Will mentally challenged people still be mentally challenged in Heaven?

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Will a person who is mentally challenged or mentally ill remain like that in Heaven?
 
I would imagine not. Just like an amputee will be healed in Heaven, I’d imagine that someone who is mentally challenged will have their full intellect restored.
 
Whoever finished the Summa for St. Thomas opined that “Therefore all will not rise again of the same quantity but each one will rise again of that quantity which would have been his at the end of his growth if nature had not erred or failed: and the Divine power will subtract or supply what was excessive or lacking in man.” (Supp. III 81.2). So if the cause of the mental challenge is some defect in the body, then that would not remain after the resurrection.
 
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St. Paul suggests in 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 that our minds will be improved. In this passage, he wrote about knowing and seeing, but I would generalize these to include perception, cognition, and memory, and then we might as well include emotions, relationships, etc.
 
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I’d guess “no” with the illness, but as for mentally challenged, for all I know that describes my current state in comparison with how we’ll be in heaven (God willingly).
 
I don’t believe that this idea is compatible with Catholic teaching. We will have physical bodies, and they will be our bodies.

I agree with your conclusion, however.
 
There’s also the train of thought that says our wounds will be redeemed and glorified, as is the case with Christ.
Glorified wounds is hard to comprehend, as it should be.
 
And not to be funny, but some people are a little too smart for their own good.
 
For all I know, compared to people in heaven even an Einstein or Aquinas would seem mentally challenged. Perhaps the change for “normal people” won’t be much less than the change for the challenged.
 
Certainly not in Heaven. Some will shine brighter than most of us, having been purer/more innocent in soul!
 
That’s like asking if handicapped people will be handicapped in heaven.
 
Gab123 said:
That’s like asking if handicapped people will be handicapped in heaven.
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The blind will see. The deaf will hear. The mute will speak. The lame will leap. All defects will be done away with.
 
God’s ways are not our ways. I don’t know the details of how and where the mentally challenged and mentally ill are in Heaven, but those who live in this life the holiness that God calls them to are those who are the most wise.
 
Exactly. Like St Margaret of Città di Castello, who was disabled.
 
Another way to look at it, that just occurred to me:

Maybe mental abilities, or the relative lack thereof, simply won’t be that important in heaven. I have known mentally challenged people whose ability to love, or to love God in particular, wasn’t affected in the least. So maybe they will stay the way they were in this life, and it won’t make any difference. As I always tell my son in homeschool religion class, 50 trillion years from now, it’s really not going to matter whether he knows how to do long division, or knows the history of the Roman Empire, but it most certainly will matter whether he knows the message of the Gospel and converts his mind and heart accordingly. Ultimately that is a very simple message, not outside the reach of the mentally challenged.

This would, of course, not apply to the very worst-disabled people, who lack even that much cognition. It’s really useless to speculate, though — even someone who, God forbid, is born without a brain, no intellect whatsoever, in a coma for life, gives great glory to God by the mere fact that they exist and are made in His image and likeness. And as long as they are baptized, there is no question as to their salvation. (I would like to think that even lack of baptism wouldn’t matter, but I can’t prove that.)
 
poche said:
I don’t know the details of how and where the mentally challenged and mentally ill are in Heaven,
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Original Sin introduced problems throughout Creation
We shall have a Resurrected Body…
In Heaven there is only JOY…
Jesus Cured -
HomeschoolDad said:
Maybe mental abilities, or the relative lack thereof, simply won’t be that important in heaven.
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Yet with God nothing is impossible - especially curing ailments.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
Maybe mental abilities, or the relative lack thereof, simply won’t be that important in heaven.
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One has to understand that in heaven it is the soul, not the body. So someone who was BLIND on earth certainly can see as spirits see. you A guardian angel he can see without a body. At the end of the world after the resurrection, the just will receive a perfect glorified body with no defects. The four qualities of the glorified risen body will be like what of Christ’s glorified body. Here are the four qualities that the just will enjoy in their glorified body:
  1. Impassibility – the glorified body will no longer suffer physical sickness or death, as Saint Paul teaches regarding the glorified body in 1 Corinthians 15:42, “It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption.”
  2. Subtlety meaning that we will have a spiritualized nature in the sense of a spiritual body as did our Lord as we learn at 1 Corinthians 15:44: “It is sown a corruptible body, it shall rise a spiritual,” i.e. a spirit-like, “body.” We see that Christ’s glorified body was able to pass through closed doors.
  3. Agility – the glorified body will obey the soul with the greatest ease and speed of movement as we read in 1 Corinthians 15:43: “It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power,” that is, according to a gloss, “mobile and living.” Saint Thomas Aquinas says, “But mobility can only signify agility in movement. Therefore the glorified bodies will be agile.” We discern agility our Resurrected Lord’s ability to bilocate and travel great distances in an instant.
  4. Clarity – the glorified body will be free from any deformity and will be filled with beauty and radiance as we read at Matthew 13:43: “The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” and Wisdom 3:7: “The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds.” Here clarity refers not being “clear” but to being “bright.”
 
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