opportunity described in this book takes place, in part, during the time the unsaved spend in Hades before the final judgment. See Chapters 9, 21, and 32.
The view that while salvation is accomplished exclusively through the person and work of Jesus Christ, it is possible for people to be saved by Christ without having explicit knowledge of Him during their earthly lives. On this view, God can apply the benefits of Christ's atoning death to people who respond positively to whatever light they have received—through general revelation, conscience, or the work of the Holy Spirit in non-Christian contexts. Key proponents include Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, and (in some readings) C.S. Lewis. Inclusivism differs from postmortem opportunity in that it does not require a postmortem encounter with Christ; the person may be saved in this life through implicit faith. The author's position is compatible with inclusivism but goes further, arguing that even those who do not respond to general revelation during their earthly lives will receive a direct, personal encounter with God after death. See Chapter 28.
The period between a person's physical death and the final resurrection and judgment. In Christian theology, the intermediate state is the "in-between" time when the dead exist in some condition while awaiting their final destiny. The nature of the intermediate state is debated. Some traditions (and some physicalist theologians) hold that the dead are unconscious or nonexistent during this period ("soul sleep" or "Christian physicalism"). Others—including the author of this book—hold that the soul survives death and is fully conscious, aware, and capable of experience during the intermediate state. For the saved, this intermediate state is "paradise" or being "with Christ" (Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23). For the unsaved, it is Hades—a state of conscious existence that is not yet the final punishment. The conscious intermediate state is foundational to the postmortem opportunity thesis: if the dead are conscious, they can encounter God and respond to His love. See Chapters 6, 9, and 32.
Two Greek words for "punishment" that carry importantly different connotations. Kolasis (κόλασις), the word used by Jesus in Matthew 25:46 ("these will go away into eternal punishment"), originally referred to the pruning of trees—cutting away what is dead or harmful to promote healthy growth. In classical Greek usage, kolasis typically denoted corrective or remedial punishment, aimed at improving the one being punished. Timōria (τιμωρία), by contrast, referred to retributive punishment—punishment inflicted for the sake of the punisher's honor or to exact vengeance on the offender. The fact that the New Testament overwhelmingly uses kolasis rather than timōria when speaking of divine punishment is significant: it suggests that God's punishment is corrective in purpose, not merely retributive. This distinction supports the view that divine punishment aims at restoration, not endless torment. See Chapters 20 and 22.
A term found exclusively in the book of Revelation (19:20; 20:10, 14–15; 21:8), referring to the final place of judgment for the wicked. The Lake of Fire is where death, Hades, the beast, the false prophet, and all whose names are not found in the Book of Life are cast. In the traditional view, the Lake of Fire is the eternal abode of conscious torment. On the author's view—drawing on Eastern Orthodox theology and the divine presence model—the Lake of Fire is not a place separate from God but is, in fact, the full, unfiltered presence of God Himself. God's holy love functions like fire: for those who love God, it purifies and brings joy; for those who reject God, it is agonizing. Those who repent in the fire are purified and saved. Those who refuse to repent are eventually consumed—this is the annihilation. The "second death" (Revelation 20:14) is thus the natural result of being in God's unshielded presence while remaining unrepentant. See Chapter 23 for the full treatment, and Chapters 23A, 23B, and 23C for the philosophical and patristic deep dives.
A term coined by the physician Raymond Moody in his 1975 book Life After Life. An NDE is a profound subjective experience reported by individuals who have been clinically dead or very close to death and then resuscitated. Common elements of NDEs include an out-of-body experience, passing through a tunnel, encountering a being of light, a life review, feelings of overwhelming peace and love, meeting deceased relatives, and reaching a boundary or border beyond which the person chooses or is told to return. NDEs have been reported across cultures, religions, and ages. While skeptics attribute NDEs to brain chemistry (oxygen deprivation, endorphin release, temporal lobe activity), the existence of veridical NDEs (see below) poses a serious challenge to purely materialist explanations. NDEs are relevant to this book because they provide evidence for the survival of consciousness after death and for a postmortem encounter with a loving divine presence. See Chapter 5.
