Understanding Death to Live More Fully

Death puts an end to earthly life, a big event. Some deaths have great ramifications on society and often give great shock and sadness to others. The aftermath, however, is limited, generally, with the passage of time we forget. Death does not remain in life. We all know that life ends in death. Knowing that we are going to die influences the way we live.                        


Death makes life important; we can't separate them. Philosophy is the field concerned with understanding life and death. These words begin an article in the Peace Weekly about  a philosophy professor at the Catholic University. Ku In-hei  who teaches  at the  university and  has written the book: Study of the Philosophy of Death.

Death and life are two sides of a coin. She goes  through the history of the different philosophers and their treatment of death. They begin with anxiety about death but life is the preparation for death. 

In the time of the Greeks  death was both an enemy and a friend. At times seen as a sweet sleep and  described as a gloomy subterranean world. In a word it was seen as a world of contradiction.  At the times of the Renaissance  they made an effort to ignore it. The author calls this the time of forgetting. The  atmosphere of the times determines  the way we look upon death Each philosopher had their own way of seeing death. Without religion each used their intellect. What was the way the Christian looked on death? They saw beyond death and stressed love.

Christians believe in God's love which is eternal when  we live in that love we are already going towards eternity and overcoming death. Love is the reason for our creation and the  hope that  overcomes death. Love has the strength to transcend death.

Professor Ku concludes, we do not fear or avoid death but make our greatest effort to prepare to  pass through death with  peace. When we live our life completely the anxiety and fear of death has no possibility of coming into the picture.

Without a real understanding of death it is difficult to live life well, she maintains, and hopes the book will help us to have a better understanding of death.