Between Death and Resurrection: A Critical Response to Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State 9781501312281, 9781501312274, 9781501312304

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Between Death and Resurrection

Between Death and Resurrection A Critical Response to Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State Stephen Yates

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2017 Paperback edition first published 2018 Copyright © Stephen Yates, 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Names: Yates, Stephen, 1963- author. Title: Between death and resurrection : a critical response to recent Catholic debate concerning the intermediate state / Stephen Yates. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016025256 (print) | LCCN 2016031741 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501312281 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501312298 (ePub) | ISBN 9781501312304 (ePDF) Subjects: LCSH: Intermediate state. | Intermediate state–Biblical teaching. | Eschatology. | Soul. | Philosophical anthropology. | Catholic Church–Doctrines. Classification: LCC BT830 .Y38 2017 (print) | LCC BT830 (ebook) | DDC 236/.4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025256 ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-1228-1 PB: 978-1-5013-4371-1 ePub: 978-1-5013-1229-8 ePDF: 978-1-5013-1230-4 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printed and bound in the United States of America To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations 1

2

3

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Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State The traditional Catholic position on the intermediate state Anthropological presuppositions of the traditional position Reaffirmations of the traditional position Proposed alternatives to the traditional position Recent challenges to the traditional position from within the Catholic community The main Catholic criticisms of resurrection in death The new thesis and Christ’s own interim state The new thesis and the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Searching for a resolution: Areas requiring further exploration Sacred Scripture and the Intermediate State Does human ontology in the sacred scriptures preclude a separable soul? Does scripture teach resurrection in death? Realized eschatology and resurrection in death The Postmortem State—Atemporal or Nonatemporal? The coherence of atemporalism Postmortem atemporalism and purgatory The Intermediate State—Maintaining Personal Identity Through Death and Immediate Resurrection Bodily identity and the Christian doctrine of resurrection: The Catholic Church’s traditional view How personal identity is maintained through death and  resurrection: The traditional schema Personal identity maintained by the anima separata: Some objections

vii viii 1 1 3 4 5 9 14 21 22 28 31 31 59 80 87 87 112

127 127 129 130

vi

Contents

The maintenance of personal identity through resurrection in death 5

Philosophical and Theological Objections to the Traditional Schema Addressed The inseparability of the spiritual soul The loss of individuality for the separated soul The inactivity of the separated soul The inadequacy of the anima separata as carrier of personal identity How full personal identity is ensured through death and resurrection The resurrection of the dead and the significance of relics Ontological duality necessary for maintenance of identity through death and resurrection Immediate resurrection as a solution to some eschatological tensions

Conclusion Bibliography Index

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171 171 176 181 197 208 210 213 214 241 246 257

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Fr. Fergus Kerr, O.P. and Fr. Martin Henry for their advice on this project during its initial stages. Special thanks go to Fr. Vivian Boland, O.P., Fr. Richard Conrad, O.P., and Dr. Andrew Beards; their positive comments and criticisms were instrumental in enabling me to persevere with it. I am also grateful to Professor Alan McClelland, Dr. Petroc Willey, and Professor Mary Mills for their wise guidance and encouragement throughout the whole process. Finally, and most importantly, I wish to thank my wife, Ruth, and my gifted and beautiful children, Joseph, Maria, Raphael, Elizabeth, Gabriel, Benedict, and Sophia, for the sacrifices they have made in order to help me complete this work.

List of Abbreviations CCC

Catechism of the Catholic Church

CDF

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

ITC

International Theological Commission

ND

Josef Neuner and Jacques Dupuis (eds.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church

SCG

Summa Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas

SENT

Aquinas, In quatuor libros Sententiarum

ST

Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas

1

Recent Catholic Debate Concerning the Intermediate State

This book constitutes an examination of, and contribution to, a discussion conducted within the Catholic theological community since the 1960s concerning the proper understanding of the apparent interval between the death of individual human beings and the final consummation of all created things (typically referred to as the “intermediate state”). This initial chapter undertakes an analysis of the arguments of a representative range of Catholic scholars who propose a variety of alternative eschatological models to the traditional schema of a postmortem phase of disembodiment preceding bodily resurrection, as well as the arguments of those who have responded critically to their proposals. The analysis makes clear those issues which are determinative for the debate and identifies in connection with each of these a number of “dialogical lacunae,” areas where the various parties in the debate have failed adequately to address points made by each other.

The traditional Catholic position on the intermediate state According to the official teaching of the Catholic Church, the souls of human beings do not perish in death, but are immortal.1 After death, the soul comes before God immediately,2 to be judged for what he/she has done while in the body.3 Eternal retribution is received in one’s immortal soul at the very 1 2

3

Fifth Lateran General Council, Apostolici Regiminis (ND, para. 410). Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, paras 2305, 2307). CCC, para. 1022. This doctrine of the particular judgment, unlike the others mentioned in this paragraph, is not a dogma which has been solemnly defined. Rather it is a truth proximate to faith (sententia fidei proxima), which is generally regarded as a truth of revelation and which must, therefore, be believed (Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 9, 475).

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moment of one’s death, the soul entering heaven (immediately,4 or after a postmortem stage of purification5) or entering hell.6 The soul is reunited with its body at the final resurrection when Christ comes again for the last judgment.7 This will be the same body it bears in this life.8 Concerning the souls in purgatory, these can be helped,9 their suffering alleviated or relieved,10 by acts of intercession (suffragia) offered by living members of the church (such as the sacrifice of the Mass, prayers, alms, and various works of piety).11 It is the period between the death of the individual and the general resurrection, rather than the postmortem purification phase only, that is referred to by theologians as the intermediate (or interim) state. Prior to the Second Vatican General Council, the sententia communis of Catholic theologians would appear to have been that the subjects of this state are the animae separatae (the separated souls) of human beings whose continued existence guarantees the personal identity of those individuals resurrected on the last day.12 Although there does not seem to be an authoritative statement concerning why bodily resurrection should be deferred until the Parousia and the last judgment, the theological consensus has tended to emphasize the fittingness of such postponement given the effects of sin on various aspects of the created order. The deferral of resurrection is thus sometimes characterized as a penalty for original sin which “extending as it does to the whole of that nature in which all men are one, cannot be finally lifted from one without being lifted also from the others.”13 A different but complementary emphasis is sometimes evident. Thus, Roger Troisfontaines argues that since the body is the foundation of our 4 5

6 7 8

9 10

11 12

13

Benedict XII, Constitution Benedictus Deus (ND, para. 2305). Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, paras 2308–9); General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on Purgatory (ND, para. 2310). Benedict XII, Constitution Benedictus Deus (ND, para. 2307). CCC, paras 366, 990, 1001, 1005, 1016, 1038–41. Eleventh Council of Toledo, Symbol of Faith (ND, para. 2302); Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20). General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on Purgatory (ND, para. 2310). Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2308). Ibid.; General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on Purgatory (ND, para. 2310). A belief held in continuum from the Fathers (see Tugwell, Human Immortality, 110–14)—for whom the doctrine of the resurrection implied that of the immortality of the soul for this very reason (Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection,” 54–96)—until the present day (see ITC, para. 4.1). De Lubac, Catholicism, 59; see also Journet, What Is Dogma?, 70.

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relation to the material world, “it would only be fitting that we wait until the world … is cleansed and transformed into ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ before we are reunited with it, the basis of this new relation being nothing else than the glorified body.”14 The “fittingness” of this arrangement is explained by him in terms of St. Paul’s teaching that creation’s present slavery to corruption is an effect of human sin (Rom. 8:19-22). Through sin we have abused or misused this world. As long as there are sinful men on earth, that is until the consummation of the world, the universe cannot be glorified … and we ourselves, former sinners, must wait with the cosmos before we can take up again our body.15

This traditional view thus constitutes what has been called a twofold phase eschatology16 consisting in (i) the eschatology of souls (souls coming immediately before God to be judged and also immediately receiving their eternal deserts) and (ii) the resurrection of all mankind, body and soul, for a general judgment of mankind (and, indeed, the cosmos) at Christ’s Parousia.17

Anthropological presuppositions of the traditional position This teaching presupposes an anthropology of duality (man is both body and spiritual soul).18 This anthropology has been affirmed repeatedly in magisterial documents. Thus, the Fourth Lateran General Council (1215) teaches that 14 15 16 17

18

Troisfontaines, I Do Not Die, 292–93. Ibid., 293. ITC, paras 4.1, 5.1. Catholic theologians holding to this schema would include Joseph Pohle, Eschatology: or the Catholic Doctrine of the Last Things (1917); J. P. Arendzen, What Becomes of the Dead? (1925); Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (1938); Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting and the Immensity of the Soul (1947); Romano Guardini, The Last Things (1952); Alois Winklhofer, The Coming of His Kingdom (1959); Candido Pozo, The Theology of the Beyond (1968, 1980, 1991, 2000, 2009); Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (1977, 1988); Walter Kasper, “Hope in the Final Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory” (1985); Christoph Schönborn, “‘Resurrection of the Flesh’ in the Faith of the Church” (1990); Angelo Scola, “Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life” (1997); John Saward, Sweet and Blessed Country: The Christian Hope for Heaven (2005); Terence Nichols, Death and Afterlife: A Theological Introduction (2010); and Paul O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope: An Introduction to Eschatology (2011). The term “duality” is preferred to “dualism” because the latter suggests a substantial independence of soul and body to which the church does not wish to subscribe (see General Council of Vienne [1311–1312] in ND, para. 405; ITC, paras 5.1, 5.2, 9.3). The former term indicates only the possibility of the continued existence of a personal element of man apart from the body. On this distinction, see also Pozo, The Theology of the Beyond, 149–51.

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the human creature is “composed of spirit and body,”19 and although its main concern was to defend the unity of the human being against the substantial dualism of John Olivi and the Franciscan “spirituals,”20 the General Council of Vienne (1311–1312) nevertheless assumes the spiritual nature of the human soul in its affirmation that the substance of the rational and intellectual soul is truly and of itself (per se) the form of the human body.21 Apostolici Regiminis, a bull of the Fifth Lateran General Council (1513), reaffirms this teaching, as well as authoritatively teaching the spiritual soul’s unity, individuality, and immortality22 against the Aristotelianism of Pietro Pomponazzi.23 In more recent times, Vatican I’s Dei Filius (1870) affirms that we are composed of both spirit and body.24 Pius XII’s encyclical letter Humani Generis (1950) insists, on the basis of this belief, that while the Catholic Church’s magisterium does not forbid the doctrine of evolution “in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter,”25 nevertheless faith requires one to hold that souls are immediately created by God.26 The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes, 1965) likewise affirms our “dual” constitution (body and soul) as well as explicitly affirming both the soul’s spiritual nature and its immortality.27 Paul VI, in his Credo of the People of God (1968), included in the category of created, invisible things man’s “spiritual and immortal soul,” created directly by God.28 He also affirmed both death as the separation of soul from body and the general resurrection “when these souls will be reunited with their bodies.”29

Reaffirmations of the traditional position In 1979, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), in a document entitled Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology took pains 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

ND, para. 19. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 97; ND, p. 164. ND, para. 405. ND, para. 410. ND, p. 167; see also Ratzinger, Eschatology, 140. ND, para. 412; Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 96. Pius XII, Humani Generis, para. 36. Ibid. See Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, para. 14. Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, para. 8. Ibid., para. 28.

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to reaffirm, explicitly or by implication, the main elements of traditional eschatological teaching, with a notable emphasis on the intermediate state, the duality of the human being, and the soul’s immortality.30 In 1992, the International Theological Commission (ITC) issued a paper entitled Some Current Questions in Eschatology, which was a “continuation and confirmation”31 of the CDF’s 1979 paper. This document specified the grounds in scripture, tradition, and the teachings of the magisterium for the traditional teaching in general and the elements being considered here in particular: the anthropology of duality, the intermediate state, and the eschatology of souls.32 In the same year as the ITC document, the anthropology of duality and the eschatology of souls were clearly reaffirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This authoritative document teaches the spiritual nature of man’s soul, a soul which is the form of the body, which is created immediately by God, is immortal, does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and which is to be reunited with the body at the final resurrection.33 In doing so, it cites the authoritative sources referred to above: Council of Vienne, Apostolici Regiminis, Humani Generis, Gaudium et Spes as well as Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God. The Catechism, in its sections on death and judgment, clearly presupposes the concept of the intermediate state as traditionally understood.34

Proposed alternatives to the traditional position Since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), there have been a significant number of challenges from within the Catholic theological community to the particular doctrines here under discussion. The documents referred to above from the CDF and the ITC have been direct responses to these new challenges. These challenges were preceded, and influenced, by challenges to the traditional teaching made outside the Catholic community. The work of Protestant scholars such as Carl Stange, Adolph Schlatter, Karl Barth, Paul Althaus, Emil Brunner, and Karl Heim is commonly considered to be seminal in this regard.35

30 31 32 33 34 35

See ND, para. 2317. Phan, “Current Theology,” 507. ITC, paras 4.1, 5.1–5.4, 9.3. See CCC, paras 33, 362–66. Ibid., paras 990, 997, 1001, 1005, 1038–41. See Ratzinger, Eschatology, 104; Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90–92, 96; Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 38–39, 41–42; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 135–36, 140–42.

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Criticisms of the traditional schema by these scholars have been motivated, on the whole, by both anthropological and eschatological considerations.36 Anthropologically, the problem is perceived to be the substance dualism of soul and body allegedly implied by the schema, with the former being incorruptible and thus capable of surviving death as an anima separata. This concept of man, it is claimed, is a Platonic or scholastic construction and “distorts the biblical view of man as a unity.”37 Eschatological objections to the traditional doctrine are closely related. Firstly, it is argued that the idea of a naturally immortal soul surviving death is irreconcilable with the biblical idea that the judgment passed by God on man affects the whole of man.38 The scriptural doctrine of death as punishment for sin must, if taken seriously, entail the total death of the human person, body and soul.39 Because the whole person is a sinner, it is the whole person who must be affected by the punishment of death, “lest it be understood that the soul, in which the root of sin is found, is liberated from death.”40 Secondly, the traditional schema of an interim state in which the dead not only live but experience beatitude or damnation renders the resurrection and the final judgment of which scripture speaks superfluous and empty of  content, respectively.41 It is thus individualistic in orientation, indifferent to the Parousia and the essentially collective dimension of biblical eschatology.42  Because of this, the question is asked how Christian thought can have anything to do  with such a “private blessedness, without communion with the people of God, without considering the victory of Christ and the Kingdom.”43 For some, the traditional schema is guilty of being “spiritualistic and acosmic,”44 denying any real connection with a world which, along with humankind, “groans under a sentence of death.”45 The conclusion drawn by these thinkers is that properly Christian doctrine about eschatology should be concerned not with the immortality of the soul nor even immortality in the interim state followed by resurrection, but resurrection

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

See Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 38; Image of God, 250–52. Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 38. Ibid.; Image of God, 250–52. See ITC, para. 4.3; Ratzinger, Eschatology, 105. ITC, para. 4.3. Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90. Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 36–39; Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90. Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 39, citing Althaus. Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 39. Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90.

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alone: the transformation of the complete human being by the power of God.46 As a consequence, such thinkers urge that the piety currently surrounding death, impregnated as it is with an eschatology of going to heaven, must be eliminated in favor of the only true form of Christian hope: expectation of the Last Day.47

In pursuing this project, however, not all those Protestant thinkers dissatisfied with the traditional schema have opted for precisely the same solution. One schema, developed by some evangelical theologians during the twentieth century,48 has been that of the total extinction at death of the human being (Ganztod) followed by “resurrection at the end of time explained as a creation from nothing.”49 As important as the biblical doctrines of the resurrection from the dead and the last judgment are, however, there are numerous texts which indicate communion with Christ for the believer immediately after death (e.g., Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:1-10, and Lk. 23:42-43).50 Moreover, if Ganztod is accepted, there is the issue of trying meaningfully to affirm that the person created by God at the end of time is truly identical with the one who died given an interim of total nonexistence and thus an absence of any “existential continuity between the two.”51 Because of such considerations, the main alternative eschatological model proposed by Protestant thinkers has not been total death followed later by re-creation ex nihilo,52 but immediate resurrection.53

46 47 48 49 50

51 52

53

See ITC, para. 4.3; Ratzinger, Eschatology, 105. Ratzinger, Eschatology, 105. For example, Werner Elert (see Last Things, 38–43). ITC, para. 4.3; see also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 140–41, 145. Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90; also Cooper, Body, 127–29, 137–49, 151–53. Thinkers favoring extinction–re-creation models sometimes appeal against this interpretation by arguing that the New Testament is speaking phenomenologically, and not objectively, in these contexts: describing not the actual immediacy of our communion with Christ at death, but only “the experienced immediacy of being ‘with Christ’” consequent on our objective nonexistence in the interim between our death and our resurrection at the Parousia (Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 185). It is difficult not to see this as a case of special pleading. As John Cooper argues, given the theological centrality for St. Paul of being with and in Christ and his insistence that not even death is able to break the implied solidarity (see Rom. 8:38), “it stretches credulity to plead that he was not speaking objectively and realistically in such passages” (Cooper, Body, 155). ITC, para. 4.3; see also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 254. Other advocates of this position would include Otto Kaiser and Eduard Lohse, Death and Life (1977); Bruce Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix? (1978); and Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Dead and the Life Everlasting” (1999). This model has had little appeal for even the most radical thinkers within the Catholic community. As such it will not be a focus for investigation in this particular study. Sometimes termed “resurrection in death.” Throughout this work, the terms will be treated as synonyms and used interchangeably.

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There seem to be two main variations of this model. Firstly, there are those who hold that, at death, the individual passes “from time into a timeless eternity, in which the resurrection has already taken place.”54 Death, in other words, leads into the Parousia and the last day. Particular and general judgments are thus conflated, this distinction being understood to be conceptual only, rather than concrete. This model constitutes a realistic acknowledgment concerning biblical teaching about individual hope for the Christian in death while seeming to avoid what are perceived as irresolvable tensions between individual and collective/cosmic dimensions of eschatology, where these are conceived as in some way really distinct.55 This type of model might be termed atemporalist.56 Secondly, there are those who incline to the view that, while at death there is some form of resurrection or embodiment, there is no completely timeless eternity for the dead; from the perspectives of both the dead and the living the consummation of all things is still to come. Such thinkers, influenced strongly by the chronology apparent in the scriptural texts themselves, thus adhere to some form of interim phase (although clearly not disembodied). The distinction between the two judgments here is thus not merely conceptual, but concrete. For such a model to be seen to be cogent, it would be necessary to show that any tensions perceived to exist due to the individual and collective/cosmic elements of eschatology are not, in the final analysis, irresolvable.57 Such a model might reasonably be termed nonatemporalist.58 Both versions of this schema are perceived by their proponents to avoid the difficulties concerning personal identity which contribute to making Ganztod

54 55 56

57

58

Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 91. See Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 39. This term is taken from the ITC document Some Current Questions in Eschatology (1992) (see para. 2.2). Proponents of such a view include Karl Barth, The Resurrection of the Dead (1933); Emil Brunner, Eternal Hope (1953); Wolfhart Pannenberg, What Is Man? Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective and “The Constructive and Critical Function of Christian Eschatology” (1962, 1984); Karel Hanhart, The Intermediate State in the New Testament (1966); Eberhard Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery (1971); Thomas Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (1976); and Hans Schwarz, Eschatology (2000). Either the tension seemingly implied by the concept of an “incomplete beatitude” in the intermediate state, or that which results from apparently sacrificing the significance of general eschatology to that of particular eschatology in spite of the former’s apparent importance in scripture. Proponents of this view would include R. H. Charles, Eschatology: The Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, Judaism and Christianity (1963); Russell Aldwinckle, Death in the Secular City (1972); F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (1977); and Murray Harris, “The New Testament View of Life After Death” (1986). Although a little inelegant, this term is less misleading than “temporalist,” which might be taken to signify not only that postmortem existence is not completely timeless, but that its temporality is more similar to our present experience of historical time than may in fact be the case.

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(annihilation followed by re-creation ex nihilo at the end of time) such an unappealing model for most thinkers. For whether it is conceived as a passing over from earthly time into a timeless eternity, or from earthly time into another form of temporality, immediate resurrection posits no temporal gap between an individual’s death and his/her resurrection. Because of this, immediate resurrection is also perceived by its proponents to avoid the anthropological duality presupposed by the traditional schema.59 It is eschatological models such as these which have influenced many Catholic thinkers in the last four to five decades, and which constitute the main challenge from within the Catholic theological community to the traditional schema.

Recent challenges to the traditional position from within the Catholic community Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, a number of scholars within the Catholic community have challenged the traditional eschatological schema and explored the idea of resurrection in death.60 Concerning the grounds on which they do so, there is significant convergence with their Protestant counterparts as well as some distinctively Catholic emphases. A key premise held in common with many Protestant thinkers would appear to be the indivisibility of the human being. Thus, the Dutch Catechism (1966),61 Pierre Benoit (1970), Michael Schmaus (1977), Anton van der Walle (1981), John Sachs (1991), and Peter Phan (1997) include in their reasons for inclining toward the new thesis the supposedly monistic anthropology supported by the Bible.62 Ladislaus Boros (1968–1969), Karl Rahner (1975), E. J. Fortman (1976), and John Sachs (1991) additionally allude to the marked philosophical tension inherent in the concept of a soul which, according to magisterial teaching, is per

59 60

61

62

See Cooper, Body, 106. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 150–51. The term “resurrection in death” was introduced into the debate by the Catholic theologian Gisbert Greshake in his doctoral thesis Auferstehung der Toten (1969) (see Prusak, “Bodily Resurrection,” 82). This popular title is to be employed throughout this work. The text’s actual title in English is A New Catechism: The Catholic Faith for Adults. It is a translation of De Nieuwe Katechismus, a text commissioned by the hierarchy of the Netherlands and produced by the Higher Catechetical Institute in Nijmegen (published in October 1966). See Dutch Catechism, 473; Benoit, “Resurrection,” 113 (where he inclines toward interpreting scripture according to the “anthropological categories of Semitic monism”); Schmaus, Last Things, 197; van der Walle, From Darkness, 36–38, 152; Sachs, Christian Vision, 52–54, 90–91; Phan, Responses, 91.

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se the form of the body and yet, according to the traditional schema, is able to exist apart from the body.63 As a further ground, the authority of a contemporary anthropological consensus on this matter is sometimes invoked.64 As with certain Protestant thinkers, some propose or incline toward resurrection in death as a means of resolving what they see to be the unacceptable marginalization of the resurrection by the traditional schema, a deprivation of the decisive character given it in scripture and a consequent calling into question of the holistic vision of the human being portrayed in sacred scripture and affirmed in magisterial teaching.65 Anton van der Walle (1981) and Simon Tugwell (1990) draw attention also to the apparent violence done to the piety and devotions of the faithful by the concept of an interim state populated not by people but mere animae separatae.66 Additional scriptural grounds for some form of the new thesis are provided by Karl Rahner (1975), who argues that sacred scripture knows nothing of a resurrection of the body such as that implied by the traditional schema, teaching only the resurrection of the whole person and communion with Christ in death.67 As part of his argument that scripture supports the thesis of resurrection in death, Anton van der Walle (1981) argues that certain Pauline texts (particularly 2 Cor. 5:1-10) are best interpreted as affirming bodily glorification for the believer at death.68 Hans Kung (1982) asserts that an intermediate state traditionally conceived is “contrary” to scripture.69 Hans Urs von Balthasar (1983) is more cautious, noting an apparent tension between the realized eschatology of the New Testament and the idea of delayed resurrection,70 a tension expressed with 63

64

65

66 67 68 69 70

Boros, Living in Hope, 25, 38; We Are Future, 141; Rahner, “Body,” 80–87; “Intermediate State,” 119; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 109–10, 115–16 (where he is clearly sympathetic to Boros’s thoughts on this matter); Sachs, Christian Vision, 55–56, 84. Several thinkers are explicit that Lateran V’s Bull Apostolici Regiminis (1513) leaves room for an interpretation in terms of immediate resurrection (e.g., Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 33; Schmaus, Last Things, 196–97; van der Walle, From Darkness, 161). For example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 167–72; Kung, Eternal Life?, 171; Sachs, Christian Vision, 90. For example, Schmaus, Last Things, 196, 198, 215–16; van der Walle, From Darkness, 157, 170; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 151–54. Simon Tugwell proposes an atemporalistic version of it as a means of resolving both particular conceptual difficulties associated with an anima separata capable of experiencing beatitude and more general ones associated with finding a meaningful function for the general judgment and the collective and cosmic dimensions of eschatology in the light of a particular judgment at death which results immediately in purgation, beatitude, or damnation (see Human Immortality, 141–55; 164–66). Van der Walle, From Darkness, 163; Tugwell, Human Immortality, 122. Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 116. Van der Walle, From Darkness, 128–29. Kung, Eternal Life?, 171. Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 358–60.

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particular poignancy by the seeming incongruency of a communio sanctorum “made up of both embodied and disembodied souls.”71 Peter Phan (1994) does no more than call into question whether scripture actually teaches an interim state of the anima separata, citing Benoit’s arguments for immediate resurrection, and stressing particularly the realized eschatology of Ss. Paul and John, to suggest that immediate resurrection is as credible an interpretation as the traditional schema.72 Dermot Lane goes further than Phan, suggesting not only that immediate resurrection is a legitimate interpretation of the data of sacred scripture, but that it is explicitly taught by scripture (most clearly in 2 Cor. 5:1-10), the realized eschatology of the New Testament providing its theological rationale.73 Both atemporalist and nonatemporalist models of the thesis are represented within the Catholic theological community. Hans Urs von Balthasar envisages resurrection taking place not at the end of chronological time but “along” earthly history.74 The reason for this is that Christ “enfolds the entire horizontal dimension of the world’s time into the vertical, eternal dimension brought by his own resurrection.”75 Upon dying, the believer “is incorporated along with the world by Christ into his own death and resurrection, thereby making the believer a participant in Christ’s own eternity.”76 For von Balthasar, the “New Eon does not attach itself to the Old but springs up out of it incommensurably, like a right angle.”77 Thus, we are no longer permitted “to expect the inbreaking of the new world to happen in the chronological continuation of a historical time running on towards its conclusion.”78 Instead, the knowledge of the solidarity of all the destinies of mankind … forces on us the thought that the incommensurable New World must stand in a relation to the whole of world history (whose chronological conclusion has still not taken place).79

71

72 73 74 75

76 77 78 79

Ibid., 358: the embodied including not only Christ and those saints of the Old Testament alluded to in Mt. 27:51–53, but his mother and, as many believe, other saints, including perhaps those who have experienced the “first resurrection” of Rev. 20:4–5 (ibid., 358–60, 377). Phan, “Current Theology,” 522–24. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154–58. Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 360. Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 37; see von Balthasar, Spirit and Institution, 457–59, 464–65; von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 20. Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 38. Von Balthasar, Spirit and Institution, 464. Ibid., 458. Ibid.

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In this schema, “while chronological time will surely come to an end,”80 because the world “has already become enfolded into Christ’s eternity, the end of the world’s history is a matter of negligible theological import.”81 Similarly, for Gerhard Lohfink, the necessary unity of the human person implies a resurrection in death, while the ties that one has with other people and the world entail that the perfection thus reached includes that of the whole of history. As Bryan Kromholtz expresses it: Since everyone enters the moment of his or her death into the consummation of history, each one dies at “the last day.”82

For Lohfink, a corollary of this view is that “each of us in every age is living in the last age,”83 a position which helps resolve the exegetical problem of the imminent expectation of the kingdom of God recorded in the synoptic gospels.84 Like von Balthasar, Lohfink does not conceive of the coming of God’s kingdom as something occurring at the end of the historical process. Rather, God being equally near to each point of human history, his coming is “equally at each point of human history; and the perfection of human history comes ‘not at a hypothetical endpoint of the earthly timeline, but at each point of this timeline, that is, at each point of human history.’”85 This relationship between God and time clearly also applies to every human person. For Lohfink, the coming of God happens for each individual at the moment of his/her death when they enter his kingdom definitively. Thus, each person’s resurrection in death “coincides with the general resurrection of the dead and with the perfection of the world.”86 In Volume 17 of his Theological Investigations, Karl Rahner identifies as a particular problem with the traditional schema the concept of postmortem time which it presupposes. The difficulty here, he thinks, is that time implies free history, whereas our consummation in death implies the cessation of free history. Anyone insisting on postmortem time, therefore, must be able to give an account of why, after death, “free history is no longer possible.”87 On the basis of this, and his anthropological arguments referred to above, he proposes as an alternative to the traditional schema the view that 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 37. Ibid., 38; von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 20. Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 45. Ibid. Ibid., 46–47, 49–50. Lohfink, “Zur Moglichkeit christlicher Naherwartung,” 61. Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 48. Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119.

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the single and total perfecting of man in “body” and “soul” takes place immediately after death; that the resurrection of the flesh and the general judgement take place “parallel” to the temporal history of the world; and that both coincide with the sum of the particular judgements of individual men and women.88

Scriptural and magisterial texts in seeming tension with such a thesis can be interpreted so as to harmonize with it, he thinks, if we take care to distinguish between the binding content of a statement, on the one hand, and unconsidered assumptions or “temporally conditioned modes of expression”89 (what have been elsewhere called “cultural amalgams”90), on the other. Nevertheless, by far the majority of Catholic proponents of immediate resurrection have expressed the thesis in nonatemporalistic terms. Accepting as normative the temporal schema suggested by the modes of expression used in the scriptural texts themselves, these thinkers envisage instead a form of embodiment for the individual in death that is to be completed or enhanced by the general resurrection which is initiated by the Parousia at the end of time.91 While some are unspecific about the form such completion or enhancement is to take,92 it seems to be envisaged by others in two main ways. The first of these is an augmentation of the social and environmental dimensions of the saints’ resurrection life.93 The second, by no means exclusive of the first, is in the replacement of the resurrection body possessed during the interim phase by a “final” resurrection body.94

88 89 90 91

92 93

94

Ibid., 115. Ibid., 123. Phan, Eternity in Time, 117–18; “Current Theology,” 517. Such would seem to be the position expressed, for example, by the Dutch Catechism (see 474, 478– 79); Boros (Living in Hope, 38–39; “Has Life a Meaning?,” 18); Ratzinger (Introduction to Christianity, 347–59) (a transitory position for Ratzinger, who later became an apologist for the traditional schema); Greshake (“Die Leib-Seele problematik,” 161–62, 177–81); Benoit (“Resurrection,” 113); Fortman (Everlasting Life After Death, 27–34, 95–116); Schmaus (Last Things, 198–99, 215–16); van der Walle (From Darkness, 167–73, 193–200); Hayes (Visions of a Future, 165–66); Sachs (Christian Vision, 89–91); Lane (Keeping Hope Alive, 153–54); and Prusak (“Bodily Resurrection in Catholic Perspectives,” 102–5). Although clearly sympathetic to the sort of atemporalism espoused by Rahner (see Eternity in Time, 118–19; “Current Theology,” 522; Responses, 65–66), Phan also seems open to this alternative (cf. “Current Theology,” 522; Responses, 112–13, 124–26). See, for example, Benoit (“Resurrection,” 113). See, for example, Boros, The Moment of Truth, 200n131; Living in Hope, 39; “Has Life a Meaning?,” 18; Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 351, 358–59; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 304– 19; Schmaus, Last Things, 198–99, 206–16; van der Walle, From Darkness, 193–200; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 158–62. See, for example, Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 116. How this “final body” differs from, and is related to, the body possessed in the interim state is not made clear.

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The main Catholic criticisms of resurrection in death Both the CDF (in 1979) and the ITC (in 1992) rejected all atemporalistic formulations of the thesis. The CDF clarified in this connection that the scriptural view, which is normative for the church’s thinking in this area, is that the Parousia is “distinct and deferred with respect to the situation of people immediately after death.”95 Likewise, the ITC dismisses atemporalism on the grounds that it “implies recourse to a philosophy of time quite foreign to biblical thought” and threatens the “truly corporeal nature of the resurrection.”96 In arguing thus, both documents assumed that the time scheme apparently implied by biblical references to the resurrection is part of the binding content of divine revelation rather than merely a “cultural amalgam,” without offering convincing reasons why this should be thought to be the case.97 Proponents of atemporalism might thus be justified in thinking that, by themselves, such responses beg the question. One of the most thorough and sustained critiques of atemporalistic formulations of the thesis is that of Joseph Ratzinger. In Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Ratzinger argues that such a view of the relation between time and eternity undermines any possibility of anthropological and historical realism,98 reiterating this in various ways in both an appendix added following the promulgation of the CDF document in 197999 and the “Afterword to the English Edition” (published in 1988).100 In spite of these criticisms, several Catholic thinkers have continued to express sympathy for atemporalistic versions of the thesis, including Hans Kung (1982), Hans Urs von Balthasar (1983), Simon Tugwell (1991), and Peter Phan (1988, 1994, 1997).101 None of these engage systematically with Ratzinger’s arguments concerning its incoherence. However, neither do those thinkers who continue to incline toward either nonatemporalistic models

95

CDF, point 5 (ND, para. 2317). ITC, para. 2.2. 97 See, for example, ibid., 2.1 and 2.2. The assumption that the scriptural data must be interpreted thus has been dismissed as “biblicism” by Protestant proponents of atemporalism (see, for example, Althaus at Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 99n2). 98 Ratzinger, Eschatology, 108–12. 99 Ibid., 253. 100 Ibid., 263, 267. 101 See Kung, Eternal Life?, 171; von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 20, 360; Tugwell, Human Immortality, 164–66; Phan, Eternity in Time, 118–19; “Current Theology,” 522; Responses, 65–66. 96

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of resurrection in death102 or some form of the traditional thesis103 directly address Rahner’s problematic regarding postmortem temporality. There thus exist significant lacunae at this point in the dialogue between the various parties. A further lacuna consists in the fact that those continuing to incline toward the traditional schema do not engage adequately with the arguments in favor of nonatemporalistic models of the new thesis.104 Many do not seem to acknowledge nonatemporalistic resurrection in death as an alternative to either atemporalism or the traditional schema.105 The 1979 CDF document can be interpreted as consciously precluding such a schema in its affirmation that “a spiritual element survives and subsists after death, an element endowed with consciousness and will, so that the ‘human self ’ subsists, though deprived for the present of the complement of its body.”106 The ITC’s Some Current Questions in Eschatology (1992) obliquely acknowledges it as an alternative to atemporalism107 but dismisses it as a theme which is “unknown to the New Testament, since the New Testament always speaks of the resurrection at the Parousia of the Lord, never at the time of man’s death.”108 There is thus no adequate engagement with those thinkers (like van der Walle and Lane) who argue that certain Pauline passages are best interpreted as affirming that those who die in Christ are already in some way risen with him109 or that the 102

Such as Schmaus, van der Walle, Hayes, Sachs, Lane, and Prusak. Such as Ratzinger, Kasper, Scola, Saward, Nichols, and O’Callaghan. 104 Kasper, for example, simply dismisses it as unbiblical in its understanding of the body (see Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 377–78). Similarly, Pozo is content to reject it on the grounds that notable historical antecedents are lacking (Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 143–45). 105 Thus, even in the “Afterword to the English Edition” of his book (1988), Ratzinger continues to identify the thesis of resurrection in death with the view that at death we enter the last day (see, for example, Eschatology, 267). Angelo Scola, in his survey of the debate, clearly accepts the ITC’s defense of the traditional schema and its criticisms of atemporalism while making no reference at all to the third possibility preferred by significant numbers of Catholic thinkers (see “Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life,” 316–25). 106 CDF, point 3 (emphasis added). 107 See ITC, para. 2.2. 108 Ibid., 4.3; see also para. 2.1. Pozo does likewise (see Theology of the Beyond, 238). The ITC thinks nonatemporalistic versions of the thesis also threaten what it sees as an essential part of final resurrection, the “community aspect” (ITC, para. 2.2). 109 Pozo does argue that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 is best interpreted as supporting the traditional schema (Theology of the Beyond, 213–17); both the immediate context and the tenor of Paul’s eschatological thought in general—in his opinion—leave no room “for any reasonable doubt that the risen body is received in the Parousia” (ibid., 215). Because of this, he thinks it is necessary to interpret echomen in v. 1 as a “present tense of hope” (ibid.) rather than as indicating immediacy of possession, as the immediate resurrectionist would have it. Concerning immediate context, his argument is that the word used for the risen body in v. 2, oikodomēn, indicates not simply a “building” but a “building under construction” (ibid., 216). Pozo thinks that it follows that “the risen body is not prepared so as to be given at death, but is something in preparation—in the disposition of God— in order to be given to us on the ‘day of the Lord’” (ibid.). This is far from obvious. While one 103

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realized eschatology of the New Testament makes the delayed resurrection of the traditional schema theologically problematic or incongruous.110 A second major criticism of the new thesis focuses on the supposed logical difficulties associated with its rejection of the traditional schema’s anthropological duality, on the one hand, and its claim that those who lie dead before us have been resurrected, on the other. The perceived problem is one of consistency. The anthropology favored by proponents of resurrection in death stresses man’s indivisibility; but it is precisely this anthropology which would appear to be tacitly yet radically jettisoned in the affirmation that the individual who—prior to death—was to be identified completely with the body before us has nevertheless not ceased to live but continues to do so in some other form. As Ratzinger expresses it: The indivisibility of man and his boundness to the body, even when dead, suddenly seems to play no further role, even when it was the point of departure of this whole construction.111

Given this schema of a body left to death while an afterlife for the person is affirmed, Ratzinger argues that it is obscure why the concept of the soul, which meant to convey nothing other than the “continuing authentic reality of the person in separation from his or her body,”112 is rejected. Proponents of resurrection in death who hold their thesis on the basis of “the absolute indivisibility of man” are called, therefore, to explain how, in the apparent absence of any ontological continuity, the one existing “beyond death” can be the same individual (though now risen) as the one who died. It is clearly not adequate to argue simply that they are the same because there is no can agree with Pozo that the description of this dwelling as “eternal” does not necessarily indicate preexistence (but future duration only) (ibid., n313), the fact that it is not complete at present, but under construction, indicates nothing about when, precisely, in the future we shall receive it, at our death or at the Parousia. Concerning the meaning of the pericope within the context of Paul’s eschatological thought as a whole, Pozo says nothing more. In so doing, he fails to engage with those thinkers (like R. H. Charles, F. F. Bruce, Anton van der Walle, Murray Harris, and Dermot Lane) who argue for a development of Pauline thought in this area: from resurrection at the Parousia in First Thessalonians and First Corinthians to immediate resurrection in later texts such as Romans and Philippians (and continuing into Colossians and Ephesians). His arguments that echomen in v. 1 must be interpreted as above, therefore, are not compelling as they stand, and he fails to engage with independent arguments for understanding this word as indicating not only certainty, but immediacy, of possession. Furthermore, he fails to examine the arguments of immediate resurrectionists that the use of the verb ependuein in vv.2 and 4 is supportive of their own schema rather than that of the traditionalists. 110 A point emphasized, for example, by von Balthasar (Theo-Drama V, 358–60) and Lane (Keeping Hope Alive, 154–58). 111 Ratzinger, Eschatology, 108. 112 Ibid., 109.

