Will we have self-awareness in Heaven?

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Robert_Sock said:
Or will we only be aware of God, who is truly our only essence. I think this will be hard to accept by people caught up in their own self, but I believe it will be true. There will be no human separateness in Heaven.
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I think we will be more aware than we are now, Jesus summed up life like this Love your neighbor, this must be a little bit of heaven the joy of watching children open a Christmas gift.

God Bless
🙂
 
YADA said:
We do have some scriptural references that indicate we will have self awareness in heaven.

We have Lazarus, Abraham and the Rich Man. - Recognition, communication [here even between heaven and those not in heaven] concern for self and others.

We have the Martyrs in Revelation asking how long until they are vindicated and being told that their numbers were not yet complete.

We have Jesus meeting with Moses and Elijah on the mount - conversing with them [we are not told what they conversed about] but we are told that Peter James and John recognized them - even though they would never have laid eyes on them being separated from each other in time by hundreds of years.

All three passages would indicate that we will have self awareness
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I don’t disagree with these citations of scripture, but will point to a few things that are very important to consider.

First, space and time are features of the created cosmos. The human soul, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (at 363):
In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

The soul is not composed of matter and does not intersect with spacetime except via the mediation of the body. We cannot measure souls after death with scientific instruments.

Second, our “ultimate state” described in the Nicene Creed is in the form of a resurrected body, in union with our souls. This ultimate state is described in 1 Corinthians 15:36-49. Also, note that in Revelation 21, it is not people going up from earth to Heaven to dwell with God, but the New Jerusalem coming down to earth (Rv 21:2), after the current Heaven and Earth pass away (Rv 21:1).

Jesus’ resurrected body (which is like that which we will have) was able to interact with the cosmos – eating bread and fish (Lk 24, Jn 20), for example, but also walking through walls and being able to disappear (Jn 20). We also know that Enoch (Gn 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) was taken up to Heaven without dying. So it appears that Heaven and things of Heaven can interact with our world.

To ordinary humans, we cannot see the dead before they are resurrected (Wisdom 3). However, we know that saints experience bodily resurrection on the Last Day. As far as Moses and Elijah appearing around the time of the Transfiguration, we can say that in Heaven, the spacetime of the cosmos does not govern. Since departed saints can intercede for us, it suggests that they are “already” resurrected because Heaven is not governed by the spacetime physics of our cosmos.

As such, we cannot say that our souls, per se, will have conscious self-awareness in Heaven. However, we do not know what the spacetime of Heaven is, if there is any at all. It’s possible that souls after death, but before resurrection, experience some flow of time, but that’s not a given. Humans are “body and soul” – so our ultimate fate is in Resurrection, not in residing as a disembodied soul in Heaven. The CCC at 1023 does say that souls experience the Beatific Vision with “intuitive vision,” but it is in the final “realization of the unity of the human race” (CCC at 1045) that we find our ultimate end.
 
fnr said:
I don’t disagree with these citations of scripture, but will point to a few things that are very important to consider.

First, space and time are features of the created cosmos. The human soul, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (at 363):
In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

The soul is not composed of matter and does not intersect with spacetime except via the mediation of the body. We cannot measure souls after death with scientific instruments.

Second, our “ultimate state” described in the Nicene Creed is in the form of a resurrected body, in union with our souls. This ultimate state is described in 1 Corinthians 15:36-49. Also, note that in Revelation 21, it is not people going up from earth to Heaven to dwell with God, but the New Jerusalem coming down to earth (Rv 21:2), after the current Heaven and Earth pass away (Rv 21:1).

Jesus’ resurrected body (which is like that which we will have) was able to interact with the cosmos – eating bread and fish (Lk 24, Jn 20), for example, but also walking through walls and being able to disappear (Jn 20). We also know that Enoch (Gn 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) was taken up to Heaven without dying. So it appears that Heaven and things of Heaven can interact with our world.

To ordinary humans, we cannot see the dead before they are resurrected (Wisdom 3). However, we know that saints experience bodily resurrection on the Last Day. As far as Moses and Elijah appearing around the time of the Transfiguration, we can say that in Heaven, the spacetime of the cosmos does not govern. Since departed saints can intercede for us, it suggests that they are “already” resurrected because Heaven is not governed by the spacetime physics of our cosmos.

