Gunnar Heim:
"'I'll hoist a beer with you yet.'" (p. 128)
Endre Vadasz:
"'If not on ship...then in Valhalla. Farewell.'" (ibid.)
We will not go to Valhalla but it is good to say it. In my hearing, one Catholic priest said to another, "We'll meet on the Day of Judgement if not before!" Did they believe that was literally true? (There is a contradiction between Heaven, Hell or Purgatory for disembodied consciousnesses immediately after death on the one hand and a long-delayed Resurrection and Judgement followed by Heaven or Hell for reembodied consciousnesses on the other hand. Greek and Biblical concepts have been grafted together.)
A Catholic layman wrote:
"'For you and me, and all brave men, my brother,' said Wayne, in his strange chant, 'there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world.'"
-G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) quoted on the frontispiece of Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Worlds' End (New York, 1994).
That wine is poured in our imaginations and aspirations. Meanwhile, we have to ensure that good wine, or its equivalent, is poured for everyone long before the end of the world.
25 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have read those Chesterton books, with Anderson strongly recommending THE FLYING INN to me in one of his letters to me. Maybe that latter story left its mark in how PA conceived the Old Phoenix Inn?
I see no contradiction in Catholic beliefs about Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you don't! Do people go to their eternal fate immediately after death or do they have to sleep/wait/whatever until the eventual Day of Judgement?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, we all make our eternal choice for or against God at the moment of death. Some who do choose Him are not ready to be in God's presence and go to what we call Purgatory, for a greater or shorter span of time.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But why is there supposed to be an eventual resurrection and Judgement Day for all?
BTW, I was taught that anyone who died in mortal sin went straight to Hell without making any choice at death. (But this is a different point.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because that would be the final abolition/triumph over death and the healing of a fallen universe.
But that choice at even the last possible includes repentance for mortal sin, a point made over and over, for example, in Dante's DIVINE COMEDY. Including an ironically humorous moment where a demon protested at losing a human's soul when his prey repented.
And all this reminded me of Anderson's story "Pact," where he inverted the cliches about those pacts with the Devil stories. I think Dante would have enjoyed it!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But why is there a Judgement Day if everyone who died before then has already been judged?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
To repeat: "Because that would be the final abolition/triumph over death and the healing of a fallen universe."
Ad astra! Sean
But there is a contradiction. Sometimes people speak of an instant Heaven or Hell after death. At other times they speak as if our fates will not be decreed until a final judgement.
Kaor, Paul!
No contradiction. I am speaking about what the Catholic Church teaches, the only entity I believe has the authority to speak with divinely backed truth in matters of faith and doctrine. All others can only speak with varying degrees of error. That means all Christians who deny the authority of Rome.
Ad astra! Sean
But what does the Church say about whether our eternal fate starts immediately after death or has to wait until an eventual Judgement?
Why, when a Jesuit was buried in the cemetery at the school I attended, was it said that he was "awaiting the Resurrection"? He was not waiting for anything if he had already gone wherever he was going. There is a contradiction in how people think about this but it is difficult to get you to recognize it because you assume that there cannot be a contradiction in Catholic teaching.
Kaor, Paul!
The Particular Judgment is immediately at death. The General Judgement is at the end of time, "At the final abolition/triumph over death and healing of a fallen universe." Including the general resurrection. That is the Catholic belief and is not a contradiction.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But it is. Why should we be judged twice? Most people are either saved or damned by the end of time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, we are not judged twice. The particular judgement at death is when we all make our choice for or against God.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Then what happens at that General Judgement? I feel that the answer recedes to infinity.
(BTW, separate point, I do not remember this stuff about us making a final choice. The way it was put to us was just that, if you had an unrepented mortal sin on your soul at death, then you were damned. End of.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I have explained several times: the general judgement means the resurrection of all the dead and the healing of a fallen universe.
Take note of your own comment: "If you had an unrepented mortal sin on your soul at death, then you were damned." That is exactly what I have been saying, even a monster like Stalin could be saved if, at the very moment of death, he repented.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You have said that several times but you have not explained why this ultimate resurrection is also a judgement. Christians sometimes speak as if we are to hear our fate at that "general judgement," not immediately after death.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You are missing an obvious point: sometimes Christians, like anyone else, speak imprecisely and carelessly, rather than with theological precision.
I go by the defined, official teachings of the Church, not with the slovenly carelessness of everyday life.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
OK. So there is an individual judgement after death but not another, general, judgement later?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The final judgement at the end of time marks the transformation of the universe and the resurrection of the dead. That is all what is meant by "judgement."
Ad astra! Sea
Sean,
Then that is a misuse of the word, "judgement." Surely we could have reached that conclusion more quickly?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Which is what I've been trying to do. But the terminology can arguably be considered legitimate if "last judgement" simply means the old universe was judged as unsatisfactory.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
OK. I wondered how you would respond and I expected that the ambiguity would just continue unresolved but what I really think happened is this. Two visions of judgement in a hereafter have been spliced together. The Greeks had reincarnating souls. The Bible has resurrected bodies. Christians combined death-surviving souls with resurrected bodies and therefore had to anathematize belief in reincarnation because that just did not fit in with each soul being returned to a single resurrected body. But there is still a contradiction in Christianity. One Evangelical said to me, "Paul, I would love to see your face on Judgement Day!" Jehovah's Witnesses recognize that the Greek immortal soul idea is non-Biblical and reject it. They think that they and no one else will be resurrected. (No Hell, which is at least sensible although not Biblical.) Christadelphians believe that those who have not been saved will be resurrected only to be judged, found wanting and returned to non-existence! The mind boggles.
What you have done is inherited references to an immediate post-death judgement and an eventual general judgement and reinterpreted the latter in order to smooth over a contradiction.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree.
Ad astra!
Sean,
What I have said is what it looks like from a "History of Ideas" point of view. Zoroastrianism influenced post-Exilic Judaism and early Christianity as Manse Everard says in "Brave To Be A King."
Paul.
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