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temporal gap between them. This merely begs the question, assuming, as it does, the very thing that is to be explained, the numerical identity of the individuals in question. As already noted, for proponents of the traditional thesis, personal identity through death and resurrection is guaranteed precisely by the spiritual and immortal soul. By denying the existence of such an entity, Ratzinger argues, the new thesis renders all talk of resurrection meaningless because no existential continuity can be said to hold between man’s historical body and the individual who exists “beyond death.”113 Proponents of immediate resurrection thus end up actually excluding the body “from the hope for salvation.”114 In denying the immortal soul, and yet claiming resurrection for those who have died, they dematerialize the resurrection115 and are guilty of what Ratzinger terms “aggravated Platonism.”116 For Ratzinger, the function of the idea of the immortal soul is precisely “to preserve a real hold on that of the resurrection of the flesh.”117 The denial of such a soul, together with an affirmation of resurrection in death, entails instead “a spiritualistic theory of immortality, which regards as impossible true resurrection.”118 Ratzinger’s position here is echoed by the CDF in its 1979 document Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology. After an affirmation of the church’s belief in the resurrection of the dead,119 this document proceeds to restate the church’s commitment to the connected idea of a spiritual element which “survives and subsists after death, an element endowed with consciousness and will, so that the ‘human self ’ subsists.”120 Although aware that “soul” has a variety of meanings in sacred scripture, the Congregation is clear that such a meaning is nevertheless to be included and is accepted as such by sacred tradition; moreover, it insists that some such term is in any case necessary if Christian faith in the resurrection is to have a means of support and expression.121 The ITC (in 1992) similarly affirmed the scriptural basis for this understanding of “soul”122 and made clear that 113

Ibid., 109, 252–55. Ibid., 112. 115 Ibid., 267. 116 Ibid., 112. 117 Ibid., 267. 118 Ibid. 119 CDF, point 1. 120 Ibid., 3. 121 Ibid. 122 ITC, paras 5.3, 5.4. 114

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Between Death and Resurrection the survival of a conscious soul prior to the resurrection safeguards the continuity and identity of subsistence between the person who lived and the person who will rise, inasmuch as in virtue of such a survival the concrete individual never totally ceases to exist.123

Moreover, this document is explicit that “without such a continuity of a certain subsisting human element the person who once lived on earth and the one who is to rise would not be the same ‘I.’”124 It is at this point, though, that other lacunae in the ongoing dialogue become evident. That sacred scripture does not affirm a monistic anthropology which precludes a separable soul—but the anthropology of duality underpinning the traditional schema—is asserted by many of those reproposing the traditional view on the basis of certain texts without systematic critical engagement with the alternative interpretations of such texts offered by immediate resurrectionists. Thus, for example, in spite of both Protestant125 and Catholic insistence126 to the contrary, Matthew 10:28 is presented by both Dhanis and Visser in their Supplement to A New Catechism (1969) and by the ITC (1992) as unambiguously teaching a spiritual soul which can subsist in a state of separation from the body.127 Moreover, that the ontological continuity needed to ensure that personal identity is maintained through death and resurrection implies “continuity of a certain subsisting human element” between the one who dies and the one who exists “beyond death” is something which is assumed rather than demonstrated by proponents of the traditional schema.128 It may be the case that the necessary ontological continuity can be conceived in some other way. Noting the ITC’s insistence on bodily identity as necessary for personal identity, for example, Peter Phan observes that one cannot simply assume this is best interpreted in a straightforwardly physiological manner; other possibilities may be available, and even should it be determined that

123

Ibid., para. 4.1. Ibid., para. 5.4. Other thinkers holding such a position include Pozo (Theology of the Beyond, 253–54), Scola (“Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life,” 317), and O’Callaghan (Christ Our Hope, 325–26). 125 For example, Schweizer, Matthew, 247–48; Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30–31; van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism,” 482. 126 For example, Dutch Catechism, 473; van der Walle, From Darkness, 118. 127 Dhanis and Visser, Supplement to A New Catechism, 52; ITC, paras 5.3, 5.4; a view also accepted unquestioningly by Scola (“Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life,” 316–18). 128 A fact not unnoticed by Peter Phan, who cites as evidence that Ratzinger’s evaluation of resurrection in death is guilty of “laboring under non sequiturs” his assertion that without the traditional concept of the soul, the resurrection is dematerialized (Phan, “Current Theology,” 527n68). 124

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biblical, patristic and conciliar authors do intend by “body” the physiological entity as such, it still remains to be settled whether this intended sense necessarily belongs to the revealed message, since it may be part of a more naive and prescientific worldview in which the message was formulated, and not the message itself.129

An additional lacuna in the dialogue can be located in the fact that while the main proponents of the traditional schema (such as Ratzinger and the ITC) charge immediate resurrectionists with threatening the realism of the resurrection due to their rejection of the immortal soul, several proponents of resurrection in death would claim not to reject the soul (and, indeed, insist on it as necessary to preserve personal identity), basing their preference for immediate resurrection not on the soul’s nonexistence but rather on the inseparability implied by its status as forma corporis.130 Some of these additionally specify particular problems with the idea of the subsistent soul of the traditional schema being able to account for a person’s identity across a period of separation from the body, even should such an entity be a logical possibility.131 Apologists for the traditional schema seem not to engage systematically with either issue.132 Neither do they attempt to refute those like van der Walle and Tugwell who argue that piety and devotions associated with the faithful departed are not supported well by the concept of an interim state populated by mere animae separatae. A further lacuna in the debate concerns the traditional schema’s supposed marginalization of the resurrection, as well as the communal and cosmic dimensions of eschatology, elements supposedly reinstated as eschatologically significant by the schema of resurrection in death. The charge that the traditional schema, in allowing that the anima separata can experience beatitude, renders bodily resurrection insignificant (along with all those other elements of glorification associated with the Parousia and final consummation) seems to be addressed by traditionalists only to the extent that while affirming the possibility of beatitude for the individual soul at death they also positively affirm the necessity of general eschatology for its complete fulfillment. Thus,

129

Phan, “Current Theology,” 522. Examples of such thinkers include Boros (Living in Hope, 25, 38; We Are Future, 141); Rahner (“Body,” 80–87; “Intermediate State,” 119–20); Fortman (Everlasting Life After Death, 109–10, 115– 16); Sachs (Christian Vision, 55–56, 84). 131 An example being Fortman (see Everlasting Life After Death, 107, 114). 132 The ITC’s affirmation, at para. 5.4, that although not strictly the person in question the anima separata is nevertheless to be treated as if it were because it is that which ensures continuity of personal identity between death and resurrection simply begs the question. 130

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Ratzinger asserts that the “heaven” of the interim,133 on the one hand, implies being drawn “into the fulness of divine joy, a joy which infinitely fulfils and supports and which, incapable of being lost, is in its pure fulness ultimate fulfilment”134 and, on the other hand, because of man’s essential relation to society and history,135 is not yet fully realized, “falling short of even so much as one person who still suffers.”136 Similarly, Schmaus terms the heaven of the interim a type of “pre-fulfillment”137 or “fore-heaven,”138 in which Christ and those people who have already attained glorification “look forward with longing to the final glorification of all humanity.”139 For Walter Kasper, man’s bond with his fellow creatures implies that “the individual can attain perfect fulfillment only when all the others have also attained to perfect fulfillment,”140 and his essential relation to his environment entails also that “the perfection of the individual and that of all mankind cannot be complete until the cosmos, too, is included in that completion.”141 The ITC too, while taking care to affirm that the animae separatae in the intermediate state already “enjoy the full beatitude of the intuitive vision of God,”142 nevertheless assumes there is some contribution to be made to the beatitude of the individual soul by the resurrection of the body, the arrival at their fullness of “all brothers and sisters who are Christ’s,” and the freedom of the whole of creation from its “slavery to corruption (Rom 8:21).”143 The problem with all such accounts, though, is that they presuppose precisely what they need to explain: the possibility of an experience of the vision of God which is yet lacking in a manner sufficient to confer genuine eschatological significance upon those elements of creation still awaiting glorification. Unless some such account can be given, it would seem that all that is to occur at the Parousia can be of no real consequence in the traditional schema. The issue remains moreover (albeit in a slightly modified form) between the two main types of resurrection in death offered as alternatives to the 133

The qualifying quotation marks are his own (see Eschatology, 189). Ratzinger, Eschatology, 189. 135 Ibid., 181–89. 136 Ibid., 190. 137 Schmaus, Last Things, 216. 138 Ibid., 273. 139 Ibid. 140 Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 377. 141 Ibid., 378. 142 ITC, para. 5.4. 143 Ibid. 134

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traditional schema. For while proponents of nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection often present their own schema as a means of ensuring that the traditional model’s apparent marginalization of bodily resurrection144 and its consequent compromising of man’s ontological unity are avoided,145 in allowing that beatitude is possible for the immediately resurrected individual, they are still nevertheless faced with having to explain how those events associated with the Parousia are to retain eschatological significance. Like their traditionalist counterparts, however, they seem to offer nothing more than assertions that these things do in some way complete or enhance that which occurs for the individual in death.146

The new thesis and Christ’s own interim state It is sometimes argued by proponents of the traditional schema that the fact of Christ’s rising “on the third day” establishes the reality of an interim state between death and resurrection for all the faithful. Thus, Christoph Schönborn insists that because Christ is the model for our own resurrection, it is “irreconcilable with faith to assert that the resurrection happens in death.”147 While I would agree with Paul O’Callaghan that the displacement of Christ’s resurrection “until the third day … constitutes … an important theological foundation for the possibility of an intermediate eschatology,”148 that it entails by itself a “clear distinction between death and resurrection”149 for all the faithful seems not a little forced. The proponent of resurrection in death who argues that the realized eschatology of the New Testament makes incongruous any delay in our resurrection would seem justified in thinking that such an argument simply begs the question. Christ’s interim state consists in his descent into Sheol to “free the just who had gone before him,”150 a descent which “brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment,”151 conquering death 144

Schmaus, Last Things, 198; van der Walle, From Darkness, 163–70; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154. Van der Walle, From Darkness, 157, 170. 146 See, for example, Boros, Living in Hope, 39; “Has Life a Meaning,” 18; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 304–19; Schmaus, Last Things, 198–99, 206–16; van der Walle, From Darkness, 193–200; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154, 158–162. 147 Schönborn, “Resurrection of the Flesh,” 19. 148 O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope, 323 (emphasis added). 149 Schönborn, “Resurrection of the Flesh,” 19. 150 CCC, para. 633. 151 Ibid., 634. 145

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and the devil who possesses the power of death.152 It is precisely because Christ has done this—they would argue—that such a period between death and resurrection is no longer necessary for ourselves. There seems also to be in this argument an arbitrariness concerning which features of Christ’s resurrection apply to ourselves and which do not. Why should we not infer from Christ’s rising on the third day, not only that there is an intermediate state between our own death and resurrection, but that we too shall rise on the third day after our death? Any response to this along the lines that it is an empirical fact we do not so rise must assume that material identity is a necessary condition of bodily identity, a condition on which the church has never insisted153 and which is manifestly not the case in this life (for a fuller discussion of this point, see Chapters 4 and 5). The objection that to draw such a conclusion is to think of Christ’s resurrection as the model of our own in terms which are too literal threatens to undermine the more general sort of conclusion drawn by those such as Schönborn. It is telling perhaps that although the ITC takes up Schönborn’s two subsequent points154 concerning Christ as model in this regard—that the risen body is numerically the same as the pilgrim body, and that it is qualitatively quite different155—it does not allude at all to the argument examined here.

The new thesis and the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary It could also seem as if a straightforward resolution might be arrived at in this matter by those within the Catholic theological community simply through consideration of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary which, in declaring Mary the subject of eternal glory in “body and soul,”156 would appear to imply that “apart from Jesus other men and women are not granted such a destiny immediately after their death.”157 Certainly, there have been theologians who seem to think that the matter of other, already-risen

152

Ibid., 635, 636; Heb. 2:14. See ITC, para. 1.2.5. 154 See Schönborn, “Resurrection of the Flesh,” 19–21. 155 See ITC, paras 1.1, 1.2.5. 156 Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (ND, paras 713, 715). 157 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 122. 153

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individuals has been decided in the negative by the bull through which the dogma was promulgated.158 That this dogma does not imply the singular privilege of bodily glorification for the Blessed Virgin is the view of many Catholic theologians writing in this area. As early as 1954, Karl Rahner argued that because of the definitive nature of the salvation achieved by Christ’s death there would seem to be nothing to prevent any man from finding—in death—the same total “fulfilment of his whole human reality,”159 making reference to the resurrection of the saints in Mt. 27:52-53 as “positive evidence from scripture for what we would have expected anyway, if definitive salvation has already been unshakably founded.”160 With regard to the definition of the Marian dogma he notes, against the interpretation of Jean Danielou, that the bull “nowhere affirms that Mary’s privilege of ‘anticipated’ resurrection is to be understood as being unique in itself simply, as well as in its cause and title.”161 Similarly, Roger Troisfontaines (1960) interprets the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a pledge of our own future glorification, but argues that it does not follow she is the “only person who, together with Christ, already enjoys the benefit of resurrection,”162 citing against this the possibility of interpreting the text from Matthew 27 eschatologically and in support of the view that others might since have been called “earlier to total participation in the victory of Christ.”163 Ladislaus Boros (1962) interprets the dogma as an affirmation that the “forces of the world to come have already taken hold of our world.”164 Addressing the question of whether

158

Rahner cites as an example Jean Danielou (Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 220n2). Other theologians who seem inclined to understand the dogma in such exclusive terms include Charles Journet, who takes it as revealed that, for those affected by original sin, resurrection is “held back until the end of the world” (Journet, What Is Dogma?, 70), understanding the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as corevealed by implication. Converging with this is Joseph Ratzinger’s suggestion concerning why those in the interim do not yet know the perfect fulfillment of bodily resurrection and why Mary, by contrast, is “fully in the Father’s house,” since unlike all other members of the church “no guilt came forth from her to make people suffer” (Ratzinger, Eschatology, 187). 159 Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 219. 160 Ibid., 220. Rahner here observes that the majority of church fathers and theologians maintain such an eschatological interpretation of the Matthean text. 161 Ibid., 220n2. He additionally observes in this connection that most of the fathers and theologians drawn on to support the dogma in Munificentissimus Deus themselves give explicit support to the eschatological interpretation of Mt. 27:52-53 (ibid., 220). 162 Troisfontaines, I Do Not Die, 293. 163 Ibid., 294.  164 Boros, The Moment of Truth, 199n131.

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the privilege of the Blessed Virgin Mary connotes that in addition to her possessing a special right to the assumption by reason of her “unique position in the scheme of salvation”165 she is alone in having already experienced bodily glorification, Boros answers in the negative, citing the arguments of both Rahner and Troisfontaines concerning the eschatological meaning of Matthew 27 to argue for the possibility that, for at least some others, Christian death can also be a resurrection and ascension.166 In an essay on the general eschatological meaning of this Marian dogma, Donal Flanagan (1969) has subjected the claim that it implies a bodiless intermediate state for all other men to sustained criticism. He argues against this by first noting that the defining words of the dogma in Munificentissimus Deus focus entirely on Mary’s final lot, offering no comment at all on the fate of others in this regard. From this he concludes that it is “unwarranted to presume that in settling the question of Mary’s final state the Church has said the last word about the present state of all other men.”167 Secondly, he observes that although those framing the definition formula could have made it plain that the uniqueness of her privilege included bodily assumption into heaven, they did not. That the absence of such an assertion carries particular significance, he suggests, can be seen from the contrast between the defining formula of this Marian dogma and that employed by Pius IX in defining the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus (issued December 8, 1854). The latter takes care to declare that the Blessed Virgin Mary was “from the first moment of conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God … preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”168 Concerning this definition, Flanagan concludes that Pius IX “seems clearly to have wanted to underline the unicity of this privilege.”169 By contrast, the term singularis (nor even the weaker specialis)170 does not appear 165

Ibid. Ibid. With Rahner, Boros rejects the view that this text may be dismissed as a mythological interpolation or intrusion, or that it evidences something like temporary resurrection or “phantom bodies” (i.e., apparitions). In support of their view, both cite H. Zeller’s study of this text (“Corpora Sanctorum. Eine Studie zu Mt 27:52-53,” in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 71 [1949]: 385– 465) to argue that the position of the majority of the fathers—that the text is to be understood eschatologically—is the only one which is exegetically possible, and, therefore, “there is not only a possibility, there is also actual certitude that events we usually call the ‘last things’ have already begun” (Boros, The Moment of Truth, 199n131; see also Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 220 and 220n1). 167 Flanagan, “Eschatology and the Assumption,” 69. 168 ND, para. 709 (emphasis added). 169 Flanagan, “Eschatology and the Assumption,” 69. 170 A word which figured in an earlier magisterial document alluding to Our Lady’s sinlessness (Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum of Alexander VII, December 8, 1661) (ibid.). 166

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in Munificentissimus Deus. In offering a reason for this omission, Flanagan mentions the possible influence of scriptural allusions (and thus patristic and medieval ones) to individuals with “final destinies analogous to that of Mary,”171 such as Enoch and Elijah, as well as those saints whose resurrection is alluded to in ch. 27 of Matthew’s gospel. A proponent of the traditional schema, John Saward believes the eschatological understanding of Matthew 27 to be clear, observing that many fathers and doctors of the church (including Gregory the Great) took the passage as evidence of the “social character of the resurrection.”172 By itself, therefore, the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary would not appear to offer clear support for the view that with the exception of Christ and his mother those in the intermediate state exist as disembodied souls. Some proponents of resurrection in death, however, would wish to go further than this and argue that the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not only not incompatible with the new thesis but that it may in fact serve as “a basis from which one can argue to a similar present condition for other Christians who have entered into glory,”173 thus constituting “a model of human destiny at large.”174 That the dogma can support an argument for resurrection in death by itself is questionable. As Walter Kasper argues, to make of Mary’s Assumption a model for eschatology in this way would be to misinterpret “the special soteriological place given to Mary, which is the very theological basis for the dogma itself,”175 and thus undermine “not only the dogma, but the related model as well. Such an argument is self-defeating.”176 In attempting to establish the new thesis on the basis of the Marian dogma, however, a less direct approach may be attempted. Thus, Donal Flanagan argues that Mary as type of the church is, properly speaking, type of the pilgrim church only, not the heavenly church (“type” denoting something in the final state of redemption in relation to something in statu viatoris), and is better thought of us as the latter’s representative, rather than as its type. Because of this representative role, he argues, the members of the church in heaven are best thought of as existing in the same state in which Mary presently does, and thus

171

Ibid., 70. Saward, Sweet and Blessed Country, 70. 173 Flanagan, “Eschatology and the Assumption,” 70. 174 Ratzinger, Eschatology, 107 (a view Ratzinger clearly does not share). 175 Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 378n26. 176 Ibid. 172

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that they already possess bodily glorification.177 While Flanagan is correct to argue for some differentiation between the manner in which Mary stands in relation to the pilgrim church, on the one hand, and the heavenly church, on the other, the manner in which he interprets Mary’s representative role to arrive at his conclusion in fact begs the crucial question about whether or not the blessed are already embodied, and it would seem he is justified in concluding no more than that Mary’s glory “in no way necessarily excludes the attainment of final glory by those others who belong to the heavenly Church even now.”178 But what of the suggestion that the Matthean passage frequently cited in connection with this dogma can itself support the thesis that “the process of resurrection from the dead has remained continuous since the resurrection of Jesus and the bodily assumption of Mary.”179 The specifics of this text would appear to make such a direct inference not a little insecure, not least because it would seem as if the evangelist takes care to avoid claiming that all the righteous dead were raised at this point, employing simply polla (“many”) in v. 52 to define the scope of the resurrection which occurred rather than panta (“all”) or even simply ta sōmata (“the bodies”).180 The use made of the Matthean text in arguments for resurrection in death is usually less ambitious than this, however, and as part of a cumulative case argued on theological grounds. Thus, as already noted, Rahner cites the text as positive evidence from scripture for what he believes the realized eschatology of the New Testament would lead one to expect,181 while von Balthasar argues that the definitive salvation for mankind achieved in and through the Paschal Mystery makes it difficult to conceive why resurrection must be delayed, “particularly if we keep Matthew 27:51-53 in mind.”182

177

Flanagan, “Eschatology and the Assumption,” 70–73. Ibid., 73. 179 Schmaus, Last Things, 215. It should be noted that Schmaus himself does not think such a view can be supported on the basis of what he considers an “indefinite” text. 180 Admittedly, “the many” (as in hoi polloi) can be rendered as “all” when it is a translation from Aramaic or used by someone thinking in Aramaic idiom (as in Rom. 5:19 where “many” is a mistranslation, a fact made clear by comparison with Rom. 5:17-18 and 1 Cor. 15:22). However, in Mt. 27:52, the adjective is not coupled with the definite article in this fashion, and is thus more appropriately translated as “many.” (In Matthew’s account of the institution of the Eucharist [Mt. 26:26-29], Christ’s blood is described as poured out peri pollon rather than peri ton pollon, a fact underpinning the return of the new translation of the Mass to “many” [from “all”] in the consecration of the chalice.) It is worth noting in this connection that the definite article is also absent in v. 53—which recounts that those who had thus arisen entered the holy city and appeared “to many” (pollois)— where it is abundantly clear that this refers to some, rather than all, of Jerusalem’s population. 181 Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 220. 182 Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 360. 178

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Such arguments are, however, far from persuasive. They can serve as decisive refutations of the traditional thesis only if the latter is founded on a lack of awareness of the definitive nature of the salvation achieved by Christ’s death and resurrection, that is, if proponents of the traditional schema fail to appreciate that there is now nothing in principle which could prevent man from finding the total “fulfilment of his whole human reality.”183 Such lack of awareness cannot be presupposed though, and while there may indeed be nothing in principle to stand in the way of such fulfillment at death, that such a delay may yet occur could nevertheless be deemed to be the most balanced interpretation of all the relevant data. Such a judgment is not unreasonable. The sorts of reasons for delayed embodiment offered by thinkers like Journet, de Lubac, and Troisfontaines (see earlier in this chapter) can all be interpreted as assuming not the necessity of such a delay, but its fittingness, and as being at least as firmly based on the texts of scripture as the new thesis.184 Of course, to be complete, such an account would need to be able to furnish convincing reasons why, given the “fittingness” of such a delay, the fullness of the fruits of the Paschal Mystery were not similarly withheld from the “many” of Matthew 27. It is in fact possible to derive such reasons precisely from what appears to be the distinctive revelatory function of this particular event. Commenting on the text, John Saward cites Denys the Carthusian in support of the view that in granting this privilege, Christ proclaims his Messianic identity in its eschatological fullness. Those raised here, according to Denys, include Adam and Eve, the patriarchs, and King David, whose tomb (rather than body) is, according to St. Peter, “with us to this present day” (Acts 2:29). The saints of Matthew 27 are thus the forefathers of Christ himself, and the purpose of “this anticipated resurrection was, says Denys, to bear witness to the truth that ‘Jesus was the Messiah, and had truly risen, and harrowed Hell.’”185 It is this understanding of the event, Saward thinks, which provides an argument of fittingness for Our Lady’s own assumption into heaven:

183

Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 219. For example, on the most natural reading of the Matthean text under discussion (see above), as well as those texts which assume that the resurrection of the dead occurs with Christ’s Parousia and the consummation of all things (such as 1 Thess. 4:14-16; 1 Cor. 15: 20-28, 52-53; Rom. 8:18-25; Phil. 3:20-21). 185 Saward, Sweet and Blessed Country, 71. 184

28

Between Death and Resurrection If the remote forefathers of Christ are deemed worthy of an anticipated resurrection of the body, how much more so is the Virgin Mother from whom the eternal Word took His human body.186

In conclusion, it would appear that in striving for a resolution between the traditional schema, on the one hand, and some form of resurrection in death, on the other, a simple appeal to the dogma of the Blessed Virgin’s Assumption is inadequate as a response. That the dogma, by itself, implies the truth of the traditional schema seems doubtful.187 That the dogma, by itself, implies resurrection in death for all who have died since Christ (or, at least, those who have died “in Christ”) also seems to be less than secure. That the dogma can be made to harmonize with either schema seems more certain than either of the above inferences. With regard to the particular question under consideration here, therefore, the dogma would appear not to have a determinative role.188 If we are to be able to arrive at some resolution concerning the various eschatological schemata proposed, then serious engagement with those issues identified in the foregoing survey of the debate seems unavoidable.

Searching for a resolution: Areas requiring further exploration An examination of the writings of scholars proposing resurrection in death as an alternative to the traditional schema, and the various responses made 186

Ibid. Nevertheless, there continue to be commentators who think it does—for example, Pozo (Theology of the Beyond, 252 and n452), Haffner (The Mystery of Mary, 228), and O’Callaghan (Christ Our Hope, 325). All three make reference in this regard to the statement by the CDF in Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology that in teaching about our postmortem destiny, the church “excludes any explanation that would deprive the assumption of the Virgin Mary of its unique meaning, namely the fact that the bodily glorification of the virgin is an anticipation of the glorification that is the destiny of all the other elect” (CDF, point 6). In this connection, Pozo quotes Aldama to the effect that “it does not suffice to say that Mary rose gloriously in the moment of her death as would all the just, but that this was due to her by a double title. The special nature of the Assumption consists in its note of anticipation with respect to the final resurrection of the just” (Theology of the Beyond, 252). Acknowledging Mt. 27:52-53, Pozo asserts that it is a distinct issue “whether the mystery of the Assumption represents a privilege that has been given exclusively to her or was also possessed by certain saints” (ibid., n452). It is hard to see how; for if various Old Testament saints rose immediately following Christ’s resurrection, then it follows that the Virgin Mary’s uniqueness cannot be understood in the manner above: those other saints also clearly “anticipating” the resurrection of the just in this sense. There would seem to be significant problems, therefore, with this interpretation of the meaning of the dogma. 188 It is not without significance perhaps that, in its sustained contribution to the debate in 1992, the ITC, while confirming and elaborating on the other points made earlier by the CDF in 1979, did not expand on, or clarify further, the earlier document’s comments concerning the normative role of this dogma for eschatological speculation, making no mention whatever of the Blessed Virgin or her various privileges.

187

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to them, has made clear the main issues requiring sustained and systematic analysis if there is to be the possibility of some genuine resolution in this debate. These issues are the significance of the scriptural data on anthropology and eschatology for the arguments in favor of, and against, the various forms of the new thesis; the relative philosophical and theological coherence of postmortem atemporalism and nonatemporalism; the potential of the anthropologies associated with the competing schemata for accounting for personal identity through death and resurrection; the relative success of the competing schemata in explaining the respective significance of the various elements associated with individual and collective eschatology. It is in connection with each of these issues that various “dialogical lacunae” have been identified, the presence of which appears to have contributed to a loss of intellectual productivity or momentum in the debate. What seems to be required, therefore, is a sustained exploration of each of the issues with the central question in mind and an attempt to relate the fruits of these analyses to each other systematically in such a way as to ensure that the lacunae identified are more satisfactorily addressed. The remaining chapters constitute an attempt to do this.

2

Sacred Scripture and the Intermediate State

This chapter constitutes a critical analysis of the scriptural data on anthropology and eschatology, with a particular focus on those dialogical lacunae identified in the previous chapter. The first focus of this examination, therefore, is to be on the anthropology of sacred scripture, in order to clarify whether this is such as to preclude the concept of a separable soul which is presupposed by the traditional schema (as many proponents of immediate resurrection would have it), or whether it is in fact consistent with that “anthropology of duality” which underpins the traditional schema.

Does human ontology in the sacred scriptures preclude a separable soul? The anthropology of the Old Testament The Old Testament employs a range of terms to refer to various dimensions or aspects of the human being and human existence (e.g., nephesh, ruach, basar, quereb, leb). Its understanding of these terms and their interrelationship, however, evidences a profoundly holistic anthropology rather than a dualistic vision such as that associated with either Platonism or Cartesianism.1 Firstly, throughout the Old Testament there are numerous examples of terms frequently translated so as to suggest psychic or spiritual elements or capacities, such as nephesh (“soul”) and ruach (“spirit”),2 having physical denotations and 1

2

See Cooper, Body, 37–38, 43–45; Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 210–13; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457–59; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 158–61. A holistic anthropology is one which views the human being as a single entity whose “capacities and functions are interrelated and integrated as a systemic unity” (Cooper, Body, 43). By contrast, the dualistic views of Platonism or Cartesianism conceive of humans as a “conjunction and interaction of two wholly different substances each with its own distinct set of functions” (ibid.). Cooper, Body, 33–34; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10, 17–18; Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 210–11.

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connotations,3 as well as ostensibly physical terms such as quereb (“inner parts” or “bowels”) and leb (“heart”) having psychical ones.4 Furthermore, although nephesh frequently connotes the principle of life in man, that which makes him a living being,5 and ruach is a vital animating power, as well as being the “source of all the higher subjective human capacities,”6 neither term appears to be used to signify an element capable of surviving apart from the body.7 Secondly, although these anthropological terms have distinctive significations, there is also much convergence of meaning, to the extent that sometimes they are able to function as synonyms.8 Such “variety and interchangeability of terminology”9 does not provide a secure foundation for positing an anthropology which understands man as composed of two distinct substances. Thirdly, synecdoche abounds in the Old Testament use of these terms.10 Thus, nephesh, ruach, basar and leb are all often used to refer not only to specific elements but to the whole of the human person viewed from a particular perspective.11 Because of this, in certain cases the anthropological term can even 3

4

5

6 7

8

9 10

11

Thus, nephesh is often best rendered as “throat” (occasionally, even “neck”), “blood” or “physical appetite or desire” (see Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 11–19; Charles, Eschatology, 37; Cooper, Body, 39); while ruach can signify a person’s “breath” or even “a state of physical excitement” (see Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 458; van der Walle, From Darkness, 37; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 33–34, 36–37; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 19). Thus, in the Old Testament, quereb are treated as bearing man’s “spiritual and ethical impulses” (Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 66; see also Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 22–23); while leb, as well as being the physical organ located in man’s chest, is the place of emotion, desire, sin, conscience, volition, and cognition (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 211; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 40–55), the “locus of all higher human functions” (Cooper, Body, 42; see also Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 22). Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 458; Cooper, Body, 39; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 18–20; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 16. Cooper, Body, 40. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 210–11; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 458–59; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 17; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 20; van der Walle, From Darkness, 37–38. In fact, nephesh is explicitly made the subject of death along with the body (see Lev. 24:18; Num. 23:10; 31:19; Judg. 16:30; Job 36:14; Ps. 22:20). Thus, nephesh and ruach can both indicate the “breath-soul” or “principle of life in man” and are sometimes thus used in parallelism (see Isa. 26:9; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 16–20, 27). Similarly, ruach and leb are both used to indicate man’s inner life (Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 18) and are thus often synonyms (ibid., 27). Cooper, Body, 43. Cooper, Body, 44. Synecdoche is the use of a term which denotes part of something to refer to the whole in order to emphasize some truth about the whole thing. In this manner, nephesh can be employed to signify the whole man as a “living being” (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 210; van der Walle, From Darkness, 38; Gen. 2:7); ruach, man as he is “authorized and empowered by God” (see Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 32–39); basar (often translated as “flesh”), man in his weakness and infirmity (see Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 25; Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 211; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 26–31); leb, man as rational and religious being (see Cooper, Body, 42–43; Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 46–58).

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be translated using the personal pronoun.12 Collectively, these facts impel us away from a dual-substance anthropology to one which is more holistic.13 This sort of in-depth semantic analysis makes untenable any sort of exegesis which would read dualistic philosophical categories back into Old Testament texts and has resulted in something of a reaction within the scholarly community against anything smacking of dualistic exegesis, with many biblical scholars emphasizing instead the supposedly materialistic monism of the Hebrew.14 Thus, according to the Dominican theologian Anton van der Walle, semitic thought saw human beings predominantly as indivisible unities. It imagined them as it saw them, as bodies. Anachronistically, one could call this Semitic view of the human being monistic.15

Likewise, Bruce Reichenbach, a Protestant philosopher, insists that a monistic anthropology … has the general support of both the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament Hebraic perspective man is a whole or unity. Though various aspects of man are mentioned (soul, spirit, breath, heart, bowels), they are not different elements of man capable of separate existence, but constitute different aspects of the total person.16

It may be the case though that this conclusion is a little premature. Certainly, semantic analysis of biblical texts does not yield anything that would support substance dualism of a Platonic or Cartesian kind, evidencing instead a more holistic anthropology. To infer from this that biblical anthropology is monistic is, however, questionable. Firstly, there is a conceptual difference, and thus a logical gap, between holism and monism. Given this, one cannot simply infer from holism to monism. Secondly, there is, in fact, counterevidence in the Old Testament for the hypothesis that its anthropology is monistic. Let us begin by considering the first of these issues: the conceptual difference between holism and monism.

The logical distinction between holism and monism In conducting such an analysis it is necessary first to note that, conceptually, two main sorts of holism can be defined, each of which has radically different implications regarding postmortem survival. 12

13 14 15 16

Cooper, Body, 39, 44. Thus, in several texts, nephesh is justifiably rendered as “I” (e.g., in Gen. 19:19–20; Num. 23:10; Judg. 16:30; Ps 54:4; Prov. 18:7; see Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 21–25). Cooper, Body, 43–45; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 159. See Cooper, Body, 33–36; Aldwinckle, 72. Van der Walle, From Darkness, 152. Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180.

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The first of these is termed by John Cooper, functional holism.17 Functional holism affirms the functional unity of some entity in its totality, the integration and interrelation of all the parts in the existence and proper operation of the whole. It views an entity as a single primary functional system, not as a compound system constructed by linking two or more primary functional systems.18 It recognizes entities as phenomenological and existential unities. It implies that the parts do not operate independently within the whole, and that they would not necessarily continue to have all the same properties and functions if the whole were broken up.19

Clearly, this sort of holism does not necessarily imply monism, that is, the view that the whole can be said to consist fundamentally in just one substance, such as matter.20 Neither does it imply that if the entire system were broken up, each of the parts would be lost entirely: “Secondary systems might continue to exist, although without all the properties and capacities they had when integrated within the whole.”21 In addition to this sort of holism though, Cooper identifies another sort, one which would seem “to be employed by many who discuss Old Testament anthropology.”22 This he terms ontological holism. Ontological holism “defines the very being of an entity and its constituents in terms of their systematic unity. … The parts, aspects and dimensions of the thing have being only in virtue of their status within the whole.”23 It follows from this that once the whole breaks up, the parts themselves cease to be what they were, either passing out of existence completely or changing into something entirely different. Ontological holism goes beyond functional holism in making the existence of the whole functional system a necessary condition for the continued selfidentical existence of the parts of the whole.24

17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24

Cooper, Body, 46. As with Platonic or Cartesian dualism. Cooper, Body, 45. A being with this sort of unity could conceivably be made up of “any number of metaphysical substances or principles” (Cooper, Body, 45). Ibid. A philosophical anthropology exemplifying this sort of holism would be that of Thomas Aquinas, with its idea of the soul as forma corporis and yet subsistent, surviving death, albeit with a radically different, and somewhat compromised, mode of operation. Cooper, Body, 46. Ibid. (emphases added). Ibid., 47 (emphases added).

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Applying this definition anthropologically would seem to preclude the possibility of postmortem survival for a person, none of the parts being “a separable entity, but … merely ‘aspects’ of a single whole.”25 Clearly, those wishing to argue that the Old Testament’s view of the human person is monistic, and thus incompatible with the traditional understanding of the intermediate state (with its concept of the disembodied soul), are implying that the sort of holism evidenced by an analysis of biblical anthropology is ontological rather than merely functional. However, as Cooper observes: Whether Old Testament holism is merely functional or ontological cannot be settled on a priori conceptual grounds. This is a question of fact which can only be determined by discovering what the Hebrews thought about death and survival.26

It is this matter which will now be addressed.

Counterevidence for “ontological holism” in the Old Testament The document of the ITC, in presenting the scriptural case for the traditional teaching, argues that in considering the condition of those who die before the coming of the Lord, the early Christians did not have to think ex novo; the biblical tradition had long contained the elements for resolving this problem.27 The people of Israel from the very first stages of their history as it is known to us thought that something of mortal beings subsisted after death. This thought was evident in the most ancient representation of what was called sheol.28

Sheol was the dwelling place of the dead, the rephaim: “weak shadowy continuations of the living who have lost their vitality and strength.”29 Jewish belief in Sheol and the rephaim makes a simple inference from the Old Testament’s evident holism to a supposed ontological holism problematic; for ontological holism would seem to imply annihilation at death.30 Belief in Sheol and the rephaim, however, constitutes conclusive evidence that in the Old

25 26 27 28 29

30

Ibid., 46. Ibid., 47. ITC, para. 3.1. Ibid. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 194. See also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 161–70; van der Walle, From Darkness, 43–45; Cooper, Body, 55–61; Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 128–30; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 87–89; Nichols, Death and Afterlife, 20–23. Cooper, Body, 46–47, 51.

