기독교의 죽음이해에 대한 상담학적 고찰

Study on Christian Death from the viewpoint of Counseling- To recover an ethical and Religious Meaning in death -

To take care of people who are facing death effectively, we need to have a clear understanding of death. Without proper understanding on death, we as Christian counselors will meet confusion even though we have a lot of psychological and medical skills to help those who are in last stage of life. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to recover ethical and religious meaning, which we are losing today, through critical dialogue between psychological and medical approach and traditional Christian approach to death. Christian approach to death, death is an evil, a punishment for sinfulness which cost man immortality, had been accepted by Christians without any question for a long time. However, after the Enlightenment, people began to have confusion in understanding death. Today persons seldom link death, sin or alienation from God, and grace. The belief that because Adam sins, we die, sounds nonsensical, antiquated, irrelevant, and logically inconsistent for many people. The historical shift in emphasis from a religious and moral view of death to a natural approach is traced. For this, three persons are investigated: Augustine and Calvin who followed Pauline view of death as consequential punishment of Adam s sin and as leading to judgment and eternal life, and Schleiermacher who adopted the more natural view of death as a necessary, essential part of our finitude and not as the direct result of original sin. In the last two centuries, technical, scientific understandings of death have replaced magical, moral, and religious understandings. There was general movement from a value-laden to a value free view of death. There has also been a shift from earlier views of death as caused by supernatural forces to scientific explanations of death as a natural necessity. The meaning and value of death also became increasingly psychologized. Kübler-Ross bases ethic solely on an individual s inner valuing process in making decisions in the face of death. The disregard for death s moral relevance leaves a vacuum that psychology and medicine fill with new moralism--ethical egoism-- which is hardly a better solution from a religious or a secular perspective. However, people still desire vibrant theological witness in the area of death and dying. To solve this problem, Tillich s method is suggested which mediates between culture and theology, and mediates between conservative views of death as unnatural and modern views of death as natural. By this, the way to recover ethical and religious meaning which is necessary to help people effectively is suggested.