=hansard;If the righteous go to Heaven when they die, even after a stint in purgatory, what need have they of being resurrected with their bodies? It seems complicated and quite unnecessary. Wouldn’t it be sufficient (to say the least) for our souls to be in Heaven with God, and let that be the end of it?
Is there anything in scripture or the CC that goes into the need for resurrection?
The Resurrection of our Bodies was taught by Christ and is a Dogma of the CC.
652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life. The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures” indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.
1016 By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just as Christ is risen and lives for ever, so all of us will rise at the last day.
1017 “We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess” (Council of Lyons II: DS 854). We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a “spiritual body” (cf. 1 Cor 15:42-44).
**998 **Who will rise? All the dead will rise, “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
The basic reason for the resurrection of our bodies is explained in this brief passage: 1Cor.6: 19 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own;”
God created us in part because He desired to look upon the Masterpiece’s of His creation. Humanity. Gen. 1:26-27 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
That which is “the image [although a pale one] is not to be “trashed.” From the beginning it was God’s plan to reunite the “entire human creatures” He Created.
**From the Catholic Encyclopedia **
“
Dogma of the resurrection
The creeds and professions of faith and conciliar definitions do not leave it doubtful that the resurrection of the body is a dogma or an article of faith. We may appeal, for instance, to the Apostles’ Creed, the so-called Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Creed of the Eleventh Council of Toledo, the Creed of Leo IX, subscribed by Bishop Peter and still in use at the consecration of bishops the profession of faith subscribed by Michael Palaeologus in the Second Council of Lyons, the Creed of Pius IV, and the Decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (c. “Firmiter”) against the Albigenses. This article of faith is based on the belief of the Old Testament, on the teaching of the New Testament, and on Christian tradition.
Old Testament
The words of Martha and the history of the Machabees show the Jewish belief towards the end of the Jewish economy. “I know”, says Martha, “that He shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day” (**John 11:24). **And the third of the Machabee martyrs put forth his tongue and stretched out his hands, saying: “These I have from heaven, but for the laws of God I now despise them: because I hope to receive them again from him” (2
Maccabees 12:11; cf. 9:14). The Book of **Daniel (12:2; cf. 12) **inculcates the same belief: “Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake: some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, to see it always.” The word many must be understood in the light of its meaning in other passages, e.g. **Isaiah 53:11-12; Matthew **
26:28; Romans 5:18-19. Though Ezechiel’s vision of the resurrection of the dry bones refers directly to the restoration of Israel, such a figure would be hardly Israel, such a figure would be hardly intelligible except by readers familiar with the belief in a literal resurrection
(Ezekiel 37). The Prophet Isaias foretells that the Lord of hosts “shall cast down death headlong forever”
New Testament
The resurrection of the dead was expressly taught by Christ (
John 5:28-29; 6:39-40; 11:25; Luke 14:14) and defended against the unbelief of the Sadducees, whom He charged with ignorance of the power of God and of the Scriptures** (Matthew 22:29; Luke 20:37). **St. Paul places the general resurrection on the same level of certainty with that of Christ’s Resurrection: “If Christ be preached, that he rose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (
1 Corinthians 15:12 sqq.). “ END