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Testament it was not believed that human existence ended entirely with death.31 If we are seeking to base judgments concerning human ontology on the data provided by the texts of the Old Testament, therefore, it would appear not a little presumptuous to insist that these support a form of ontological holism rather than a holism which admitted of a degree of duality.32 If such duality is not supported by these texts, then an explanation why this is so would seem to be required along with a positive account of how such data is better explained in terms of an anthropology which apparently precludes an element of human nature capable of persisting through death. This datum is not the only element of convergence with the traditional schema within the texts of the Old Testament. Here and there are intimations also that continued existence after death might consist in more than the torpor of Sheol: fellowship with God himself in some form.33 Eventually, such hope begins to crystallize in the concept of resurrection. Almost certainly, Ezekiel 37 should not be taken as a resurrection “proof text,”34 and Job 19:25-27 is ambiguous at best.35 Generally undisputed though are Dan. 12:2 and Isa. 26:19,36

31

32

33

34

35

36

John Cooper alludes to a climate of a priorism among religious thinkers and students who assume that the Hebrew view of death consists in annihilation, noting that it is clear that this idea has not been derived from reading the Old Testament or the discussions of biblical scholars. Among such scholars, he claims, “there is virtual consensus that the Israelites did believe in some sort of ethereal existence after death in Sheol” (Cooper, Body, 52). Scholars who, with Cooper, would not uphold the annihilation thesis as representing the thought of the Old Testament include Robinson (Christian Doctrine of Man, 39–42); Charles (Eschatology, 33–50); Kaiser and Lohse (Death and Life, 34–35, 41); Ladd (Theology of the New Testament, 193–94); Pozo (Theology of the Beyond, 161–70); Gundry (Sōma in Biblical Theology, 127–34); Wright (Resurrection of the Son of God, 87–103); van der Walle (From Darkness, 43–45); and Nichols (Death and Afterlife, 20–23). See Cooper, Body, 52–54, 69–72. It is evasive and irrelevant to argue against this that nephesh (“soul”) and ruach (“spirit”) are never used by the writers of the Old Testament to refer to an immaterial entity which survives the dissolution of the body and, therefore, that the dead were thought not to exist. For, as noted, the Israelites did believe in the continued existence of the departed: they simply used another term for them, rephaim (and occasionally, elohim). In any case, a reasonable argument can be made for an extension of the term nephesh to indicate such an entity in some Old Testament texts (e.g., Pss 16:10; 30:3; 49:15; 1 Kgs 17:21-22; see Cooper, Body, 61; Kaiser and Lohse, Death and Life, 40, 79–80; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 174–78). In the final analysis, if such a case is not completely secure, this is of no great import; for in the light of Israelite belief in rephaim, to conclude that Old Testament anthropology is unambiguously holistic in an ontological, and not only a functional, sense appears to be a non sequitur. See, for example, Pss 16:10-11; 49:14-15; 73:23-27 (see Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 109–10; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 103–9; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 174–78). Cooper, Body, 63; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 200–201, 281–82; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 119–21; Kaiser and Lohse, Death and Life, 78–79; Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 222–24. Cooper, Body, 63–64; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 38; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 97–98; Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 208–14; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 284–85. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 110; Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 109–18; Johnston, Shades of Sheol, 224–27; Cooper, Body, 64; Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Man, 41–42.

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both cited by the ITC in that section of their document which prepares for their argument for the intermediate state from the New Testament.37 The text from Daniel does not obviously imply an interim state for the rephaim. The references to the dead who are “asleep in the dust of the earth” and who will “awake,” while prima facie reconcilable with such a view, could equally be interpreted to indicate annihilation prior to resurrection. Isaiah 26, on the other hand, is pellucid in this regard: for the word used in vv. 14 and 19 for the departed who rise is rephaim. The scenario depicted here, therefore, is death followed by existence as a “shade” in Sheol, and at the Lord’s coming, communion with him in resurrected bodily form. It would seem that “the time-line of personal eschatology inherent in Isaiah 26 is in embryonic form the time-line of the New Testament … and traditional Christian faith.”38 From the perspective of human ontology, these eschatological data confirm the holistic picture of the human being evidenced by the previous semantic analysis.39 The sort of holism affirmed, however, must clearly be consistent with continued personal existence after death apart from the body, followed by a return to bodily life. Prima facie, it would seem that ontological holism is precluded by these facts. Rather, some form of functional holism and ontological duality would appear to set the parameters for the way the human being is to be conceived on the basis of the Old Testament taken as a whole.40

Counterevidence for “ontological holism” in intertestamental literature Before moving on to consider the witness of the New Testament texts with regard to human ontology, it will first be helpful to consider some of the relevant developments in anthropology/eschatology which occur within the period between the two testaments. There are several reasons why this should be done. The first, from a Catholic viewpoint, is that several texts from this period are themselves considered inspired (the Deuterocanonical texts, such as Wisdom and Sirach), and included, therefore, as part of the Old Testament canon.41

37 38 39

40 41

ITC, para. 3.3. Cooper, Body, 65. In the sense that, given the nature of man for the Hebrew, any fully satisfactory eschatological resolution must ultimately involve restoration of the whole of man. Cooper, Body, 43–45, 69–72. See General Council of Trent, Fourth Session, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures (ND, para. 211); CCC, para. 120.

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Secondarily, those not so considered are still valuable sources for exegesis of New Testament passages; many ideas from them have been taken up (albeit in modified form) into the New Testament texts themselves and they are thus crucial for an accurate understanding of these later passages.42 The first thing to say in this connection is that the apparent holistic duality of the Old Testament, far from being abandoned here, is maintained, and by some sources developed considerably. The rather bleak Old Testament idea of Sheol as a state of “overpowering lethargy and inactivity”43 for believers and unbelievers alike continues to be represented (e.g., in Sir. 14:16 and 17:27-28), most probably even by some members of a group usually considered the strongest candidates for Jewish materialism, the Sadducees.44 More significantly, in this period both “soul” (nephesh/psychē) and “spirit” (ruach/pneuma) clearly come to be conceived of as entities capable of independent existence from the body.45 In a minority of cases, this independence has resonances with Platonic immortality (e.g., Wis. 3:1, 3, 4; Jubilees 23:30-31; 1 Enoch 102–104),46 but in the main seems to be associated with an intermediate state of the dead prior to resurrection,47 and hinted at previously in Isa. 26:19, as already noted.48 As well as the dead being “repeatedly and unambiguously”49 termed “souls” or “spirits” in numerous texts from this period, their state comes increasingly to be described in terms connoting a degree of consciousness and activity similar to those still alive.50

42 43 44 45

46

47 48

49 50

Cooper, Body, 74n. Cooper, Body, 55; see also Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 87–90. See Cooper, Body, 76. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 459; Kaiser and Lohse, Death and Life, 40–41; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 179, 192–93, 201–2; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 87–90 (see, for example, Bar. 2:17; Tob. 3:6; Jubilees 23:31; 1 Enoch 9:3, 10; 13:6; 20:3; 22:3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13; 98:3; 102:4-5 and Wis. 3:1-4; 16:14). These terms are also frequently used interchangeably (see, for example, 1 Enoch 103:3-8; Wis. 1:4-5; 15:11; 16:14). Even in such cases, it is not always clear that resurrection is excluded, rather than simply not made as explicit as it could be. Jensen suggests, plausibly, that Wisdom’s silence in this regard reflects no more than the concern of the author to appeal to his educated, Hellenized audience (and possibly even to Greeks themselves), an audience who would find the conjunction of immortality with bodily resurrection untenable (see Jensen, God’s Word to Israel, 246). This proposal can be bolstered by an appeal to several texts which seem to employ language characteristically associated with bodily resurrection (e.g., Wis. 3:7-8; 5:1-4; 16:13). Particularly evocative is the expression “shine out” of Wis. 3:7-8, which elsewhere is clearly associated with bodily resurrection (e.g., Dan. 12:3; Mt. 13:43). Cooper, Body, 77–78. Though here, the term for those who await the resurrection is, of course, rephaim, not “souls” or “spirits.” Cooper, Body, 82. For example, in 1 Enoch 22, where they complain loudly to God about injustice; 2 Esdras 7:75-101, where they are “aware of God and his just expectations” (Cooper, Body, 83); and 1 Enoch 102:4-5, where they are described as hopeful (ibid., 84).

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A connected development, crucial for our understanding of those New Testament texts which draw on the imagery and ideas of this period for their own purposes, is the elaboration of the topography of the underworld. Although initially connoting an undifferentiated state unconnected with any ideas of retribution,51 the evolving faith in God’s power to bring the dead back through resurrection led to developments in the understanding of the nature and purpose of Sheol,52 until by the Book of Enoch (150 BC) we have a compartmentalized or stratified version of Sheol wherein the souls of the righteous and the wicked are located apart in distinct dwellings,53 receive “a due retribution”54 and await a definitive sentence at the last judgment.55 By the Fourth Book of Ezra, there have been further developments in the notion of punishment for the godless prior to the last judgment, with their position seeming to be “that of a definitive Hell.”56 Within rabbinic Judaism, a definite judgment immediately following death for both categories is affirmed, with the souls of the godly and the ungodly being thereby assigned to Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna, respectively.57 As well as “Paradise,” during this period the destiny of the just comes to be referred to using a constellation of titles (“treasury of souls”; “waiting beneath the throne of God”; “Abraham’s bosom”), many of which can be seen in the New Testament to be part of the belief system and religious vocabulary of Christ and the early church.58 As far as anthropology is concerned, therefore, the period leading up to the New Testament saw no abandonment of the Old Testament’s holistic duality. On the contrary, although monistic annihilationism may be present (represented by some, but not necessarily all, Sadducees),59 and also the possible influence of Platonic immortalism,60 the majority of views follow a twofold phase schema

51 52

53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

ITC, para. 3.2. Ibid., 3.3. Candido Pozo has argued convincingly that intimations of different “levels” within Sheol were present in certain prophetic writings (e.g., Isa. 14:15; Ezek. 32:22-23) as well as the Book of Proverbs (see Prov. 7:27 and 9:18), and provided the foundations for these later developments (Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 170–74). Cooper, Body, 87; van der Walle, From Darkness, 80–82; 1 Enoch 22:9–14. ITC, para. 3.3. Ibid.; see also Ratzinger, Eschatology, 120–21. Ratzinger, Eschatology, 121. “Paradise” in apocalyptic literature refers to the home of the blessed dead in both intermediate and final states. For the Rabbis, however, the states referred to here are intermediate, persisting only till the final judgment (see Cooper, Body, 87–89). Ratzinger, Eschatology, 122–23. Cooper, Body, 76–77; 85. Ibid., 77–78.

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which is underpinned by a holistic duality easily recognizable from the Old Testament.61 It is this anthropological–eschatological nexus which was held by the Pharisees, who figure so prominently in the Gospels and St. Paul’s own formation,62 and which many scholars suppose informed popular beliefs in these matters during the first century AD.63 The proposition that the anthropology of sacred scripture precludes postmortem survival of a nonmaterial, personal component of the human being, and that, therefore, any possibility of personal survival implies immediate resurrection would seem extremely difficult to maintain solely on the basis of the canonical and deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. Only if we are extremely selective in our choice and/or interpretation of texts can this be supported. Any claims of a widespread or dominant semitic monism in the period immediately preceding the events recorded in the New Testament would also seem poorly supported by the intertestamental literature. By itself though, such a conclusion is inadequate to establish that the scriptural view of the human being is such as to support the traditional schema. For it remains a possibility that, on this specific point, there is no continuity between Judaism and the New Testament: that the anthropology taught or assumed by the New Testament texts marks a departure from the schemas outlined above, offering scant support, perhaps, for an anima separata.64 It does not follow from the supposed holistic duality of orthodox Judaism, in other words, that the New Testament view of man does not preclude the traditional schema. What needs to be shown is that the texts of the New Testament exhibit conceptual continuity with the line of development running from the Old Testament and through the majority of intertestamental writings. In the next few sections, the evidence for and against this position shall be examined.

The anthropology of the New Testament It must be conceded that, as with the Old Testament, Christian scholars have sometimes uncritically assumed that texts employing key anthropological

61 62 63 64

Ibid., 91–93. Ibid., 89. Ibid., 90. Such would be the position of Otto Kaiser and Eduard Lohse, for example, who, while accepting that the Old Testament and intertestamental literature are supportive of a disincarnate intermediate state, do not see this schema in the New Testament: affirming instead, monistic annihilationism followed by re-creation ex nihilo at Christ’s return (see Kaiser and Lohse, Death and Life, 33–42, 78–86, and 139).

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terms (e.g., psychē, pneuma, sarx, sōma) are to be understood within the framework of philosophical dualism.65 Yet semantic analyses of such terms in the New Testament make such exegesis untenable, revealing a complexity and diversity of meaning comparable to that in the Old Testament.66 As with the earlier texts, the way these terms are employed suggests an anthropology which is holistic rather than dualistic, a vision of the human being as a profound unity rather than “a composite of different ‘parts’.”67 Firstly, as with the Old Testament, there is profound semantic “overlap” between these anthropological terms which allows them to function as synonyms or parallels, able to share the same meaning in certain contexts.68 Secondly, while in some passages terms like those being examined here are used to indicate significant distinctions within the human person, these do not (it is argued) offer certain grounds for affirming dualism (or even an ontological duality like that presupposed by the traditional schema), all being apparently susceptible to plausible interpretation within the framework of ontological holism.69 Thirdly, as in the Old Testament, synecdoche is common, such anthropological terms frequently being applied to the person as a whole.70 Thus, George Eldon Ladd, in his Theology of the New Testament, observes:

65 66

67 68

69

70

See Cooper, Body, 94; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457. See Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457–78; Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 213–16; Berkouwer, Image of God, 194–207; Ridderbos, Paul, 114–26. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 216. See, for example, Heb. 8:10 and 10:16 where dianoia (mind) and kardia (heart) appear to be used as synonyms (Cooper, Body, 97). Likewise, sōma and sarx can function synonymously (e.g., 2 Cor. 4:1011; 1 Cor. 6:16-17) (Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457; Ridderbos, Paul, 116). For a parallel use of pneuma and sarx, see 2 Cor. 2:13 (pneuma) and 2 Cor. 7:5 (sarx) (Ridderbos, Paul, 121). Thus, for example, Paul’s distinction between psychē and pneuma in Heb. 4:12 might initially seem marked enough to suggest different substances (and thus the possibility of separability); however, read in context (with “joints and marrow … thoughts and attitudes”) the text actually suggests something more holistic and is best understood as affirming no more than the power of God’s word to penetrate human existence (see Cooper, Body, 98; Osei-Bonsu, “Anthropological Dualism in the New Testament,” 583). Even those texts which appear to use “soul” (e.g., Mt. 10:28) and “spirit” (e.g., Mt. 27:50; Lk. 23:46; Jn 19:30) to indicate something capable of separating from the body at death might be explained—in unchanged continuity with the Old Testament meanings of nephesh and ruach—in terms merely of the cessation of the “life principle” or “breath” of a person (see Cooper, Body, 98–99). Finally, the juxtapositions of sarx and pneuma in the Pauline corpus are best understood as an ethical-religious antithesis rather than as indicating metaphysical duality (see Robinson, The Body, 17–20; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 469–74). Thus, psychē is used to refer to the natural life of man, the whole man as a living being (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 213; Ridderbos, Paul, 120) and generally connotes man in relation to humanity (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 214; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 459–60). Likewise, pneuma can denote the whole man in his natural existence, with perhaps a greater emphasis, however, on his “inner” dimension (Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 461–63) and in his relation to God (Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 214; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 459–60; Ridderbos, Paul, 120–21). Similarly, sōma (“body”) is used to signify man in his totality, with perhaps an emphasis on him as subject of salvation history and object of his own action

42

Between Death and Resurrection Recent scholarship has recognized that such terms as body, soul and spirit are not different, separable faculties of man but different ways of viewing the whole man.71

Because of this, these terms are even susceptible in some contexts to translation as personal pronouns.72 The New Testament, like the Old Testament and most of the intertestamental writings, therefore, would seem to presuppose a profoundly holistic vision of man.73 The holism evident throughout the New Testament, the paucity of direct support for ontological duality, and the apparent ease of interpreting New Testament texts traditionally used to establish such duality indirectly in other ways have, as already indicated, helped to lead some thinkers74 to the conclusion that biblical anthropology is, therefore, monistic.75 However, this is not unproblematic. Firstly, the conceptual difference already noted between holism and monism means that this inference is per se a non sequitur. Admittedly, if all uses of the relevant anthropological terms in the New Testament could be explained in the ways identified above, then the “lack of implied separability”76 would make claims that the implicit anthropology of the New Testament is some form of ontological holism at least justifiable. Nevertheless, more material problems than this exist, for it would seem that, notwithstanding assertions to the contrary, there are texts in the New Testament which do not convincingly submit to monistic interpretation. Bruce Reichenbach, himself a monist, acknowledges that there exists, in the writings of St. Paul, material which is “disconcertingly dualistic.”77 He nevertheless dismisses such texts as exceptions to the supposed monistic norm derived from semantic analysis. This whole approach, however, begs the question. As John Cooper expresses it:

71 72

73 74 75 76 77

(Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 464; Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 216; Ridderbos, Paul, 116); while sarx (“flesh”), in addition to signifying bodily tissues can also indicate the whole man, with an emphasis on his physical origin, natural ties, human relationships, weakness and transitoriness (Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 467–68; Ridderbos, Paul, 116), as well as the reality of his unregenerate nature and tendency to disobey God (Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 469–74; Berkouwer, Image of God, 204–6). Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457; see also Ridderbos, Paul, 121. Thus, for example, in Lk. 12:19, the rich man’s declaration “I will say to my psychē” is clearly addressed to himself rather than in some abstract way to the principle of life, or some nonmaterial substance within him. Likewise, Paul’s exhortation to love one’s spouse as one’s own body (Eph. 5:2829) is to be taken as an injunction to love her as oneself (Cooper, Body, 97). Similarly, when sōma occurs in Rom. 12:2, 1 Cor. 7:4; 9:27; 13:3, and Phil. 1:20, Paul means by the term yourself, herself, and (for the last three texts) myself, respectively. See Berkouwer, Image of God, 200–207, 214–15. See, for example, Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180. Cooper, Body, 99. Ibid., 104. Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180.

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we have here an analysis in which the material supporting one position is taken seriously whereas data which would favor the opposite view are dismissed as inconsequential.78

He concludes that a sounder methodology would give equal consideration to all the data and ensure that any conclusions formed were derived from this totality. What is required here, therefore, is a critical and systematic examination of some of the more “disconcertingly dualistic” passages in the New Testament. If examples can be found where anthropological terms are best interpreted as signifying components capable of surviving the dissolution of the body, then the most balanced conclusion we could draw would be that the New Testament, like the Old, presupposes not ontological holism, but a holism which admits of ontological duality.79

Counterevidence for “ontological holism” in the New Testament This first part of the examination focuses on the use of the anthropological terms psychē (“soul”) and pneuma (“spirit”) within a group of texts frequently cited by proponents of the traditional schema80 as counterexamples to the monistic thesis that such terms are never used within the New Testament to indicate an element of the human being capable of existence apart from the body. Concerning the term psychē (“soul”), the first text to examine in this connection is Mt. 10:28: “And do not fear those who kill the body (sōma ) but cannot kill the soul (psychē); rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna).” This text is cited several times in the document of the ITC in support of the anthropology of duality and the traditional schema.81 Prima facie, this interpretation looks unchallengeable as the text seems clearly to imply that “when people kill the body, the soul is still left.”82 Those who deny that scripture supports an ontological duality within the human being are thus required to refute this interpretation. Typically, those favoring some form of ontological holism or monism attempt to construe

78 79 80 81 82

Cooper, Body, 101. Ibid., 104, 110. For example, Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 114–16; Cooper, Body, 112. See ITC, paras 4.1, 5.3, 5.4. Cooper, Body, 117. Other Protestant thinkers favoring this interpretation include Charles (Eschatology, 465), Ladd (Theology of the New Testament, 460n17), and Bear (“Is Man as Man Immortal?,” 495). Catholic thinkers so inclined include Pozo (Theology of the Beyond, 204–5) and Scola (“Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life,” 316–18).

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psychē here as identical, or near identical, in meaning to the Old Testament term nephesh, that is, “life” or the whole person as “living being.”83 As with basar and nephesh, they argue, sōma and psychē in such texts might be no more than instances of synecdoche,84 implying not ontological, but only conceptual, duality.85 As support for this position, texts such as Mt. 10:39 and Mk 8:35-36 are sometimes cited, psychē here clearly indicating a person’s life (as in Gen. 2:7).86 Others include Mt. 6:25-27 and Acts 20:10 (natural physical life), and Mt. 11:29; Acts 2:41; 7:14; 27:37; Rom. 2:9; 13:1 (the whole person).87 Sometimes it is also noted as significant that the corresponding passage in Luke (12:4-5) is less obviously dualistic, making no mention of psychē at all,88 and affirming only a general contrast between the power of man (who is able to kill the body only) and the power of God (who can also cast a person into hell).89 Against this background, the Matthean passage is then understood to be contrasting, not two distinct elements of the human person, but earthly death with the eternal death of damnation.90 It is far from clear though that this interpretation is correct. Concerning the forms of argument used, those reasoning from uses of psychē elsewhere in Matthew and other New Testament texts to a monistic usage of psychē here are guilty of a non sequitur, for it does not follow from the fact that psychē is used in this manner elsewhere that it is so used here.91 In these other occurrences of the term psychē, context helps make the specific meaning of the term plain. It seems clear this hermeneutic should be applied in the case of this text also. Similarly, neither does the argument from the Lukan parallel’s lack of the word psychē to a monistic use of the term in Mt. 10:28 carry much force. Firstly, and formally, how can such an observation about the Lukan passage tell us about the anthropological meaning of Matthew’s?92 Even if Luke’s passage evidenced 83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90

91 92

See Schweizer, Matthew, 247–48; Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30–31. Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 31; Schweizer, Matthew, 247–48; Cooper, Body, 117. Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30. See ibid.; van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism,” 482. Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180. Ibid., 187–88n8. Anton van der Walle suggests that it is possible Luke’s formulation is motivated precisely by a desire to counter dualistic misinterpretations of Matthew (From Darkness, 118). Similarly, van Inwagen suggests the Lukan passage should be viewed as hermeneutically normative here due to its “representing more accurately the dominical saying that underlies both passages” (“Dualism and Materialism,” 482), and as reflecting a superior understanding of that which Matthew tries to convey using psychē and sōma. He offers no support for either of these judgments. See, for example, Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 114n3. See Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30–31; van der Walle, From Darkness, 118; Schweizer, Matthew, 247–48; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 171; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115. Cooper, Body, 118n17. Ibid.

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anthropological monism, it would be arbitrary to insist that Matthew’s apparent duality should therefore be either ignored or overridden, having a monistic interpretation imposed on it.93 As Pierre Benoit observes, while it is the function of exegesis to examine and explain such textual variations, it is not entitled “to accept some and reject others.”94 A proper theological hermeneutic entails that all texts are taken into account “in order to extract from their dialectical encounter the complexity of the truth.”95 Quite apart from these formal considerations, the fact remains that although Luke’s equivalent passage makes no use of psychē, and therefore evidences no explicit dichotomy, nevertheless a duality of body and soul would seem to be presupposed, for even in his account, God must have something other than the body to cast into hell.96 This implicit dichotomy in Lk. 12:4-5 is explicit in the Matthean text.97 The claim that the use of psychē and sōma in this text are instances of synecdoche does not stand up to analysis, for the fact that humans can kill the body but not the soul demonstrates that the two are distinct and separable.98 It might be urged against this that Matthew’s threat of divine destruction of both body and soul in hell emphasizes their essential unity even in death, and it is this which renders more likely the interpretation which sees this passage as contrasting not two separable elements of the human person, but earthly death with the eternal death of damnation.99 This, however, is merely evasive, for while it is true that eternal damnation involves the destruction of soul and body together, and that the threat of this possibility is an undoubted meaning of the text, “man’s ability to destroy the body apart from the soul still shows that the two are distinct and separable.”100 93

As van Inwagen seems to imply, see “Dualism and Materialism,” 482. Benoit, “Resurrection,” 110. 95 Ibid. 96 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 114n3; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 172; “Anthropological Dualism in the New Testament,” 574. Van Inwagen inadvertently admits as much in his comment that Luke’s intransitive use of the verb “to cast” might indicate the inability to select an appropriate term to use as the direct object of the verb (van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism,” 482). Gundry does observe that the Lukan passage allows this object to be either the soul alone or body and soul together (as in Matthew’s version). As shall be seen though, the second possibility does not, in any case, negate the implication of ontological duality. 97 A fact which prompts Schmaus to suggest that the Matthean text might in fact be understood as an interpretation and explanation of the Lukan passage (rather than vice versa as van der Walle and van Inwagen would have it) (Schmaus, Last Things, 226). 98 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 114–15; Cooper, Body, 117; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 171–72; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 204. 99 Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 31; Schweizer, Matthew, 247; see Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115. 100 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115. 94

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This examination makes clear precisely why the assumption that the meaning which sōma and psychē have elsewhere in the Gospels is the meaning here is an extremely insecure one. The supposed semantic parallels between the terms sōma and psychē, on the one hand, and basar and nephesh, on the other, are severely challenged by the specifics of this text. If psychē is to be taken here to mean only “life,” or the person as a “living being,” then the text must be paraphrased in something like the following manner: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the person as a living being; rather, fear him who can destroy both the person as a living being and the body in hell.” This is problematic. As John Cooper observes, if psychē, like nephesh, is no more than the life force or bodily person, then “it makes no sense to say that killing the body does not kill the soul. In the Hebrew mind, killing the body is killing the nephesh.”101 If psychē means the same as nephesh, then psychē cannot survive the death of the body as Matthew supposes it can.102 Similarly, if psychē and sōma mean the same as the Old Testament usage of nephesh and basar, then it makes no sense for Matthew to talk about God destroying both body and soul in Gehenna, for in the Old Testament, neither basar nor nephesh go to Sheol.103 Cooper concludes that the more Matthew and the Old Testament are compared, the less they sound like each other.104 That Matthew’s conceptual background in this verse is not that of Old Testament anthropological categories is suggested further precisely by his use of the term “Gehenna,” which is associated not with Old Testament eschatology, but with the intertestamental period105 where it can be used to refer to the state of the wicked in both interim and final states.106 Given this, along with the textual difficulties generated by trying to force ontological holism on Matthew (reducing sōma and psychē in this text to instances of synecdoche), it is more reasonable to conclude that Matthew is using sōma and psychē here in continuity with the anthropological-eschatological ideas from the intertestamental

101

Cooper, Body, 118. Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 171. 103 Unless thinkers like Pozo, Kaiser and Lohse, and Cooper are correct in their interpretation of 1 Kgs 17:21-22 and various psalms (see Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 174–78; Kaiser and Lohse, Death and Life, 40, 79–80; Cooper, Body, 61) and the nephesh could enter Sheol. In this case, it would be possible to employ the monists’ form of argument against them; for if it seems that the Old Testament’s usage of nephesh might sometimes indicate ontological duality so, therefore, might Matthew’s usage of psychē (see Cooper, Body, 118n15). 104 Cooper, Body, 118. 105 Ibid.; van der Walle, From Darkness, 80–82. 106 Cooper, Body, 86–89. 102

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period rather than that he is “anachronistic by centuries.”107 It is likely, in other words, that Matthew, like most of his contemporaries, possessed a holistic understanding of man which admitted of an ontological duality, believing that the soul can exist without the body until reunited with it for eternity.108 It might be argued against this that by psychē, the text refers to something other than mere natural life or the human person as a living being, signifying instead a type or quality of existence resulting from a relationship with God in Christ, “true life as distinguished from mere physical life,”109 what is elsewhere in the Gospels termed “eternal life.”110 Such an approach is exemplified by Anton van der Walle when he argues that the Greek word psychē is translated soul here, but clearly means something other than a part of a human being. Rather, it is a synonym for authentic, true life. No human being can destroy this life. However, that cannot be said of earthly life, which is here translated by the word body.111

On this understanding, the text would be better paraphrased as “And do not fear those who destroy earthly life but cannot destroy the gift of eternal life/ authentic, true life; rather, fear him who can destroy both the gift of eternal life/ authentic, true life and earthly life in hell.” This is unconvincing. Firstly, it is odd—to say the least—to invoke the fires of Gehenna (“hell”) as something which might destroy one’s “earthly life”; it is simply death which brings an end to this: death, which—unlike hellfire—afflicts both the righteous and the unrighteous. Secondly, there is a significant problem with the idea of God destroying his own works of grace in hell. Scripture does suggest that the believer, by failing to keep the commandments and thus abide

107

Ibid., 118. It is interesting to note the use of “Gehenna” in the Lukan parallel of this text, which would suggest it shares the same conceptual background. Additional force is thus lent to the view that although not explicit in the Lukan text, a soul/body dichotomy is presupposed. 108 Cooper, Body, 118; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 173; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 204–5. 109 Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180 (an understanding rooted in texts such as Mt. 10:38-39, Mk 8:35-37, and Lk. 17:33). 110 Jn 17:3; also, Jn 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54. 111 Van der Walle, From Darkness, 118 (emphasis added). Such a meaning seems to be present in Schweizer’s analysis also when he argues that the saying is probably better understood as meaning “that men cannot kill life itself, real life” (Schweizer, Matthew, 248; emphasis added). Similarly, Edgar takes psychē to mean “the life of the disciple with God which is more than mortal” (Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30–31) and which is immune, therefore, to the actions of persecutors. “Only if the contrast is taken in this way, as being between the earthly life and life in the future kingdom … is it possible to make sense of Jesus’ subsequent words that the disciples ought to fear God ‘who can destroy both soul and body in hell’” (ibid., 31).

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in the Lord, can allow the life of grace to die. Christ warns that such a one “is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.”112 What is destroyed by the fire in this case is the person, and God clearly has the power to do this. However, what makes no sense at all is that the object of this burning should be the life of grace itself, “the life of the disciple with God … life in the future kingdom.”113 Anton van der Walle bypasses such difficulties by interpreting the text in more general terms: that the life consequent on a relationship with Christ, true life, is “put at risk by the attitude which one adopts toward him.”114 While this is undoubtedly a key part of its message, to reduce the meaning of the text to this is a case of special pleading, bypassing, as it does, the explicit and prominent juxtaposition of the terms sōma and psychē by Matthew and the contrast which is made concerning the respective powers of man and God with regard to each of these. The original conclusion still stands, therefore: the most reasonable interpretation of this text being that the soul—understood as a distinct spiritual element within the constitution of man—is able to survive the death of the body. With this logion Christ, according to Matthew, “makes his own certain specific doctrines well known in the Judaism of his time: a survival of the ‘soul’ integrated with faith in the resurrection of the ‘body and soul,’ inasmuch as that survival is previous to the resurrection.”115 The second text requiring examination is Rev. 6:9-11,116 where the term is used to refer to dead saints under the heavenly altar,117 martyrs who had been “slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (v. 9). These souls cry out to the Lord to avenge them (v. 10), are consoled with the gift of a white robe each and told to rest until the number of martyrs is complete (v. 11). Together with Rev. 20:4-6, these verses strongly suggest that these souls have

112

Jn 15:6. Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 30–31. It is notable that in those texts cited as offering support for this interpretation of psychē (Mt. 10:38-39; Mk 8:35-37; Lk. 17:33), the loss of the real, authentic life which is contrasted with earthly life is consequent on, and entirely due to, the person’s choice of the latter over the former. Nowhere is this life of grace ever described in a manner which suggests it is ever destroyed by God himself in hell. Furthermore, in these texts psychē is the term used to refer to “earthly life,” the life of this world; sōma is never employed here so as to suggest a distinction between “earthly life,” on the one hand, and true, authentic life in God’s kingdom (psychē), on the other. 114 Van der Walle, From Darkness, 118. 115 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 205. 116 A text cited by the ITC in support of the traditional conception of the intermediate state (see ITC, para. 2.2). 117 Rev. 6:9. Other references to the heavenly altar are found at Rev. 8:3, 5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7 113

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yet to experience resurrection.118 It is convincingly claimed by some, therefore, that here psychē is other than the body and is capable of continued existence after the body’s dissolution.119 Against this interpretation, it is sometimes argued that these verses in fact envisage immediate resurrection, with the white robes of v. 11 signifying the martyrs’ glorified bodies.120 However, while a precedent for such an interpretation can perhaps be found in some of the intertestamental apocalypses,121 there are good textual reasons for understanding the robes of Rev. 6:11 as indicating no more than the possession of “triumphant joy”122 and/or “blessedness and purity.”123 Furthermore, if the white robes here signify an intermediate or resurrection body, then “the martyrs would have received them at death.”124 The text would thus seem to constitute another genuine counterexample to the thesis that no uses of psychē in the New Testament are convincingly understood as indicating ontological duality.125 Having analyzed these “disconcertingly dualistic” uses of psychē in the New Testament, it remains to examine instances of pneuma (“spirit”) in the New Testament which have been taken to refer to a nonmaterial element of the human person which can survive the dissolution of the body. Although, as with psychē, the majority of cases where the term is applied to humans do not imply an ontologically distinct and separable incorporeal entity, positive evidence that pneuma can indicate a personal, disincarnate spirit is to be found in the New  Testament. Thus, Chapter  24 of Luke’s Gospel recounts Christ’s appearing to his disciples in the upper room on Easter Sunday evening, 118

Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 191–92. That the phrase “came to life” (ezesan) (Rev. 20:4) most probably indicates bodily resurrection is convincingly argued by Ladd and Osei-Bonsu, who note its use in this sense in Jn 11:25; Rom. 14:9; Rev. 1:18; 2:8; and 13:14 (Ladd, Revelation of John, 265; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 192), as well as Mounce, who notes such a use in Rev. 2:8; 13:14; Rom. 14:9; and also Mt. 9:18 (Mounce, Book of Revelation, 356). Additionally, Ladd and Mounce make clear the awkwardness of interpreting the verb in v. 4 as other than in v. 5, where it clearly refers to “a bodily resurrection at the end of the millennial period” (Mounce, Book of Revelation, 356; see Ladd, Revelation of John, 266–67). It is worth noting here that von Balthasar’s use of Rev. 20:4-5 as part of his case for immediate resurrection (see von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 358–59, 377) would appear to be a little strained; there are no convincing grounds for interpreting the resurrection of the saints here as occurring as soon as they die; rather might it be argued that, as in Rev. 6:9, they are called “souls” (in v. 4) precisely “because at this point they are still awaiting the resurrection” (Mounce, Book of Revelation, 355). 119 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 460n17; Cooper, Body, 116–17; Charles, Eschatology, 465. 120 See, for example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 121. 121 For example, 1 Enoch 62:16 and 2 Enoch 22:8 seem to employ the term “garments of glory” in connection with the resurrection bodies of the righteous (Mounce, Book of Revelation, 159). 122 As they do at Rev. 3:5; 7:9, 13–14; 19:8. 123 As at Rev. 3:18; 7:13-14; 22:14 (Mounce, Book of Revelation, 160). 124 Ladd, Revelation of John, 106. 125 See Cooper, Body, 117.

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recording that  Christ’s followers were startled and “supposed that they saw a spirit (pneuma)” (Lk. 24:37). In reassuring them, Christ uses the term pneuma in clear distinction from anything bodily, saying “handle me, and see; for a spirit (pneuma) has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (v. 39). Pneuma is clearly being used here to signify a disincarnate person.126 Two other texts frequently cited as instances of such usage are 1 Pet. 3:18-20 and Heb. 12:23.127 The first of these passages makes reference to Christ’s preaching to the spirits “who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (vv. 19–20). The “spirits” in question are, it is claimed, the spirits of humans during the intermediate state, an interpretation which is consistent with contemporary Jewish eschatology in using pneuma “to refer to the preresurrection dead.”128 In spite of this convergence with the intertestamental usage, exegesis of the text renders the interpretation not a little insecure. In an extensive analysis of these verses, John Feinberg casts serious doubt on whether such an interim for preresurrection humans is what this text has in mind. Calling into question a second possibility opted for by a number of exegetes, that the spirits in question are angelic not human, Feinberg argues convincingly that the most probable meaning (by a small margin)129 is that the text refers to “Christ preaching by the Holy Spirit through Noah to the people of Noah’s day”130 and that it is these individuals, therefore, who are the “spirits” in question, not the preresurrection dead in an interim state.131 At the very least it must be admitted that this is an extremely obscure passage and as such can provide “no firm foundation for inferences about the intermediate state.”132 Heb. 12:23, on the other hand, is a much clearer text in this regard.133 There is no doubt that here the pneumatais are human spirits dwelling with God in heaven. Any attempt to claim pneuma is being used here as the equivalent merely of ruach in the Old Testament, that is, as the person’s principle of life

126

Cooper, Body, 115; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 325. See Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 115–16; Charles, Eschatology, 466. Interestingly, the document of the ITC (1992) does not draw on either text in support of its anthropology of duality. 128 Cooper, Body, 112. The Catechism of the Catholic Church assumes this interpretation of the text (see para. 632). 129 See Feinberg, “1 Peter 3:18-20,” 306. 130 Ibid., 304. 131 Ibid., 334–36. 132 Cooper, Body, 112. 133 See Feinberg, “1 Peter 3:18-20,” 320. 127

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and nothing more, cannot be convincing: the pneumatais of Hebrews retaining individuality after death and capable also of being “made perfect,” neither of which is the case with ruach. Hebrew’s pneumatais seem instead to have more in common with the “spirits” or “souls” of the deuterocanonical/intertestamental sources (e.g., Wis. 3:1, of which Heb. 12:23c is almost a paraphrase, and 1 Enoch 22:9).134 While this text is not explicit about whether these spirits are in an interim or final state, there is both internal and external135 evidence that the interim is in focus here and that “spirits” is being used, therefore, to denote humans between death and resurrection, apart from their bodies.136 In either case, the text would suggest ontological duality in the human being.137 Prima facie, this brief semantic survey would seem to confirm that the New Testament does sometimes use the terms psychē and pneuma in a manner which suggests they signify components capable of surviving the dissolution of the body. Rev. 6:9-11 uses psychē to refer to a subsistent and personal element of deceased humans prior to their resurrection; Mt. 10:28 uses it to denote an element of man which is ontologically, and not only conceptually, distinct from his body, and which is probably the subject of the interim state prior to the resurrection. While 1 Pet. 3:18-20 is too obscure to offer strong support on this issue, Heb. 12:23 would seem to use pneuma to refer to deceased humans, again most probably before their resurrection. Given this, we may conclude that the New Testament, like the Old, presupposes not ontological holism, but a holism which admits of ontological duality.

