The Church and Death
Humans naturally want peace, friendship, love, and happiness. They desire a life with meaning. A deeper longing exists to find life’s true meaning, know God’s love, and share a destiny beyond death. Saint Augustine stated, “You made us for yourself, Lord. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The Church’s view of death is linked to its view of life. Let us examine key Christian beliefs.
The Reality of Death
God created humans for holiness and eternal life. However, the first sin wounded human nature. This brought suffering and death, which were not God’s original plan. Death is a scary mystery. We lose worldly possessions. Our bodies decay. Our souls meet the Lord. We will see our lives clearly and face God’s judgment.
The Hope of Eternal Life
Faithful Christians face death with peace. They long to be with the Lord. They have hope for eternal life. Christ conquered death through his cross. His resurrection opened heaven’s doors for believers.
The Gift of Salvation
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Believers who accept Christ’s mercy and salvation enter heaven. Some, the “Faithful Departed,” need purgatory’s purification. Church prayers aid them. People in purgatory are with God. They need our prayers for purification from sin’s effects. This prepares them to see God directly.
Choosing Salvation
Those who reject Christ turn from his mercy. Their choices lead to condemnation. They reject life with God. This is the sorrow of hell. Those unaware of Christ may still be saved. God wants all people to be saved. Those who sincerely seek God and follow His known will can find salvation. This salvation comes through Christ’s love, in ways we may not understand.
Sharing in the Resurrection
At the end of time, Christ will return. Our bodies will be resurrected. God will reveal creation’s purpose. He will unite all things in Christ. Those made right with God by Christ will live with Him forever. The hope of heaven brings joy amid suffering. It encourages us to follow Christ with faith and love.
Christian preparation for death involves prayer and acts of charity. Sacraments like Penance and Anointing are vital. Holy Communion offers final comfort. This ensures God’s mercy and the Church’s prayers. Christians hope to die in God’s favor, at peace with all.
Heavenly joy awaits believers. Our ultimate aim is to see God. We will bask in His eternal love. Angels and saints share this bliss. They join God’s ongoing work. We ask for their intercession. Death is a passage, not an end. We pray for souls in purgatory. Spiritual unity with the departed offers solace. We anticipate reunion in heaven.
A state of grace means a soul is clean. It is free from grave sin. This makes it ready for eternal life. Catholicism emphasizes this state. It is filled with God’s life. This grace comes from baptism. Mortal sin breaks this bond. Dying in grace prepares one for heaven.
Key elements define this state. Freedom from mortal sin is primary. Mortal sins separate us from God. This state means we are God’s friends. He finds us pleasing. Sanctifying grace is God’s presence. It fills the soul with divine life. Mortal sin erases this gift. For Catholics, grace is required for heaven.
Mortal sin destroys sanctifying grace. It ends our friendship with God. The Sacrament of Confession restores it. This brings us back to God’s favor. Actual grace is God’s help. It guides us to Him or His sacraments. It differs from sanctifying grace.
The Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the Dead
Are humans mortal or immortal? Materialists reject a spiritual soul. They dismiss any idea of immortality. Phenomenalists doubt the soul’s solid nature. This removes immortality’s base. They see no soul immortality issue. It is not a real problem for them.
Monistic or pantheistic philosophies offer another view. They state the human soul lacks its own life. It is not a personal, solid thing. Instead, it flows from the One. It reflects the great cosmic Soul. Or it is part of the World Soul. It might be a piece of the Agent Intellect. It could also be a way the one Substance exists. It is a bit of God’s vast mind. It may be a step in the spirit’s journey. These ideas accept soul immortality. Yet, this immortality is not personal. The soul joins the All after death. It loses its unique traits. These views solve immortality negatively. The soul itself is not immortal. Only the All is forever. This includes the One or World Soul. The Substance or spirit is immortal. The individual soul fades. It melts into the great whole.
A final view supports personal soul immortality. This idea has a long history. Great thinkers championed it. Plato in old times spoke for it. St. Augustine did for early Christians. St. Thomas for the middle ages agreed. Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant for modern times also did. These minds proved personal soul life. Their reasons varied greatly.
Plato viewed the soul as an independent entity. It exists before the body, which it then animates. The soul resides in the body for a period. Upon death, it leaves to inhabit new bodies. This cycle continues until the soul is pure. It then returns to the world of Forms. There, it can observe perfect ideas. This achieves lasting immortality. Reincarnation believers cite this concept. They argue the soul needs many lives for perfection. A single life is insufficient. Thus, the soul moves from body to body. It seeks eternal happiness through purification.
Saint Augustine argued for the soul’s immortality. He linked it to truth. Truth is eternal and cannot be false. Therefore, the soul holding truth is immortal. Augustine stated, “The soul is immortal; believe in the truth; it cries out with a loud voice that it abides in you, that it is immortal, and that, whatever the death of the body might mean, her dwelling (the soul’s) cannot be separated from you.”
Kant argued that reason alone could not prove the soul’s immortality. Yet, he considered this belief vital for moral behavior. Without an afterlife and a just God, morality would collapse. Therefore, the soul’s immortality is a moral assumption. It arises from our conscience, not logical proof.
