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Thorolfr
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The thing I wonder is where everyone is going to fit on this planet if all those billions living in end times and all those who had died and will be raised from the dead will all be here at the same time.
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on_the_hill
Guest
What about people who were cremated?
If I’m up in Heaven, I’m not sure I’d want to come back in a physical sense.
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Rau
Guest
Some elements of the faith seem to be expressed in words that on the surface are plain, but in fact are not meaningful within the limits of our understanding.
I would note that cremation presents no greater difficulty to resurrection than does rotting underground in a box.
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Ron_Conte
Guest
Our resurrected bodies (except for those who die very shortly before the resurrection, are not the same set of molecules as our earthly bodies. If your body has been cremated, or if it has decayed so that all the molecules are long gone, God does not have to gather those same molecules together. He simply gives each of us substantially the same body we had in life, and yet this body is renewed and glorified. It is no longer subject to harm or suffering or corruption.
Human persons are body and soul. Jesus became human, in body and soul. So there must be a physical resurrection, so that the Blessed souls in Heaven can have the fullness of happiness in body and soul.
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Aloysium
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Not too many when you consider the size of the universe.
When you’ve got eternity, a lot is possible.
Like a 2 year-old trying to imagine the world of adults, I can’t really say what it will be like.
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mikekle
Guest
But all these people are going to be in one place…the earth, Ive wondered about this too, if every single person that has ever lived, is suddenly back on the planet, in some type of glorified body, that is alot of people, and Im assuming they will return to the areas where they lived or died.
Plus, the people in hell will also be back on the earth, makes me wonder how that will work out?
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Lily_Bernans
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Why do you think the people in hell will be back on earth? We don’t know if anyone is in hell, or will go to hell, but once in hell, it is for eternity.
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clem456
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We also don’t fully understand heaven and hell.
Are they physical places, as we know “places”? Are they states? What is the relationship between material and immaterial?
The Church teaches some profound things about paradise, the resurrection of the body etc… but doesn’t pretend to answer these questions in a scientific way. All the rest is speculation.
Worrying about whether all those bodies will fit into our physical world is kinda like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Are they physical places, as we know “places”? Are they states? What is the relationship between material and immaterial?
The Church teaches some profound things about paradise, the resurrection of the body etc… but doesn’t pretend to answer these questions in a scientific way. All the rest is speculation.
Worrying about whether all those bodies will fit into our physical world is kinda like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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cfauster
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Yes, that seems consistent with the following understanding of what would have been the case without sin:
" … resurrection (or a state of union with God no longer reversible) would have represented the immediate crowning achievement of each historical life, without the interruption of death. This does not mean that physiological laws would have been invalidated, and that human beings would have continued their earthy life indefinitely: what is promised as achievement of the universal history in a redeeming history marked by sin, could have been the achievement of each individual life if there had been no sin … "
The above quotation comes from an article of the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.
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Rau
Guest
I don’t perceive a need to view the body as changed by the Fall. But there is also no point in seeking to analyse, by scientific method, the manner in which the soul exercised influence over the body (biology). If it makes sense to ask about “how our biology was changed”, it makes sense to ask scientific questions about our pre-fall condition. I think those questions are all beyond science.
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catholic1seeks
Guest
Yes we do know.
Cue the dinosaurs
But in all seriousness, yes we do. We have the fossil record.
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catholic1seeks
Guest
As noted in another thread, I think you and I are close on all of this. But it bothers me a lot when I hear some people talk about this issue. Many posts seem really… unscientific. I don’t mean to offend. And it’s okay if some people hold certain views about the Fall that are different from mine. What scares me is more about how people in the church (magisterium and theologians in particular) explain all of this.
I’m fine with the view that God gave our first parents gifts (impassibility, integrity, etc) to uplift humanity in a state that is more harmonious with the gift of grace they had been placed in with God. I’m fine with the idea that this means the finite, limited world would not have hurt Adam - because he had special gifts. I am not fine with the idea that the sin of Adam had some sort of reverberating effect of knocking the entire Universe out of whack, which includes (as some on here have said), diseases, animal death and suffering, and various other physical evils.
It seems with what we know from science that the Fall did not bring about all these physical evils. Disease is an effect of various living organisms that have evolved naturally, for example. I don’t even think we can say that bodily deformities and handicaps came from the Fall; they are a result of how genetics work.
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Rau
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I find the topic quite “academic” or “theologically technical”. Is there ANY conclusions or implications for life, the faith or reaching heaven that one can draw pursuant to this discussion - or is it just a matter of curiosity?
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catholic1seeks
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For me, I feel like this issue is akin to the “God of the Gaps” arguments, but in a different way. The God of the Gaps argument finds a gap of understanding in science and says “God must have done it!” when really, all we need is a little more information to understand the gap. In this case, it’s more of a “Original Sin of the Gaps,” whereby any evil must be traced back to the Fall – and that just seems unscientific and so ultimately makes a shakey theological statement. Which is not a good thing, since the Fall is a foundational teaching of Christianity.
And all of that relates to my thread on homosexuality and the Fall.
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Frankenfurter
Guest
I have come to understand that most of us underestimate the depth of the fall. It seems in fact that the fall affected all of nature. And yes, this includes our bodies, but much more than that - all of nature.
Much depth here. Much to consider as to what our church actually teaches.
Much depth here. Much to consider as to what our church actually teaches.
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Vico
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Rau
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I am not familiar with persons who seek to fill every scientific gap with “God must have done it”.
Moral evils are traceable to the fall, and this is not a question can be answered otherwise by science.
Had there never been a Fall, would we ever come to discuss homosexuality? No, for there would be no manifestation of it in terms of the morally wrong acts (including thoughts) we associate with it. I can’t answer questions about our biology pre-fall. That decomposes our body+soul - which was immortal and different than now.
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Ron_Conte
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My opinion is that the fall of some of the angels, very early after the creation of the universe, caused the universe to be in a fallen state. Angels have the role of overseeing God’s creation, and so it was fitting, when many angels fell and became devils, for God to permit a corresponding effect in Creation, that it be subject to decay and that the animals (when they later evolved) would be subject to injury and death.
Similarly, when Adam and Eve sinned, both body and soul were changed for the worse. They sinned in paradise, which is like earth but unfallen. After their fall, they were placed on this fallen earth, as the most fitting home for fallen human persons.
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NM505StKate
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Okay you have to figure that the story of the Garden of Eden is just that, a story. It was made to explain things like childbirth, why people work, and why some animals make us scared. Thanks to science we can see how we came about. The “Fall of Man” didn’t affect anything in a physical way.
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