Counterevidence for “ontological holism” in the Pauline literature Opinions on the anthropological presuppositions of St. Paul are extremely varied. As we have seen in the case of Reichenbach, there are those who understand his anthropology as overwhelmingly monistic.138 Others see him as clearly maintaining the ontological duality of the Old Testament, the intertestamental literature, the rest of the New Testament and Hellenistic thought.139 Others 134

Cooper, Body, 113. The text seems to be speaking about what is the case in the present in the heavenly Jerusalem. Heb. 6:2 and 11:35 mention the resurrection, so a perpetual disembodiment does not seem to be envisioned here. Although there are a few examples of intertestamental texts which understand resurrection as a state compatible with permanent disembodiment, it is “almost always bodily and viewed as future in Jewish eschatology” (Cooper, Body, 113). 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid., 114. 138 Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180. 139 For example, Gundry (Sōma in Biblical Theology, 135). 135

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are more circumspect, arguing that Paul’s anthropology is far from clear, a not fully solved element in his writings due to the fact that his theological foci lay elsewhere.140 Nevertheless, as Reichenbach admits, there are exceptions to monistic language in Paul, in fact, several “disconcertingly dualistic” texts,141 while Laeuchli systematically traces significant modifications of Hebrew monism (supposing there even was such a thing) in the Pauline corpus.142 It is this tendency that we shall examine here to see whether anything like ontological duality might be implied in what Paul says. Of central importance in this respect is St. Paul’s concept of the esō anthrōpos (“inner man”), a notion which runs throughout his writings. In Rom. 7:2223, for example, Paul expresses delight in the law of God in the esō anthrōpos, bemoaning however the experience he has of the law of sin within his members which is at war with the law of his mind, making him its captive.143 In 2 Cor. 4:16, the same dichotomy is expressed in a slightly different form, in terms of the simultaneous wasting away of our outer nature and the renewal of our inner nature.144 Laeuchli asks in this connection, how can you use this metaphor at all if you do not have behind this concept some awareness of a difference between man’s mind, his inner life, and the other parts of his natural existence?145

Paul, it is claimed, would seem here to be using a dichotomy native to Hellenistic thought.146 Unlike Hellenistic thinkers though, he does not embrace a dualism of value: exalting the inner man at the expense of the outer. Additionally, the specific eschatological context for his employment of these concepts constitutes a significant contrast to Greek thought. Nevertheless, the same basic distinction between physical and nonphysical seems to be implied.147 It is straightforward to see how a monist might respond to this. One might, for example, posit a modification of these terms by Paul, from indicating an ontological duality (as in Hellenistic usage) to indicating a Hebraic holism:

140

See, for example, Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 16, 27. Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 180. As examples he gives the analogy of the tent in 2 Cor. 5:1-10 and the reference in 1 Cor. 7:34 to the concern of the unmarried woman to be holy in both body and spirit. 142 Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 16. 143 Ibid., 19. 144 Ibid.; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 135. 145 Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 20. 146 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 135. 147 Ibid. 141

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the terms “inner man” and “outer man” denoting, therefore, “the indivisible personality seen from within and seen from without.”148 But this is problematic: if Paul’s anthropology is ontologically holistic, if man is simply the “animated body” of Gen. 2:7, if these terms indicate only a conceptual distinction rather than an ontological one, then how can it make sense for the inner man to grow in vigor while the outer man wastes away?149 In this redefinition, exō and esō anthrōpos are cases of synecdoche: references to the whole man under different aspects. But how then do we make sense of the transformation of the believer within this framework? As Laeuchli expresses it, if in order to avoid Hellenistic dualism, the transformation wrought in me by Christ150 must always be understood as a transformation of the whole, “outer” as well as “inner,” “what does Christian theology then do about sickness, old age, the skolops of II Cor. 12, 7?”151 In stating that we are transformed “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18), Paul, argues Laeuchli, must be using an anthropological distinction “because this transformation is not identical with a physical transformation.”152 It would seem then that while Paul does not explicitly identify outer and inner nature with the Greek sōma or psychē, what he says about them would tend in this direction. Monist exegetes are, however, strenuous in their attempts to obscure the dualistic overtones of these texts.153 Common is the interpretation of exō and esō anthrōpos not in terms of “outer” and “inner” but as the “old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) and “new man in Christ” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), respectively.154 Thus, Hans Dieter Betz characterizes Paul’s approach here as the projection of the ontological dualism expressed by the terms exō and esō onto the history of the human race “between the fall of Adam and the parousia of Christ.”155 The sharp distinction between inner and outer, in other words, does not signify a dichotomy within the human being (between, for example, immaterial and material), but rather “a soteriological or eschatological distinction.”156 Both 148

Ibid. Ibid.; Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 20. 150 See, for example, Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 3:18. 151 Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 21. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid., 19. Laeuchli notes that some, like W. D. Davies, do not discuss Romans 7:22-23 at all, simply leaving it out of their analysis. 154 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 135. 155 Betz, “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ in the Anthropology of Paul,” 340. 156 Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 32. 149

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“inner man” and “outer man” refer to the whole man: “the total ‘self ’ in its new aeon status and, as a process, to the self in its moral transformation and in its increasing apprehension and comprehension of the mystery of Christ.”157 So, while the outer self does involve the physical body “it should not be understood merely in a physical way.”158 The physical decay to which Paul refers in Second Corinthians is only an example of the troubles which beset man as a whole. It is not death of the body that Paul has principally in mind here, but the “body of death” (Rom. 7:24), the whole of sinful nature (sarx) (see Rom. 7:18).159 This reinterpretation, while seeming prima facie plausible within the framework of Paul’s ideas concerning sin and salvation, is ultimately unconvincing. First of all, such an interpretation posits a singular, far from obvious and almost maverick usage of exō and esō. While a semantic mutation of this degree is certainly not impossible, to make a convincing case for it having occurred, adequate textual evidence must be provided. However, as Gundry argues, the correlation of “new” with “inner” and “old” with “outer” is not at all well supported by textual analysis. For example, while all uses of “old” man in Paul are hamartiological in character (see, for example, Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:5-9), the “outer” man is never described in these terms: rather, it simply “wastes away.” The associations of the outer man are not hamartiological, but have to do with physical hardships. … The outer man is not the old man of sin, then, but the physical body subject to hardship, decay and death.160

Similarly, the “new man” is to be “put on” and signifies the renewal of sanctification (e.g., Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), whereas the renewal of the “inner man” is not described in these terms, but in terms of “buoyancy of spirit” (see 2 Cor. 4:16).161 Furthermore, the “inner man” is never described as being “put on” as the “new man” is. Gundry concludes that “new man” and “inner man” are to be distinguished thus: The new man is the new style of righteous conduct. The inner man is the human spirit, the center of psychical feelings. We cannot evade anthropological duality.162 157

Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 135–36 (emphases added). Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 31. 159 Ibid., 32. 160 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 136. 161 Ibid. 162 Ibid., 137. 158

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Secondly, any attempt to redefine the talk of exō and esō anthrōpos away from human ontology and in terms of periods of salvation history fails to engage seriously with what Paul says in Rom. 7:22-23. Here, as already noted, Paul expresses delight in the law of God in the esō anthrōpos, while simultaneously mourning over the law of sin within his members which is at war with the law of his mind, making him its captive. For Laeuchli, this language implies a duality which goes beyond the distinction between old and new modes of being in referring to “different parts within me, of which one is will, intellect, mind: ho nomos tou noos.”163 Gundry describes this text as associating the esō anthrōpos “quite Hellenistically with the ‘mind’ opposite the ‘members’, ‘flesh’, and ‘body.’”164 Nor is this to move back in the direction of a Hellenistic value dualism, for Paul does not imply anywhere that corporeal flesh is intrinsically evil: rather it is weak “because of its physical needs and desires” which provide sin with a bridgehead “from which to work against the resolve of the mind, or inner man.”165 As Gundry summarizes it: We are dealing here with the same contrast that is expressed in Mark 14:38; parallel Matt 26:41, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”, concerning the defeat of the spirit’s resolve to pray because of the body’s desire to sleep.… There is anthropological duality, then, but not a correlative ethical dualism in which the body is evil per se.166

Monist attempts at reinterpretation are, therefore, not entirely convincing. They are rendered even more problematic when we take into account a further text from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: ch. 12, vv. 1–4. Here, Paul recounts the case of a man (who is certainly himself, see v. 7) taken up to the third heaven. Paul claims ignorance concerning the precise state of the man during this experience: “whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know,

163

Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 19. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 137. While admitting that “flesh” (sarx) in Rom. 7:5 cannot refer to the physical body, for then Paul would be implying that Christians are now bodiless (which they clearly are not), Gundry is careful to note that with the section starting at 7:13 the term reverts from its hamartiological meaning (in which case it alludes to man as a whole) to its normal one, as indicating the physical body (ibid., 137–39; see esp. Rom. 7:24-25; cf. 2 Cor. 7:1). This move from synecdoche to duality is shown particularly by his use of the term “members” (Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 20) and the parallelism with “members” and “body” “in opposition to ‘mind’ and ‘inner man’” (Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 137). 165 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 137. 166 Ibid., 137–38. If any doubts remain about this aspect of Pauline anthropology, Paul’s teaching in Rom. 8:10b-11 about the resurrection of the body by the power of the Holy Spirit should be sufficient to dispel any thought that he is here succumbing to Greek or Gnostic dualism (ibid., 138). 164

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God knows” (vv. 2, 3). The separability of man, or some personal element of man, from his body, seems clearly to be implied by this text.167 Those committed to a biblical monism are forced, therefore, to argue convincingly for a different understanding of this text. J. A. T. Robinson asserts that sōma has a meaning parallel to sarx here, standing for man “as a being ‘in the world.’”168 The implication is that the text is, therefore, more properly rendered “whether I was in the world or not, I do not know,”169 with the further implication that Paul does not here countenance the possibility that he actually left his body, only that he was in ecstasy and thus unaware of his surroundings.170 On this interpretation, the only alternative to bodily transport to the third heaven/paradise here would be the experience by Paul of a trancelike state on earth.171 But this is not convincing, for Paul quite clearly states twice in this text that he was taken up to heaven/paradise (i.e., taken from the world). The only possibilities he entertains are whether this relocation to the heavenly sphere included the body or not.172 Robinson’s reinterpretation is, therefore, in tension with the obvious meaning of the text.173 It might be argued by the monist at this point that Paul does not actually affirm a bodiless state with certainty here and so this text does not necessarily offer support for those who would argue that scripture knows of a separable soul, spirit, or other personal, immaterial element.174 This objection carries little weight though: for while Paul does not explicitly indicate a bodiless state in this text, he does consider it an equal possibility, and it is this very possibility which is problematic for those who would argue that Paul is a monist.

167

Cooper, Body, 149; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 146; Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 22. Cooper notes that both Rudolph Bultmann and C. K. Barrett agree with this interpretation: that Paul clearly reckons here with the possibility that the self or soul can leave the sōma (i.e., the physical body). F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, concurs that such ecstasy as that described by Paul here involves temporary detachment from the body (see Bruce, I and II Corinthians, 247). 168 Robinson, The Body, 29. 169 Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 21. 170 See Cooper, Body, 150. 171 Convinced later that Paul “could not conceive of conscious existence and communication with his environment in a disembodied state” (Bruce, Paul, 313; see also ibid., 311), F. F. Bruce seems inclined to understand Paul’s mystical experience here along the lines of “Enoch’s bodily transportation into the celestial realms” (Bruce, Paul, 134; emphasis added). 172 See Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 22. 173 Interestingly, other monistic interpreters of Paul (e.g., Reichenbach, Betz, and Edgar) bypass consideration of this text altogether. 174 See Cooper, Body, 150.

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It is not necessary that Paul should assert bodilessness for proof of anthropological duality in his thinking, but only that he conceive the possibility thereof—and this he does.175

It could be urged, of course, that Paul does not really conceive this as a possibility, merely employing “some Corinthian figure of speech”176 which does not in any way reflect his own beliefs, in order to accommodate himself in some way to his audience. The suggestion has even been made that Paul, in employing dichotomous language, is succumbing to pressure from his dualistic opponents in the Corinthian Church. Once again, this is not convincing. Firstly, there is simply no need for Paul to do this in order to communicate his desired point: that he received special revelations from heaven. If he is unswervingly monistic in his anthropology, he could have done this without mentioning the possibility of ekstasis at all, simply claiming bodily transport to heaven. “The vision itself— in whatever state Paul experienced it—would have sufficed.”177 Secondly, the language of duality Paul chooses to employ here is hardly uncharacteristic of him, as has already been seen. Another Pauline text often cited as indicating an ontological duality which implies separability is 2 Cor. 5:1-10, a text emphasized by Bultmann in arguing for a convergence in Paul with Gnostic dualism.178 Verses 6–8, in particular, challenge the monistic axiom underpinning the thesis of immediate resurrection, with their talk of being “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Robinson’s attempt to reinterpret “at home in the body” (v. 6) here as “in the solidarities and securities of earthly existence” and “absent from the body” (v. 8), accordingly, as a “state of nakedness” (v. 3)179 is another case of special pleading, an attempt to force a monistic interpretation on the text. His reading is not well supported by the text itself which “unmistakably speaks of a ‘tent’ as of this earthly dwelling, and of the wish to be with the Lord, ‘away from the body’.”180 As both Cooper and Gundry observe, one does not have to suppose the duality Paul exhibits

175

Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 147. Cooper, Body, 151. 177 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 147. 178 See Cooper, Body, 145n29. 179 Robinson, The Body, 29. 180 Laeuchli, “Monism and Dualism,” 20. 176

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here to be Hellenistic-Gnostic, as Bultmann does.181 Rather, as should now be apparent, the Jews happily held together an anthropological holism with an ontological duality sufficient to account for an interim in Sheol prior to bodily resurrection. Paul, in common with most Jews and early Christians, thought of man “as a duality of two parts, corporeal and incorporeal, meant to function in unity but distinguishable and capable of separation.”182 It must be admitted that unlike many of these contemporaries, Paul does not use the terms psychē or pneuma to refer explicitly to elements of the human being which can survive the death of the body in an interim state.183 In neither 2 Cor. 5:1-10 nor the closely associated Phil. 1:20-24, which proponents of a disembodied interim state often cite in support of their thesis,184 do the terms psychē or pneuma appear.185 As Cooper points out though, this can no more count as an argument against ontological duality than the fact that the Old Testament never uses nephesh or ruach to refer to the dead in Sheol.186 As has already been shown, Paul contrasts the inner man with the outer to such a degree as to imply not only conceptual, but ontological, duality (e.g., Rom. 7:22-23; 2 Cor. 4:16), and contrasts the “self ” with its body to a similar degree (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:1-10; 12:1-4; Phil. 1:20-23). The difference between Paul and the other key New Testament passages examined, therefore, would appear to be one of terminology, not of substance.187 There are, in fact, obvious reasons why Paul would avoid using pneuma and psychē to indicate disembodied persons after death. As already noted, Paul does not espouse a value dualism in his anthropology. In this, he contrasts with many whom he addresses. In the Hellenistic contexts within which he taught and worked, such terms as psychē and pneuma would very possibly be strongly associated with this sort of dualism.188 In itself, this would constitute an adequate explanation for why he

181

Cooper, Body, 145n29; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 153–54. In fact, Gnosticism is precluded by the text’s description of the heavenly itself in terms of “a garment, a dwelling, house, or building for the self ” (Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 154), and by Paul’s obvious longing for this new corporeality (ibid.). 182 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 154. 183 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 459–60, 463; Edgar, “Intermediate State,” 36–37. 184 See Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 147–53; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 177–88; ITC, paras 3.5, 6.2. 185 Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 154. 186 Cooper, Body, 156. 187 Cooper, Body, 156. From what Paul sometimes says about man’s spirit (pneuma), he clearly identifies it with the inner man: see, for example, 1 Cor. 2:11; 16:18 (cf. 2 Cor 2:13; 7:13); Rom. 8:10, 16 (Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 140–44; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 461–63). 188 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 189.

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avoids emphasizing such terminology in this connection189 (while nevertheless implying ontological duality in a host of other ways).190 In essence, then, St. Paul, like the rest of the New Testament, and in continuity with the Old Testament taken as a whole and the bulk of the intertestamental sources, assumes an operative anthropology which, while undeniably and profoundly holistic, nevertheless admits of a duality adequate enough to envisage the separation and continued existence of a personal, nonmaterial element of man at death.191 Those who cast doubt on the traditional schema on the basis of ontological holism, therefore, cannot claim that their anthropological commitments are more firmly rooted in sacred scripture than those of their opponents. Even if it would appear that sacred scripture does not obviously preclude a personal, nonmaterial element in man capable of surviving the dissolution of the body, it nevertheless does not follow that it supports the traditional schema. Although it may be possible for the anima to be separata, in other words, it does not follow that it ever actually is. Several proponents of resurrection in death, while certainly inclining to the thesis of immediate resurrection on the grounds of an ontologically holistic anthropology, also argue that particular scriptural texts are best interpreted as directly affirming bodily glorification for the believer at death.192

Does scripture teach resurrection in death? The key text cited as indicating a shift in Paul from resurrection at the Parousia to resurrection in death is 2 Cor. 5:1-10. This is used in a variety of ways by proponents of the new thesis and has become the “locus classicus of New Testament interpretation on this subject.”193 Not all claim that it explicitly

189

There are, nevertheless, a few instances where Paul does appear to be using pneuma in a manner suggesting separability, most notably in 1 Cor. 5:3–5 (see Osei-Bonsu, “Anthropological Dualism in the New Testament,” 571–72; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 141–42) where he contrasts being “absent in body” with being “present in spirit” and envisages his own spirit being with the assembled Corinthians in a manner which suggests “his spirit’s presence in a place far removed from that where his body stands” (Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 141). 190 See Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 154–56. 191 Cooper, Body, 156–57. 192 For example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 128–29; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154–58. 193 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 310.

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teaches immediate resurrection. Pierre Benoit, for example, bases the case for resurrection in death principally on the New Testament’s realized eschatology (which explains communion with Christ in death)194 together with the supposed anthropological monism of the Bible (which explains why this communion is embodied), 2 Cor. 5:1-10 being cited in support of the idea that the source of the resurrection body is Christ’s own risen body.195 Anton van der Walle argues that we can be sure only that this text expresses Paul’s certainty of resurrection and his hope that it will happen without a disembodied interim, but also, given its specific context, that it is legitimate to read immediate resurrection out of it, an exegetical option considerably strengthened when it is read alongside Phil. 1:20-24 and 3:20-21 (which, according to van der Walle, even more clearly suggest this doctrine).196 For others, this text is a clear affirmation that the resurrection body is to be received immediately.197

2 Cor. 5: 1–10 The text can be viewed as falling into two main sections: from verse 1 to verse 4, and from verse 5 to verse 10:

Section one (1) For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2) Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, (3) so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. (4) For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 194

See Benoit, “Resurrection,” 108–9. Ibid., 112–13. 196 Van der Walle, From Darkness, 128–30. Ultimately though, his argument appears to depend on Paul’s supposedly consistent monism, his “unchanged anthropology” (ibid., 130). In this, however, van der Walle seems himself to be inconsistent, elsewhere asserting that, in 2 Cor. 5:1-10, Paul expresses fear “of a mode of existence outside the body” (ibid., 128), something which makes little sense if he is a monist. 197 See, for example, Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 155–56; Charles, Eschatology, 455–61. Murray Harris likewise believes 2 Cor. 5:1-10 to be best interpreted in this manner (Harris, Raised Immortal, 98–100), a conclusion reinforced by Paul’s probable monism and his realized eschatology. He is, however, undogmatic, acknowledging the many objections to this view (ibid., 100, 255n4) and the possibility of defending something like the traditional schema from within the Pauline corpus (ibid., 140–41). F. F. Bruce interprets the passage as teaching immediate resurrection (Paul, 311–12), Paul’s realized eschatology and monistic anthropology providing a rationale for the doctrine (ibid., 311, 313). 195

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Section two (5) He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (6) So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, (7) for we walk by faith, not by sight. (8) We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (9) So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (10) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body. Briefly, commentators who see this passage as supportive of immediate resurrection interpret it thus: the “earthly tent” of vv. 1 and 4 symbolizes the physical/earthly body,198 and the “eternal house in heaven” and “heavenly dwelling” by which we are to be clothed (vv. 1, 2, and 4) represent the new risen body199 given by God to the individual in death.200 Paul explicitly rejects, therefore, an interim state of being “naked” (v. 3) or “unclothed” (v. 4) which many scholars interpret as disembodied existence. The talk in the second section of being away from the body (v. 8) is best understood, therefore, as meaning away from the physical body, that is, being away from this present body.201 Let us examine the reasons given for this reading of the text.

The use of Echomen in verse one The view that this text affirms the immediate acquisition of the resurrection body at death is argued on the grounds of the use of the verb echomen (“we have”) in v. 1 and the verb ependuein (“to put on over”) in vv. 2 and 4. Firstly, the use of echomen. The precise meaning of this verb here has been called the crux interpretatum of the passage. It can be understood in a number of ways: firstly, it might indicate present possession; secondly, it could have the force of a future possessive indicating certainty of possession;202 thirdly, which is the position of the immediate resurrectionist, it might go beyond this and have the force of immediacy of possession (at death).203 The first of these can be dismissed 198

An uncontroversial view (see Cooper, Body, 142; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311). Harris, Raised Immortal, 98–99; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 156; Bruce, Paul, 311–12. This much is shared with proponents of the traditional schema (see Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311; Berry, “Death and Life,” 62; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 178). 200 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 156; Charles, Eschatology, 458–59; Bruce, Paul, 311–12. 201 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 108–9; Harris, Raised Immortal, 99; see also Cooper, Body, 146. 202 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311; Cooper, Body, 143; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 553; Ridderbos, Paul, 501. 203 Charles, Eschatology, 458; Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 311; Harris, Raised Immortal, 98–99. 199

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with some certainty: possession of the “building” being clearly conditional on our death: “if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed” (2 Cor. 5:1).204 Verse 2, moreover, declares both that it is in the heavens and that we long to be clothed with it, factors which would seem incompatible with our already possessing this building.205 The text would most likely seem to refer, therefore, to a future acquisition.206 The question remains of course whether by “future” we mean at the individual’s death or the Parousia. That echomen here means the former has been argued on a number of grounds. Firstly, it is claimed that in these verses Paul is continuing a line of thought begun in 1 Cor. 15:35-44, where his analogy of the death of the seed and the appearance of new life implies a continuity which indicates immediacy of change, that is, resurrection in death.207 On this reading, the reference to resurrection at the Parousia in 1 Cor. 15:51-52 can be dismissed as an anomaly: inconsistent with the seed analogy (which establishes immediate resurrection) and best explained as a vestigial Judaistic concept of which Paul has not entirely freed himself at this stage.208 By Second Corinthians, it is argued, Paul has become aware of the tension between his developing thought and his Jewish heritage,209 makes a conscious breach with the traditional view and opts unambiguously for immediate resurrection, employing the present tense echomen to state clearly and categorically what is implied by the seed analogy in First Corinthians: that if death comes prior to the Parousia, we receive our resurrection body immediately.210 If Paul meant here to indicate only certainty of possession at some time in the future (without specifying whether this future point was death or Parousia), he could simply have employed the future tense.211 In opting to use the present tense instead, he is clearly suggesting that between the death of the earthly body and the acquisition of the spiritual body there is to be no interval. Verse 1 can thus be paraphrased: “When (ever) our earthly tent-dwelling is taken down, we (immediately) become possessors of a building from God.”212 204

Harris, Raised Immortal, 98 (emphasis added). Berry, “Death and Life,” 62. 206 Cooper, Body, 143; Harris, Raised Immortal, 98. 207 See Charles, Eschatology, 450–53; Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 309; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 156. 208 Charles, Eschatology, 453. 209 Ibid., 458. 210 Ibid., 458–59. 211 See Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311. 212 Harris, Raised Immortal, 99. 205

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Secondly, it is argued that this text is meant to bring comfort and consolation in the face of severe trials; but what consolation would be offered in the face of impending death by the observation that one is to receive a spiritual body at the Parousia?213 The moment when the consolation is needed must be the moment when the consolation is given; and the consolation received at death cannot simply be identical with the assurance of the future acquisition of the resurrection body.214

It follows that Paul is using echomen here to indicate possession immediately at death, not as a futuristic present indicating only certainty of possession at some (indeterminate) point in the future, for “teaching about what must wait until the Parousia is no comfort to those about to die.”215 This reading of 2 Cor. 5:1 may appear at first to carry considerable weight. It is, however, quite significantly problematic. Concerning the seed analogy of 1 Cor. 15:35-44, it is by no means clear that this implies a form of continuity indicating immediacy of change as R. H. Charles argues. Firstly and formally, it is always risky to take an analogy and pursue it to what appears to be “its logical issue.”216 Secondly and materially, the seed analogy is in any case familiar from rabbinic literature which nevertheless assumes a dual-phase eschatology in which, after death, the soul awaits bodily resurrection at the final judgment.217 It is used there in connection with the idea of a resurrection body which is to be acquired at the general resurrection.218 There is no reason to think that Paul does not use this analogy in the same way.219 In fact, there is good reason to think that Paul is employing the analogy in precisely the same way, to suggest not immediacy of change but only some form of continuity between the earthly and the resurrection body:220 for in 1 Cor. 15:51-52 he states explicitly that bodily resurrection is to occur at the Parousia. Once the supposed implication from the seed analogy to immediate resurrection can be called into question, there is no compelling reason to assume that 1 Cor. 15:51-52 indicates merely an unconscious, vestigial Judaistic concept 213

See, for example, R. F. Hettlinger, who characterizes such a move as “an intolerable anticlimax” (Hettlinger, “2 Corinthians 5:1-10,” 184). 214 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 179, citing Murray Harris. 215 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 312. 216 Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 310. 217 See Cooper, Body, 140–41; Hanhart, Intermediate State, 101–3. 218 Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 310; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 312. 219 Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 310. 220 See Cooper, Body, 140–41; Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 304–6.

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of Paul’s rather than something to which he is committed.221 If this is so, then the hypothesis that 2 Corinthians 5 is intended to resolve the supposed tension in First Corinthians becomes unnecessary, and a key argument that echomen here indicates immediacy of possession, without force. The supplementary argument that Paul could just as easily have used the future tense of echomen, but chose not to in order to indicate not only certainty but immediacy of possession, can likewise be called into serious question. For while there are indeed cases where the present tense of the verb is used to suggest immediacy (e.g., Rom. 6:22; possibly 1 Cor. 9:17), “examples seem lacking (apart from the disputed text in question) which illustrate the use of echō to express this where a future tense would have been expected.”222 There are, by contrast, examples where Paul indicates certainty of a future state by even a past tense use of a verb (e.g., edoxasen, at Rom. 8:30) and other New Testament texts where echomen is used to express future certainties (e.g., 1 Jn 5:15).223 The present tense echomen in 2 Cor. 5:1, therefore, while almost certainly referring to a future possession,224 by itself favors neither the future at death nor the future at the Parousia.225 But what of Harris’s point that if immediate resurrection is not what Paul has in mind here, he offers no consolation of the type required by those facing death (including himself)? This objection can be defused to a large extent initially if we observe that in 1 Thessalonians 4 (and very probably 1 Corinthians 15, as we have seen above) Paul provides consolation concerning those who have died prior to the Parousia precisely in terms of a general resurrection at the Parousia.226 It can be defused even further once we note that in 2 Cor. 5:6 and 8 a form of consolation at death for those facing death is in fact more clearly provided than in First Thessalonians and Corinthians (where it is implicit at best).227 This is in the form of immediate communion with 221

The view that he is consciously committed to this belief is lent considerable support when we take into account vv. 22–28, where he explicitly says that the resurrection is to occur when Christ comes again to inaugurate the final consummation. 222 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 312. See Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 179n36 for a list of scholars who see echomen here as a future possessive use of the present tense indicating certainty of possession rather than immediacy. 223 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 312. In the light of the arguments above concerning First Corinthian’s teaching of resurrection at the Parousia, a further argument can in fact be made for echomen in 2 Cor. 5:1 being a futuristic present indicating not immediacy but certainty of possession; for in 1 Corinthians 15 itself, when he talks of being raised (egeiretai), Paul’s use of the futuristic present predominates (see vv. 42–44). 224 Harris, Raised Immortal, 99; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 178. 225 See Cooper, Body, 143. 226 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 179; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 312. 227 Berry, “Death and Life,” 62–63.

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Christ at death. But it cannot be assumed that this implies communion with Christ in body and soul without begging the question. Therefore, unless further evidence for resurrection in death can be found in this passage (or elsewhere in Paul), there is no convincing reason to assume that echomen here must be taken to indicate immediacy, and not only certainty, of possession.

The verb Ependuein in verses two and four A second argument provided to establish that this passage teaches immediate resurrection is the use of the verb ependuein in vv. 2 and 4. Normally, when added to the verb enduein (“to put on”) the preposition epi modifies the meaning to suggest “putting on over”; for example, as one would put an outer garment over the clothes one was presently wearing.228 It is claimed that proponents of the traditional schema understand that Paul is here expressing his desire to be still alive at the Parousia: the verb ependuein being employed to distinguish the transformation of the living (who will put their spiritual bodies on over their earthly ones) from the resurrection of the dead (who, being disembodied, are simply to put on their resurrection bodies [see enduein in v. 3]).229 To this, it may be objected that Paul uses enduein in v. 3 simply to continue the same thought as ependuein in v. 2,230 and because he elsewhere (in 1 Cor. 15:53-54) uses enduein to refer not exclusively to the dead, but either the living (only) or both the living and the dead,231 we must conclude that enduō “is not a term used exclusively to describe the resurrection of the dead (ependuō being reserved for the transformation of the living).”232 If this is the case, then what significance does the verb ependuein have here? According to Murray Harris, Paul uses the verb ependuein (rather than enduein) to reinforce the idea being communicated by the use of echomen in v. 1: that of the immediacy of acquisition of the resurrection body. By using “put on over” in 2 Corinthians 5.2, 4 Paul further underlines the immediate succession between the two forms of embodiment. Since the “putting on” presupposed no “putting off,” it was more accurately a “putting on over.” The physical body was the undergarment over which the cloak of the resurrection 228

Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313; Cooper, Body, 143; Harris, Raised Immortal, 99; Barrett, Second Corinthians, 152–53; Moule, “St Paul and Dualism,” 118. 229 See Harris, Raised Immortal, 99; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313. 230 See Harris, Raised Immortal, 220; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313. 231 Harris, Raised Immortal, 99. 232 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313.

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In light of this interpretation, Paul’s rejection of a disembodied state after death (see vv. 3 and 4 with their references to “being found naked” and not wanting to be “unclothed”) is not to be interpreted as expressing fear or distaste of a disembodied interim if death should come prior to the Parousia, but assurance of spiritual embodiment at death and a simultaneous rejection of any Gnostic idealization of disembodiment.234 This reinterpretation is far from conclusive. Concerning the idea that the verb ependuein indicates “superinvestiture,” the cloak of the resurrection body being cast over the earthly body at death, there are several difficulties. The first is textual: v. 1 envisages that at death the physical body (“earthly tent”) is destroyed, while—if the immediate resurrectionist is correct—vv. 2 and 4 imply that it is not and that instead a new garment is placed over it. It would be arbitrary for the immediate resurrectionist simply to ignore the first of these metaphors in order to maintain their position.235 The second kind of difficulty is empirical: for when we die, our bodies decay. They are simply not clothed immediately with a resurrection body. Whatever the meaning of ependuein, it cannot indicate that at death the earthly body is retained as the resurrection body is “put on over.” “The principle of habeus corpus is relevant here.”236 At death, we are left with a corpse which is clearly not swallowed up and “transformed”237 by a resurrection body. These objections need not be fatal for the immediate resurrectionist. In fact, it seems clear that Harris creates these difficulties for himself unnecessarily. In the argument above, he is guilty of a non sequitur: moving from an argument to demonstrate that ependuein signifies “immediate succession between the two forms of embodiment” to the conclusion of “superinvestiture” which runs foul of the textual and empirical realities indicated. Clearly, the two metaphors discussed above can both be held if we restrict our understanding of immediate 233

Harris, Raised Immortal, 99 (emphasis added). See Harris, Raised Immortal, 139, 223–24. 235 Harris would seem to be unaware of this: see, for example, his comment that “this putting on” presupposes no “putting off ” and so is more accurately a “putting on over.” The obvious meaning of v. 1 implies a definite “putting off.” 236 Cooper, Body, 144. 237 See Harris, Raised Immortal, 224, 226. 234

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resurrection to “destruction of the earthly tent” (v. 1) followed by immediate acquisition of the heavenly body.238 This, however, is not without considerable difficulties. As Joseph OseiBonsu indicates, to argue thus is to propose a temporal meaning for a prefix (epi) which normally has a local meaning.239 Analogous to the rogue adaptation of exō and esō to mean “old” and “new” in the previous discussion of Pauline anthropology, such a proposed mutation would need substantial textual support to carry conviction. None appears to be given by those who argue that ependuein here signifies immediate succession of forms of embodiment, apart from the point that echomen in v. 1 indicates immediacy of acquisition, a position shown here to be less than secure. By contrast, there are numerous scriptural and extra-scriptural examples of the local meaning of the prefix.240 There are no good reasons, therefore, for claiming that Paul is proposing a temporal meaning of epi here rather than simply assuming the more usual local meaning (ependuein meaning, therefore, “put on over”). If ependuein in vv. 2 and 4 does not signify immediate succession of forms of embodiment, and if it does not indicate “putting on over” in the sense meant by the immediate resurrectionist (which is problematic on both textual and empirical grounds), then what is the significance of this verb? One very straightforward solution is to posit that here Paul is simply expressing his desire that he will not die before the Parousia: a situation in which he would be putting his resurrection body “on over” his earthly body.241 As support for the idea that Paul is thinking of the Parousia here, attention might first be drawn to 2 Cor. 5:4, where Paul makes clear that when he puts on the heavenly dwelling, then “what is mortal will be swallowed up by life,” language extremely similar to that in 1 Cor. 15:54 where “it is definite that he has the Parousia in mind (cf. 1 Cor. 15:52).”242 More forcibly, this hypothesis harmonizes well with the manner in which Paul expresses his attitude toward disembodiment at death: the state of being 238

See Cooper, Body, 144. Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 180. 240 Several examples are provided by Osei-Bonsu (see “Intermediate State,” 181n40). 241 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 178, 180–81; Berry, “Death and Life,” 63; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 152. 242 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 178. See also Meyer, “Did Paul’s View of the Resurrection of the Dead Undergo Development?,” 380. In support of the view that in 2 Cor. 5:2-5 Paul is thinking of the Parousia, Meyer identifies numerous other indices connecting this text with 1 Cor. 15:50-55, and also with Rom. 8:18-27 (ibid., 379–81), both of which clearly have “final salvation at the Parousia” (ibid., 379) in view. 239

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“naked” (gymnos) (v. 3) or “unclothed” (v. 4). In v. 4, in explaining the “sighing” or “groaning” which the Christian experiences in the present body (the “earthly tent” of vv. 1 and 4), and the longing to be clothed with the spiritual body (the “heavenly dwelling” of v. 2), Paul does not write ouk eph hō thelomen (“not because we wish”), but the much stronger eph hō ou thelomen (“because we do not wish”) which seems to imply not only a rejection of the Gnostic idealization of disembodiment and an assertion of the certainty of spiritual embodiment243 (though it includes them),244 but a positive desire to avoid a state of disembodiment,245 something which only makes sense if this is a real possibility (death coming before the Parousia).246 It is in terms of this positive desire to avoid disembodiment that we can understand why Paul uses ependuein here even though enduein had sufficed in 1 Cor. 15:53-54 to describe both the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of the living at the Parousia.247 And it is this positive desire not to die before the Parousia, and thus experience disembodiment, but rather to experience superinvestiture (at the Parousia) which constitutes a most serious challenge to the hypothesis of immediate resurrection: for if Paul expects to receive his resurrection body at death, then the desire he seems to be expressing here is hard to comprehend.248

Support for immediate resurrection in verses 5–10 Some, like Murray Harris, find further support for immediate resurrection in the second part of the text (vv. 5–10), maintaining that the references to being “at home in the body … away from the Lord” (v. 6) and being “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (v. 8) strongly imply possession of the spiritual body immediately following death.249 Harris’s argument is that the antithesis 243

As immediate resurrectionists would have it (see, for example, Harris, Raised Immortal, 139, 221–26). 244 See Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 182; Barrett, Second Corinthians, 156. 245 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 181–83; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313; Berry, “Death and Life,” 64. Berry notes that Hettlinger, who argues that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 implies immediate resurrection, is thus forced to take eph hō ou thelomen to mean “not because we wish” rather than “the more natural ‘because we do not wish’” (Berry, “Death and Life,” 64). Harris renders the phrase in the more natural manner (see Harris, Raised Immortal, 224), but does not seem to notice the incongruity between this and his preferred view that Paul is doing no more than expressing his certainty concerning future embodiment and rejecting Gnostic eschatology (see ibid., 139, 221–226). 246 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 182–83. 247 Ibid., 181. 248 Ibid., 183. 249 Harris, Raised Immortal, 99; see Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 183n46 for other thinkers holding this position.