A philosophical position within the physicalist family, championed in Christian theology by Nancey Murphy, Joel Green, and Warren Brown. Nonreductive physicalism holds that human beings are entirely physical—there is no immaterial soul—but that higher mental functions (consciousness, thought, moral reasoning, spiritual experience) are emergent properties of the physical brain that cannot be fully reduced to or explained by simple neuroscience. In other words, the mental is real and causally effective, but it arises from and is dependent upon the physical. Nonreductive physicalism differs from reductive physicalism (which says the mental just is brain activity with nothing "extra") and from eliminative materialism (which denies the reality of mental states altogether). The author rejects nonreductive physicalism because, despite its sophisticated attempts to preserve the reality of the mental, it still eliminates the conscious intermediate state. If there is no soul, there is nothing to survive death, and the person ceases to exist entirely until the resurrection. This eliminates the possibility of a postmortem encounter with God between death and the final judgment. See Chapters 7 and 8.
The view that a human being is a wholly physical organism with no separate, immaterial soul or spirit. In Christian theology, physicalism holds that "soul" language in Scripture refers to the whole person—the living, breathing, embodied human being—not to a separable spiritual substance. On this view, when a person dies, they cease to exist entirely. There is no conscious intermediate state. The person's continued existence depends entirely on God's act of re-creating them at the final resurrection. Proponents in the Christian tradition include Nancey Murphy, Joel Green, and Kevin Corcoran. The author argues that physicalism is incompatible with the postmortem opportunity thesis, since it eliminates the conscious subject who could encounter God between death and resurrection. The author also argues that veridical NDE evidence provides strong empirical grounds for rejecting physicalism. See Chapters 5, 7, and 8.
The central thesis of this book. Postmortem opportunity is the belief that the opportunity to hear the gospel, encounter Jesus Christ, and exercise saving faith does not end at the moment of physical death. God, in His relentless love, continues to pursue the unsaved after death, offering them a genuine, personal encounter with Christ at one or more points: during the dying process itself, during the intermediate state in Hades, and/or at the final judgment. This offer extends to all unsaved persons without exception—the unevangelized, the pseudoevangelized, apostates, infants, those with mental disabilities, those from non-Christian religions, and those who lived before Christ. The postmortem opportunity is not a "second chance" in the pejorative sense, because for many people it is their first genuine chance to encounter the real, living Christ. Those who accept God's love are saved; those who persistently reject it are ultimately destroyed (on the author's conditional immortality view). See the entire book, especially Chapters 1, 4, 30–34.
A philosophical position that holds there is only one kind of substance (physical), but this substance has two kinds of properties: physical properties (mass, charge, spatial location) and mental properties (consciousness, qualia, intentionality). On this view, the mind is not a separate thing from the brain but is rather a set of nonphysical properties that emerge from or are associated with the physical brain. Property dualism differs from substance dualism in a crucial respect: because there is no separate soul-substance, the mental properties cannot exist apart from the physical brain. When the brain dies, the mental properties cease. This means property dualism, like physicalism, cannot support a conscious intermediate state. The author rejects property dualism in favor of substance dualism. See Chapter 7.
A term used to describe people who have technically "heard the gospel" but received a distorted, incomplete, or fundamentally inaccurate version of it. The pseudoevangelized may have grown up in nominally Christian environments, heard fire-and-brimstone preaching that portrayed God as primarily angry and vindictive, encountered abusive or hypocritical Christians, or been presented with a gospel so mixed with cultural baggage that the real message of God's love in Christ was obscured. On the author's view, these people have not truly "heard the gospel" in any meaningful sense—they heard a gospel, but not the gospel. James Beilby's framework limits the postmortem opportunity to the unevangelized, but the author extends it to the pseudoevangelized as well, arguing that God's love demands a genuine opportunity, not merely a nominal one. See Chapters 1, 4, and 30.
A Note on the "River of Fire" Tradition: Several terms in this glossary—including the Divine Presence Model, the Lake of Fire, and the Eastern Orthodox understanding of hell—converge on a single, profound idea: that God's love is experienced differently depending on the person's disposition. What is heaven for the saint is hell for the unrepentant. This is not two different fires but one fire—God Himself.
