Christianity is one of the worlds’ living religions in which the resurrection after death and the events
to be followed are explained in detail. According to Christianity, the life of the world has a beginning and
an end. The whole plot of individual and mass events, believed to flow in a linear time, is all about beliefs
in the Afterlife. According to Christianity, the Afterlife begins with the death of the individual on a personal
scale and with The Last Judgement on the scale of humanity. The period of time from the creation of
universe to the day of The Last Judgement can be examined in three main sections.
The first period is the period in which we are still present, from the creation of the universe to the
Second Coming. The events of this time period will take place in this world and they will be on an entirely
individual scale. These beliefs expressed in the literature are; death, Particular Judgment, preexperience
of Paradise, Purgatory, pre-experience of Hell.
The second period covers a timeline that begins with the Second Coming and continues until the
day of The Last Judgement. This world is the place of events that will take place during this time period.
However, their interlocutors are all humanity, especially all Christian believers embodied in the spiritual
personality of the Church. When we look at the details of the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead,
rapture, tribulation, the Millennium, end of the world and The Last Judgement, it is clear that a war
between good and bad is foreseen in which the ultimate winner will be the good. However, since the
Church still does not provide final verdicts on the details of certain issues, there is an expectation for a
future with certain outline but blurry details. This ambiguity creates an area that can go as far as the
sectarianization process and paves the way for different disagreements.
The third period begins with day of The Last Judgement, the first day of an eternal life in which
Jesus Christ judges the evil and absolves the good together with chosen saints, ending the war of good
and evil once and for all. The events that will take place in this time period is a different place called the
New Earth and New Heaven. As a result of this court, which concerns all humanity, the good are divided
into Paradise as eternal rest and the evil into Hell as eternal punishment. This eternal life, where all the
purposes of God are fulfilled, is the last stage of the Afterlife, which Christians expect mixed with hope
and fear.
The aim of this article is to present in detail the point of view of the Catholic faith in the
abovementioned stages, using only the official documents and authentic sources of the Church. In this
context, our study is a descriptive study where futuristic elements and eschatological beliefs are blended.