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between present and future embodiments which characterizes the first four verses, although seemingly absent in vv. 6 and 8, is in fact implicitly present here just as the metaphor of residence which is explicit in these later verses is implicit in vv. 1 to 4. Because of this, it is probable that the reference to being “at home with the Lord” in v. 8 “conceals a reference to investiture with the spiritual body.”250 As v. 6 implies that absence from the Lord ceases as soon as residence in the present body ceases, then it is clear that this investiture “must occur at death.”251 Harris adds that this is perhaps confirmed by the use of the anaphoric form of the definite article in vv. 6 and 8 (“this” body, rather than simply “the” body) which suggests “another type of embodiment, a change of corporeality.”252 This is far from persuasive. First, Harris’s argument that vv. 6 and 8 are implicitly about present and future embodiment just as vv. 1 to 4 contain implicit reference to the “residence metaphor” is a non sequitur, which can be bolstered only at the expense of begging the question. As Joseph Osei-Bonsu observes, in itself “at home with the Lord” expresses no more than one’s being with the Lord, suggesting nothing specific about one’s state, “either in the body or otherwise.”253 There is no basis, therefore, to argue that being “at home with the Lord” in v. 8 “conceals a reference to investiture with the spiritual body” as Harris does. Only if it could be shown that vv. 1 to 4 establish immediate resurrection could we be sure of this, and we have seen that there are no good reasons for believing this to have been accomplished. Concerning Harris’s second point about the anaphoric form of the definite article suggesting another form of embodiment, this, it would seem, is to claim too much. By itself, the anaphoric form of the definite article in this context implies no more than the normal form would.254 Harris is not on strong ground, therefore, when he suggests that the anaphoric use confirms his interpretation of the second half of the text from Second Corinthians. If by “confirm” he means “offers an additional independent reason,” then it could not be said to do this, for the anaphoric use does not by itself imply, or even strongly suggest, 250

Harris, Raised Immortal, 99. Ibid. 252 Ibid. 253 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 183. 254 It is quite possible to say, for example, that one longs to be out of this house and with one’s friend without thereby implying that this involves transferring to another house. One’s friend might be in the street. The use of the anaphoric form in such a context, far from entailing location in another house (with one’s friend) might signify no more than a negative attitude toward the house in which one is presently located, perhaps because one has been there longer than one intended or would have liked. 251

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immediate subsequent embodiment. If the reasons given elsewhere for this text teaching or assuming immediate resurrection were more compelling, then the anaphoric usage might add further weight as part of a cumulative case for this position but, as we have seen, they would not appear to be strong.255 Given this, there seems no good reason not to interpret “being away from this body and at home with the Lord” in the light of the rendering of vv. 3 and 4 above, that is, as indicating disembodiment should death occur before the Parousia.256 An objection which the immediate resurrectionist can make at this point is that if Paul is expressing, in vv. 3 and 4, a positive desire to avoid a disembodied interim state, then 2 Cor. 5:1-10 contains contradictory attitudes to dying before the Parousia; for in v. 8 Paul expresses a desire even now to be “away from the body and at home with the Lord,” the phrase eudokoumen mallon in v. 8 being best translated as “we would rather” or “we prefer.” 257 For Hettlinger, this undermines the exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5 preferred by proponents of the traditional schema. In refusing to accept a doctrinal change from 1 Corinthians 15 to 2 Corinthians 5 (a period of about a year258), they are forced instead to confront a “significant change of mind within the compass of ten verses.”259 If the tension here proves to be irresolvable, the immediate resurrectionist might claim that although the translation of eph hō ou thelomen in v. 4 as “because we do not wish” is the more natural, the resulting contradiction suggests that the alternative rendering of “not because we wish” is to be preferred.260 However, it is not clear that the tension here is irresolvable. Firstly, it can convincingly be argued that eudokoumen mallon is not necessarily to be translated as “we prefer,” equally viable alternatives being “the more do we

255

Those, like Osei-Bonsu (“Intermediate State,” 183–84) and Yates (“Immediate or Intermediate?,” 314), who challenge Harris here concerning successive embodiments on the grounds that Paul simply does not use the anaphoric form may be a little hasty; although Paul does use to rather than touto here, this can still be translated anaphorically if the context suggests it (see, for example “this tent” in v. 4) (Harris, Raised Immortal, 255n3). Nevertheless, as already noted, the use of the anaphoric by itself would suggest nothing about the precise form of the subsequent state (see previous footnote). 256 See Cooper, Body, 146. 257 See Hettlinger, “2 Corinthians 5:1-10,” 176–78; Hanhart, Intermediate State, 154, 177; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 313–14. 258 Cooper, Body, 141. 259 Hettlinger, “2 Corinthians 5:1-10,” 176. 260 See Berry, “Death and Life,” 64.

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think it well” or “we are the more content.”261 The contrast between vv. 4 and 8 then would not constitute a tension between two marked desires but a contrast between a strong desire to avoid something on the one hand (v. 4) and an attitude of peaceful (even joyful) acceptance of it on the other (v. 8). This is clearly not contradictory. On this interpretation, Paul can be understood to be saying not that the state of nakedness is to be strongly desired (for this would contradict v. 4), but that it can nevertheless be viewed as something not without advantage, because death brings, for the Christian, not only nakedness, “but release from the relative separation from Christ which is imposed by earthly life, where, though we have faith to guide us, we are denied sight.”262 Because of this, Paul is content to die before the Parousia and to experience “nakedness” away from the physical body, for this would mean being “at home with the Lord” (v. 8).263 Secondly, even if we accept the translation of eudokoumen mallon as “we prefer” or “we would rather,” the tension seems far from irresolvable. What Hettlinger characterizes as “a significant change of mind within the compass of ten verses” can be understood instead as Paul being “in two minds about death—a very different thing.”264 Berry argues that a man may well dislike one aspect of an experience intensely and yet be prepared to undergo that experience—may prefer it even, if the translation “we would prefer” is insisted upon—because of its other aspects. One may shrink from undergoing a surgical operation, for example, while nevertheless wishing to undergo it.265

He grounds St. Paul’s ambivalence toward death in his ambivalence toward life in the flesh. Because the body is both a means of security, the familiar medium in which we live in the world and human solidarity, and yet also something which makes us prone to sin and suffering, living by faith and not yet by sight, “to leave the body at death is therefore at one and the same time to be stripped of its security and to be delivered from its encumbrances; at one and the same time desirable and undesirable.”266

261

Ibid., 65. Ibid. 263 Berry, “Death and Life,” 65; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 184. An understanding expressed also by the ITC (see ITC, para. 6.2). 264 Berry, “Death and Life,” 67; see also Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 184. 265 Berry, “Death and Life,” 67. 266 Ibid. 262

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Other scholars concur that the tension evident here does not amount to a contradiction. G. E. Ladd, for example, observes that it is characteristic of a man experiencing strong ambivalent feelings. Death is an enemy; disembodiment is to be abhorred.… But meanwhile, if he must die … it will be all right, indeed far better (Phil. 1:23), for it means to be with the Lord even without resurrection.267

Similarly, W. L. Craig views the tension here not as contradiction but as arising from the profoundly paradoxical situation in which Paul found himself: longing to depart and be with the Lord but finding the thought of pre-Parousia disembodiment (nakedness) less than appealing.268 The tension, in other words, can be diminished if we understand the desires here to be relative, not absolute; the distaste Paul has for disembodiment is real because he believes “disembodiment is a poor substitute for immediate participation in the general resurrection,”269 but relative to continued existence in “the earthly tent” it can be a desired option. Even on the stronger rendering of eudokoumen mallon then, it is not clear that we have a logical contradiction here, and—therefore—a reason to claim that the traditional schema can find no support from this text. The fact that the above means of resolving the tension would secure the more natural translation of eph hō ou thelomen in v. 4 (“because we do not wish”) is an additional point in its favor. The focus on Paul’s desire here can, furthermore, be employed to call into question the hypothesis that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 teaches or assumes resurrection in death. For if the immediate resurrectionist interpretation is correct, then we would be required “to regard the Apostle as actively longing for death.”270 There are significant textual problems with this: for in the same epistle, Paul explicitly rejoices in his past deliverances from death and also declares himself hopeful of similar future deliverance (see 2 Cor. 1:10), something which makes little sense if death leads immediately into resurrection. The tension between immediate resurrection and the desire to avoid death evident in 2 Corinthians would thus seem to constitute a better candidate for contradiction than the tension examined above.271 267

Ladd, Pattern of New Testament Truth, 106–7. Craig, “Paul’s Dilemma in 2 Corinthians 5. 1-10: A ‘Catch-22’?,” 145–47. 269 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 314; see also Barrett, Second Corinthians, 156. 270 Berry, “Death and Life,” 67. 271 Furthermore, it constitutes a textually founded reason against immediate resurrection which does not depend on how a particular phrase (such as eph hō ou thelomen in v. 4) is to be translated. Berry also makes the point that such a “death wish” on the part of Paul would in fact be in tension with 268

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Judging 2 Cor. 5:1-10 within the context of the Pauline corpus as a whole When the perspective is broadened to include the eschatological thought of Paul as a whole, further substantial reasons to call into question the immediate resurrectionists’ position become evident. As Murray Harris admits, “there can be little doubt that in his earlier epistles Paul envisaged believers as being raised at the coming of Christ (1 Thess. 4:15-16; 1 Cor. 15:22-23).”272 Yet the purportedly new teaching of 2 Cor. 5:1-10 is introduced with the phrase oidamen gar hoti (“for we know that”) which Paul “frequently employs of material common to the early Christian tradition.”273 Even if Paul is using this phrase less formally, to indicate “intuitive” knowledge rather than something pertaining to the tradition, there is nothing here which signifies “a fresh departure in doctrine.”274 All things considered, this formula seems “an unlikely way to introduce a new teaching which has been made clear to Paul only recently.”275 It is of course open to the immediate resurrectionist to respond by denying Harris’s interpretation of the texts from First Thessalonians and Corinthians above and to assert instead that Paul’s position in these earlier epistles was also one of immediate resurrection at death rather than resurrection at the Parousia. The lack of obvious allusion to it in the earlier texts could be explained in terms of Paul’s reliance there on the language and concepts of rabbinic eschatology which serve to render it obscure.276 Second Corinthians does not constitute a change in teaching, therefore, but only makes explicit what is implicit in these earlier texts.277 The phrase oidamen gar hoti in 2 Cor. 5:1 serves to make this clear. The problem with this solution is that it would seem to be a case of special pleading. It has already been shown there are no

the biblical attitude toward death in general, which is that it is something “alien, intimately bound up with sin (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26)” (ibid.). Against the possible objection that Paul elsewhere does express such a desire to die (see Phil. 1:23), Berry points out that even here Paul is in two minds about death: that the desire he expresses is seriously qualified, falling “far short of a groaning longing for death” (ibid.), made possible only to the extent that for Paul to die is to be with Christ, and in this sense in perfect continuity with the ambivalence of 2 Cor. 5:1-10 (ibid., 67–68). 272 Harris, Raised Immortal, 98. Cooper notes that virtually all who hold that 2 Cor. 5 supports immediate resurrection “are willing to admit that resurrection at the parousia was Paul’s earlier belief ” (Cooper, Body, 147). 273 Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311; see, for example, 1 Cor. 8:1, 4; Rom. 2:2; 3:19; 8:28. Cooper (Body, 147) and Harris (Raised Immortal, 255n4) make the same observation. 274 Berry, “Death and Life,” 62; see also Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 311. 275 Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 180. When Paul alludes to the resurrection elsewhere in the same letter (e.g., 2 Cor. 1:9 and 4:14), he gives no indication of a change in belief or perspective (ibid.). 276 See Harris, Raised Immortal, 100. An explanation favored by R. H. Charles, as already noted. 277 See Harris, Raised Immortal, 101.

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compelling reasons for thinking that immediate resurrection is implicit in the earlier texts and that the “rabbinic language” Paul uses here does not serve accurately to communicate his actual thought on these matters. A further difficulty for the immediate resurrectionist is that when Paul mentions the resurrection in epistles which postdate Second Corinthians such as Romans and Philippians (see Rom. 8:22-24; Phil. 3:20-21), he does not appear to have deviated from the earlier teaching of First Thessalonians and First Corinthians.278 The correlation between bodily resurrection and the return of Christ, which still seems strong in these later writings, leaves the immediate resurrectionist having either to argue (i) that in spite of appearances to the contrary, these later epistles are in fact supportive of immediate resurrection, or (ii) that after 2 Corinthians, Paul’s eschatology reverted to the earlier model. The second solution would be problematic in a number of ways and ultimately unhelpful to the immediate resurrectionist. Firstly, the sheer strangeness of the hypothesis that Paul moved from the traditional schema to immediate resurrection in the year between First and Second Corinthians only to revert to the former at the time of writing the Epistle to the Romans counts against its likelihood.279 Secondly, even if it proved to be so, this would undermine the argument that scripture supports the new thesis. Such a judgment would now evidently be arbitrary, a case of special pleading: for surely, in the formulation of doctrine, the earlier and later teaching should have precedence over what would now be revealed to be a temporary aberration on Paul’s part.280 For these reasons, those arguing for development in the Pauline corpus from resurrection at the Parousia to immediate resurrection tend instead to embrace the first solution: that the later epistles are supportive of resurrection in death. How is this argued? Consider Rom. 8:18-23 first. In this text, Paul speaks of the groaning of the whole of creation as it expectantly awaits “the renewal it will receive when Christ’s full glory is revealed.”281 This travail is shared by ourselves as we groan inwardly, eagerly awaiting “the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23), a phrase which proponents of the traditional schema believe “almost certainly refers to the resurrection (cf. v. 11).”282 Traditionalists would argue, therefore, 278

See Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 180; Cooper, Body, 153–54. Ridderbos, Paul, 500n33. Given the need for credible explanations for such a change and reversion, plus the implied demand for supporting evidence, it would surely be more straightforward to suppose such a change and reversion had not occurred and that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 supports the traditional schema (see Cooper, Body, 154). 280 See Cooper, Body, 154. 281 Ibid., 153. 282 Ibid.; see Rom. 8:11: “life to your mortal bodies.” 279

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that what we have here is an affirmation that the resurrection of the body occurs at the Parousia.283 Contrary to this, it can be argued that this text does not affirm bodily resurrection at the Parousia, but only the unveiling of a glory which the dead in Christ already possess. The key term in this respect is “revealing” in v. 19 (“for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God”). Thus R. H. Charles argues: Just as at His second coming there will be a revelation of Christ (1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7), that is, a manifestation of the glory He already possesses, so likewise there will be a manifestation of the glory already possessed by the faithful. Thus the Apostle no longer speaks of a resurrection of the faithful to glory at the parusia [sic], but a manifestation of the glory already possessed.284

In support of the final point, Charles notes that the supposed reference to bodily resurrection in v. 11 (“life to your mortal bodies”) which is used by proponents of the traditional schema to guide the interpretation of the phrase “as we wait for the … redemption of our bodies” (in v. 23) does not in fact indicate the quickening of a dead body (ta nekra sōmata), but of the mortal body, the body which is subject to death (ta thneta sōmata).285 There is, therefore, no clear reference here to awaiting the resurrection of the dead. Rather, the text is better interpreted as a reference to awaiting the transformation of the living and, therefore, as expressive of Paul’s hope of being alive at the Parousia (see Rom. 13:11, 12) when our present, mortal bodies are to be transformed (“redeemed,” see v. 23) and given life (“immortality,” see also 1 Cor. 15:54). Rom. 8:18-23, therefore, far from offering support for the traditional schema, constitutes “further evidence” of Paul’s shift to immediate resurrection.286 Let us take each point in turn. Concerning the inference from the word “revealed” (Rom. 8:19) to the public manifestation of already-resurrected individuals, certainly this inference is not formally valid for, in itself, “revealed” does not necessarily imply merely the public display of something which prior to being displayed already existed in the form in which it is now known. While it is true that textual evidence for such a use can be found (e.g., apokaluptein in 283

See Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 188; Cooper, Body, 153–54. It should be noted that Cooper concedes that this text does not actually state that resurrection occurs at the Parousia, unlike 1 Thess. 4:13-17 and 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 51–54, but nevertheless clearly links them together closely. In fact, the text from Romans nowhere mentions Christ’s Parousia explicitly, though it is likely that this was accepted as initiating cosmic consummation. 284 Charles, Eschatology, 460. 285 Ibid., 460n1; see also Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 318–19. 286 Charles, Eschatology, 460n.

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1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7; Lk. 17:30; 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:13; phainein in 1 Cor. 3:13; 1 Jn 2:28; 3:2), there are also examples where being “revealed” connotes something being made known through its assuming a certain form which prior to that “revealing” it did not possess (e.g., phainein in 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Jn 1:2; 3:5, 8), or even where its revelation, its “coming,” is identical with its “coming to be” (e.g., apokaluptein in Gal. 3:23). Paul’s use of “revealed” in Rom. 8:19, therefore, not only does not compel us to accept Charles’s thesis but is demonstrably consistent with the dead’s being glorified publicly precisely by being resurrected.287 Concerning the second point, positive evidence for the resurrection of the dead at the Parousia does seem to be lacking in Romans, as Charles suggests.288 This silence can, however, be readily accounted for without having to resort to the thesis of a Pauline shift from the traditional schema to immediate resurrection; for in the Epistle to the Romans (unlike First Thessalonians and Corinthians) there is simply no reason explicitly to mention the resurrection of the dead. In Thessalonians, Paul makes clear the connection between this doctrine and the Parousia in order to address a concern which had arisen among the faithful there: that those who had died would “not participate in the celebration of Christ’s second coming.”289 In his first letter to the Corinthians, his emphasis on bodily resurrection of the dead is motivated in large part by the need to challenge dualism and materialism seemingly held by various factions in that community.290 In Romans, however, such foci are not present and so the emphasis can instead be on his more usual confident expectation of the Lord’s return in his lifetime and in the lifetimes of those whom he is addressing. Other texts cited in support of a change in Paul’s eschatology from resurrection at the Parousia to resurrection in death include Phil. 1:21-24 and 3:20-21.291 Concerning the first of these: in its anthropologically relevant details this passage parallels 2 Cor. 5:6-10 very closely, and so it is reasonable to assume that Paul’s views are the same in each text.292 What we seem to have here once again is a contrast between life in the body, on the one hand, and leaving this life

287

It might be objected here that Col. 3:4 links our “revelation” intimately with Christ’s “revelation” at his Parousia, thus strongly suggesting they share the same form. Formally, this is a non sequitur, and, given the evidence above, could be urged only at the risk of begging the question. 288 Charles, Eschatology, 460n. 289 Cooper, Body, 137; see also Still, “Eschatology in the Thessalonian Letters,” 197–99. 290 See Cooper, Body, 141; Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 189–90. 291 See van der Walle, From Darkness, 128–30; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 156–57. 292 Cooper, Body, 151.

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in the body to be with Christ, on the other (vv. 22–23). Prima facie, this suggests something like the traditional schema.293 However, the proponent of immediate resurrection might interpret the text as contrasting life in this body with life in the risen body in which one enjoys communion with Christ immediately after death,294 either because they are convinced that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 supports this295 or because they think Paul’s “unchanged anthropology”296 implies it. If Phil. 1:21-24 is being cited as evidence for immediate resurrection, then the first of these approaches begs the question; for it can be interpreted in this way only if 2 Corinthians 5 establishes resurrection in death, and we have seen no compelling reasons for supposing this to be the case. The second approach is equally contentious, for the ontological holism assumed here can readily be called into question, as was shown in the first section of the present chapter. Rather, this text seems to harmonize more convincingly with the traditional schema, especially when one takes into account the fact that there is nothing here which could count as a reference to us possessing a body with Christ after leaving the present body.297 In response, it might be pointed out that immediate resurrection is possibly suggested here by Paul’s use of sarx instead of the sōma of 2 Cor. 5:6-10. By using this term, Paul contrasts “being with Christ” with “living in the flesh” rather than “living in the body.” The contrast, therefore, is not between possessing an earthly body, on the one hand, with being disembodied, on the other; rather it is between “being in the flesh” and “not being in the flesh.” Earlier (1 Cor. 15:50), Paul had contrasted the “flesh and blood,” which are incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God, with the sōma pneumatikon of the resurrection, which is, therefore, other than sarx. Paul’s usage of sarx rather than sōma in Phil. 1:21-24 would suggest, therefore, “an immediate resurrection to a spiritualized body.”298 This is not at all convincing. First of all, the inference from “not being in the flesh” to “being a sōma pneumatikon” is not formally valid and begs the crucial question of whether or not there is a disembodied interim state in the

293

See Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 147–48; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 211–12. That the phrase “be with Christ” (v. 23) indicates the interim state and not a post-Parousia condition is clear, for otherwise “remaining in the flesh with you” (vv. 24, 25) could not be a real alternative (see Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 188; Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 148). 295 See Cooper, Body, 152. 296 Van der Walle, From Darkness, 130. 297 Cooper, Body, 151. 298 Ibid., 152. 294

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meantime. In fact, citing First Corinthians in support of this interpretation of Phil. 1:21-24 positively threatens to undermine any argument for immediate resurrection here, for, as we have seen, there is every reason to believe it is the traditional schema which 1 Cor. 15 assumes. In addition, while there is mention of “flesh” both here and in 1 Cor. 15, the corresponding reference to the “spiritual body” of the resurrection is, as already noted, absent from this text. Secondly, there are good reasons for thinking that whatever the contrast Paul is making in 1 Cor. 15:50, sarx and sōma are functioning in Philippians 1 as synonyms: the use of sōma in v. 20 certainly seeming to suggest this. Thirdly, the supposed opposition between sarx and sōma pneumatikon which underpins this argument can be challenged on textual grounds; for in Lk. 24:39 Christ himself makes clear that his resurrection body consists of flesh and bones. It is unlikely, therefore, that by “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” Paul intends to communicate anything about bodily composition per se.299 Concerning Phil. 1:21-24, we can say that while it is not inconsistent with immediate resurrection, it offers no evidence for it; there is only an argument from silence, and the more obvious suggestion of a contrast between being in the body and being disembodied300 remains unchallenged.301 The interpretation of this passage by the ITC as indicating a disembodied interim state seems, therefore, eminently defensible.302 Concerning Phil. 3:20-21: this is cited by both the ITC and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in support of the traditional schema303 as it seems quite clearly to correlate our resurrection (v. 21) with Christ’s return (v. 20). As John Cooper puts it: “The two events seem to share the same future.”304 However, some proponents of immediate resurrection see here another text which supports their own thesis.305 Dermot Lane, for example, sees vv. 2–11 of this chapter as evidencing unbroken continuity between knowing Christ and sharing in his suffering in this life so that we might share in the resurrection in the next (vv. 10–11).306 As with Romans ch. 8 (vv. 11 and 23), the reference to 299

Ibid. It is probable, in fact, that the distinction between the “soulish” and “spiritual” bodies of 1 Corinthians 15 signifies mortal, earthly bodies and bodies made immortal by the power of the Holy Spirit, respectively, rather than anything specific concerning anatomical composition. See also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 231–37, 247, and 247n432. 300 See Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology, 147–48; Cooper, Body, 151–52 301 See Cooper, Body, 152–53. 302 See ITC, para. 3.5. 303 See ibid., 1.1, 3.5; CCC, para. 556. 304 Cooper, Body, 153. 305 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 156. 306 Ibid., 157.

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bodily glorification in vv. 20–21 would indicate not the resurrection of the dead at the Parousia but the transformation of the living. It can be conceded that this interpretation of vv. 20–21 is plausible. There is no clear mention here of bodily resurrection of the dead as there is in First Thessalonians and Corinthians, only a hope for transformation which Paul is sharing with his audience. As with Romans 8, therefore, Paul may be doing no more here than expressing his hope that he will be alive at the Parousia.307 This is, of course, consistent with the traditional schema. But what of the view that vv. 2–11 (and 10 and 11 in particular) suggest resurrection in death. The inference from “becoming like him in his death” (v. 10) so as hopefully to “attain the resurrection from the dead” (v. 11) to immediate resurrection is, once again, formally invalid, begging the precise question of whether or not there is a disembodied interim state. The question also arises, as it did with 2 Corinthians 5: if immediate resurrection is what is expected, why does Paul continue to express a preference for surviving until the Parousia? The traditional schema, as already noted, suggests an explanation. It is not as obvious though what form of explanation might be available to the immediate resurrectionist. It would seem, therefore, that while the texts from Romans and Philippians offer no clear statement that bodily resurrection of the dead coincides with the Parousia, neither do they offer any decisive, positive support for immediate resurrection, although they are possibly consistent with it. What follows from this analysis for the argument that Paul believed, or came to believe, in immediate resurrection? Firstly, there are no compelling reasons for believing that 2 Cor. 5:1-10, the locus classicus of Pauline texts for the immediate resurrectionist, should be interpreted thus. In fact, there would seem to be significant difficulties in doing so. Secondly, the difficulties with this interpretation for later Pauline texts is not as great as proponents of the traditional schema assume, these texts tending to be silent about the resurrection of the dead and so able to harmonize with the new thesis. Neither, however, do these later texts offer positive support for the new thesis: their silence about resurrection of the dead being easily explained in terms of a change in focus due to audience and context rather than a change in doctrine. The view that certain scriptural texts are best interpreted as affirming bodily glorification for the believer at death308 is, therefore, questionable. While a case can be made that 2 Cor. 5:1-10 suggests such a doctrine, it is not compelling, 307 308

See Charles, Eschatology, 460n. See, for example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 128–29; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154–58.

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and indeed in certain respects is considerably more problematic than the view that Paul assumes something like the traditional schema here. This is supported by not only internal evidence but also external data: the traditional reading seeming to harmonize more readily both with Pauline texts which predate and postdate Second Corinthians, and with the testimony of the New Testament as a whole. It must be noted at this point that not all thinkers who favor immediate resurrection argue for it on the grounds of a monistic biblical anthropology or the direct attestation of certain scriptural texts alone. Several also present the new thesis as the preferred solution to tensions supposedly generated by attempting to hold to the delayed resurrection of the traditional schema in the face of the realized eschatology of the New Testament.309

Realized eschatology and resurrection in death For the Christian, the end which they have been promised exists not only in the future but, in some real sense, already in the present. This is, in essence, what is meant by “realized eschatology.” The basic form of what might be called the “Argument from Realized Eschatology” to the doctrine of resurrection in death is: because the New Testament speaks of resurrection not only as future but as a present reality in the life of the believer, it can be expected that this resurrection life would continue unbroken through death.310 Thus, St. Paul is understood as having developed a theology for the interim period between the historical resurrection of Christ and the Parousia which focuses on a mystical and sacramental dying and rising with Christ which begins at baptism (Rom. 6:3-4, 11), continues throughout this life (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:11, 16), and reaches a climax at death when individual resurrection occurs (2 Cor. 5:1-4).311 As F. X. Durrwell puts it: physical death completes sacramental death and all other deaths in a Christian’s life, all of which open out into the Resurrection.312

309

See, for example, von Balthasar, Theo-Drama V, 359–60; Bruce, Paul, 313; Harris, Raised Immortal, 100. 310 See Bruce, Paul, 311; Harris, Raised Immortal, 100; Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 219; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 109, 157. 311 Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 155–56. 312 Durrwell, Resurrection, 347.

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In later Pauline texts, this tendency crystallizes further and the faithful are spoken of as being somehow already risen (Col. 2:12; 3:1) and present with the risen Christ in “the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6; see also Col. 3:3-4).313 Similarly, in the Gospel of St. John we see Christ correcting Martha’s purely futurist view of the resurrection in 11:24 with the declaration: “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25).314 For John, what is determinative for the Christian is not the future, but present belief in Christ, which is the source of the gift of eternal life. This gift, far from being something reserved for “some dim and distant future reality out there on ‘the last day’,”315 is a present possession  (cf. 3:36; 5:24, 40; 6:40, 47, 54, 68) which does not yield to physical death, so that even when the believer dies he will live forever (see 11:25b-26; also 8:51). For the evangelist, the resurrection is thus “already present in the life of the believer who follows  Jesus.”316 For several thinkers this marked presentist emphasis in  John strongly suggests that for him resurrection—as it does for Paul— follows immediately on death.317 Realized eschatology, in other words, implies, or at least strongly suggests, resurrection in death. What is to be made of this argument? It must first be said that it is questionable whether the relationship between realized eschatology and resurrection in death is one of strict entailment. The mere fact of realized eschatology would seem, by itself, to suggest no definite solution concerning the timing of the resurrection. Realized eschatology per se clearly does not imply bodily resurrection; nothing could be more self-evident than that the baptized have not yet received their resurrection bodies. Far from it; as St. Paul says, the “outer man” is manifestly wasting away (see 2 Cor. 4:16). The resurrection life the Christian even now possesses is thus to be understood

313

Charles, Eschatology, 460–61; Benoit, “Resurrection,” 108–9; Phan, “Current Theology,” 524. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 111. 315 Ibid. 316 Ibid. 317 Charles, Eschatology, 427–30; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 110–11, 152. While Johannine passages exist which seem to postpone resurrection until “the last day” (e.g., Jn 5:28-29; 6:39, 40b, 44, 54b), these— it is claimed by some scholars—can more reasonably be explained away either as “concessions to traditional Jewish beliefs” (Harris, Raised Immortal, 152, a view with which Harris does not concur; see also Charles, Eschatology, 429) or as interpolations by someone with an outlook which is at odds “with the fundamental conceptions of this Gospel” (Charles, Eschatology, 429 [Charles’s preferred solution]). Alternatively, they are accepted as integral parts of the inspired text (see Harris, Raised Immortal, 152; Benoit, “Resurrection,” 109–10; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 110) and interpreted—like similar passages in Paul—within the framework of resurrection in death as, for example, signifying only the completion or enhancement of that resurrection at the consummation of all things (see Benoit, “Resurrection,” 110–13; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 152–62). 314

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as a spiritual, not a somatic, resurrection. It is the state of moral and spiritual renewal experienced as a result of dying and rising with Christ in baptism, a state made manifest in the lives of Christians.318 Regarding the issue of when the somatic resurrection takes place, the simple actuality of spiritual resurrection would seem, therefore, to be inconclusive. Spiritual resurrection could perhaps be said to entail somatic resurrection in death if ontological holism were true, that is, if it were the case that the soul (or some other spiritual element in man) could not survive apart from the body.319 As already argued, however, there are good reasons for thinking that ontological holism is not the operative anthropology of the Bible.320 Many advocates of immediate resurrection in fact propose something less stringent and more convincing than entailment. Murray Harris, for example, emphasizes instead the apparent incongruity between affirming a bond with Jesus which is even now a participation in his resurrection, between the work of the Holy Spirit which effects our “progressive approximation to the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3.18; 4.16),”321 and the postponement of bodily resurrection until the Parousia. On the other hand, its culmination at death in the receipt of a heavenly body was completely in accord with the function of the Spirit which is to initiate and bring to perfection the process of being moulded into Christ’s likeness. Moreover, when death finally destroyed the “flesh”, the seat of opposition to God, there remained no further impediment to the perfect manifestation of the Spirit— through a spiritual body.322

Given such considerations, proponents of the traditional schema would seem to be required to make a positive case for affirming delayed somatic resurrection,

318

See Harris, Raised Immortal, 101–5; Still, “Eschatology in Colossians: How Realised Is It?,” 133. Paul does sometimes relate the two sorts of resurrection explicitly: the somatic resurrection presupposing the spiritual, and the latter guaranteeing the somatic resurrection (see Harris, Raised Immortal, 105– 6; Rom. 6:5-6, 8, 11; 8:10-11; Phil. 3:10-11). 319 A point apparently acknowledged by Pierre Benoit in his inclination to interpret the realized eschatology of the New Testament according to the “anthropological categories of Semitic monism” (Benoit, “Resurrection,” 113). The same view is present in Bruce, who can be seen to argue for immediate resurrection in Paul mainly on the basis of a supposed Hebraic monism (see Paul, 311) and who thus challenges the viability of the view that bodily resurrection for the Christian might be postponed on the grounds that this would entail the interruption of a communion with Christ which is already possessed in this life (see Paul, 313). 320 Good reason, therefore, to think that Bruce’s inference from the postponement of somatic resurrection to a severance of communion with Christ is a non sequitur. 321 Harris, Raised Immortal, 100. 322 Ibid.

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one which is at least as convincingly grounded in the texts of sacred scripture as the arguments of the immediate resurrectionists. There is every reason to think this can be done. Harris himself draws attention to the fact that the New Testament takes care to balance the individual and the collective, the personal and the cosmic dimensions of eschatology, and cites three Pauline passages which evidence the interrelatedness of the destinies of both man and nature in ways which provide a foundation for suggesting that the fullness of their respective consummations coincide: 1 Cor. 15:20-28, Rom. 8:18-25, and Phil. 3:20-21. In the first of these passages a connection is affirmed between the resurrection of man (which clearly occurs at the Parousia, vv. 22–23, 51–52) and the restoration of the universe: the former being a necessary prelude to, and also a crucial stage of, the latter, as it marks the conquest of death (vv. 26; also vv. 54–55), one of the enemies of God’s kingdom (vv. 25–26), a kingdom which includes not only the rational but also the irrational elements of creation (ta panta at vv. 27–28).323 In Rom. 8:18-25, the relation between the destiny of man and the universe is made even clearer.324 Here, Paul implicitly links creation’s imperfections, frustrations, and bondage to decay (vv. 20–21) with man’s sin and denial of the terms of his stewardship (see Gen. 3:17): the universe now groaning in travail and longing for release as a consequence (v. 22). This link with man is, however, also a source of hope for creation as a whole: for creation is destined (negatively) to be released from its frustrating bondage to decay (v. 21a) and (positively) to acquire the liberty that will accompany the revelation of the glory of God’s children (v. 21b; cf. v. 19).… Just as nature was involved with man in the Fall, so it will share man’s destiny in gaining release from corruption.325

The link between man and creation is intimate in Paul’s vision: they both groan (vv. 22–23), eagerly awaiting their release from corruption and mortality through God’s intervention (vv. 19–21, 23). But they are also distinct: for only man groans consciously and only man already experiences something of the new creation (see 2 Cor. 5:17), possessing the first fruits of the Holy Spirit (v. 23), the spirit of sonship (vv. 15, 19, 21) which anticipates bodily transformation (v. 23).326

323

Ibid., 168. Harris, “The New Testament View of Life After Death,” 50. 325 Harris, Raised Immortal, 166. 326 Ibid., 166–67. 324

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In the text from Philippians, Paul identifies as the two acts which are to complete Christ’s saving work (i) man’s transformation (v. 21a) and (ii) the subjugation of the universe (v. 21b), locating his power to achieve the former in his power to do the latter. In a move which complements, but provides a different emphasis than, his theology in First Corinthians and Romans, Paul presents man’s transformation as an aspect of the greater work which is the transformation of the whole of creation: Christ’s transformation of man into his own image (cf. Rom. 8:29) is an integral part of his subjection of the entire universe to his own person.327

Clearly, we have a substantial foundation here for challenging the view that delaying somatic resurrection until the Parousia is incongruous. Given the intimate link between man and creation affirmed in the above passages, one can see a profound “fittingness,” a noted congruity in fact, in man’s bodily resurrection not occurring at the moment of individual death, but as an immediate prelude to, and integral part of, the restoration of the whole created order.328 In the face of the theology expressed by such texts, it would seem to be a case of special pleading to insist that the greater congruity is to be found in the thesis of immediate resurrection. Only if the concept of a disembodied personal element in an interim state can be shown to be unbiblical could one insist on this, but given the analysis so far, there are no compelling reasons for thinking this to be the case.329

327

Ibid., 167; see also Ziesler, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 222. The objection could of course be made that in the later texts considered here (Romans and Philippians), Paul does not specifically mention the resurrection of the dead, only the transformation of those alive at the Parousia. In light of this, it might be argued, it is impermissible to include these texts as part of a scripturally founded apologia for the fittingness or congruity of the link between the resurrection of the dead and cosmic consummation. Such an objection, however, carries little force. Given that the earlier Pauline texts under consideration (1 Thess. 4; 1 Cor. 15; and 2 Cor. 5) are all more naturally read as supporting the traditional schema, and also that the later texts evidence no change from Paul’s position here, there is good reason to view them as assuming bodily resurrection for the dead in Christ as well as bodily transformation for the living at Christ’s second coming. The  view that the lack of explicit mention of resurrection of the dead in these texts indicates an implicit commitment to immediate resurrection has been shown to be without foundation and, as already noted, fails to account for Paul’s continued preference for surviving until the Parousia. 329 No compelling reasons, therefore, for dismissing futurist strands in John’s eschatological thought as “accommodation on the part of the Evangelist to current popular views” (Charles, Eschatology, 429) or “later editorial insertions” (Harris, Raised Immortal, 152); nor for reducing the meaning of resurrection on “the last day” to, for example, a metaphor for the perfection of an existing postmortem embodied state through “a process of socialisation and cosmic transformation” (Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 159). 328

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Arguments that the biblical data offer greater support to the thesis of resurrection in death than to the traditional schema are, therefore, unconvincing. The anthropological options available within sacred scripture do not preclude the twofold phase eschatology of the traditional schema. The view that certain texts are best interpreted as affirming the new thesis is not securely founded. Neither are arguments that the realized eschatology of the New Testament harmonizes more convincingly with immediate resurrection than with the traditional schema.

 

3

The Postmortem State—Atemporal or Nonatemporal?

This chapter constitutes a critical examination of the relative philosophical and theological coherence of postmortem atemporalism and nonatemporalism, with a particular focus on those dialogical lacunae identified in the first chapter. It proceeds by exploring the hypothesis of postmortem atemporalism, the reasons for adopting it, the objections of those who challenge it and possible responses to these objections, as well as the contributions to the debate which might be made from the perspectives of the doctrines of the intercession of the saints, purgatory, and prayers and suffrages for the dead. An analysis of, and response to, Karl Rahner’s problematic concerning postmortem temporality is also undertaken.

The coherence of atemporalism Reasons for adopting atemporalism As observed at the start of this book, the main reason for embracing this position is to ensure that the reality of “being with Christ” for the believer in death can be acknowledged fully with no diminishment in the significance of the Parousia, the resurrection, and the last judgment, that the collective and cosmic dimensions of eschatology as well as the individual dimension are given the prominence accorded them in the New Testament.1 The traditional schema, it is claimed, by affirming the possibility of the beatific vision for the anima separata seems thereby

1

See Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 38–39; Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 90. A further, connected, motivation is that of preserving the biblical sense of the Parousia’s imminence (Ratzinger, Eschatology, 110; Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 46; see also 49–50).

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to threaten the essential unity of the human being, fostering a spiritualistic, acosmic, and individualistic expectation which is in serious tension with both the anthropology and eschatology of the Bible.2 Nonatemporalistic versions of immediate resurrection, while perhaps seeming to avoid the supposed dualism of the traditional schema, nevertheless still seem prone to the charge of individualism, rendering the Parousia and associated elements of far less significance than scripture would seem to accord them.3 The solution, as has been noted, is to suppose that at death, human beings pass from time into “the last day,” a timeless eternity which is beyond yet adjacent to time and in which Parousia, resurrection, last judgment, and cosmic consummation coincide. The possibility of such a solution is premised, therefore, on a supposed opposition between time and eternity such that the former is “neutralized or abolished by eternity in the dissolution of the time-structure of our experience.”4 Sometimes an attempt is made to find a scriptural basis for such a polarity,5 but more often a priori theological and philosophical considerations are determinative,6 with the objection that atemporalism contradicts the more obviously nonatemporalistic framework of the Bible dismissed as biblicism.7 2

3 4

5

6

7

Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 39, 46; Tugwell, Human Immortality, 152–54. The suggested alternative of John XXII, that those in the interim state are in some way still in statu viatoris, while undoubtedly preserving a marked significance for the Parousia, resurrection, and last judgment, has been judged by the tradition to be unacceptable, overrelativizing, as it does, individual salvation (Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 46–48). See Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 315; ITC, para. 2.2. Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 40. As such, time has become connected in the minds of some with the fall, with salvation now construed as “a release from time, a transcending of all timestructure” (ibid., 41). Berkouwer ascribes the supposed opposition of time to eternity to a view that mistakenly identifies temporality with perishability: that not only the particular privations encountered by us in time, but “the very form of time itself … is at the bottom of all earthly sorrow” (ibid.). Because of time’s intrinsically privative nature, consummation must thus consist “in the overcoming of this form itself, in the coming to rest of the stream of time in the sea of eternity” (ibid.). On this view, the temporality of man is not essential to his nature, but accidental only, a deprivation resulting from his fall into sin. In the final analysis, such an identification cannot be coherently maintained “because it ascribes to time the condition brought about by sin in time” (ibid.). See Berkouwer’s dismissal of such attempts to read atemporalism from scriptural texts (particularly Ps. 90:10 and Rev. 10:5-6) (Return of Christ, 41–43). W. D. Davies argues that in 2 Cor. 5, St. Paul, on the basis of his realized eschatology and the rabbinic concept of the ôlâm ha-bâ, the “age to come,” which is eternally existent in the heavens, envisages immediate resurrection at death (Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 314–20). Bruce too has expressed the opinion that the assumption of atemporalism would constitute a “satisfactory reconciliation” (I and II Corinthians, 204) of the differing positions Paul expresses in 2 Cor. 5 and 1 Cor. 15:23, 55–58 and could be viewed as a “legitimate extension of his thought” (ibid.). Such a view is irreconcilable with Paul’s clear preference for remaining alive until the Parousia and of avoiding a “state of nakedness” between death and resurrection (see Osei-Bonsu, “Intermediate State,” 193). See, for example, Brunner, Eternal Hope, 150–53; Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection, 102; Hanhart, Intermediate State, 234, 238; Schwarz, Eschatology, 290–301. See Kettner, “Intermediate State,” 99n2.