The central metaphor of a landmark essay by the Greek Orthodox theologian Alexandre Kalomiros, "The River of Fire" (1980). Drawing on the patristic tradition—especially St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Basil the Great, and St. Maximus the Confessor—Kalomiros argues that the "river of fire" flowing from the throne of God (Daniel 7:10) is not a tool of retributive punishment but is God's love itself. The same river is experienced by the saints as light, warmth, and life, and by the unrepentant as burning torment. Hell, on this view, is not a place away from God but the experience of being in God's full presence while one's heart is turned against Him. Kalomiros argues that the Western theological tradition distorted God's nature by making Him the active cause of punishment, when the patristic fathers taught that God is unchanging love and that torment arises from the creature's own resistance. This tradition is foundational to the author's view of the Lake of Fire. See Chapter 23C.
A term found in the book of Revelation (2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8) that describes the final fate of the wicked. Revelation 20:14 explicitly identifies the second death with the Lake of Fire: "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire." On the conditional immortality view, the second death is a real, final death—the permanent cessation of existence—not a metaphor for eternal conscious torment. Just as the first death is the death of the body, the second death is the death of the entire person, body and soul. On the author's view, the second death occurs only after the unsaved have been given every possible opportunity to repent, including the postmortem encounter with God. It is the natural consequence of remaining in God's holy presence while refusing to repent: the fire consumes what is evil, and for the person who is nothing but resistance to God, there is nothing left. See Chapters 23 and 31.
The Hebrew term for the realm of the dead in the Old Testament. Sheol is depicted as a shadowy, underground abode where the dead go after physical death—both the righteous and the wicked. In early Old Testament texts, Sheol is described in somewhat vague terms: a place of silence, darkness, and diminished existence (Psalm 88:10–12; Ecclesiastes 9:10). Over time, a more developed understanding emerged, with hints that God's power extends even into Sheol (Psalm 139:8), that God can redeem from Sheol (Psalm 49:15; Hosea 13:14), and that the dead will one day be raised (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2). Sheol is roughly equivalent to the Greek Hades in the New Testament. It is not the same as Gehenna (the place of final punishment) or the Lake of Fire. See Chapters 17 and 21.
The view that the soul, after death, enters a state of unconscious "sleep" until the resurrection. On this view, there is no conscious intermediate state; the dead are unaware of the passage of time and simply "wake up" at the resurrection. Proponents appeal to biblical passages that describe death as "sleep" (Daniel 12:2; John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14). The author rejects soul sleep, arguing that "sleep" in these passages is a metaphor for the appearance of the body in death, not a description of the soul's condition. The same biblical authors who use sleep language also clearly affirm conscious existence after death (e.g., Paul in Philippians 1:21–23 and 2 Corinthians 5:1–8). A conscious intermediate state is essential for the postmortem opportunity thesis. See Chapter 6.
The philosophical and theological view that a human being is composed of two distinct kinds of substance: a material body and an immaterial soul (or spirit). These two substances are intimately united during earthly life but can exist apart—specifically, the soul can survive the death of the body and continue to function as a conscious, thinking, willing entity. Substance dualism has a long history in Christian theology, from the church fathers through Thomas Aquinas and the Reformers, and has been defended in contemporary philosophy by J.P. Moreland, Richard Swinburne, Charles Taliaferro, and Dean Zimmerman. The author argues that substance dualism is both biblically grounded (see Chapter 6) and philosophically defensible (see Chapter 7), and that it is essential for the postmortem opportunity thesis: if there is no immaterial soul that survives death, there is no conscious person to encounter God between death and resurrection. The author further argues that veridical NDEs provide compelling empirical support for substance dualism (see Chapter 5).
A Greek term that appears only once in the New Testament, in 2 Peter 2:4: "God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [tartarōsas, ταρταρώσας] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment." In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the deepest region of the underworld, reserved for the most wicked. Peter uses this term specifically for the imprisonment of fallen angels—not for human beings. Tartarus is thus distinct from Hades (the general realm of the dead), Gehenna (the place of final human punishment), and the Lake of Fire. Its inclusion in the biblical lexicon of afterlife terminology illustrates the complexity of the biblical picture and the danger of treating all references to "hell" as if they describe the same place. See Chapter 21.
Latin for "the three days of death." This phrase refers to the period between Jesus Christ's death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. During this triduum, according to the descensus ad inferos tradition, Christ descended to the realm of the dead. The theological significance of the triduum is immense: it establishes that Christ Himself entered the realm of death, and—on the postmortem opportunity reading of 1 Peter 3:18–4:6—that He preached the gospel to the dead there. See Chapters 11–13.
