What are heaven and purgatory like according to the Bible?

[Argg193]

I’ve asked priests and deeply religious people about it and many of them seem to have different answers. I know there is no definitive answer about this, but I’d like to know what the Bible says about this or what are the common interpretations. Here are my questions:

• I’ve heard that purgatory is where we go to purge our sins and that depending on your sins you might stay there longer, but I’ve also heard that there is no time in the purgatory. So how exactly does that work? How can you be there for “longer” than other people if time doesn’t exist?
• Do we keep our five senses when we die or are they linked to our body? Is it possible that we get new senses when we die?
• Where exactly are Heaven, Hell and Purgatory located?
• If there is no time in heaven, will we be able to think normally? It seems the way our brains work here on earth makes the whole thinking process depend on the passage of time.
• When we die, do we go straight to purgatory/heaven/hell or do we stay “dead” for a while until the second coming of The Christ?

 

[Ann_Stanton]

#1 We are becoming pure enough to enjoy heaven.
#2 We get a glorified body at the Final Judgement and most likely are senses will be perfect.
#3 It is a state of being, not exactly a specific place.
#4 Yes, we will think normally.
#5 We are judged and set to hell/purgatory/heaven until the Final Judgement.
This is a summary of my beliefs based on reading the Bible and studying my faith.

 

[Arkansan]

Time is applicable to all created things except the blessed in Heaven. Thus Hell is called eternal only in the sense that it never ends, but in fact it is time going on forever. The same applies to purgatory, except that it is temporary.

Reply to Objection 2. The fire of hell is called eternal, only because it never ends. Still, there is change in the pains of the lost, according to the words “To extreme heat they will pass from snowy waters” (Job 24:19). Hence in hell true eternity does not exist, but rather time; according to the text of the Psalm “Their time will be for ever” (Psalm 80:16).

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm#article3

Senses are physical in nature and thus cease to exist when we die. They will be regained at the resurrection.

The physical location of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory is not known with certainty, though there have been various speculations.

 

[Arkansan]

Discursive reasoning, by which we pass from premises to conclusions, is dependent on language, which is physical in nature. Thus it does not continue after death. Knowledge, however, is a faculty of the immaterial intellect, and thus continues after death.

The blessed in Heaven do not even pass from understanding one known thing to another, but understand all that they know simultaneously.

“Consequently, by such knowledge as the angels have of things through the Word, they know all things under one intelligible species, which is the Divine essence. Therefore, as regards such knowledge, they know all things at once: just as in heaven “our thoughts will not be fleeting, going and returning from one thing to another, but we shall survey all our knowledge at the same time by one glance,” as Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 16). But by that knowledge wherewith the angels know things by innate species, they can at one time know all things which can be comprised under one species; but not such as are under various species.”

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1058.htm#article2

When we die we go straight to Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell. We are raised from the dead at the Second Coming.