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Criticisms of atemporalism In spite of atemporalistic resurrection in death constituting “a solution of striking simplicity”8 to the problems above, it has received serious and sustained criticism. Ratzinger has attacked its assumption of a polar choice between, on the one hand, physical time and, on the other, a “timelessness to be identified with eternity itself.”9 According to Ratzinger, the problems arising from this assumption include logical ones associated with (i) conceiving of man “whose existence is achieved decisively in the temporal, being transposed into sheer eternity,”10 and (ii) the idea of eternity having a beginning at all. In the latter connection, he asks: “Is it not necessarily non-eternal, and so temporal, precisely because it has a beginning? Yet how can one deny that the resurrection of a human being has a beginning, namely, after death?” 11 Ratzinger does suggest a possible retort for the atemporalist: that it is not the case that the resurrection of the human being has a beginning. However, he argues that this would exacerbate, rather than relieve, the problem: for it would now seem to follow that man had always existed in his risen state “in an eternity without beginning.”12 This conclusion, he asserts, would rule out the possibility of serious anthropology. He does not explain further, but the thought here would seem to be that if man has actually existed risen from all eternity then what we usually understand by “human life” must be unreal, illusory, an appearance or phenomenon only, like the maya of the eastern religions or the play of shadows on the walls of Plato’s cave.13 Ratzinger criticizes the attempt by Gerhard Lohfink to employ the medieval concept of aevum in order to avoid such difficulties, by holding together, on the one hand, the view that death does not lead into pure timelessness with, on the other, the view that, nevertheless, at death the human person can be said to enter into the fullness of history, the Parousia, and the resurrection. For Ratzinger, such a position is not tenable; for the view that the “end of history is 8 9 10

11 12 13

Ratzinger, Eschatology, 252. Ibid., 109. Ibid. He does not elaborate on the precise nature of this problem, but the question of how identity could thus be maintained appears to be the crux of the matter: for if man is essentially temporal then transposition into eternity would seem to entail annihilation. Ibid. Ibid., 109–10. Ratzinger in fact goes on to accuse the proponents of atemporalism precisely of succumbing to a form of Platonism, something to which they are ostensibly opposed (ibid., 110, 112).

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ever waiting for the one who dies”14 simply cannot be reconciled with the view that history is continuing here.15 The proponents of such a theory must hold that history is “simultaneously completed and still continuing.”16 According to Ratzinger, what remains to be explained, therefore, is the relationship between, on the one hand, the ever new beginnings of human life in history, both present and future, and, on the other, the state of fulfilment not only of the individual but of the historical process itself, a state said to be already realized in the world beyond death.17

While Ratzinger commends Lohfink’s introduction of a differentiated concept of time as a progressive move in the debate, and views the aevum as an idea which can be helpful when considering the state of the individual who attains perfection while remaining essentially temporal, he criticizes his particular usage of it as an ad hoc attempt to explain away certain conceptual difficulties with his schema without abandoning its essence. For Ratzinger, the aevum cannot offer any support for the view that “history as a whole, from whatever point of view, can be seen as already fulfilled.”18 Similarly, Candido Pozo is unconvinced by atemporalism. Pozo observes that if the Parousia is “not placed in the final moment of history, but rather is considered to be a point that is located above history, then history would not have its conclusive point in the Parousia.”19 He concludes that it is a short step from this to the view that it is not necessary “that history should have a final moment,”20 something certain thinkers are open to, at least as a working hypothesis. Starting from the conviction that the idea of the end of the world would not pertain to faith, the consummation could then be an infinite process of passage (by way of resurrection) from this world to the world beyond.21

For Pozo, there are grave exegetical difficulties with such a view; he cites 1 Thess. 4:13-18 and Rev. 6:9-11 as examples of texts which would have no

14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid., 111. This criticism was in fact made at least as early as 1959 against Protestant adherents of this view, by Alois Winklhofer (see Winklhofer, The Coming of His Kingdom, 120–21). Ratzinger, Eschatology, 111. Ibid. Ibid. Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 145. Ibid.; see also ibid., 257–58. Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 146.

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significance or intelligibility if the faithful dead were “outside all temporal categories.”22 As already noted, such considerations might be dismissed by proponents of this thesis as biblicism, or as failing to recognize that the apparent temporality assumed by such texts is not part of their binding content, but a mere cultural amalgam. Nevertheless, Pozo identifies more foundational difficulties with this thesis, pointing out that it is impossible for a created being—a being without infinite perfection—to be eternal in the sense required by the atemporalist, not only because—as Ratzinger points out—this would imply that it had no beginning,23 but because eternity, properly understood, signifies “a fully simultaneous and perfect possession of life,”24 something which is only possible “in a being of infinite perfection.”25 Pozo concludes that in conceiving of the postmortem state of created beings, a notion is needed which, while not univocal with terrestrial time, “which is always governed by bodily movement,”26 is “different from that of an eternity that is not applicable to created beings.”27 Such an “intermediate, analogous concept is what the theological tradition intended to express by the notion of ‘aevum.’”28 Pozo later clarifies that for the blessed, there is a certain participation in the eternity of God, but even here their situation “does not lose all temporal relationship,”29 because such participation can never imply equality. In the intermediate state, the blessed, while experiencing the beatific vision, and thus sharing in a certain way “in the immobility of God,”30 nevertheless experience “on other levels of consciousness”31 a succession of acts,32 what he terms “the psychological aspect of the communion of saints.”33 He ends by observing that to dispense with the whole notion of temporality here “would be equivalent to confusing the divine eternity with the ‘aevum’”34 and—by implication—the creator with the creature.

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34

Ibid., 254. Ibid., 256. Ibid., 255. Ibid., 256. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 255. Ibid., 364. Ibid., 363. Ibid., 364. Concerning the final eschatology, he notes that the fact of corporeality “makes the conception of some succession and movement easier” (ibid.). Ibid. Ibid., 264.

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In a 1985 Communio article entitled ‘Hope in the Final Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory,’ Walter Kasper added his own critical analysis to the debate, affirming Ratzinger’s establishment of “the intrinsic and materially basic necessity for a temporal interim-state—in whatever way that is to be understood”35 and characterizing the CDF’s affirmation of the real distinction between individual and collective eschatology36 as “a point of doctrine the faithful are obliged to hold.”37 In examining the relation between time and eternity which lies at the heart of these issues, Kasper offers a taxonomy of proposed solutions which are to be excluded as “incompatible with essential Christian tenets of faith.”38 The first of these he terms monism, which includes any approach that would erode the distinction between time and eternity, either by placing God within the temporal process39 or by upholding the reality of the eternal at the expense of calling into question the reality of time: that is, having time “evaporate in God.”40 The second sort of solution he terms dualism. Here, both time and eternity are real but completely incongruous, eternity denoting “timelessness, a cessation, rejection, a breaking-off of time.”41 On this view, history and cosmos are realities running parallel to spirit and may come to be seen, in the words of Ratzinger, as moving on “into a meaningless eternity or sinking down into an equally meaningless nothingness.”42 Positively, Kasper offers a via media between the Scylla of monism and the Charybdis of dualism: affirming, contra the former, the real distinction between time and eternity, and denying, contra the latter, their complete incongruity. For Kasper, the Christian concept of God creating the world together with time suggests a relation between time and eternity which, rather than being one of identity or total incongruity, is one of analogy: time being understood now as “an image and likeness of God’s eternity … eternity’s image-in-motion.”43 On this view human time, which “possesses its present at all times only in

35 36 37

38 39

40 41 42 43

Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 377. CDF, point 5. Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 374. While he goes on to state that, in spite of this distinction, the interim state is nowhere mentioned explicitly by the Congregation, he nevertheless judges it to be “forcefully presupposed” (ibid.). Ibid., 380. As in process theology, or a temporalistic theism such as that of Oscar Cullman (see Christ and Time, 61–80). Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 380 (as in a Platonic conception). Ibid. Ratzinger, Eschatology, 116. Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 380.

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retrospective remembrance and in prospective anticipation” is, on the one hand, “an image of God’s eternity which is purely presentness” and, on the other hand, “in its temporal diffusiveness, time is a yearning for eternity.”44 In its relation to time, eternity, far from being the former’s total negation, is “rather its completion.”45 Human participation in God’s eternity transforms and raises our temporality to a higher level, preserving both memory and anticipation46 while terminating time’s “characteristic running off into emptiness.”47 For Kasper, this view of man’s participation in eternity is (as also for Ratzinger) rooted in man’s constitutive temporality,48 and in the logic of the Christian doctrine of creation and redemption. Thus God, having created historic, finite creatures to find their fulfillment in him through “free, historic self-determination,” fulfills them precisely as finite and historic, their greater union with God in their consummation entailing the perfection, rather than the abolition, of their creaturely independence.49 Man, in his participation in God’s eternity does not, therefore, become eternal: rather, in his timeliness he is perfected “beyond all purely terrestrial measurements of time.”50 On this understanding, one is able to maintain the reality of an interim state from the perspective not only of those still living, but of those who now participate in God’s eternity, without denying the profound differences between our temporality and that of those who have died. Those who express the relation between time and eternity in terms of their incongruence undoubtedly indicate something which is vitally important. As already noted, terrestrial measures of time and the privative elements in our current experience of time shall no longer obtain in eternity. But, by itself, the purely negative formula of incongruency is not adequate to express the relationship. Conceptualizing the relation between terrestrial time and the eternity of creatures instead as one of analogy certainly enables us to hold that any similarities between terrestrial time and transfigured, consummated time are “accompanied by even greater dissimilarities.”51 Yet it also allows us to hold that their dissimilarity does not necessarily mean “that the interim state can be thought of as totally bereft of 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Ibid., 380–81. Ibid., 381. Ibid., 382. Ibid., 381. Ibid., 382. Ibid., 381. Ibid., 382. Ibid., 381.

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time, so that from eternity’s perspective … individual and general eschatology are in any way simultaneous.”52 In the interim state of transfigured time, man is far from atemporal: retaining memory of terrestrial history while drawing also “on the perfection which lacks completion, but which he anticipates.”53 United in solidarity with those who are in statu viatoris, he is actively engaged in assisting their salvation and the hastening of the world’s perfection. If such a relation of analogy does not obtain between historic time and the eternity of creatures in the interim state, then it would seem impossible to account for both the reality and the characteristic actions of the communio sanctorum.54 To Ratzinger’s charges of a negation of anthropological and historical realism by the proponents of atemporalistic resurrection in death, therefore, Kasper adds the charge of rendering meaningless the church’s de fide teaching concerning the communion of saints embodied in her liturgy, devotions, and prayers.

A Catholic consensus against atemporalism? These criticisms of atemporalism have earned a significant measure of acceptance among theologians working in this area. Thus, Zachary Hayes’s (1989) assessment of this position essentially revisits the criticisms of Ratzinger, Pozo, and Kasper. For Hayes, atemporalism gives the distinct impression of human beings “encountering God in death and thus arriving at eschatological fulfillment while the material cosmos is turned over to endless time,”55 leaving the ultimate meaning of history unresolved. Hayes recalls Rahner’s own awareness of this problem even as the latter formulated a version of resurrection in death as a possible legitimate alternative to the traditional schema. For Rahner, the new theory is a possibility for the Catholic theologian provided his formulation does not entail that the “time scheme of world history itself can also be eliminated from his theological statement.”56 52 53 54 55 56

Ibid., 381–82. Ibid., 382. Ibid. Hayes, Visions of a Future, 164. Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. Hayes neglects to observe that Rahner himself did not, in fact, make clear how his own hypothesis satisfied this condition. Rahner simply asserts that it does not imply that “we no longer need to think about the nature of collective, cosmic perfection” (ibid., 118) and offers as a resolution the possibility of viewing the immediate resurrection of the individual as “one element of a progressive transformation of world history and the cosmos in general” (ibid.), a response which bypasses completely the need to explain exactly how history and the eternal eschaton posited by the atemporalist can be thus related.

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Citing Kasper, Hayes draws our attention to a twofold theological basis underpinning the need for realism concerning history’s consummation: as an essential element in the perfection of both individual and mankind as a whole, and as a necessary resolution to the problem of “the antagonistic and tragic character of history,”57 noting in this connection scripture’s affirmation that, in Christ, history’s resolution is assured and that the world will neither continue endlessly nor vanish into nothingness, God being “its ‘all in all’ at the end (1 Cor. 15:28).”58 Like Kasper, Hayes sees as authoritative the CDF’s statement that the church looks for the glorious manifestation of the Lord, which it believes “to be distinct and deferred with respect to the situation of people immediately after death”59 and believes this to be problematic for atemporalistic forms of the new thesis, affirming, as it does, the reality of a state of incompleteness between individual death and the universal resurrection. Nevertheless, Hayes thinks the CDF’s document leaves room for nonatemporalistic formulations of resurrection in death, a relational understanding of human nature enabling one to account for both the incompleteness of the individual prior to the universal resurrection and the practices of Christian piety.60 Another proponent of resurrection in death, Dermot Lane (1996) likewise finds Rahner’s atemporalistic proposal attractive, but not fully satisfactory.61 While he thinks Rahner is clearly correct to suggest that “the final form of man’s history of freedom can take effect in death,”62 he wonders whether he is also correct in his view that “the total perfecting of man in ‘body’ and ‘soul’ takes place immediately after death”63 If this were so, he asks, could there be “any room left for the social significance of the second coming of Christ for the individual?”64 In itself, though, this is a non sequitur, for it is specifically to maintain such a significance that atemporalism is proposed.65 Within an atemporalistic framework such as the one Rahner is exploring one is able to maintain both the definitive perfection of the individual in death and the social significance of the Parousia for the individual precisely because 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Hayes, Visions of a Future, 165. Ibid., citing Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 379–80. CDF, point 5, cited at Hayes, Visions of a Future, 165. Hayes, Visions of a Future, 166. See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 153. Ibid.; see Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 153–54; see Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154. See ITC, para. 2.2.

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Between Death and Resurrection the resurrection of the flesh and the general judgement take place “parallel” to the temporal history of the world; and … both coincide with the sum of the particular judgements of individual men and women.66

However, Lane goes on to note Rahner’s caveat about his own atemporalistic hypothesis (that this can be maintained provided it does not mean that the time scheme of world history can be eliminated from one’s theological statement)67 and posits a tension between, on the one hand, this desire of Rahner’s to “keep open the theological scheme of world history”68 and, on the other, his view that the total perfection of the individual can take place immediately after death. The point would seem to be that if the theological scheme of world history is to be kept open, that is, if history requires consummation and is not to be rendered soteriologically irrelevant, then the total perfection of the individual cannot take place in death because the “underlying unity between the creation and the radical relationality of all individuals to each other”69 implies that individual perfection requires perfection of humanity and the whole of creation. He thus challenges Rahner’s atemporalistic hypothesis on essentially the same grounds as Ratzinger, Kasper, and Hayes. Despite this, Lane is not thereby quick to reject Rahner, concluding instead that his thesis could still provide a way forward in the debate, but only if susceptible to an interpretation which would retain the “intrinsic connection between the destiny of the individual in death and the destiny of the world at the end of time.”70 Given the analysis of atemporalism in this chapter, it is not at all clear how this might be done, and Lane himself provides no suggestions in this direction, opting instead for what he presumably views to be a less problematic solution: a nonatemporalistic schema, in which individual resurrection does take place in death and “is finally completed

66

67 68 69 70

Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. The first statement above (the one with which Lane himself agrees) constitutes one of the main reasons Rahner hypothesizes about atemporalistic resurrection in death. For Rahner, death implies “the final consummation of the history of freedom” which, on this very basis can “no longer be thought of in terms of time at all” (ibid., 119). If Lane agrees with Rahner about death entailing the final consummation of man’s history of freedom, but disagrees, as he seems to (see Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154), with the atemporalism which Rahner thinks this implies, then he needs to say why the first does not imply the second. This he fails to do. Along with Ratzinger, Kasper, and Hayes, therefore, Lane compromises the completeness (and, therefore, the solidity) of his engagement with atemporalism by failing to deal with that dilemma regarding freedom which Rahner supposes is generated by the concept of postmortem temporality (see Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119). See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154; Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154. Ibid. Ibid.

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and perfected at the end of time in the general resurrection symbolised in the doctrine of the second coming of Christ.”71 Continuing Catholic criticism of atemporalistic resurrection in death, Bernard Prusak (2000) affirms the essence of Ratzinger’s analysis, emphasizing in particular the implications of God’s relation to the world and history as its creator and redeemer, a relation incompatible with a dualistic view of time and eternity in which history and the cosmos are effectively excluded from resurrection and consummation.72 He identifies as the crux of an apologetic for atemporalism Ratzinger’s point that “what precisely needs to be explained is the relationship between the ever new beginnings in history and the state of fulfilment both of the individual and of the historical process”73 which, in this model, is “said to be already realized in the world beyond death.”74 The implication is that this has not yet been done. With Ratzinger, Kasper, Hayes, and Lane, Prusak accepts that commitment to the relationality of human beings—to their interdependence with each other and all creation—implies “incompleteness of life with Christ in the time before the definitive ‘resurrection of the flesh,’”75 completion only being possible when the total organism is complete, when each individual can be situated within the whole and when God will be all in all.76 With Hayes and Lane, he understands the essential unity of body and soul as implying a particular resurrection in death, the general resurrection at the end of time and history signifying the completion of these individual resurrections through the total consummation of mankind and the cosmos.77 In common with all these thinkers, he does not engage directly with the central reasons given by atemporalists for their own position,78 restricting himself to rejecting their position on the basis of its own supposed philosophical and theological inadequacies. While the points thus made against atemporalism are considerable, the argument against it remains frustratingly incomplete and leaves unaddressed several objections

71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78

Ibid. Prusak, “Bodily Resurrection in Catholic Perspectives,” 93, 95–97. A point to note: in his arguments against atemporalism, Prusak, following Ratzinger, mistakenly treats Gisbert Greshake as a proponent of this thesis (see ibid., 95, where he ascribes Lohfink’s model to Greshake; see also ibid., 102). This in no way affects the substance of his arguments against atemporalism. Prusak, “Bodily Resurrection in Catholic Perspectives,” 95. Ratzinger, Eschatology, 111. Prusak, “Bodily Resurrection in Catholic Perspectives,” 95; see also ibid., 102–4. Ibid., 95–96, 102–4. Ibid., 102–4. Such as Rahner’s dilemma regarding postmortem freedom, or the supposedly irresolvable tension between individual and collective eschatology.

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against nonatemporalism which contribute to the appeal of atemporalism as an eschatological model.

A possible response to these criticisms It seems clear that any credible atemporalistic retort to these criticisms must be able, at the very least, to offer a satisfactory account of how the reality of ongoing salvation history can be reconciled with the view that this history as a whole is consummated in the world beyond death (see Ratzinger’s objection, reiterated by Prusak above). It should, in Rahner’s terms, be able to give an account of how the total perfecting of man in “body” and “soul” takes place immediately after death while preserving the time scheme of world history. In doing so, it clearly needs to ensure the preservation of personal identity through death and resurrection, and be able to account adequately for the theology, liturgy, and piety associated with the communio sanctorum. In formulating his own response to the problem of the intermediate state, the Dominican theologian Simon Tugwell offers an account of resurrection in death which seems, prima facie, to offer a way of avoiding some of the problems identified above. In his criticism of the traditional schema, Tugwell puts particular emphasis on the problems it faces in trying to reconcile immediate postmortem beatitude, on the one hand, with a meaningful role for the resurrection and/or the last judgment, on the other.79 He is also sensitive to the manner in which the traditional schema would seem to be in tension with piety, prayer, and the popular Christian imagination, which have never really conceived of the saints in glory as anything less than whole people, and certainly not animae separatae. Anima Petri non es Petrus, as St Thomas very properly acknowledges, and Christian piety has never been interested in asking for the prayers of Peter’s soul. It is Peter who is believed to be in heaven, whether or not that belief can be given doctrinally accurate expression.80

In spite of this, Tugwell expresses reservations about embracing “immediate resurrection” (by which he means the nonatemporalistic alternative to the traditional schema). He observes that a problem for this hypothesis is the

79 80

Tugwell, Human Immortality, 142–55, 164. Ibid., 122.

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presence of the corpse,81 but rejects the hypothesis not on the grounds that it is philosophically indefensible, but because it implies a “profoundly unnatural” way of thinking about the dead.82 Whether or not it is philosophically defensible, it is, in his estimation, certainly not religiously and humanly defensible.83 For Tugwell, immediate resurrection shares an unacceptable implication in these respects with the traditional schema concerning the corpse of the person who has died. Just as we do not want to say that we pray to St. Peter’s soul only, but to St. Peter, so we do not want to say we bury Mother Theresa’s corpse only, but that we bury Mother Theresa. Both the liturgical rubrics84 and the piety which surrounds the tombs and shrines of saints which house their relics85 encourage us in this regard; the service books do not contain any rites for the burial of a corpse, but of various persons, and when we go on pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint, or host their relics, we do so because the saint is there. Tugwell argues that while we might acknowledge that it is proper not simply to identify the person’s soul or body with the actual person, one of the reasons for developing the language of souls and bodies going to different places is that Christian piety wants to say incompatible things about them: we want to say both that they are in the tomb and that they are also in heaven. Whatever the philosophers may tell us, we want to say that both Aunt Matilda’s soul and Aunt Matilda’s body are Aunt Matilda. We need two ways of talking about her because she is in two different places at once.86

Immediate resurrection, in Tugwell’s estimation, places a strain on these legitimate pious instincts because it asks us to dissociate entirely all thoughts of the person from their remains, rendering many expressions of devotion meaningless. Christian hope, therefore, even though it tends to overlook the gap between death and resurrection, preferring to think of people, not souls, going straight to their reward, has its own reasons, after all, for not entirely denying the futurity of the resurrection.87

81 82

83 84 85 86 87

Ibid., 128. Tugwell is, in fact, open to such a hypothesis being given philosophically coherent expression (ibid., 129). Ibid., 129–30. Ibid., 129. Ibid., 130. Ibid., 129. Ibid., 130.

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So, rejecting both (nonatemporalistic) immediate resurrection and the traditional, dual-phase schema, what does Tugwell propose? Tugwell begins the exposition of his own schema by inviting reflection on what he takes to be Aquinas’s own position: that if the blessed are blessed at all, then they must be entirely blessed. If this is so, he thinks, then we must conclude either that resurrection and judgment are not future to them or that these things do not matter to them.88 Inclining to the former solution as the least problematic, Tugwell proposes the abandonment of the traditional two-phase eschatology (what he calls “three-stage” eschatology) for a one-phase (“two-stage”) form which he nevertheless takes to encapsulate the essentials of the tradition.89 The second stage of this eschatology, he suggests, might be thought of using the analogy of a “split screen” between the living (who are in time) and the dead (who are in timeless eternity). For the blessed, the resurrection is not future at all. Their story “came to its conclusion and was judged at the time of their death.”90 But from our point of view their resurrection is future, and we must think it so because we possess corpses.91 At the last judgment, “the temporal process comes to an end and all that is hidden in God is revealed.”92 In other words, the “split screen” becomes single and there are no longer two perspectives, one eternal and one temporal, but only the eternal perspective. This schema, Tugwell thinks, can help us avoid setting up false temporal relationships between time and eternity which are the source of many of the problems associated with both (nonatemporalistic) immediate resurrection and the traditional schema. On the one hand, the time lag between death and resurrection which the traditional schema is forced to explain is removed, being a time lag from our perspective only, not from the point of view of the blessed who are beyond time, and for whom nothing is future.93 On the other hand, problems for immediate resurrection arising from liturgy and piety concerning how a saint’s body can be both here and in heaven would appear to be neutralized; for such problems exist only if one assumes a temporal relationship between time and eternity. While it might be true that a person cannot have more than one body at the same time, there is no question of “the same time” between time and eternity,

88 89 90 91 92 93

Ibid., 164. Ibid. Ibid., 165. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 166.

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and so the issue does not have to arise. Prima facie, this schema would enable us to say in accordance with Christian piety that the dead are both in their tombs and in heaven. What is the potential here for an atemporalistic retort to the criticisms of those like Ratzinger, Hayes, Lane, and Prusak? As noted earlier, such a retort must, at the very least, be able to offer a satisfactory account of how the reality of ongoing salvation history can be reconciled with the view that this history as a whole is fulfilled in the world beyond death. Prima facie, Tugwell’s account suggests a way forward. Because the relation between time and eternity is not itself to be understood in temporal terms, the atemporalist can argue that, in reality, there is nothing here to reconcile. The supposed tension between a history which is both completed and continuing, between a history which is ongoing and a history which is consummated, is a tension which is only apparent, not real. Because of the total incommensurability of time and eternity, it makes no sense to talk of history being “simultaneously” completed and continuing.94 Such a way of speaking presupposes a temporal relationship between time and eternity which simply does not hold. The supposed contradiction which the atemporalist is challenged to resolve, therefore, is no contradiction at all. If this solution is satisfactory, then the charge that atemporalistic eschatologies exclude history from the redemption effected by God in Christ can perhaps be addressed (if only negatively). The view that if history is consummated “on the other side,” then what is experienced as history here has no need of consummation and so is condemned to moving on “into a meaningless eternity or sinking down into an equally meaningless nothingness”95 can be challenged (contra Ratzinger et  al.) as resting on the seemingly spurious temporal relationship between time and eternity identified above. For this inference assumes that if history is consummated “on the other side” then the consummation of history has “already” happened. It follows that what is experienced here as history must, in fact, be of no soteriological relevance. However, as explained above, the incommensurability of time and eternity make the application of a term like “already” misplaced here. Consequently, there is no reason to suppose that one cannot insist on both the genuine need for consummation of the historical process of which we are a part in this life and the reality of its consummation “on the other side” for 94 95

Contra Ratzinger (Eschatology, 111, 253). Ratzinger, Eschatology, 116.

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each individual at death. Rahner’s condition, that resurrection in death can be adopted as long as one’s formulation does not entail that the time scheme of world history can be eliminated from one’s theological statement,96 might thus be considered satisfied by this account.

The inadequacy of this response That such an understanding of the incommensurability of time and eternity can provide the foundation of an appropriate response to the criticisms of atemporalism is by no means established, however. It must be recalled that two further conditions had been identified for such a response to be deemed satisfactory. These were (i) the preservation of personal identity through death and resurrection and (ii) the ability to account adequately for the theology, liturgy, and piety associated with the communio sanctorum. It remains, therefore, to consider Tugwell’s schema in the light of these two requirements. First, the issue of the preservation of personal identity. Is it possible to avoid the apparent problem of holding both that we exist in statu viatoris and that we are risen in eternity by assuming that the tension here arises from a mistaken relation of simultaneity, which cannot in fact hold? Framing the question another way: are the predicates which seem to indicate incompatibility rendered compatible by supposing that a nontemporal relationship exists between X “in this life” and X “on the other side”? It would seem not. If by “X is risen in eternity” we mean that X exists atemporally, 97 then X simply cannot be identified with anything within history, for to exist within history is, by definition, to be temporal, and temporality and atemporality are mutually exclusive properties. Neither is the fact that the relation between time and eternity is itself nontemporal sufficient to confer compatibility on such predicates, for their incompatibility is not merely a consequence of relations that happen to hold between the subjects possessing them, but is intrinsic to the nature of the predicates themselves. Man’s essential temporality 98 would thus seem to preclude any thesis which would

96 97 98

Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115. Which Tugwell clearly means us to (see Human Immortality, 166). Ratzinger, Eschatology, 109; Kasper, “Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 382; Berkouwer, Return of Christ, 40–44; Yates, “Immediate or Intermediate?,” 316.

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conflate the individual and the collective aspects of eschatology in the manner outlined above. 99 The failure of Tugwell’s schema on these grounds makes evident that the initial condition specified for such a thesis (that of reconciling continuing history with the fact of its consummation) cannot have been satisfied, in spite of first impressions to the contrary; for the reasons why this schema cannot preserve human identity clearly also count against it as offering a model which could ensure the preservation of historical realism and the place of cosmic consummation in Christian soteriology. That the conflation of the eternity in which the dead participate with God’s own timelessness involves a departure from the genuine possibility of historical and cosmic fulfillment is in fact implied by things Rahner says himself in his earlier essay on the dogma of the Blessed Virgin’s Assumption.100 Here he argues that to speak of ourselves and our world as being transformed, and not merely replaced, entails a genuine ontological continuity between this world and the world brought about by Christ’s resurrection and ascension.101 But it is precisely this “radical” and “necessary” connection between the old and the new creation which ensures that it remains meaningful to apply temporal language to eschatological realities, and to say, for example (as scripture does), that one man (Christ) has already risen, while others have yet to rise,102 and we can do this without thereby projecting categories applicable only in this world to the world “beyond.”103 Like Kasper, Rahner here sees the eternity in glory of the earthly as “a fruit of time and history itself ” and salvation history as a transformation of the temporal, rather than its cessation.104 Because that which is glorified “retains a real connexion with the unglorified world, it belongs inseparably to a single, ultimately indivisible world,” and an occurrence of glorification “possesses objectively its determinate place in this world’s time, even if this point in time

99

Any attempt to avoid Ratzinger’s second objection against atemporalism (that it threatens anthropological realism) (see Ratzinger, Eschatology, 109–10), by trying somehow to hold together both the reality of human life in this world with the reality of eternally risen human beings “on the other side” of death seems inevitably to fall foul of his first objection: that the implied transposition of that which is temporal into a timeless eternity undermines any attempt meaningfully to affirm an ontological connection amounting to identity between them (see ibid., 109). 100 Rahner, “Dogma of the Assumption,” 215–27. 101 Ibid., 223. 102 Ibid., 223–24. 103 Ibid., 223. 104 Ibid., 224.

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marks precisely the point at which a portion of this world ceases to endure time itself.”105 On the other hand, temporal statements cannot be applied in any way to God’s own eternity, for this is equally and immediately near to every point in time. Thus, in order to affirm the transformation of the world in Christian soteriology and eschatology coherently, we are compelled to maintain the distinction between the eternity in glory of the earthly, on the one hand, from God’s own eternity, on the other. In defense of atemporalism, and contra Ratzinger et al., it was hypothesized that seemingly contrary attributes (such as “in statu viatoris” and “consummated”) could in fact be predicated of the same subject precisely because the incommensurability of time and eternity made the application of temporal terms like “already” or “simultaneously” irrelevant, thereby revealing Ratzinger’s supposed tension to be apparent, rather than real. It now seems as if this is not so: whatever the nature of the relation between time and the eternity of creatures, it cannot be such as to render all talk of temporal relations meaningless, and so cannot serve to permit the ascription of such contrary attributes to a subject. Having said this, it is nevertheless important to emphasize that in falsifying this hypothesis, one does not thereby imply that cosmic time and the eternity of glorified creatures are commensurable. That would be to commit to a type of monism (to use Kasper’s terminology) regarding time and eternity. As both Kasper and Rahner intimate, the transformation of the temporal order implied by Christian eschatology requires that one cannot treat time and eternity univocally, applying precisely the same temporal categories used of this life to the eternity of glorified creatures. However, as Kasper has also indicated, to say only that time and eternity are “incongruent,” while indicating a certain truth, is too purely negative a formulation to be adequate. Unless suitably qualified (as Kasper does through the concept of analogy) such a formulation remains susceptible to the sort of dualistic interpretation criticized here in spite of the fact that incongruence (or incommensurability) per se implies nothing which can be used in the manner in which Tugwell suggests. It is the ontological and causal connections necessary to ensure numerical identity of the creatures from pilgrim state to their state of glorification (or otherwise) which preclude the sort of incongruence presupposed by Tugwell’s schema and make possible the temporal language employed by advocates of the traditional schema, while the transformation implied by glorification (or 105

Ibid. (emphases added).

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even simple removal from the physical universe) ensures that the respective temporalities of those who are in statu viatoris and those in the interim state retain a degree of distinctiveness which precludes naïve ascriptions of commensurability. Tugwell’s hypothesis of the “split screen” as a way of allowing us to ascribe incompatible predicates to the dead under a demand from liturgy and popular piety would seem, in the end, to lead to serious philosophical and theological difficulties. However the liturgical rubrics and pious practices associated with the blessed dead are to be understood, it cannot be so as to imply the sort of anthropological and soteriological confusion diagnosed here.106 Having examined the cogency of this schema from an anthropological/ historical perspective, it remains to consider its implications for the church’s understanding of the nature and action of the communio sanctorum. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the saints in heaven intercede for their brothers and sisters who are in statu viatoris,107 and the latter are encouraged to venerate the saints and invoke their aid.108 But how can one make sense of these de fide teachings within a dualistic schema such as Tugwell’s? If, from the perspective of the saints in heaven, history is complete, there is no one who for them is in statu viatoris, and so no one for whom they could ever intercede. If, from their perspective, it is not the case that history is complete then they simply cannot be in a timeless eternity. From the perspective of those in statu viatoris, history is not yet complete and so it might seem to make sense for them to invoke the aid of the saints. However, it is hard to see how to account for the meaning of such an invocation in a manner which does not constitute a substantial departure from the teaching and practices of the church. If, for the saints, no one is in this pilgrim state, then invoking their assistance would appear to be fruitless, and one would seem compelled to interpret such prayers in a reductionist fashion: as no more than signs of faith in God on the part of the living (for example) rather than anything genuinely interpersonal and efficacious.

106

An attempt to deal with such difficulties from within the framework of the traditional schema will be made in Chapter 5. 107 See Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, para. 49; CCC, para. 956. 108 General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on the Invocation, the Veneration, and the Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images (ND, para. 1255); Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 318–19; CCC, para. 2683.

