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To: OLD REGGIE
However, I feel somewhat slighted in that you didn't think it was worthy of an answer when I asked you to list the people "raised to Heaven" during and after the time of Jesus.

In all of the chaos on the Divine Nature over the last two days a lot of things have slipped through the cracks and now I actually understand the question. I don't believe that when someone dies (when the body is separated from the soul) that God puts the soul into suspended animation until the end of the world.

If Our Lord descended into hell (or "the dead") to deliver the Gospel to the "Just of old" it seems a little weird that they would have been "woken up" for that and then knocked back out to await the general judgment. Sleep is a function of biology, not the soul.

Part of the problem is going to be how we experience time when we are separated from our bodies. Time seems to be primarily a condition of the material world, but in some sense it must exist on a spiritual level as well.

St. John was given a vision, was it real or merely a mental image? In the parable of "Dives and Lazarus" was Our Lord completely making up an existence for the dead or was He talking about a reality? Did God bring Elijah and Moses out of cold storage long enough for the Transfiguration and then put them back to sleep?

I think part of it goes back to what death means. Death is not the end, it's the separation of the body and the soul. The life of the body ceases but the life of the person continues. How and what does the soul experience without the faculties of the body? We are told the dead "sleep in Christ" but what does that mean, unconsciousness until the resurrection?

So if the question is "who is enjoying the Beatific Vision?" I the answer is all the saved who died loving God perfectly... I'm not John XXII after all. Certainly a lot more people than those "raised to the altars" of the Church.

8,061 posted on 10/01/2010 11:25:23 AM PDT by Legatus (Keep calm and carry on)
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To: Legatus

The theology that the dead are “sleeping” is a new one. It partly explains some’s problem with the Communion of the Saints.


8,067 posted on 10/01/2010 12:35:03 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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