As such, we cannot say that our souls, per se, will have conscious self-awareness in Heaven. However, we do not know what the spacetime of Heaven is, if there is any at all. It’s possible that souls after death, but before resurrection, experience some flow of time, but that’s not a given. Humans are “body and soul” – so our ultimate fate is in Resurrection, not in residing as a disembodied soul in Heaven. The CCC at 1023 does say that souls experience the Beatific Vision with “intuitive vision,” but it is in the final “realization of the unity of the human race” (CCC at 1045) that we find our ultimate end.
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And I do not disagree with what you posted - in fact it is much the same :)… though my rendition assumed the reader was familiar with the biblical scenes and my explanation was far more abbreviated and simplified … 😉

I remembered helping out a friend - pastor at a parish about an hour from my home parish who asked me to assist with RCIA during a year they had no pastoral associate and were having difficulty finding a replacement …

I answered a question from a catechumen one evening - when I finished Father said - “That was the Master’s degree answer - now let me offer the common mans” … I have not forgotten that … and though I can enjoy the scholarly exchange [and many here are far better at it then I] … I try to remember that not every question is posed by a Theology major nor a Scripture scholar :o

Loved reading your post though 👍 Nicely done
 
Time is physical, and our psyche has no time except as it registers in the head of our physical body.

Even while dreaming (when we are very much alive), we do not experience true time with our minds. Dreams last only a few seconds but seem far longer in our minds.

So there would be no time between life and life.

ICXC NIKA
 
fnr said:
I don’t disagree with these citations of scripture, but will point to a few things that are very important to consider.

First, space and time are features of the created cosmos. The human soul, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (at 363):
In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

The soul is not composed of matter and does not intersect with spacetime except via the mediation of the body. We cannot measure souls after death with scientific instruments.

Second, our “ultimate state” described in the Nicene Creed is in the form of a resurrected body, in union with our souls. This ultimate state is described in 1 Corinthians 15:36-49. Also, note that in Revelation 21, it is not people going up from earth to Heaven to dwell with God, but the New Jerusalem coming down to earth (Rv 21:2), after the current Heaven and Earth pass away (Rv 21:1).

Jesus’ resurrected body (which is like that which we will have) was able to interact with the cosmos – eating bread and fish (Lk 24, Jn 20), for example, but also walking through walls and being able to disappear (Jn 20). We also know that Enoch (Gn 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) was taken up to Heaven without dying. So it appears that Heaven and things of Heaven can interact with our world.

To ordinary humans, we cannot see the dead before they are resurrected (Wisdom 3). However, we know that saints experience bodily resurrection on the Last Day. As far as Moses and Elijah appearing around the time of the Transfiguration, we can say that in Heaven, the spacetime of the cosmos does not govern. Since departed saints can intercede for us, it suggests that they are “already” resurrected because Heaven is not governed by the spacetime physics of our cosmos.

As such, we cannot say that our souls, per se, will have conscious self-awareness in Heaven. However, we do not know what the spacetime of Heaven is, if there is any at all. It’s possible that souls after death, but before resurrection, experience some flow of time, but that’s not a given. Humans are “body and soul” – so our ultimate fate is in Resurrection, not in residing as a disembodied soul in Heaven. The CCC at 1023 does say that souls experience the Beatific Vision with “intuitive vision,” but it is in the final “realization of the unity of the human race” (CCC at 1045) that we find our ultimate end.
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I disagree with your saying that the saints are already resurrected in Heaven, as well as a totally ‘timeless’ existence theory of other opinions. I would say that since the saints are aware of each other, then there must be ‘moments’ of eternity where a soul enters. I am not there yet, but St. Augustine, Thomas, Gregory, etc. are. There must be some sort of time in eternity, even if it does not flow with our continuum.

In other words, if a saint in Heaven can pray for me still on Earth, and I am not in Heaven yet, and there will be a moment in eternity where I will enter Heaven that the soul of that saint can detect. I hope I am explaining this alright. I just don’t think we were meant to exist in a totally timeless existence as God does. I don’t even think angels exist in the same timeless existence as God.

The way in which the Church and the Bible speaks of the Resurrection, that basically, there will be every soul reunited with his/her body at the Resurrection of the Dead on the Last Day, then there is nobody in Heaven with a body, because they are waiting on it.

After all, how can theologians say that while the souls are perfectly joyful in the presence of God, they lack a body, which will complete their joy. This implies a sort of ‘waiting’.

For another thing, souls who are in Purgatory report in visions that they have been there a number of years, so this is something else to consider. (One man who appeared to St. Padre Pio reported having been in Purgatory for 60 years.)
 
Robert_Sock said:
Or will we only be aware of God, who is truly our only essence. I think this will be hard to accept by people caught up in their own self, but I believe it will be true. There will be no human separateness in Heaven.
Click to expand...
In Heavens human will hold both material body and soul but that body will not be ill or get older. Eating and drinking will be not for need but for enjoy.

To see God in Heavens (property of that is not known) will be the most enjoyment of the Heavens but that does not mean that there would not be any other fleshly enjoyments.
 
hasantas said:
In Heavens human will hold both material body and soul but that body will not be ill or get older. Eating and drinking will be not for need but for enjoy.

To see God in Heavens (property of that is not known) will be the most enjoyment of the Heavens but that does not mean that there would not be any other fleshly enjoyments.
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Yes.

When Jesus was resurrected and had gone back to his disciples, what was one of the things He asked of them?

He asked for something to eat.
 
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