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Addressing Rahner’s problematic concerning postmortem temporality As weighty as these arguments against postmortem atemporalism might be, it has already been noted that in this element of the debate, there is a significant “dialogical lacuna.” A completely satisfactory refutation of atemporalism requires that Karl Rahner’s problematic concerning postmortem temporality is convincingly addressed. In Volume 17 of the Theological Investigations, Rahner expresses the view that the intermediate state is subject to “considerable intellectual difficulties,” difficulties which are “above all those which are related to the question of ‘time’ ‘after’ death.”109 He begins his exposition of these difficulties by asking the question: How are we to think of time and the temporality of a departed soul, if on the one hand the soul is already with God in its perfected state, but on the other hand has “to wait” for the reassumption of its function towards its own body.110

The difficulty identified here seems to focus on those philosophical and theological problems associated with reconciling beatitude with ontological incompleteness, problems emphasized in the Catholic debate particularly by Michael Schmaus and Simon Tugwell.111 Because postmortem time is seen to generate these difficulties, Rahner seems to be suggesting, it is a concept which should be abandoned. Immediately after this, though, he seems to broaden the problematic, suggesting that there are more foundational difficulties with the concept than just this. Criticizing the concept of aevum as a mythological obfuscation of the radical difference between time, “which has freedom as its very essence,” and “the final consummation of the history of freedom,” which can then “no longer be thought of in terms of time at all,”112 Rahner challenges the nonatemporalist to explain why, in a temporal postmortem state such as an aevum, free history would no longer be possible.113 Rahner’s argument here is complex. In order to make systematic analysis as straightforward as possible, it will help first to make explicit its form. As an 109

Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 118. Ibid. 111 Schmaus, Last Things, 197; Tugwell, Human Immortality, 142–55, 164. Certainly Peter Phan interprets him thus (see Responses, 65). 112 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119. 113 Rahner takes aevum here to signify a state of “duration of a finite but completed substance, no longer possessing a free history of its own” (ibid., emphases added). 110

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argument which has as its conclusion the impossibility of postmortem time, the form would seem to be as follows: If there is time after death then, after death, free history would be possible114 After death, free history is no longer possible115 Therefore, there is no time after death

Prima facie, this argument is valid (modus tollendo tollens). However, to ensure that we avoid invalidity through equivocation, care must be taken that the key term “free history” is ascribed an identical meaning in each premise. So what precisely is meant by “free history” here? Starting with Premise (ii): the most obvious meaning—the meaning suggested by the phrase itself, the underlying reason for this premise, and Rahner’s implicit challenge to proponents of aevum (i.e., nonatemporalists)—is the state of being viatores, the state wherein the exercise of freedom contributes to the eternity of the creature, wherein freedom can result in either damnation or justification, wherein the faithful can earn merit, and so on. If this is the meaning, then from the point of view of orthodox Catholic theology, this premise is clearly true, for the church holds that with death all these possibilities cease to be.116 However, if we ascribe this meaning to the term as it occurs in Premise (i), the truth of this major premise is not so obvious: that postmortem temporality implies the possibility that souls continue in statu viatoris after death. On the basis of Rahner’s rather brief presentation of the relevant issues here, this could not be urged without begging the question. Even if one accepts without question the underlying reason for this premise (that human temporality implies freedom) there seems no clear reason why “freedom” here needs to be understood exclusively as something which is exercised in the state of being viatores. It is not immediately obvious, in other words, why there should not be other sorts of free acts exercised by souls after death, why, in Rahner’s terminology, “the final consummation of the history of freedom” (understood in the sense defined here) should imply the complete cessation of time. For the atemporalist problematic to retain potency, therefore, it would seem as if some further argument is needed to support this inference. One apparent difficulty with reconciling the idea of a “finite but completed substance”117 with the continuation of “free acts” concerns the nature of the 114

For temporal existence is characterized by freedom, having the latter as its very essence. For at death the history of freedom is consummated and comes to an end. 116 Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 474–75. 117 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119. 115

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beatitude which constitutes the “completion” of the finite substance. The problem here is that because, in the beatific vision, the soul now possesses the perfect good, there would appear to be nothing left to be the object of free willing. The will has always been able to turn away from a particular good, because as particular it could be perceived as lacking good in some respect. But why should the blessed, who see the perfect good, will one that is imperfect?118

Consummation, in other words, would seem to entail not only the cessation of the state of being viatores, and the sorts of free acts which that involves, but the cessation of all free acts, there now being no need of free choices. For Aquinas,119 choice is associated with the ways and means to attain one’s end, “but when the ultimate end is already attained, what need can there be for a free choice of ways to an end?”120 The beatific vision, therefore, would appear to preclude the possibility of volitional plurality and, thus, temporality for the blessed. The  traditional teaching concerning the nature and role of the communio sanctorum would seem, however, to be in tension with such a conclusion. One might retort that while the blessed have indeed attained their end and perfect good, and so are without desire for further ends and goods,121 nevertheless they, like the angels, have a share in divine providence, helping to guide those in statu viatoris to their own beatitude.122 Such a response, however, merely begs the question; for it remains unexplained why the blessed would be moved so to act; for there can be no end in view of which they can act, possessing already their perfect good and final end. If acts freely willed are only done so as to attain an end, then the possession of the beatific vision ensures that such acts are not possible in heaven.123 In response to this objection, it might be asked whether it is true that “acts freely willed are only done so as to attain an end.” Certainly, for Aquinas, while all creatures always act in view of an end, it is not the case that they always act so as to obtain an end; there is also acting to share a good which one possesses with others. So, while in the blessed there remain acts directed to ends, these 118

Gaine, Freewill in Heaven, 128. See ST I–II 13.3. 120 Gaine, Freewill in Heaven, 128. 121 Ibid., 130. 122 Ibid., 131. 123 Ibid. 119

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are not oriented to the possession of some good; for they no longer spring from desire (which would imply a lack, an unfulfilled need), but precisely from the attainment of the final end and perfect good. Such acts include the praise of God, which proceeds from the attainment of the beatific vision, and the assistance of those in statu viatoris through prayer.124 The context in which Aquinas discusses this is illuminating, for it is during his consideration of how God, who is an agent totally fulfilled by an end possessed (himself, the supreme good), wills things apart from himself: If God’s own goodness suffices for him and completely satisfies his will, he would surely seek nothing further and so would will nothing apart from himself.125

Aquinas starts his examination of this problem with the previous observation about creatures who not only pursue an end in order to attain it, but having attained it, rest in it and spread it abroad to others. In this, he argues, they imperfectly reflect the divine will that created them, “which never has need to pursue any unattained good, to share its always possessed supreme goodness.”126 While God’s willing of things other than himself is, like ours, always directed to some end, it is never, unlike our willing of things, directed at attaining an end, but is always the willing of ways to share that end. Being in perfect possession of his end, God wills to communicate that goodness by the free creation of creatures. He never acts to attain an end, but only to share his perfect goodness.127

It is in the light of this understanding of divine free will that the free acts of the blessed are to be understood. Now that they share in God’s own beatitude, the blessed, like God, have no needs and desires, and thus no longer act so as to attain any ends. Rather, like God, they act only to share the perfection they possess. By grace, their freedom has become a sharing in the freedom of God himself and their acts are characterized by an analogous gratuity. Given this analysis, it is hard to see a compelling reason why one should accept the mutual exclusivity of the consummation of free history, on the one hand, and postmortem free acts, on the other; why “free acts” should be restricted, in other words, to the state of being viatores. Rahner’s challenge to 124

Ibid., 131–32; see ST II–II 52.3, esp. obj. 1 & ad 1. Gaine, Freewill in Heaven, 132; see ST I 19. 126 Gaine, Freewill in Heaven, 132. 127 Ibid., 134. 125

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the nonatemporalist, to explain why, in a temporal postmortem state such as an aevum, free history would be no longer possible can readily be addressed within this framework. If “free history” is understood here as that which characterizes the “pilgrim state” (which seems likely) then it ceases in the aevum because the souls of the blessed now possess their ultimate end, the supreme good, and the free choice of ways to attain this end can, therefore, no longer remain. If “free history” is understood here, on the other hand, as “continuing free human acts” then Rahner’s challenge is redundant, for such acts can be accounted for precisely in the manner described above.128 While it would seem that Rahner’s attempt to oppose temporality and the consummation of the history of freedom per se is less than convincing,129 it remains a possibility for those sympathetic to his view to insist that, nevertheless, the temporality associated with the traditional schema must still be abandoned: the consummation implied by beatitude being in irresolvable tension with the anima separata which is forma corporis. One can return, in other words, to Rahner’s opening dilemma in his critique of postmortem temporality, leaving behind the more global attempt to discredit the idea which has just been examined. For Rahner, the difficulty here is how we are to think of time and the temporality of a departed soul “if on the one hand the soul is already with God in its perfected state, but on the other hand has ‘to wait’ for the reassumption of its function towards its own body?”130 The difficulty concerns, in other words, not a supposed tension between freedom’s consummation and its continued exercise, but rather the tension between the reality of postmortem consummation and ontological incompleteness. Thus, while it may indeed be possible for a soul lacking any further desires to act, the issue which still needs resolving is how it is possible for the disembodied soul to lack all desires,

128

A further problem, of course, is that Rahner appears to restrict his analysis of postmortem temporality to the blessed. If the damned and those in a state of purgation are included, his position seems even more obviously flawed. Although not in statu viatoris, the state of the souls in purgatory is characterized by change and transformation, and can, therefore, in no way be atemporal. As for the damned (should they exist), while their will is immutable, their history of freedom can in no way be described as “consummated.” For them, death is an end, but it is not a conclusion. It is a state characterized by the “insatiability of wrong desires.” It is the “apotheosis of frustration, going on and on and on, without ever reaching any sort of consummation, in such a way that nothing can really count as success” (Tugwell, Human Immortality, 170). 129 Foundering, as it would seem to on an equivocation between “free history” (denoting acts in statu viatoris) and “free acts/choices” (encompassing human activity both in statu viatoris and in beatitude). 130 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 118.

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sundered as it is from the body? Two options are open for the proponent of the traditional schema. The first is to deny that such desire/longing exists in the anima separata, that beatitude precludes such longing and so the soul does not yearn to be reunited with its body. The second is to admit the presence of such desire/longing but to attempt nonetheless to reconcile this with the experience of the beatific vision. The problem with the first option is that it would seem to threaten genuine human unity and render the general resurrection rather superfluous. The problem with the second option is that it preserves these things, but at the expense seemingly of compromising the degree of beatitude implied by an unmediated vision of the divine essence, something which hardly seems to make sense. It was noted in Chapter 1 that this issue remains, albeit in a modified form, between the two main types of resurrection in death offered as alternatives to the traditional schema. For while some proponents of nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection present their own schema as a means of ensuring that the traditional model’s apparent marginalization of bodily resurrection and its consequent compromising of man’s ontological unity are avoided,131 in allowing that beatitude is possible for the immediately resurrected individual, they are still nevertheless faced with having to explain how those events associated with the Parousia are to retain eschatological significance. Paraphrasing Rahner’s initial dilemma to reflect this: “if on the one hand the whole person is already with God in his/her perfected state, but on the other hand has ‘to wait’ for the reassumption of all its social relationships and its place within a glorified cosmos,” the question might be asked: is this more or less easily resolved than Rahner’s own formulation? Given the commitment of thinkers like Lane to the view that our essential relationality precludes total consummation for the individual in death,132 such a question is of prime importance in the debate. Like their traditionalist counterparts, however, proponents of nonatemporalistic resurrection in death seem to offer nothing more than assertions that these things do in some way complete or enhance that which occurs for the individual in death.133

131

For example, Schmaus, Last Things, 196–98, 215–16; van der Walle, From Darkness, 157, 170; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 151–54. 132 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154, 158–62. 133 For example, Boros, Living in Hope, 39; “Has Life a Meaning?,” 18; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 304–19; Schmaus, Last Things, 198–99, 206–16, van der Walle, From Darkness, 193–200; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154, 158–62.

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Thinkers like Ratzinger, Pozo, Kasper, Hayes, Lane, and Prusak offer a robust challenge to atemporalistic formulations of resurrection in death. However, the failure of such thinkers systematically to address questions like the ones above leaves key elements of the problematic which gave rise to such formulations unresolved. While atemporalistic versions of resurrection in death would seem not to be tenable (for all the reasons given here), any theology of the intermediate state (embodied or otherwise) must, to be complete, provide a convincing account of how the tension between beatitude and ontological incompleteness is apparent rather than real. Also requiring systematic treatment by opponents of atemporalism are Simon Tugwell’s points concerning piety, prayer, and the popular Christian imagination, which atemporalism seemed initially to be able to resolve. Unless nonatemporalism can provide some theological foundation for holistic ways of speaking about the dead both in the next world and in their tombs on earth, or for explaining why this is not necessary in a way which is not destructive of legitimate popular religious sentiment, then atemporalism may remain a temptation for theologians wishing to harmonize their science with the devotions of the faithful. The exploration of both these issues will take place in Chapter 5 when the various schemata are critically compared in the light of their respective philosophical and theological implications.

Postmortem atemporalism and purgatory It remains now to consider the issues under discussion in the light of the doctrines of purgatory and prayers and suffrages for the dead. In its usual formulation, the thesis of atemporalism would seem to imply that a postmortem purgatory is not possible; for if at death I enter the last day and the general resurrection has already taken place, then the logical space for such an interim phase would appear to have been lost. If the single and total perfecting of man occurs immediately after death, particular and general judgments coinciding,134 then it would seem as if purgatory must be either dropped altogether or recast in a manner which implies no interim state.

134

See Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 115.

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Certainly, Catholic thinkers prepared to countenance atemporalism have tended to “locate” purgation in death itself as one aspect of the individual’s encounter with God,135 a solution seemingly made possible by a contemporary tendency to purge the concept of juridical overtones136 and to understand it rather in terms of purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment, healing and sanctifying consummation, maturation, integration, and inward development.137 Given the apparent entailment from atemporalism to purgation in death, any arguments carrying force against the latter would strengthen the already considerable case against the former. The first issue to consider here, therefore, is the cogency or otherwise of the proposed understanding of purgatory as something restricted to the moment of death itself.

The nature of purgation in death A sustained, and in many ways paradigmatic, account of purgation in death is that given by Ladislaus Boros in The Moment of Truth: Mysterium Mortis (1962). Here, purgatory is understood as a purifying encounter with Christ in death, a painful process of integration wherein the love of God flares up and engulfs the accumulated layers of self-seeking and egoism in the individual.138 It is in these terms that satispassio, the pain associated with “satisfaction for the debt of temporal punishment” which constitutes the essence of the doctrine of purgatory, is to be understood.139 Purgatorial suffering is thus intrinsically linked with, and directly proportional to, the condition of the individual soul, and the “solidity” of the layers of egoism which encrust it.140 Conceived in this manner, purgatory can—he thinks—be understood as an instantaneous event, varying in intensity rather than duration (as in the traditional postmortem schema) and taking place in death itself.141 In essence, this is the understanding of the 135

For example, Lohfink, cited at Hayes, Visions of a Future, 118–19; Kung, Eternal Life?, 171–72; Müller, “Purgatory,” 33; Phan, “Current Theology,” 519; Responses, 70–71. 136 See, for example, Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 169; Rahner, “Purgatory,” 187; van der Walle, From Darkness, 208–10; Hayes, Visions of a Future, 113–16; Phan, “Current Theology,” 519; Responses, 70. 137 See, for example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 208–10; Kung, Eternal Life?, 169–72; Rahner, “Purgatory,” 187; Sachs, “Resurrection or Reincarnation?,” 82–83; Phan, “Current Theology,” 519; Responses, 70–71. 138 Boros, The Moment of Truth, 135–36, 139, 168; see also “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 169–70; Living in Hope, 33; We Are Future, 152–53. 139 Boros, The Moment of Truth, 129, 133, 136. 140 Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 170; Living in Hope, 33. 141 Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 169–70; We Are Future, 149.

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doctrine possessed by many of those who espouse some form of resurrection in death.142

Challenges to purgation in death Official statements relating to this thesis are few. It has been noted143 that the CDF, in its 1979 statement Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology, does seem to leave a logical space for understanding purgatory in this manner, stating only that the church “believes in the possibility of a purification for the elect before they see God.”144 However, it would be precipitate to assume that the thesis of purgation in death has thus been permitted, for elsewhere the document identifies the following as a governing principle for eschatological speculation: The Church excludes every way of thinking or speaking that would render meaningless or unintelligible her prayers, her funeral rites and the religious acts offered for the dead. All these are, in their substance, loci theologici.145

Purgation in death can be affirmed by Catholic theologians, therefore, only provided the conditions implied here can be satisfied. The ITC is less tentative, citing in support of the doctrine of purgatory the CDF’s statement above, but interpreting this strictly in the light of what it takes to be the Council of Trent’s teaching concerning “a post mortem purificatory phase,”146 a teaching it clearly views as being implied by the practice of praying for the dead147 and as establishing “an intermediate eschatological stage.”148 However, the ITC document does not go beyond this citation from Trent plus the assertion that prayers for the dead demonstrate the truth of its literal interpretation. The ITC would seem to assume, therefore, that the conditions specified in the CDF document for legitimate speculation concerning purgation can be satisfied by a postmortem purificatory phase only. Given

142

Both those inclining toward atemporalist models (such as Lohfink, Kung, Rahner, and Phan) and those favoring nonatemporalistic versions of the thesis (such as Boros, Greshake, the Dutch Catechism, van der Walle, and Lane). 143 By, for example, Peter Phan (see Eternity in Time, 133). 144 CDF, point 7 (emphasis added). 145 Ibid., 4. 146 ITC, para. 8.1 (emphasis added); see General Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, Canon 30 (ND, para. 1980). 147 See ITC, paras 7.3, 8.1. 148 Ibid., 8.1.

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the number of Catholic theologians favorable toward purgation in death, a pressing need in the debate, therefore, is some form of demonstration of the impossibility (or otherwise) of maintaining purgation in death in conjunction with an intelligible account of the church’s liturgy and piety concerning those of the faithful who have died.

The problem of retroactivity The first sort of challenge which can be made to the view that purgation in death can be held along with the church’s lex orandi is that the new thesis forces us to reinterpret prayers for the dead as prayers for the dying and to provide, therefore, both a coherent account of the implied retroactivity of prayer, on the one hand, with an account of the effect of such prayers, on the other. Concerning retroactivity, the issue here would seem to be that of how prayers said after someone’s death can assist them when they are in extremis, seemingly arriving “too late” to be of any help. Boros asks in this connection whether attempts to place purgation in death might not thus “deprive the devotion to the Holy Souls of all its real basis?”149 However, he goes on to formulate a response which draws analogies with other pious practices and offers a theological rationale rooted in God’s own relation to time. First, he observes that popular piety shows itself to be unaffected by such problems of asynchrony, citing as an example the widespread “Holy Hour” devotions to the Sacred Heart whereby the faithful console Christ in his hour of passion.150 He then proceeds to ground such practices theologically by arguing that, for God, all is present and so, for him, the prayers of the faithful (whenever they are offered) and the event for which they are offered (whenever that is) are simultaneous. As far as suffrages and prayers for the dead are concerned, therefore, because God is present to every moment, these can indeed be with the dying. For him our prayer and the death of the person for whom we are praying coincide; for him, the human being whom we love … is dying at the moment when we are praying for him.151

Karl Rahner similarly defends the possibility of accounting for suffrages and prayers for the dead, on the one hand, with purgation in death, on the other, by observing that the faithful recognize the appropriateness of continuing to pray 149

Boros, Moment of Truth, 191n93. Ibid.; “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 170. 151 Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 170.

150

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for the deceased without knowing whether or not they are “still” in purgatory.152 Given this, he thinks, it cannot be unreasonable to relate such intercessions to the occurrence of death itself, “no matter when precisely in our earthly time these prayers were said.”153 He grounds the possibility of such an interpretation Christologically by noting that Jesus’s prayer on the cross was meaningful for those who had lived and died before him.154

The problem of the purpose of prayers and suffrages for the dead From the perspective of the implied retroaction of prayer, therefore, the lex orandi, far from posing a challenge to purgation in death, seems instead to offer it support. However, the real difficulties for purgation in death emerge once we try to explain the supposed purpose or effect of these prayers for the dead (which are now to be understood as “prayers for the dying”). Fortman, for example, casts doubt on the possibility of reconciling magisterial statements concerning the meaning of these prayers and suffrages with instantaneous purgation at the moment of death.155 The essence of his objection to a scenario like that envisaged by Boros et al. is that magisterial statements concerning prayers and suffrages for the dead affirm that their function is the alleviation of purgatorial suffering,156 and yet the theory of instantaneous purgation would seem not to be able to accommodate such a possibility. As Fortman expresses it: How can the suffrages of the faithful be of any help in relieving such instantaneous punishment? How can they affect the burning gaze of Christ? Traditionally, these suffrages were considered to somehow shorten the “duration” of purgatorial punishments. But if each one’s purgatory is over in an instant, how can our suffrages, our prayers, our Masses, help in any way to shorten or relieve these instantaneous punishments?157

152

Rahner, “Purgatory,” 186–87. Ibid., 187. 154 Ibid. 155 Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 137–38. 156 Ibid., 137–40; Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2308). 157 Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 137–38. Fortman’s own explanation of the effect of prayers and suffrages is that they alleviate the Holy Souls’ suffering by assisting their cooperation with divine charity, intensifying—and thus accelerating—the necessary process of purification (ibid., 140). Rahner expresses a similar view in his essay “Remarks on the Theology of Indulgences” (see 198). 153

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Given these difficulties, it is perhaps unsurprising that proponents of purgation in death are often vague or reductionist when explaining the meaning of prayers and suffrages for the dying. For example, the Dutch Catechism, interpreting purgatory as a process which occurs in, rather than after, death, implies that prayers for the dying are prayers of supplication to God on their behalf, offered because even those dying in a state of grace need to be cleansed of their “ingrained egoism.”158 However, it avoids the all-important issue of how these prayers assist with this process. Viewing a postmortem purgatory as a later cultural accretion, it urges a return to the “soberness of Christian antiquity” and the association of purgatory with death; but in attempting to ground this scripturally (using 2 Macc. 12:43-46) it assigns only a subjective function to prayers for the dead/dying, reducing them to a sign of faith on the part of the living159 in spite of also clearly implying that the dying have a genuine need for them (see above). The Catechism’s exegesis of this scriptural text is revealingly selective: while v. 43 indeed supports its view that prayers for the dead are a sign of faith in the resurrection, both this verse and the previous verse (v. 42) also make clear that they are deemed efficacious and expiatory, offered in order to “blot out” the sins of the dead. The Catechism’s lack of serious engagement with this latter idea would seem to be indicative of the difficulties of accounting for suffrages within the framework of purgation in death. In a similar vein, Hans Kung, consistent with his atemporalism, rejects traditional conceptions of the meaning of prayers for, with, and to the dead. He does, however, attempt to preserve a meaning for the piety associated with human death, asserting that it is certainly appropriate to pray for the dying, while reverently and lovingly keeping alive the memory of those who have died, commending them to God’s mercy, in the living hope that the dead are finally with God. Requiescant in pace! May they rest in peace.160

Thus, he manages to specify a subjective function of prayers for the dead (keeping their memory alive) while being vague about the objective meaning of such prayers, (saying no more than that these constitute a commendation of the dead/dying to the divine mercy, rooted in our hope for them). Kung’s

158

Dutch Catechism, 476. Ibid., 477. 160 Kung, Eternal Life?, 172–73. 159

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reticence to suggest the manner in which prayers for the dying influence or affect purgation might be explained in the light of his avowed agnosticism concerning the nature of this purgation. For Kung, to conceive of purgatory as an element of our dying into the dimensions of God “where space and time are dissolved into eternity” precludes speculation concerning not only the place and time of purgation but also its character as “purifying, sanctifying consummation.”161 Whatever the merits of this as an explanation of Kung’s silence concerning the efficacy of suffrages, as a justification of such silence it is unconvincing and constitutes a rather selective application of theological agnosticism. If one can meaningfully characterize purgation, as Kung does, as a “purifying, sanctifying consummation,”162 and as a meeting of the unfinished person, “still immature in his love, with the holy, infinite, loving God; an encounter which is profoundly humiliating, painful and therefore purifying,”163 then it is far from clear why nothing meaningful might be said about how suffrages assist the individual soul in this process. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the vagueness which surrounds suffrages for the dead in such accounts is unavoidable, a consequence of the attempt to hold together the relation between lex orandi and lex credendi, on the one hand, with the rejection of a postmortem purificatory state, on the other.164 Ladislaus Boros is aware of the problem and responds with a solution focused on his hypothesis of a final decision in death. Suffrages and prayers for the dead, he suggests, assist the dying by sustaining them in this, the greatest decision of

161

Ibid., 172. Ibid. 163 Ibid., citing Greshake. 164 Certainly Ratzinger draws such a conclusion. For him, Kung’s rejection of the traditional understanding of “praying for the dead,” on the one hand, and his attempt to retain a “modest place” for such intercessory prayer, on the other, exposes the “internal contradictoriness of this position” (Ratzinger, Eschatology, 263). Other advocates of purgation in death who fail to be explicit about the function of prayers for the dead/dying include Monica Hellwig (see What Are They Saying About Christian Hope?, 29), Anton van der Walle, (see From Darkness, 211), and Karl Rahner (see “Purgatory,” 186–87). Peter Phan interprets Rahner’s suggestion that suffrages and prayers for the dead might relate to the moment of death itself in terms of “retroactive prayers for their holy deaths” (Phan, Eternity in Time, 133), but calls such an account into question, suggesting that they might be better understood instead “as prayers for the second coming of the Lord (Rev. 22:17)” (ibid.). His reasoning is obscure here. It is not at all clear why interpreting Christ’s prayers for the dead as prayers for them “to rise” (ibid.), and thus our own as prayers for the Parousia, might be a preferable option to understanding them in retroactive terms, particularly as within the atemporalistic framework being considered by Rahner and Phan at this stage, the dead are in any case risen into the last day and Christ’s second coming. Later, when characterizing purgatory as “a process occurring in the moment of death” (Responses, 70) and as implied by the church’s practice of praying for the dead (ibid., 69), Phan makes no attempt whatsoever to explain the possible meaning or function of these practices (ibid., 68–71). 162

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their lives,165 and by rendering it easier for them to make.166 The cogency of such an account clearly depends on the acceptability of this hypothesis of “the final decision,” a not unproblematic concept called into serious question by some theologians.167 However, even if we prescind from this broader issue, there would seem to be good reasons for doubting whether such an apologia is adequate. If the purpose of prayers and suffrages for the dead is the alleviation of their suffering, and if these prayers work by in some sense assisting with the “final decision” of those in extremis, then it would appear to follow that the degree or intensity of purgatorial suffering must be intrinsically related to the nature of this final decision. The problem here is that Boros makes clear that the intensity of this suffering is related rather to the hardness and solidity of the accumulated layers of self-seeking and egoism, the reliquiae peccati in the individual soul.168 The final decision in death, on the other hand, is simply a decision made either for or against God.169 It is when the final decision is made for God in death by a soul still requiring purification that the divine fire works to destroy the accumulated layers of selfishness encrusting it, a process which is more or less painful according to the condition of the soul in this regard.170 In trying to find a function for prayers for the dead at the point of the “final decision,” Boros would seem to be conflating purgation and its associated suffering, on the one hand, with the personal act which makes purgation possible, on the other. It would of course be logically possible for a proponent of purgation in death to accept Boros’s understanding of purgatorial suffering as intrinsically related to the state of the individual soul as it encounters the divine presence, and also to retain his view of prayers and suffrages for the dying as related to the “final decision.” However, this could be done only by denying the main premise above: that the purpose of prayers and suffrages for the dead is the alleviation of their purgatorial suffering. Against the counter objection that the Second General Council of Lyons and the General Council of Florence171 characterize

165

Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 170–71. Ibid., 170. 167 For example, Ratzinger (Eschatology, 207–9), who calls into question its continuity with tradition, its empirical credibility, and, more fundamentally, its denigration of human freedom through implicit, unwarranted comparison with that exercised by angels. 168 Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 170; Living in Hope, 33. 169 See Boros, “Death: A Theological Reflection,” 163, 166. 170 Boros, Moment of Truth, 136. 171 Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2308). 166

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the function of such practices in terms of “the alleviation of suffering,” it might be urged that Trent says no more than that the Holy Souls are “helped by the acts of intercession (suffragia) of the faithful”172 without defining this assistance in terms of the relief of suffering, and that this might serve as the hermeneutic for interpreting earlier definitions, helping perhaps to identify the essential core of the doctrine in distinction from what Rahner and Phan might term “cultural amalgams.” Given this, it could be argued, it would be a legitimate development in our understanding of suffrages that their function is solely to assist the dying to make their final decision a decision for, rather than against, God. The problem with this interpretation is that it would seem that in it the doctrine of suffrages has changed in essence and not only per accidens. For while Trent is unspecific about the precise nature of the assistance given to the Holy Souls through the suffrages of the faithful, it is nevertheless clear that it is the Holy Souls who are helped, that is, those who, in Boros’s terms, have already made their final decision for God, those who are experiencing purgation (“detained” in purgatory to use Trent’s own language). Prayers for the Holy Souls, in other words, are prayers which are of benefit to “the saved”: those belonging to Lumen Gentium’s second category of Christ’s disciples who, awaiting the Parousia, “have died and are being purified”;173 those who, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “die in God”s grace and friendship … assured of their eternal salvation”;174 those undergoing the “final purification of the elect.”175 While it might be legitimate to believe that the efficacy of such prayers is not restricted to influencing the nature of a postmortem purificatory process, assisting also perhaps in the fundamental decisions made by individuals at death,176 to insist that the former effect be reduced to the latter seems a 172

General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on Purgatory (ND, para. 2310) (emphasis added). 173 Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, para. 49 (emphases added); see also CCC, paras 1030–31, 1471–73. 174 CCC, para. 1030 (emphases added). 175 Ibid., 1031 (emphasis added). 176 Thus, to pray “Eternal Rest grant unto him/her O Lord” is not necessarily to presume that the one prayed for has been saved. As noted already in the discussion on retroactivity, one can still view prayer as meaningful for an individual without claiming to know their state. For a soul dying outside a state of grace, such a prayer might indeed be answered in terms of the grace of final repentance, the first condition for them of obtaining “eternal rest.” It is valuable to note in this connection that both old and new liturgies for the dead include not only prayers that the faithful departed may be enabled to come into the presence of the Lord, but that the dead person/s be spared damnation, dying in such a manner that they will be saved (see Conrad, “Complaining to God or Soothing the Grief? The Old and New Liturgies of the Dead Compared” [paper presented to the Association for Latin Liturgy, Holy Cross Priory, Leicester, UK, October 2002]).

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substantial departure from, and not only a re-expression of, a teaching of the faith, an arbitrary conflating of one pious practice (prayers for the “faithful departed”177) with a subcategory of another, equally legitimate, one (prayers that all souls are saved).178 This attempt to avoid the vagueness or subjectivity of interpretations like that of Kung or the Dutch Catechism would seem, therefore, to be a departure from, rather than a genuine development of, Catholic doctrine and practice.

The anthropological objection to purgation in death The second sort of challenge which can be made to the view that purgation in death can be held by a Catholic theologian focuses less on the efficacy of suffrages and more on what we might broadly term “anthropological considerations.” Thus, for Fortman, the destruction of all our defects in an instant, rather than gradually, would “seem to do psychological violence to man’s nature and personality, and man would passively undergo this ‘burning.’”179 For Schmaus, that the soul could have the degree of self-possession necessary for it to surrender itself to God in an instant is not something which is demonstrable. The intensity of its self-possession would depend on the degree of divine illumination granted to it and as such it stands outside what has been revealed to us.180 The proponent of purgation in death could respond to this objection in a number of ways. Concerning Schmaus’s first point, it might be urged that purgation in death does not need the requisite degree of the soul’s selfpossession to be demonstrable, only logically possible. Regarding his second

177

See The Divine Office: Concluding Prayer for the Feast of All Souls; Sixth Intercessory Prayer for Lauds of the Office of the Dead; Second Intercessory Prayer for Vespers of the Office of the Dead (emphasis added). Other examples of prayers for the Holy Souls in the Liturgy of the Hours include Hymn for Lauds of the Office of the Dead; Hymn for Vespers of the Office of the Dead; Fifth Intercessory Prayer for Lauds of the Office of the Dead; Sixth Intercessory Prayer for Vespers of the Office of the Dead; Sixth Intercessory Prayer for Vespers of Monday Week 1. 178 For example, the “Fatima Prayer” which has been an integral part of the Rosary since the first half of the twentieth century: “O my Jesus, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy” (emphases added). See also Second Intercessory Prayer for Vespers of Monday Week 2. For an example of a prayer specifically for all those who are dying, see Fifth Intercessory Prayer for Vespers of Monday Week 1. All references to The Divine Office here are to Morning and Evening Prayer (with Night Prayer) from The Divine Office (London: Collins, 1976). 179 Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 140. 180 Schmaus, Last Things, 246. Schmaus suggests that one might argue that the soul has total selfpossession after death if one assumes that it is the body itself which is the sole source of weakness in this regard. He dismisses this as far from self-evident. One might add that such an argument also suggests a dualism verging on the Platonic.

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point, such agnosticism neither confirms nor precludes this possibility, and Schmaus’s comments in this regard themselves suggest a possible means of the soul being in the required state, that is, by the granting of the necessary degree of divine illumination. It is at this point, though, that the opponent of instantaneous purgation might draw on Fortman’s objection about the “psychological violence” that would be done to us if our defects were to be destroyed instantaneously. The  point here would be that even if God could indeed grant the required degree of illumination instantly to the individual soul, such an abrupt action would actually harm the individual soul in some way as well as being unfitting and incongruous, an unseemly departure from the usual patterns of the salvific economy. As significant as such a priori considerations appear to be, however, they would seem to be challenged by actual magisterial teaching on the effects of baptism. In its decree on justification, the Council of Trent assumes that the temporal punishment remaining after sin has been forgiven is always “entirely remitted” in baptism,181 a doctrine explicitly taught in its Catechism.182 This would seem to imply that should the newly baptized die without committing further sin, there would be “nothing to impede their immediate entrance into heaven.”183 This is confirmed explicitly in the Decree for the Greeks of the Council of Florence, thus: the souls of those, who after the reception of baptism have incurred no stain of sin at all … are immediately received into heaven, and see clearly the one and triune God Himself.184

The objection to purgation in death from anthropological considerations would seem, therefore, to be less convincing than it might at first have seemed. The  church’s teaching on baptism suggests that there is nothing wrong per se with the idea that man can be perfected spiritually “in an instant.” The proponent of purgation in death would seem thus to be able to counter the anthropological objection to his position (even if he still has to face the considerable difficulty of explaining suffrages nonreductively). It is not clear, however, that an appeal to such a teaching does not undermine, rather than support, the idea that purgatorial suffering is instantaneous, for

181

General Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, Chapter 14 (ND, para. 1944). Catechism of the Council of Trent, 185. 183 Holmes, “Purgatory and Punishment,” 44 (emphasis added). 184 Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 693. 182

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it seriously challenges one of the key assumptions of this position, that such purgation may be explained solely in terms of purification, healing, maturation, and integration without recourse also to the concept of penalties imposed by divine justice.185 In implying that the removal of reliquiae peccati can, in cases like the above, be instantaneous and painless, the teachings of Florence and Trent on baptism imply that purgatorial suffering cannot be identified simply with the removal of these reliquiae peccati. If Purgatory were nothing other than the removal of personal imperfections, all newly baptized adults would have to pass through it, because all newly baptized adults have personal imperfections.186

But, according to the teaching of Florence and Trent, the newly baptized do not pass through purgatory. This would suggest, therefore, that purgatorial suffering cannot be interpreted simply as something implied by the removal of personal imperfections alone as proponents of purgation in death seem to think. How then is it to be understood? A persuasive case can be made, based precisely on the teachings of Florence and Trent, that purgatorial suffering has an irreducibly penal character. Thus, the process of removing imperfections is only painful as a punishment for sins: when a soul does not owe any punishment for its sins, God’s omnipotence can remove its imperfections without pain, and so it does not undergo purgatory.187

Purgatory is thus not only a process or state wherein imperfections are removed, but wherein sins are punished; it is “not only medicinal, but punitive as well.”188 This understanding is clearly reflected in the language of the Council of Florence, which states that if the truly penitent have died in the love of God before penance for their sins has been completed, they “are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments.”189 They are not only cleansed, therefore, but cleansed by punishments, and this because they have not “made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission.”190 185

See, for example, Rahner’s essay on purgatory in Volume 19 of Theological Investigations where, contradicting his earlier view that purgation is a gradual process (cf. “Remarks on the Theology of Indulgences,” 197–98; “The Life of the Dead,” 353), he argues that once the link between purgatorial suffering and God’s retributive justice is severed, there is “no longer any reason to deny that purgatory takes place in death itself ” (“Purgatory,” 187). 186 Holmes, “Purgatory and Punishment,” 45; see CCC, para. 1264. 187 Holmes, “Purgatory and Punishment,” 45. 188 Ibid., 30. 189 Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 693 (emphasis added). 190 Ibid. (emphasis added).

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On this understanding, the avoidance of purgatory by the newly baptized is to be explained in terms of the fact that sin before and sin after baptism are two very different things, a difference which can itself be accounted for in terms of the particular significance and efficacy of this sacrament. To communicate the efficacy of the passion of Christ Our Lord is an effect common to all the Sacraments; but of Baptism alone does the apostle say, that by it we die and are buried together with Christ.191

It is because of this unique effect of the sacrament that “any debt of punishment we owe, no matter how great, is wiped away.”192 The intensity and completeness of the union forged with Christ’s death and resurrection at baptism is such that no such debt can remain. Sin after baptism, however, possesses a different and markedly more serious character, for unlike sin prior to receipt of this sacrament, it constitutes a rejection of the salvation offered by Christ (and previously received). It is a “turning away from the very remedy for sin.”193 Because of this, the divine solution for postbaptismal sin involves a penance, for while baptism wipes out all the punishments due to sin, thereby rendering penance unnecessary, the sacrament of confession, although removing the guilt of sin, does not erase all the punishment due,194 punishments imposed by God for the purification of souls, but also for “the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the restoration of the glory of God to its full majesty.”195 At the start of this section, it was observed that the ITC’s assumption that only a postmortem concept of purgatory satisfied the CDF’s criteria for legitimate theological speculation in this area required further argument, a demonstration of the impossibility (or otherwise) of maintaining purgation in death in conjunction with an intelligible account of the church’s liturgy and prayer concerning the faithful departed. While there would seem to be no problem concerning the retroactivity of the implied “prayer for the dying,” it is 191

Catechism of the Council of Trent, 185. See Rom. 6:3-4. Holmes, “Purgatory and Punishment,” 45. 193 Ibid., 46. Thus Trent categorizes those who do such as “ungrateful to the grace of God which they have received” (Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 807). Similarly, Paul VI characterizes sin as “an ungrateful rejection of the love of God shown us through Jesus Christ” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, para. 2). 194 General Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, Chapter  14 (ND, para. 1944). The catechism of this council expresses the singularity of baptism in this regard with particular force and clarity, stating that “holy Church has always understood that to impose those works of piety, usually called by the holy Fathers works of satisfaction, on one who is to be cleansed in Baptism, would be injurious to this Sacrament in the highest degree” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, 185). 195 Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina, para. 2. 192

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extremely difficult to see how to account adequately for the purpose of prayers and suffrages for the dead if purgatory is restricted to an “instant” which is somehow “in death” rather than conceived as a more extensive postmortem process.196 Attempts to do so by proponents of purgation in death tend to be vague or reductionist. On the other hand, attempts to identify the “locus” of such prayers’ efficacy exclusively with the “final decision” for or against God made by the individual in death seem incapable of being harmonized either with the teachings of the relevant ecumenical councils concerning the effect and beneficiaries of such acts of intercession or with the liturgical practices of the church. Do these arguments for the untenability of purgation in death constitute additional197 conclusive reasons for affirming that atemporalism is false? If the relationship between atemporalism and purgation in death is one of strict entailment then it would appear so. However, it is not clear that atemporalistic resurrection does, per se, imply instantaneous purgation. It may not, after all, be logically contradictory to concede the need for a quasi-temporal purgatory on these (or other) grounds while nevertheless maintaining commitment to an atemporalistic state of beatitude.198 Though prima facie an option, such a position would nevertheless be extremely problematic for most proponents of this thesis. Given that immediate resurrectionists reject the traditional schema at least partly on the grounds that the concept of the anima separata is untenable, should they modify their eschatology in the above manner they would be faced with having to provide an

196

It is surprising how often Ratzinger is cited by proponents of purgation in death in support of their schema (see, for example, Hayes, Visions of a Future, 115; Phan, “Current Theology,” 520n49; Phan, Responses, 71; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 148). Certainly Ratzinger believes that the transforming “moment” of the encounter between man and God “cannot be quantified by the measurements of earthly time” and that “trying to qualify it as of ‘short’ or ‘long’ duration on the basis of temporal measurements derived from physics would be naive and unproductive” (Eschatology, 230; emphases added); but it is a non sequitur to take this as implying a nontemporal purgation process (even were such a thing conceivable). Phan’s accusation that Ratzinger (along with the ITC) is inconsistent in trying to hold both that purgatory is a postmortem phase and that it is best thought of as personal encounter with Christ which varies in depth and intensity “in proportion to the need of purgation in the individual person” (Hayes, Visions of a Future, 115, quoted at Phan, “Current Theology,” 520n49 incorrectly as 114) holds only if the latter concept necessarily precludes temporality qua temporality. It is hard to see why it should. Those who cite Ratzinger’s comments here against a postmortem view of purgation have perhaps not taken sufficient account of the precise manner in which Ratzinger qualifies his statements about the temporal measurement of the process (see emphases above). 197 Additional, that is, to those in the first section of the chapter which were aimed at the intrinsic coherence (or otherwise) of atemporalism. 198 Simon Tugwell, a proponent of atemporalistic beatitude, certainly seems open to such an accommodation (see Tugwell, Human Immortality, 172).

