Abode of the dead

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DL82 said:
The souls of the faithful departed enjoy the Beatific Vision, but they only enjoy it with their souls. As human beings, we are both body and soul. That most Western of Western Theologians, St Thomas Aquinas, said that if only our souls are saved, we are not truly saved. While the souls in heaven enjoy the experience of God’s presence as far as a disembodied soul can, part of what gives a human soul the full capacity to enjoy God is that it is made for a body. Only at the resurrection will we have the full capacity to enjoy the Beatific Vision which the souls in heaven already experience.

As I understand it, (and I’m no expert) the Eastern Churches (Orthodox at least, not sure about Eastern Catholic) tend to think of heaven, hell and purgatory as the same physical place - the inescapable presence of God - which is a fire for those who have lived in enmity with Him, a light of joy for those who have lived in His friendship, and something in between for those who are somewhere between the two.
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I don’t think I can agree with you on this. For the soul of a man is slain because of sin and if the soul remains dead in the man at the time he suffers physical death, because his soul is dead it will be cast into the place reserved for the unrighteous dead awaiting judgement.

When a man is born again, his soul/spirit is made alive again giving him fellowship with God.

Now, I do agree with you that the soul/spirit is not complete until it is joined with it’s incorruptible body on the day of resurrection. So those who died in Christ will long for their eternal body, but I don’t believe it is misery. For how can one be in the kingdom of heaven with God and not be elated. If I am the least to enter the kingdom of God, his grace is more then sufficient for me.
 
heiscominginthe said:
I don’t think I can agree with you on this. For the soul of a man is slain because of sin and if the soul remains dead in the man at the time he suffers physical death, because his soul is dead it will be cast into the place reserved for the unrighteous dead awaiting judgement.

When a man is born again, his soul/spirit is made alive again giving him fellowship with God.

Now, I do agree with you that the soul/spirit is not complete until it is joined with it’s incorruptible body on the day of resurrection. So those who died in Christ will long for their eternal body, but I don’t believe it is misery. For how can one be in the kingdom of heaven with God and not be elated. If I am the least to enter the kingdom of God, his grace is more then sufficient for me.
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Where is anyone saying that the souls of the saved are in misery?
 
An analogy -

Your soul being in God’s presence is like having a really good foot massage, it feels really good, but it’s only one part of you that’s able to receive that good feeling. Being resurrected in God’s presence is like having your whole body massaged, the same thing’s happening, but there’s more of you for it to happen to.

Is that a helpful analogy?
 
Fuerza said:
Agreed, but what does that have to do with what I just said?
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We agree in that the soul/spirit of a man goes to be with God when he suffers physical death.

The point I am trying to get across is that the soul/spirit MUST be reborn, made alive again before physical death. So when we are in heaven, even though we are only in spirit, the experience will be greater than anything we can dream of while on earth.
 
DL82 said:
An analogy -

Your soul being in God’s presence is like having a really good foot massage, it feels really good, but it’s only one part of you that’s able to receive that good feeling. Being resurrected in God’s presence is like having your whole body massaged, the same thing’s happening, but there’s more of you for it to happen to.

Is that a helpful analogy?
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I can live with it. Nice job.
 
heiscominginthe said:
It is written that God is not the god of the dead, but the living.
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This is why we pray for the souls of the faithful departed - because He is the God of the living. Christ was referring to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when He said that, who had been deceased (in an earthly way) for quite some time.
 
heiscominginthe said:
We agree in that the soul/spirit of a man goes to be with God when he suffers physical death.

The point I am trying to get across is that the soul/spirit MUST be reborn, made alive again before physical death. So when we are in heaven, even though we are only in spirit, the experience will be greater than anything we can dream of while on earth.
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Is anyone disagreeing with you?
 
mardukm said:
In line with what brother Aramis has stated, all that the Church has stated is that one enjoys the Beatific Vision. The Church has never defined what that Grace consists of. If you think about it, if one understands the Beatific Vision as the direct and clear perception of God as He truly is, how could you (as a Latin) possibly ever come to fully understand infinity, unless you are infinite? But according to the Latin Church, glorification is not absorption into the infinite, or self-identification with the infinte. No matter what state of perfect happiness one attains in heaven, it cannot ever become or coincide with the very object of the Beatific vision, which is Happiness itself. So even by the “rational” standards of the Latin Church, it is more “logical” to view the Beatific Vision as a process of acquiring joyful knowledge of God.