Aquinas viewed the human soul’s immortality with profound insight. He described it as “personal,” “natural,” and “provable by reason.” It is “personal” because it applies to every individual. After the body dies, each soul keeps its unique identity. It does not merge into a universal spirit, opposing monism and pantheism. It is “natural” because its lasting nature comes from the soul itself. It is not a divine gift. This contrasts with views holding the soul naturally mortal, granted immortality by God. For instance, theologian O. Cullmann believed death also ends the soul. He argued God must then recreate the whole person. This contrasts with Aquinas’s view. It is “provable by reason” because sound arguments support it. Thus, Aquinas rejected those who accepted immortality on faith alone. Think of Duns Scotus or G. Occam. He also differed from those who accepted it for moral reasons, like Kant.
In Catholicism, eternity is the unending, joyful, and full life with God in Heaven, a state of being that is initiated in the present life through Baptism and will be fully realized after the resurrection of the body at the Second Coming of Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus serve as the foundation for this eternal life, as His victory over death by His Resurrection opened the way for believers to participate in new, eternal life, with the promise that we too will be resurrected and united with our souls in perfect bodies.
The Catholic Understanding of Eternity
A state of being with God:
Eternity is not merely a long duration of time but a direct, unmediated, and full union with God, the ultimate source of all joy and fulfillment.
Already begun: While final and complete in the afterlife, a foretaste and participation in eternal life already begin in this earthly life through Baptism and living in Christ.
A destiny for believers: Through faith in Jesus and His salvific work, believers have the hope and promise of eternal life, which is our true destiny.
How Death and Resurrection Tie In
Jesus’ Resurrection is the Guarantee:
Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead is the foundational event that conquered death and opened the path to eternal life for all believers.
Participation in Christ’s Life:
Through Baptism, Catholics are “inserted into the death and resurrection of Christ,” which gives them a share in His new, eternal life.
Our Own Resurrection:
The hope for eternity is directly tied to the belief in our own resurrection, which will occur at the end of time. God will raise our bodies from the grave and reunite them with our souls.
A transformed existence:
The resurrection promises a transformed body, no longer subject to the limitations of mortal life, allowing us to experience eternal life with God in a new way.
The Final Judgment:
This process culminates in a general judgment, after which the resurrected faithful, purified if necessary, will experience the full glory of God’s eternal presence.
The Resurrection of The Dead: A Truth of The Catholic and Christian Faith
God never fails to carry through with his promises. And it’s most certainly within the realm of his divine, unrestricted power.
If God immediately created our soul out of nothing at the moment of our conception and brought us into being as human persons, if Christ raised himself from the dead after his brutal crucifixion, he can and will do the same for us. Although it’s totally impossible for us to do, it’s not difficult at all for God.
It’s a matter of divine faith (dogma) that, on Christ’s return, all the dead will be raised. We recite this truth at every Sunday Eucharist when we profess the Nicene Creed. Those who died loving Christ and in a state of grace (the righteous) will be raised to the resurrection of life; whereas those who died rejecting him (the unrighteous) will be raised to the resurrection of damnation (see Mt 25:31 ff.). So, everybody gets a resurrected body.
The resurrection of the dead is mentioned several places in the New Testament. And, of course, the Jews in Jesus’ time believed in the resurrection (with the exception of the Sadducees as one notable group who denied it). The Catechism, based on Tradition, Scripture and magisterial teaching, has some wonderful information on the general resurrection (see Nos 997-1004):
What is “rising”? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.
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” (Jn 5:29; Dan 12:2).
How? Christ is raised with his own body: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself” (Lk 24:39); but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, “all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear,” but Christ “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body,” into a “spiritual body” (Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 801; Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 15:44.):
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel. . . . What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . The dead will be raised imperishable. . . . For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:35-37,42,52,53).
This “how” exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ’s transfiguration of our bodies:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God’s blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,18,4-5:PG 7/1,1028-1029).
When? Definitively “at the last day,” “at the end of the world (Jn 6: 39-40,44,54; 11:24; LG 48 § 3). Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ’s Parousia:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first (Rom 6:23; cf. Gen 2:17).
Saint Thomas Aquinas offers insights into our future glorified bodies. His work, the Summa Theologica, details five key traits. These traits mirror Jesus Christ’s glorified body.
Identity means our resurrected body will be our own. It will be familiar and recognizable. We will know it as ours, and others will know us.
Quality signifies peak physical condition. Glorified bodies will be healthy and strong. They will possess beauty and perfection. This reflects a complete and elevated existence.
Impassibility describes an unchanging state. Our glorified bodies will not age, weaken, or die. They cannot be harmed or decay. This is a “spiritualized” body, not merely spirit.
Agility grants total freedom of movement. Thomas believed we would move like angels. Movement would be swift, like thought. The universe may become our playground. Travel to any place will be instant. Time and space will not limit us.
Clarity relates to an inner radiance. Jesus’ Transfiguration shows this. His divine nature illuminated his human form. He shone like the sun, bright and dazzling. This implies a kind of openness. The soul’s holiness and divine sharing will show. Clarity means these inner truths will shine outward. Divine light will fill the glorified body.
The Resurrection of The Dead: Truth of The Catholic Faith — Joy In Truth
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=644
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=644
https://setmoncton.com/through-death-into-eternal-life/