Heaven and the resurrection

[natrix]

I apologise in advance if I am posting this in the wrong forum, but I have a question about how heaven of the afterlife and the general resurrection at the end of time square with each other.

I’ve heard some say that popular conceptions of heaven don’t fit with Catholic theology of the resurrection. These people say that the belief is when you die, your soul waits for the final judgement at resurrection. In mass, we pray for those gone to their rest before eventual resurrection.

However, I have heard some Catholics say when one dies, if worthy, they will go to heaven. In scripture, Jesus says to the thief today you will be with me in paradise.

So how do these two aspects of an afterlife fit together?

 

[Gorgias]

So how do these two aspects of an afterlife fit together?

The Catholic Church teaches that, at death, one experiences the “Particular Judgment” immediately. So, you meet Jesus face-to-face and learn your eternal destination.

However, at that point – and until the end of time – you are only a ‘soul’, not a ‘person’ who is a body/soul composite. If you are judged worthy of heaven, you will experience God… but only as a soul, at that point. (I’m not sure I’d say you’re “in” anywhere, since you don’t have a physical body that would have the property of “physical location.”) You would experience God, however.

At the end of time, all humans receive their “glorified body” – they will no longer have defect or decay, and are incorruptible. At that point, we do have the property of ‘physical location’, so we could say that you’re “in” heaven.

Does that help?

 

[PennyinCanada]

Scripture has the promise of a New Heaven and New Earth at the end of time. So what to do in the meantime? Spend time with God in heaven hopefully.

At the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, all will be revealed.

In the Old Testament there is a pointing forward in time to this event. When Moses, who is a type of Christ, a pre-figuring of Christ, takes the people of God through the Red Sea on dry ground to the Promised Land, by this miraculous parting of the sea, and Pharaoh’s army is held back by a pillar of fire. We have not seen yet what event this pre-figures. It will be an amazing thing to see. Christ speaks of the separation of the sheep and the goats.

 

[Vico]

… So how do these two aspects of an afterlife fit together? …

These are the states:

• Person with mortal body and immortal soul, before death.
• The immortal soul without the body: purgatory state or heaven state or hell state.
• The person with soul and immortal resurrected body in heaven state: glorified to different degrees.
• The person with soul and immortal resurrected body in hell state: unglorified.

Gaudium et spes, 1965, Pope Paul VI:

39. We do not know the time for the consummation of the earth and of humanity,1 nor do we know how all things will be transformed. As deformed by sin, the shape of this world will pass away;2 but we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide,3 and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart.4 Then, with death overcome, the sons of God will be raised up in Christ, and what was sown in weakness and corruption will be invested with incorruptibility.5 Enduring with charity and its fruits,6 all that creation7 which God made on man’s account will be unchained from the bondage of vanity.

1. Cf. Acts 1:7.
2. Cf. 1 Cor. 7:31; St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, V, 36, PG, VIII, 1221.
3. Cf. 2 Cor. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:13.
4. Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9; Apoc. 21:4-5.
5. Cf. 1 Cor. 15:42 and 53.
6. Cf. 1 Cor. 13:8; 3:14.
7. Cf. Rom. 8:19-21.

 

[po18guy]

“Paradise” is not heaven.

Remember: Jesus did not ascend that night - He descended to the abode of the dead so as to preach the Gospel to them. That is not heaven.