The belief that all human beings (and, in some versions, all sentient creatures) will ultimately be saved and reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Christian universalism should be distinguished from pluralistic universalism (the idea that all religions lead to God). Christian universalists affirm that salvation is exclusively through Christ but believe that God's love is so persistent and His grace so powerful that every person will eventually repent and be saved—whether in this life or the next. Major proponents include Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Talbott, and Robin Parry (writing as Gregory MacDonald). The author is not a universalist. While deeply sympathetic to the universalist emphasis on God's relentless love, the author believes that human free will is genuine and that some persons may irrevocably reject God, resulting in their destruction. The author's view is best described as a "hopeful near-universalism" within a conditional immortality framework: we may hope that all will be saved, but we cannot guarantee it. See Chapters 14, 24–25, and 30.
A near-death experience in which the person reports accurate, verifiable information that they could not have obtained through normal sensory means. For example, a patient in cardiac arrest may accurately describe conversations, events, or objects in other rooms of the hospital—or even at distant locations—that occurred while they were clinically dead. Perhaps the most remarkable cases involve congenitally blind individuals who report visual perceptions during their NDEs, perceiving colors, shapes, and scenes they have never been able to see. Veridical NDEs are of particular importance because they resist the standard materialist explanations (hallucination, oxygen deprivation, temporal lobe activity). If a patient can accurately report events they had no physical means of perceiving, this constitutes evidence that consciousness can function independently of the brain—precisely what substance dualism predicts and what physicalism cannot explain. The author's Th.D. dissertation research focuses on veridical NDEs as evidence for substance dualism. See Chapter 5.
Additional Terms for Reference:
Beatific vision — The direct, face-to-face experience of God's presence that the redeemed will enjoy eternally; the ultimate goal of human existence.
Creedal Christianity — Christian faith as defined by the early ecumenical creeds (Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Definition), which establish the boundaries of orthodox belief regarding the Trinity, the person of Christ, and related doctrines.
Emergentism — The view that mental or spiritual properties emerge from complex physical systems (especially the brain) without being reducible to those systems; a middle ground between reductive physicalism and substance dualism.
Eschatology — The branch of theology concerned with "last things": death, the intermediate state, the return of Christ, the resurrection, the final judgment, heaven, hell, and the consummation of all things.
General revelation — God's self-disclosure through creation, conscience, and the moral order—available to all people everywhere—as distinguished from special revelation (Scripture and the incarnation of Christ).
Great White Throne Judgment — The final judgment described in Revelation 20:11–15, in which the dead are raised and judged according to what they have done. On the author's view, this is the last and most definitive postmortem opportunity.
Nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ) — Hebrew term variously translated as "soul," "life," "self," or "living being." Its meaning is context-dependent. Physicalists argue nephesh refers to the whole person; dualists point to passages where nephesh departs at death (Genesis 35:18), suggesting a separable soul.
Pneuma (πνεῦμα) — Greek for "spirit," "breath," or "wind." In the New Testament, pneuma can refer to the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, or to spiritual beings. When used of the human spirit, it often refers to the immaterial aspect of the person that survives death (Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59; Hebrews 12:23).
Premillennialism — The eschatological view that Christ will return before (pre-) the millennium—a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth described in Revelation 20. The author holds to premillennialism with a rapture view between pre-wrath and post-tribulational.
Ruach (רוּחַ) — Hebrew term meaning "spirit," "breath," or "wind." Ecclesiastes 12:7 says the ruach returns to God at death while the body returns to dust, which supports the dualist view of a separable spirit.
Soteriology — The branch of theology concerned with salvation: its nature, its scope, its means, and its application to individuals and humanity.
Theosis / Theōsis (θέωσις) — The Eastern Orthodox doctrine of "divinization" or "deification"—the process by which human beings are progressively transformed into the likeness of God through participation in God's divine energies, while remaining creatures and not becoming God in essence.
Note: This glossary is intended as a quick-reference guide for readers of Beyond the Grave. For full scholarly treatments of each term, please consult the relevant chapters as indicated, as well as the works listed in the Annotated Bibliography (Appendix B).