In mathematics, there is a concept called “approaching the limit,” where a curved line approaches, but never intersects or coincides with a certain value (the limit). Think of God as “the limit” think of yourself as a point on the line, and think of the line as your journey of theosis towards perfection.

Blessings,
Marduk
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Following what brother Marduk said, it seems rather silly from my perspective as a Latin (canonically speaking, at least; it’s been a while;) ) to imagine us fully understanding God’s essence in his infinite fullness. The misunderstandings going both ways between the Eastern and Western formulations of dogma seem to me to be at least one of the greatest afflictions hurting the Church; the more I study theology from the Eastern perspective(s), the more it seems to me that there is no dogmatic difference between the East and the West whatsoever, except for liberal Latin-rite Catholics who have been heavily Protestantized (regarding the dogma of theosis, for example), and American Orthodox who have likewise been heavily Protestantized (such as someone on one of these forums who claimed that the Theotokos was just as sinful as you or I - certainly not an Orthodox teaching!).
 
Fuerza said:
Agreed, but what does that have to do with what I just said?
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To be in purgatory is to be in hell and man is no longer held under the yoke of death and hell.

Jesus went and set all those being held captive in death, the righteous dead, free from the hold it had on them.

So I don’t believe the place once known as the bosom of Abraham is used any longer. For now when a believer dies, his soul is not taken to the place known as death and hell, but goes to be with the living. For when a man is born again, his spirit that was once dead in him is reborn, born anew, born again, made alive again through faith in Christ.

Since the spirit of the man is alive again through Christ, it does not go to where the unrighteous dead are being held, it goes to be with the living.
 
Cecilianus said:
Following what brother Marduk said, it seems rather silly from my perspective as a Latin (canonically speaking, at least; it’s been a while;) ) to imagine us fully understanding God’s essence in his infinite fullness. The misunderstandings going both ways between the Eastern and Western formulations of dogma seem to me to be at least one of the greatest afflictions hurting the Church; the more I study theology from the Eastern perspective(s), the more it seems to me that there is no dogmatic difference between the East and the West whatsoever, except for liberal Latin-rite Catholics who have been heavily Protestantized (regarding the dogma of theosis, for example), and American Orthodox who have likewise been heavily Protestantized (such as someone on one of these forums who claimed that the Theotokos was just as sinful as you or I - certainly not an Orthodox teaching!).
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I am not confident we should consider what Aramis spoke, since he refused to accept Jesus Christ as God. Although some of what he believed was scripturally sound, it was his denial that Jesus was God that brought him many problems.

Yet, on the other hand, when you examine the trinitarian stance, there are things they believed and believe that are not scripturally sound.
 
Cecilianus said:
Is anyone disagreeing with you?
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There are some that disagree with me. The talk of purgatory for instance goes against my stand. For I don’t believe there is a place any longer, being done away with when Jesus defeated death.
 
heiscominginthe said:
To be in purgatory is to be in hell and man is no longer held under the yoke of death and hell.

Jesus went and set all those being held captive in death, the righteous dead, free from the hold it had on them.

So I don’t believe the place once known as the bosom of Abraham is used any longer. For now when a believer dies, his soul is not taken to the place known as death and hell, but goes to be with the living. For when a man is born again, his spirit that was once dead in him is reborn, born anew, born again, made alive again through faith in Christ.

Since the spirit of the man is alive again through Christ, it does not go to where the unrighteous dead are being held, it goes to be with the living.
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You are not understanding purgatory correctly. It is not Hell or even the bosom of Abraham; it is a place of purification for the righteous who have the effects of sin still on their souls. Only the pure shall enter Heaven, according to Scripture (Revelation 21:27, for example: “There shall not enter into it [the New Jerusalem] any thing defiled”); even the righteous have sinned (“none is good but God alone”) and we cannot leave purgatory until we have “repaid the last farthing” of our debt to God (Matt 5:26; also Luke 12:59). All of the Christians before the Protestant Revolt have prayed for the dead - Catholic, Orthodox, and non-Chalcedonians - even though the Copts, Ethiopians and Assyrians were geographically separated and isolated from the rest of Christendom since the 5th century A.D. The Jews also prayed for the dead, as can be seen from the books of Maccabees.

