section_path: Religious views/Christianity
section_name: Christianity
paragraph_text: Christianity
  
  According to some Christian eschatology, when people die, their souls will be judged by God and determined to go to Heaven or to Hades awaiting a resurrection. The oldest existing branches of Christianity, the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, adhere to this view, as well as many Protestant denominations. Some Protestant Christians understand the soul as life, and believe that the dead have no conscious existence until after the resurrection (this is known as Christian conditionalism). Some Protestant Christians believe that the souls and bodies of the unrighteous will be destroyed in Hell rather than suffering eternally (annihilationism). Believers will inherit eternal life either in Heaven, or in a Kingdom of God on earth, and enjoy eternal fellowship with God. Other Christians reject the punishment of the soul.
  
  Paul the Apostle used psychē (ψυχή) and pneuma (πνεῦμα) specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of nephesh (נפש) and ruah (רוח), meaning spirit, (also in the Septuagint, e.g. Genesis 1:2 רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים = πνεῦμα θεοῦ = spiritus Dei = "the Spirit of God"). Christians generally believe in the existence and eternal, infinite nature of the soul.