So, a resurrected man whose only "infraction" is original sin, has an immortal body and soul that will not be separated throughout eternity, and spends eternity WHERE, in what 3-D region? Under the earth, in darkness, but sans fire? What sort of existence is that? How would such a life NOT be a disproportionate punishment?
Additionally, are the new heaven AND new earth -- two distinct words joined by AND, which actually intensifies any indication of TWO distinct things -- one place or two? What is the point of a new, unpopulated earth? Presumably ALL who are saved will be in the new heaven, no? So who, if anyone, is on earth at this point?
We don't know ... as it's pure speculation. Where are Our Lord and Our Lady even now, and St. Joseph (if you believe, as I do, that he too had been assumed into Heaven), and where are Enoch and Elijah? We're not sure. I suspect there's a place that has a glorifed type of physicality to it, where it's more ethereal, similar to the properties of glorified bodies, but that even the non-glorified bodies will be somewhat different the second time around.
So, my personal belief is that the realms of the blessed and those in Limbo overlap somewhat, where the two can interact, naturally speaking, but the blessed enjoy the Beatific Vision. In my view it's similar to the design of the temple, where there's a Holy of Holies, an inner sanctum, into which the blessed can enter, but then outside of that there was another place that people could worship God, and perhaps a third, a courtyard of the Gentiles, as they called it. Not sure.
Perhaps another vision would be similar to how a village might have been in Medieval times, where you would have a castle, where the royal family would dwell, but then outside of that would be a little village with various dwellings, but the people from inside could come out and interact with those on the outside.
Taking these with a grain of salt, but a lot of those who had these "near death" or "dead and back" types of experiences report that there's a beautiful place with fields, flowers, colors that don't exist here, but then describe a gate that they can't get past. Now, they often characterize it to where the gate is a point of no return, but it could also be a gate into the Kingdom, as it were. St. Peter Claver raised a woman back to life who, after a time, he ultimately realized that she had not been baptized, despite having appeared to be a devout Catholic, even daily Communicant, for many years. She reported that she was in a beautiful place, but that she was told that she could go no farther since she did not have the wedding garment.
As St. Paul said, he had no words to describe it, and we don't know. God has chosen not to reveal all the details, but has dropped some tantalizing hints. How/where are the angels in relation to the human blessed? Where are Our Lord and Our Lady and St. Joseph rigth now? We just don't really know.
But I believe strongly in extending that delineation between natural justice and the free unmerited glory of supernatural life. While I understand the point of those stories or descriptions where people suffer cruel torments that would make human torture chambers seem tame by comparison, namely, to scare them straight, but I think it's just a certain perspective on the matter, since if some human being were to torture people cruelly in his basement, we'd consider him a degenerate, a monster ... and that kind of image should not be projected onto God. Whatever happens we do to ourselves, but the end result, the suffering caused, will be extreme ... just that God isn't standing there with thumb screw and iron maidens coming up wtih creative ways to torture poeple. It's like when Our Lady speaks of God's wrath that she's staying His hand. That too is just figure of speech to help our dumb brains get some idea. God is perfectly simple, does not get angry at one time, merciful at another. He doesn't change. If we perceive Him as changing, it's because we are changing and create the conditions
quoad nos where the same love of God can seem to us like mercy and at another time like wrath, if we reject it ... but it's not God changing, it's we who change, and make God's simplicity SEEM as though it's changing.
Topic: Claiming something is not "de fide" still has hellish consequences (Read 58533 times)