The best demonstration of why we need Purgatory was given by C. S. Lewis in “Letters to Malcolm”. He argued that we all want purgation. It’s as if we were to show up to Heaven and be told, “Your breath stinks, you’re dressed in rags and you’re caked in mud, but we are all charitable here and nobody will mind.” To this most of us would respond, “But please, sir, can’t I be washed first?”
 
heiscominginthe said:
There are some that disagree with me. The talk of purgatory for instance goes against my stand. For I don’t believe there is a place any longer, being done away with when Jesus defeated death.
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You are confusing purgatory with the Limbo of the Fathers, which was done away with on the first Holy Saturday.
 
heiscominginthe said:
I am not confident we should consider what Aramis spoke, since he refused to accept Jesus Christ as God. Although some of what he believed was scripturally sound, it was his denial that Jesus was God that brought him many problems.

Yet, on the other hand, when you examine the trinitarian stance, there are things they believed and believe that are not scripturally sound.
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🤷🤷🤷🤷🤷

Where are you getting this from? I have seen lots of Aramis’ posts on other threads and he never denied Christ’s divinity, nor should he as a Catholic.
 
Cecilianus said:
You are not understanding purgatory correctly. It is not Hell or even the bosom of Abraham; it is a place of purification for the righteous who have the effects of sin still on their souls. Only the pure shall enter Heaven, according to Scripture (Revelation 21:27, for example: “There shall not enter into it [the New Jerusalem] any thing defiled”); even the righteous have sinned (“none is good but God alone”) and we cannot leave purgatory until we have “repaid the last farthing” of our debt to God (Matt 5:26; also Luke 12:59). All of the Christians before the Protestant Revolt have prayed for the dead - Catholic, Orthodox, and non-Chalcedonians - even though the Copts, Ethiopians and Assyrians were geographically separated and isolated from the rest of Christendom since the 5th century A.D. The Jews also prayed for the dead, as can be seen from the books of Maccabees.

The best demonstration of why we need Purgatory was given by C. S. Lewis in “Letters to Malcolm”. He argued that we all want purgation. It’s as if we were to show up to Heaven and be told, “Your breath stinks, you’re dressed in rags and you’re caked in mud, but we are all charitable here and nobody will mind.” To this most of us would respond, “But please, sir, can’t I be washed first?”
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So just out of curiosity, just exactly where is this place? Then, I guess when I was born again some thirty some years ago, not all of my sins were forgiven?

I don’t think that can fly.
 
Cecilianus said:
🤷🤷🤷🤷🤷

Where are you getting this from? I have seen lots of Aramis’ posts on other threads and he never denied Christ’s divinity, nor should he as a Catholic.
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I suggest you retrace your history. Aramis was looked down upon for his stand on the trinity. Here is one for you, was Aramis proarian or antiarian in his stand?
 
Cecilianus said:
You are confusing purgatory with the Limbo of the Fathers, which was done away with on the first Holy Saturday.
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Well, there was no other place where a soul was taken. It was either taken to the upper part of hell known as the Bosom of Abraham which was established for the righteous or the lower part of hell which was reserved for the unrighteous.

There was no other place supported by scripture.
 
heiscominginthe said:
So just out of curiosity, just exactly where is this place? Then, I guess when I was born again some thirty some years ago, not all of my sins were forgiven?

I don’t think that can fly.
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Purgatory is only for sins that were forgiven. All sins that are repented of are forgiven. But the effects of sin remain. When you sin, you damage your relationship with God - that’s an effect of sin. When you sin, you diminish the presence of sanctifying grace within your soul. When you sin, you incur punishment due out of God’s justice. (Since “Not all sins are mortal” - 1 John 5:17 - this includes punishment which is only temporal and does not incur damnation.) When you sin, you become attached to sin. When you sin, you grow in vice and lose virtue. This what you need to be purified from.

Regarding “where” is Purgatory, where is Heaven? Where is Hell? Where was the bosom of Abraham, the limbo of the Fathers?

One must be completely pure to enter Heaven, one must “repay the last farthing” of our debt, and we should pray to the dead “that they may be loosed from their sins” (2 Maccabees 12:46). That’s Purgatory. What more Scriptural description do you need? The doctrine is part of the deposit of faith handed down from the Apostles. Nobody denied it until Martin Luther came along a millennium and a half later. The word “Trinity” isn’t found in the Scriptures either; do you deny that dogma?
 
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