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account of the source and nature of the Holy Souls’ embodiment in the purgatorial phase. While questions about the source and nature of the postmortem body might easily be answered by “two-stage atemporalists”199 in terms of the resurrection body given at the Parousia (which is entered at death), such a response is obviously precluded as a solution to the problem of embodiment in a quasi-temporal purgatory. There may, of course, be other solutions for the issue of purgatorial embodiment, but if so, it is beholden on the atemporalist to provide them and integrate these explanations satisfactorily into such a schema. It is hard to see how this could be done without multiplying causes in such a manner as to threaten the simplicity and explanatory convenience of the original hypothesis, something which, for many thinkers, is one of its chief attractions. The mere possibility of such alternatives, however, appears to constitute reasonable grounds for casting doubt on the view that the relationship between atemporalistic resurrection and purgation in death is one of strict entailment. If this is so, then demonstrations of the incoherence of the latter like those given in this chapter do not by themselves constitute conclusive refutations of atemporalism per se. Of course, a proponent of any such modified atemporalism still faces the problem inherent in all atemporalistic schemata of accounting for the numerical identity of essentially temporal creatures who pass from temporality into a state of total atemporality. In critically assessing proposed alternatives to the traditional eschatological schema, it seems conclusive even at this stage that atemporalistic versions of resurrection in death are too problematic to constitute a serious option for the Catholic theologian. It would seem necessary, therefore, to assume some form of intermediate state between the death of the individual and the Parousia. The  central issue remaining to be resolved is whether there are compelling reasons for insisting that such an interim state is better conceived as populated by embodied human beings (as in nonatemporalistic resurrection in death) rather than the animae separatae of the traditional schema. The next two chapters constitute a critical examination of the issues pertinent to this question.

  199

That is, those who propose passage from a temporal existence in this world to an atemporal existence immediately after death, without an intervening purificatory phase.

4

The Intermediate State—Maintaining Personal Identity Through Death and Immediate Resurrection

One of the main reasons proponents of immediate resurrection insist that persons in the intermediate state must be embodied is that they reject the traditional schema’s anthropology of duality, affirming instead anthropologies which stress human indivisibility. As noted in the opening chapter, the challenge for these thinkers is to explain how, given such indivisibility, personal identity is to be meaningfully affirmed between those whose corpses now lie before us and those that have “risen” into the intermediate state. The following chapter constitutes a systematic examination of the philosophical and theological coherence of possible explanations.

Bodily identity and the Christian doctrine of resurrection: The Catholic Church’s traditional view If the concept of resurrection is to be meaningful then it implies the maintenance of personal identity through death, and the position of sacred tradition and the teaching of the Catholic Church’s magisterium is that this in turn implies bodily identity,1 man being essentially an embodied being.2 The first level of meaning conveyed by this teaching is reflected in the creedal formula of “the resurrection of the flesh” which spread from the Old Roman Creed into other creeds in order to counter a Gnostic spiritualization of the resurrection which held a strong appeal for some of the early Christians.3 A more developed formulation of this doctrine 1 2 3

See Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20). See General Council of Vienne (1311–1312) (ND, para. 405). ITC, para. 1.1.

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was set forth by the 11th Council of Toledo (675), which, rejecting the view that the resurrection takes places “in flesh without substance or any other kind of flesh,” affirmed resurrection “in the very same flesh in which we live, in which we subsist, and in which we move.”4 At the very least, such teaching is to be understood as affirming that our resurrection implies that we shall be unequivocally bodily, that we are to rise in a body which is essentially the same kind as that we now possess, though transformed through being glorified, a confession based on the analogy of Christ whose own resurrection is the model (as well as the means) of our own.5 Bodily identity, in other words, is to be understood as conveying a truth about the type of embodiment which is to attain in the resurrection state. But there is a second level of meaning discernible in this teaching. This is that “same” is to be understood not only in terms of type, but also of token.6 The 1992 document of the ITC, in its examination of the teaching of 11th Toledo on resurrection, clearly understands the concept of Christ’s resurrection presupposed by the synod fathers to imply not only typical but numerical identity of the body: “that concept of the resurrection of Christ which alone is coherent with the biblical affirmations of the empty tomb and of the appearances of the Risen Jesus.”7 The Commission elaborates: “resurrection keeps in tension the real identity of the body (the body that had been fastened to the cross) and the glorious transformation of that same body.”8 The risen Christ’s invitation to his disciples to touch him is to be understood as indicating not only embodiment (“a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have”) but  personal (because numerical-bodily) identity: Christ showing them his hands and feet “that they might have proof that ‘it is I myself ’ (Lk 24:39).”9 The Commission proceeds explicitly to link the numerical bodily identity of Christ’s resurrection to our own resurrection. Following the above section, it states: Holding fast in this way to a realism with regard to the future resurrection of the dead, we should in no way forget that our own true flesh will be conformed to the body of the glory of Christ (cf. Phil 3:21).10 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

Ibid. (emphasis added). Ibid.; see also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 226. These are terms indicating an ontological distinction: between a class of thing, a concept or universal (type), on the one hand, and a particular, concrete instance of it (token), on the other. If I say I have the same car as my wife, I may be using “car” in the first sense, in which case I am saying we each drive the same make and model of car, or I may be using “car” in the second sense, in which case I am saying that we share the same individual vehicle. ITC, para. 1.1. Ibid. (emphasis added). Ibid.; see also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 231. ITC, para. 1.1 (emphasis added).

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Concluding its treatment of the nature of Christ’s resurrection and its relation to our own,11 the Commission reaffirms its point about the realism expressed in the church’s creedal formulae on resurrection, citing the teaching of the Fides Damasi that the resurrection will take place “in this flesh, in which we now live,”12 interpreting this unambiguously in not only the typical, but the numerical, sense: “Therefore, the body that now lives and that will ultimately rise is one and the same.”13 Citing Irenaeus as representative of early Christian theology in this regard, the document posits a reductio ad absurdum of the notion of resurrection in bodies other than the very same bodies in which we die (for “neither would those who had died be the same as those who would rise” 14), concluding that, for the church fathers, there can be no defense of personal identity apart from bodily identity. An important distinction is made next, however, between bodily and material identity, the document insisting that the church has never taught that “the very same matter is required for the body to be said to be the same,” while reaffirming, in explanation of the church’s cult of relics, her position that nevertheless “the resurrection cannot be explained independently of the body that once lived.”15 The distinction made here between material and bodily identity is to be crucial in understanding how the traditional schema accounts for personal identity through death and resurrection, and itself implicitly expresses the position expounded here that “sameness” of body is to be understood not only qualitatively but numerically, the necessary distinction between bodily and material identity in this context being rendered superfluous if only identity of type is meant.

How personal identity is maintained through death and resurrection: The traditional schema How then does the traditional schema account for bodily, and thus personal, identity through death and resurrection? Although there is no defined doctrine concerning how bodily identity is maintained, prior to the Second Vatican 11 12 13 14 15

See ibid., 1.1-1.2.5. Ibid., 1.2.5. Ibid. (emphases added). Ibid. Ibid. (emphasis added).

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Council the sententia communis of Catholic theologians was that those animae separatae which populate the interim state are in some manner a necessary part of the explanation. Indeed, that the spiritual soul is required to ensure personal identity has continued to be upheld by many theologians.16 The 1979 CDF document Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology assumes such a position in its statement that after death a spiritual element of man survives, ensuring subsistence of the “human self ” prior to resurrection.17 In Some Current Questions in Eschatology (1992), the ITC maintains that the survival of a conscious soul prior to the resurrection safeguards the continuity and identity of subsistence between the person who lived and the person who will rise, inasmuch as in virtue of such a survival the concrete individual never totally ceases to exist.18

While it is not made explicit by either document that the soul maintains our personal identity through death and resurrection by ensuring numerical identity of the body, this is clearly implied by their anthropology. Concerning the issue of whether formal identity is sufficient, or just necessary, for bodily identity, these documents are, unsurprisingly, silent.

Personal identity maintained by the anima separata: Some objections At their most fundamental, objections to this explanation of how personal identity is to be maintained center on challenging the underpinning anthropology of duality. Many of the numerous scholars who make such a challenge do so on the grounds that such an anthropology cannot be supported by an appeal to sacred scripture. The accuracy of the scriptural challenge has been seriously called into question in Chapter 2. In addition, various philosophical objections are made by Catholic thinkers to the traditionalist account. The chief of these centers on the supposedly irresolvable tension between a soul which, on the one hand, can exist in a

16

17 18

Such as Pozo (Theology of the Beyond, 253–54), Ratzinger (Eschatology, 108–9, 178–81, 251–58, 266–67), Scola (“Jesus Christ, Our Resurrection and Our Life,” 317), Nichols (Death and Afterlife, 129–33), and O’Callaghan (Christ Our Hope, 325–26). CDF, point 3; see also Ratzinger, Eschatology, 245. ITC, para. 4.1.

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separated state from the body and which, on the other, is defined as per se and essentially, forma corporis.19 The problem here is stated forcibly by Rahner who argues that if the soul is essentially the form of the body then it must be identical with its act of informing the body, in which case it cannot exist apart from the body.20 A less fundamental, but no less stringent, objection to the traditional account of maintaining personal identity is that even if the anima separata which is also essentially forma corporis was not self-contradictory, there would be serious problems in any case with it being the bearer of personal identity between death and resurrection. The problem here would seem to be that if a man is essentially a soul–body unity, then how could just his soul ensure continuity of personal identity through death and into resurrection?21 If, in the interim state, the soul simply is the person (though now differently constituted) then some further explanation of what this means and how it could be would seem to be needed.22 If it does so by virtue of its being the essence of the person even while they were embodied, then substantial unity seems to be threatened.

The maintenance of personal identity through resurrection in death There are, then, substantial objections to the traditional schema which focus precisely on that element of it perceived by its proponents as essential for the maintenance of personal identity through death and resurrection: the spiritual soul which can exist as an anima separata. The most foundational of these consists in antipathy to the anthropology of duality itself which underpins the traditional account. For the theologian who, on the basis of such antipathy, proposes resurrection in death as a coherent alternative, a key challenge, therefore, is to provide a convincing account of how personal identity is to be maintained through death and (immediate) resurrection in the absence of such duality. The question these

19

20 21 22

See, for example, Boros, Living in Hope, 25, 38; We Are Future, 141; Rahner, “Body,” 80–87; “Intermediate State,” 119; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 109–10, 115–16; Sachs, Christian Vision, 55–56, 84. Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119. See Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 114; Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 193. Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 107.

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thinkers must address is this: if the human person is an inseparable unity, then how can one existing in the interim state coherently be thought to be the same individual as a person who has died here? In appreciating the magnitude of the task facing the immediate resurrectionist in this regard it is helpful to recall the essence of Ratzinger’s criticism of Greshake’s formulation of the thesis. According to Ratzinger, the thesis claims resurrection for the very person who is lying dead before us on their deathbed. In doing so, the anthropology of the “absolute indivisibility of man”23 seems to have been tacitly yet radically jettisoned, and yet, as Ratzinger observes, this anthropology was “the point of departure of this whole construction.”24 The immediate resurrectionist who bases the thesis on an anthropology of ontological holism, therefore, seems to be guilty of self-contradiction. Given this schema of a body left to death while an afterlife for the person is asserted, Ratzinger argues that it is obscure why the concept of the soul, which meant to convey nothing other than the “continuing authentic reality of the person in separation from his or her body,”25 is rejected. In his estimation, the conflation of soulhood and corporeality assumed by the immediate resurrectionist does not seem to offer any definitive solution to the problem of how to assure personal identity through death and resurrection.26 In response to this, the immediate resurrectionist might say that the soul has been rejected precisely because it is in itself philosophically and theologically problematic, and in any case unable to provide a convincing account of how personal identity is maintained through death and resurrection. Nevertheless, the essence of Ratzinger’s challenge remains: how can those who adhere to the absolute indivisibility of man affirm immediate resurrection for the individual who lies dead before us? As far as addressing this issue is concerned, there would appear to be a range of possible approaches for those who hold an anthropology which admits of no separable spiritual component of the human being.

Infused-immortality theory The first possibility to consider is so called because it attempts to explain the continuation of the individual through death and into (immediate) resurrection 23 24 25 26

Ratzinger, Eschatology, 106. Ibid., 108. Ibid., 109. Ibid.

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in the intermediate state by means of the introduction, by God, of some element into the human being which persists through these events. An example of such an approach would be that of Pierre Benoit. On the basis of both Paul’s theology of baptism, in which the believer has already died (see Rom. 6:1-11) and been raised with Christ (Col. 2:12) to heaven (Eph. 2:6),27 and the “anthropological categories of Semitic monism,”28 Benoit proposes union after death with the risen body of Christ29 not in virtue of a naturally immortal soul (the soul, like the body, dying through sin), but on account of a spirit placed in man “by the new creation and the indwelling Spirit of Christ.”30 This spirit, given at baptism, “retains after the death of the earthly body a mysterious but vital link with this risen body of Christ.”31 It is far from clear that such an account is adequate. As E. J. Fortman indicates, it is not apparent what the nature of such a spirit is, nor how exactly it stands in relation to the person.32 Clearly the spirit is not I, for it did not exist prior to my “being in Christ,” and yet I existed. How it is to ensure continuity of identity through death and resurrection is, therefore, extremely obscure. It might be suggested that the spirit is my soul, but this now posits a profound ontological discontinuity between the person prior to “being in Christ” (who did not have this soul) and the person afterward (who does). Personal identity, far from being preserved, appears to be seriously undermined by these speculations of Benoit. A further difficulty with such a schema is that in basing continuity through death not on “a soul immortal by nature”33 but on “the operation of the indwelling Spirit of Christ,”34 Benoit would appear unable to account for the continued existence of unbelievers after death, those who do “not die ‘in Christ,’”35 something which, according to Catholic orthodoxy, must remain a genuine possibility.36

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Benoit, “Resurrection,” 108–9, 113. Ibid., 113. Ibid., 112–13. Ibid., 112. Ibid., 113. Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 109. Benoit, “Resurrection,” 112. Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 99; see Benoit, “Resurrection,” 112. Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 99; see also O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope, 317–18. For example, Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20); Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, para. 2307); CCC, paras 1035, 1037; Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 479–82.

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“Replica” theory What is “replica” theory? “Replica” theory attempts to establish that, in certain circumstances, the appearance of an individual identical in physical and mental qualities to a person previously known to have lived and died could per se constitute sufficient grounds for affirming that they are the very same individual. The essence of the objections leveled at such theories is that they can never amount to an explanation of the actual re-creation of a previously existing individual. In the view of critics like Antony Flew, such a scenario can constitute no more than the creation of an imitation of the original, no matter how accurate.37 In response to such criticism, John Hick, in what has become something of a paradigm defense and exposition of such theories, argues for a justifiable extension of our concept of “same person” in such a way as to imply that in certain cases the withholding of a judgment of identity would be “wantonly paradoxical.”38 His argument proceeds via three scenarios. The first of these imagines a man vanishing and his psychophysical “replica”39 immediately appearing in New York. In such a situation, Hick thinks that the only reasonable and acceptable judgment would be to admit identity. He considers that he has thus extended our concept of personal identity, establishing an important conceptual bridgehead for his later, bolder claims.40 The second scenario envisages not a vanishing, but the death of the man in London and the immediate appearance elsewhere in New York of his psychophysical “replica.” Even with the corpse on our hands, Hick believes that to say that the one who died in London had been miraculously re-created in New York would be a “required and warranted”41 extension of the concept of “same person.” Moreover, experiences (his own and others’) accumulating since the man’s “reappearance” could be such as to make such a judgment far more reasonable than its contrary.42 Hick’s third scenario takes us further: to the idea of “replication” in another space/world entirely, something more like the thesis of immediate resurrection in content.

37 38 39

40 41 42

See Flew, “Death,” 270; also God, Freedom and Immortality, 107. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 288. Hick uses the term “replica” in speech marks to distinguish from the term replica: the former logically precluding the possibility of two such individuals existing at the same time, the latter meaning simply “copy.” Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 280–83. Ibid., 284. Ibid.

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In this case, Mr. A dies and his “replica” appears in a “resurrection world” with memories of dying and of his life before (and after) death. For Hick, such an individual would have no more reason to doubt his/her persistence through death than his/her persistence through falling asleep and waking up. For such an individual, evidence could also subsequently mount up to the point at which it is “quite as strong as the evidence which, in the previous two pictures, convinces the individual in question that he has been miraculously translated to New York.”43 He/she would thus have sufficient reason for believing he/she had died and been resurrected. Knowledge (given through revelation, for example) that such a scenario can occur for individuals would oblige second and third parties to modify their concept of “same person” so as to permit the judgment that Mr. A in Space Two is the identical person to the former Mr. A in Space One.44 For Hick, this sort of modification or extension is already quite familiar to us, being analogous to the kind of evolution undergone by various scientific concepts “in response to the demands of the facts.”45 In Hick’s estimation, such an extension of use “involves far less arbitrariness and paradox than would be generated by saying either that they are not the same person or that it is uncertain whether they are the same person.”46 Hick notes Terence Penelhum’s caveat that while, in such cases as Scenarios Two and Three (and probably also Scenario One), such a judgment is permissible, it is certainly not mandatory. Because, according to Hick, Penelhum operates with the assumption that “there can only be an automatic and unquestionable identification when there is bodily continuity,”47 he believes that in scenarios like those above, although “the identification of the former and the later persons … is not absurd,”48 it is “a matter of decision whether to say that physical tests of identity reveal personal identity or very close similarity.”49 He concludes that while we can reasonably decide for identity, we are not thus obliged. The problem is that this seems to leave the description of the future life “in a state of chronic ambiguity.”50 While Hick agrees that such cases require a decision, he argues that they share this with all cases other than ordinary, straightforward ones, even those where 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Ibid., 285. Ibid., 287. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 288. Penelhum, Survival and Disembodied Existence, 100. Ibid., 101 (emphasis added). Ibid.

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bodily continuity is assured, such as John Locke’s prince/cobbler “mindswap.”51 For Hick, all cases outside the ordinary require such “linguistic legislation.”52 He stresses that his point has not been to establish that such identity judgments are entirely unproblematic, only that the decision to identify in such cases is more reasonable and less problematic than the decision to view the individuals in question as different people.53

Problems with “replica” theory Hick’s theory constitutes a sustained and sophisticated attempt to explain how the doctrine of resurrection might be held by someone who holds to “a fully materialist conception of the human person, consonant with a modern scientific anthropology.”54 Since he first defended the “replica” theory of resurrection, Hick has continued to find supporters and sympathizers. There remain, however, numerous thinkers who are unconvinced that such an account constitutes the genuine continuation, through re-creation, of a previously existing individual, failing to amount to anything more than an account of the creation of an imitation of the person in question.55 What are perceived by these critics to be the main challenges to such an account of resurrection, and what options are available as possible responses to these? One perceived theological problem for such an account centers on the very qualitative “sameness” which constitutes the basis for judging the “risen” individual to be numerically the same as the earthly counterpart; for there would seem to be a marked tension between this apparent requirement of the “replica” theory and the nature of resurrection hope as it is communicated by the New Testament. As William Hasker expresses it, “the biblical picture of the resurrection—for example, in 1 Corinthians 15—is of bodies that have been radically transformed and are unimaginably superior to those we now inhabit.”56 Several of the accounts of appearances of the risen Christ in the gospels would

51

52 53

54 55

56

See Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 288. The thought experiment of the cobbler and the prince occurs in Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding, Book 2, Chapter 27, section 15. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 288. Ibid. Thinkers who are similarly optimistic about the adequacy of such theories include Bruce Reichenbach (Is Man the Phoenix?, 84–97); Frank Dilley (“Resurrection and the ‘Replica Objection,’” 463–72); and Stephen Davis (“Is Personal Identity Retained in the Resurrection?,” 333–35). Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 304. For example, John Yates (“Survival as Replication,” 2–6); John W. Cooper (“The Identity of Resurrected Persons,” 28–36); and William Hasker (The Emergent Self, 211–22). Hasker, The Emergent Self, 214.

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seem to offer support for the kind of qualitative dissimilarity envisaged by St. Paul here.57 While not insignificant, there is no reason to believe this problem to be insurmountable. Hasker himself suggests the following possible forms of solution: 1.

2.

Offering an account in which the resurrection body is sufficiently similar to the body that died to be the same individual, but sufficiently different to harmonize with New Testament texts like those cited above. Supposing that, initially, recreated bodies are very similar to the bodies that died but, once re-creation has occurred, “a process of transformation is begun that preserves personal identity yet results in a glorified resurrection body.”58

Hasker assumes that one or other of these types of solution can be made workable. Regardless of whether one thinks he is right about this, there are in any case philosophical difficulties with this account which are of such a fundamental nature as to render these considerations of secondary significance. A key philosophical difficulty with Hick’s account is that if one can not specify a difference between one of Hick’s “replicas” and a person other than but exactly similar in all respects to the original person, then such an account is incapable of establishing that there is any good reason to view a Hickean “replica” in an afterlife as the original individual. No matter the degree of similitude between Mr. X in this world and Mr. X’s “replica” in another space, by itself, this cannot compel us to accept that the “replica” is anything more than an exact copy.59 As Anthony Flew observes, to produce even the most indistinguishably similar object after the first one has been totally annihilated “is to produce not the same object again, but a replica.”60 Given this, Hick’s insistence that, in such circumstances, a decision in favor of identity “involves far less arbitrariness and paradox than would be generated by saying either that they are not the same person or that it is uncertain whether they are the same person”61 seems itself not a little arbitrary. In such circumstances, we may indeed decide to extend our use of “same person” in order to refer to such “replicas,” but we

57 58

59 60 61

See Lk. 24:13-35; Jn 20:11-18; 21:1-14. Hasker, The Emergent Self, 214. This is, in fact, Hick’s preferred solution (see Death and Eternal Life, 294–95). Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 305. Flew, God, Freedom and Immortality, 107. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 287.

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do not thereby render misguided any doubts someone might continue to have concerning the question of their actual identities.62 For we cannot make a “replica” the same as its original simply by saying it is so: “Identity is a matter of fact, not convention.”63 Such problem situations may indeed require “linguistic legislation” as Hick suggests, but “some reason for accepting a new convention must be given apart from convenience, which is hardly a reason at all.”64 In the face of a scenario like that depicted by Hick, therefore, the question remains: is such a “replica” actually the same individual as the original person? Whether one answers this positively or negatively, some idea of what constitutes a person is presupposed, and so “some idea of what constitutes a person’s identity; that which must be so if the person is to be the same person through time.”65 It is from this concept of personal identity that the criteria by which we determine a person’s identity are themselves derived. Reciprocally, the criteria we employ to make identity decisions reveal much about our concept of “person” and “personal identity.”66 An intimate relation exists, in other words, between how we know something to be the same individual and what it is for them to be the same individual, between the epistemic question of identification and the ontological question of identity. With this in mind, how might further light be shed on “replica” theory as a possible model for immediate resurrection? The logical place to begin, it would seem, is with the concept of the human being presupposed by proponents of such theories. In essence, these view a person as an “indissoluble psycho-physical unity,”67 a type of material object which, in addition to the sorts of properties possessed by other material objects, manifests “mental” qualities which, while qualitatively different from the merely material properties and not obviously reducible to them, are nevertheless entirely dependent on them for their existence. For ontological holists, like Hick, a human person is, to use a term of Gerald Loughlin’s, a “mentating material entity,”68 a unique and complex kind of physical object, but a physical object nonetheless. Given this, it seems reasonable to assume that “a person’s identity will consist in much the same sort of thing as that of

62 63 64 65 66 67 68

See Yates, “Survival as Replication,” 4. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307. Yates, “Survival as Replication,” 4–5. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307. Ibid. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 278. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307.

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any other material object, namely spatiotemporal continuity.”69 If this is so, it would appear that an appropriate criterion for judging identity claims like those outlined above would be the possibility of providing (even if only in theory) a “unique continuous descriptive history of the person in question.”70 In the light of this analysis, Gerard Loughlin concludes that the individuals and their “replicas” discussed by Hick and his supporters cannot be identified as the same persons, because their situation constitutes one of “radical discontinuity.”71 Immediately challenging this initial conclusion, Loughlin asks whether persons, although undeniably material entities, might nevertheless preserve their continuity in a manner unlike “ordinary” material objects. Perhaps they are continuous in some other manner, or in some other manner in addition to their material continuity? Though persons are material entities, perhaps it is possible for them to survive gaps in their material being, without wholly losing their continuity and identity?72

The hypothesis is formulated that a material person might preserve identity in virtue not of spatiotemporal or material continuity but structural or psychological continuity. Invoking the details of a defense of Hick’s “replica” theory by Frank Dilley,73 Loughlin first dismisses the idea mooted originally by John Locke that memory alone can serve as an adequate criterion of personal identity. Being fallible, the truth of memories is not guaranteed, and because true memories “presuppose continuity between the person remembering and the person who experienced the thing remembered”74 they presuppose, rather than constitute or guarantee, identity. In the words of Joseph Butler, writing in the nineteenth century: And one should really think it self-evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes.75 69

70 71 72 73 74 75

Ibid. Sometimes the same idea is expressed as “material continuity” (see, for example, Geach, God and the Soul, 26–27). Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307; see also Williams, Problems of the Self, 24. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307. Ibid., 308. See Dilley, 465–67. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 308. Butler, quoted at Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 308. Butler’s position has received a sophisticated examination and defense from Bernard Williams (see Williams, Problems of the Self, 1–11).

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Memory having been shown to be inadequate in this regard, Loughlin moves on to consider whether any other features of a person’s psychophysical existence can provide a sufficient account of continuity and identity in a manner capable of negotiating gaps in material being. In this connection, he considers an idea of the cyberneticist Norbert Weiner, elaborated and applied by John Hick,76 that it is possible to understand a psychophysical organism like a human being as an “instantiated pattern.”77 On this conception, the individuality of a human person does not depend on the exact numerical identity of certain material particles, nor on the spatiotemporal (material) continuity of their body, but on a particular structure, pattern, or code, “the continuing presence of which is sufficient to constitute a person’s identity.”78 According to Weiner/Hick, the individual human being is not to be conceived as a static entity, but a pattern of change in a physical substance “theoretically independent of the physical matter which happens to compose that substance.”79 The individuality of the body “is that of a flame, rather than that of a stone, of a form rather than a bit of substance.”80 For Weiner/Hick, there are no reasons in principle why such a pattern could not be coded, transmitted, translated, and re-encoded in other matter in a manner analogous to the way in which “sight and sound patterns may be transmitted by radio and translated back into sound and picture.”81 For Hick, the persistence of such an individual pattern or code is sufficient to constitute the sort of continuity required for personal identity. In his resurrection scenario, the “replica” present in the other world, while materially discontinuous from his deceased counterpart on earth, is nevertheless numerically the same individual “in virtue of exemplifying the same pattern or code.”82 While prima facie plausible, such an account is, in fact, profoundly confused. This can be clearly seen if we enquire further into the precise nature of this “code” or “pattern” which is said to constitute and preserve the particular individual. How exactly are we to understand this concept? Broadly speaking, it would seem there are two possibilities:

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

See Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 281–83. See Yates, “Survival as Replication,” 5. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 308. Ibid., 309. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 282, citing Weiner. Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 282. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 309; see Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 281–83.

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As something capable of existing independently of the matter it normally informs; As something which has no such ontological independence, being real only insofar as it is instantiated in concrete individuals; otherwise being purely conceptual, an abstraction made by the intellect from those individual material beings which exemplify or realize the code or pattern in question.

For the proponents of “replica” theory, the first interpretation is not an option, for it posits a duality which contradicts their fundamental anthropological assumptions (which are monistic). But if the second interpretation is what is meant, then it is hard to see why saying that Mr. X in Space One and Mr. X in Space Two instantiate or exemplify the same code or pattern amounts to anything more than saying they are two qualitatively identical individuals, that is, that the second Mr. X is a copy or imitation of the first.83 There is nothing here which establishes that the two individuals are numerically identical, which is what is required if this is to count as genuine resurrection.84 At this point, therefore, the proponent of “replica” theory has still not given any compelling reasons why, in the event of the death of X followed by the appearance of a “replica” of X in a “resurrection world” one would have objective grounds for saying that they are numerically the same individual. It would seem as if the only option left is for the “replica” theorist to try to argue that qualitative identity is, at least in some situations, sufficient for personal identity. The problem with this is that any attempt to do so is vulnerable to a substantial objection which has come to be termed the “multiple-replica argument.”85 In essence, this is that if a “replica” is only qualitatively the same as its original (instantiating the same code or pattern) then it is logically possible for several such replicas to exist. In such a situation, it could not be the case that one of the replicas was the original (otherwise some factor in addition to qualitative identity is being invoked), and so qualitative identity cannot be sufficient for personal identity.86 83 84

85

86

Ibid., 309–10. On the distinction between qualitative and numerical identity, see Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 201–2. This was first raised by J. J. Clarke, “John Hick’s Resurrection” (1971), and since restated by Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self (1973); J. J. Lipner, “Hick’s Resurrection” (1979); Gerard Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas” (1985); John Cooper, “The Identity of Resurrected Persons” (1988); and William Hasker, The Emergent Self (1999), among others. See Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 310.

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Responding to this, Hick concedes that in the event of multiple replication, it is not possible meaningfully to ascribe the identity of the original to any one of the replicas. While our concept of the “same person” can cope with the reality of aging and can, he thinks, also be extended to cope with the various scenarios which he explores in order to enable anthropological monists to accommodate resurrection, it can in no way accommodate a situation of multiple replication, because a person is by definition unique. Therefore, there cannot be two coexisting instances of the same individual, and in the case of a multiple-replication scenario, the concept of “same person” cannot meaningfully be extended: rather, it simply breaks down.87 In defense of his position, Hick chooses instead to attack the inference from “there cannot be two instances of X in the next world” to “there cannot be one instance of X in the next world.” If this inference were valid, he thinks, then one could argue that because there could not be two John Hick’s in London at the same time, therefore John Hick in London this week and John Hick in New York last week cannot be the same person, which is clearly false. While Hick fully accepts that if there were two resurrection Mr. Xs in the other world then it follows that neither could be the original Mr. X, he does not accept that the “unrealized logical possibility of there being two resurrection ‘Mr X’s’ [sic] makes it logically impossible for there to be one.”88 For Hick, while it is a conceptual truth that if there was one resurrected Mr. X there could not be another, it does not follow that there could not be one and only one resurrected Mr. X. The fact that if there were two or more “Mr. X’s” [sic], none of them would be Mr. X, does not prevent there being the only kind of resurrected “Mr. X” that could exist, namely a single one.89

However, such a response constitutes a failure to grasp the essence, and thus the force, of the multiple-replica argument. The argument is not, that “because several replicas of one person would not contradict the concept of a replica, but would contradict the concept of a person’s uniqueness, there cannot even be one replica of a person.”90 Rather, the argument is that “because several replicas of one person would not contradict the concept of a replica, but would contradict the concept of a person’s uniqueness, we can see that even one replica would not

87 88 89 90

Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 291–92. Ibid., 292. Ibid. Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 310 (emphases added).

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be the same person,”91 the reason for this being precisely that while a replica is, by definition, capable of multiplication, a person is not, being by definition unique (as Hick himself insists).92 What the multiple-replica argument forces the “replica” theorist to make clear is that X’s constituting the same person as an original, or merely a replica of him/her, entirely depends on whether a certain logically possible state of affairs does or does not obtain, that is, whether X is the only individual, or one of several individuals, qualitatively identical with the original. The absurdity of this implication is that it makes X’s identity contingent on the existence (or otherwise) of beings qualitatively identical to it. However, as William Hasker observes, identity is a relation which, if it holds at all, holds necessarily.93 Citing a formal proof of the necessity of identity provided by J. J. MacIntosh,94 Hasker explains that if two entities, A and B, are possibly nonidentical, then they are nonidentical. So, if—as is the case with “replica” theory—it is logically possible that B is not the only identity contender for A (the deceased), then B is possibly nonidentical with A, and A and B cannot be the same individual, regardless of the degree of qualitative similarity and B’s factual uniqueness.95 Returning to the original statement of the multiple-replica argument: if a “replica” is only qualitatively the same as its original (instantiating the same code or pattern) then it is logically possible for several such replicas to exist. In such a situation, it could not be the case that one of the replicas was the original (otherwise some factor in addition to qualitative identity is being invoked here), and so qualitative identity cannot be sufficient for personal identity.96

91 92

93 94 95

96

Ibid. (emphases added). Ibid. Hick wishes to hold that a person, unlike a mere replica, is unique by definition (i.e., conceptually) and thus logically incompatible with multiple instantiation. However, his anthropology leaves him unable to account for such uniqueness. If human existence consists in the instantiation of a particular “code,” “form,” or “pattern” (as above) then the uniqueness criterion is clearly arbitrary. If singularity is to be an essential attribute of human persons, as Hick wishes, identity must be rooted in something more than mere personal characteristics, for—by themselves—these are unable to preclude the logical possibility of multiple instances. Hasker, The Emergent Self, 219–22. See MacIntosh, “Reincarnation and Relativized Identity,” 158. Thinkers, like Hick (see Death and Eternal Life, 291–93), who defend “replica” theory against the argument from multiple replication by arguing that possibly we exist in a universe in which only one replica will in fact occur in the “resurrection” (perhaps also invoking divine intention as insurance in this matter) thus entirely miss the point of this objection. See Loughlin, 310. Nor will adding divine intention as either a necessary or sufficient condition for personal identity work, as Herbert (Paradox and Identity in Theology, 149–55), Davis (“Personal Identity,” 333–35; Risen Indeed, 119–23), and Tugwell (Human Immortality, 161–63) do. That divine intention cannot be sufficient to establish personal identity is argued lucidly by R. W. Perrett, who notes that, in giving an account of what would constitute an unambiguous case of resurrection, an

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At the start of this section on “replica” theory, it was observed that personal identity claims presuppose a certain concept of the person and what constitutes personal identity over time, and that the criteria for such judgments are themselves derived from the latter. The initial exploration of the cogency of “replica” theory began therefore with a consideration of what would constitute identity over time for those holding a monist-physicalist anthropology (the anthropology held by proponents of this theory). The obvious implication of such an anthropology, that spatiotemporal/material continuity is necessary for identity, was deemed to be in serious tension with “replica” theory’s eschatology of total annihilation followed by replication in a postmortem space. Given this problem, two other types of continuity were considered: continuity of memory and continuity of psychophysical “form.” Both were found inadequate: the former presupposing, and so unable to constitute, numerical identity; the latter having to be interpreted either in a manner which undermines the monistic premises of the “replica” theorist or in such a way as to render the proposed re-creation of the same individual indistinguishable from the creation of a mere copy or imitation. The final stage of the analysis, therefore, examined the possibility of affirming, in certain circumstances, the numerical identity of a postmortem “replica” solely on the basis of continuity of “form” taken in the second sense above (qualitative identity). The conclusion reached was that this is untenable, the challenge of the multiple-replica argument seemingly negotiable only at the expense of introducing factors extrinsic to qualitative sameness (such as unicity), which can be justified only by positing a more substantial account of ontological continuity, one that provides objective grounds for precluding the logical possibility of such multiplication. In the light of the foregoing analysis, the hypothesis that a human person, taken

explanation in terms of God’s intending a resurrectee to be unambiguously a resurrection of the dead person “is useless unless we already independently understand what it would be like for a resurrectee to be unambiguously identifiable with a dead person. But this is precisely the notion in need of explanation” (Perrett, Death and Immortality, 138). The account is, therefore, circular. Neither is it of any use to insist, as Stephen Davis does, that divine intention is a necessary (although not sufficient) criterion for personal identity, for if the other factors which he deems necessary (and together with divine intention, sufficient) for personal identity are not together and by themselves adequate, God’s simply declaring X to be Y cannot make it so, for the same reason given above. To argue, as Davis does, that divine intention must be so included because without it nothing can exist as the thing it is, is to confuse or conflate extrinsic causes (the divine intention and power to create X) with intrinsic causes (those things possessed by X which constitute it as the thing it is). Davis’s protests that to make divine intention “a required aspect of identity” (Davis, “Personal Identity,” 335) does not imply pantheism or divine idealism (see Davis, Risen Indeed, 120–21) are, therefore, vain.

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as a “mentating material entity,”97 might preserve identity in virtue, not of spatiotemporal or material continuity, but solely through the sorts of structural or psychological “continuity” examined here, would seem to be untenable. As Loughlin expresses it: The fault of the replica theory is not to have taken seriously the monistic account of the human person which it assumes, and which constitutes its interest as an empirical theory.98

“Replica” theory either covertly imports a duality into the human being which is inconsistent with its anthropological premises (e.g., Hick’s autonomous “forms” or “patterns”) or it abandons philosophical realism altogether, reducing ascriptions of identity to statements of descriptive similarity99 and/or decisions so to treat the individual in question as if they were the original person. The problem with such idealism is that it is not even possible to give a cogent account of what it would be reasonable (or otherwise) to think in such circumstances, nor even give any meaningful content to what it is that is thought.100 In embracing idealism, we might be prepared to accept the consequences: that S’s being Stephen simply is S’s sufficiently resembling, and thus being assumed to be, Stephen; but in doing so can we give a coherent account of what it is that is assumed here? Even if we reduce identity statements to policy decisions, to treat a “replica” as if they were actually the original, what is to count as a reasonable choice of subject for this treatment, and why?101 Stephen Clarke makes the point that philosophical realism implies that the identity of a person is not simply a descriptive or evaluative notion (as it is for idealism). Rather, it is explanatory. When we make an identity statement we are not only describing phenomena; we do not allude merely to a certain degree of convergence in memory or bodily appearance. Nor do we merely urge a

97

Loughlin, “Persons and Replicas,” 307. Ibid., 316. 99 A fault which John Cooper characterizes correctly as a conflation of the ontological and the epistemic (see Cooper, “Identity of Resurrected Persons,” 31–32; Body, 175–76). 100 See Clarke, Mysteries of Religion, 205. 101 See Clarke, Mysteries of Religion, 205–6. Stephen Voss expresses the difficulty by asking the “replica” theorist what the supposed evidence for X being Y could be evidence for: “What fact constitutes the supposed identity of Mr X and his ‘replica’? It cannot simply be the similarities and the apparent memories, for they constitute the evidence. If they are evidence for some identity-fact, that fact is another fact” (Voss, “Understanding Eternal Life,” 9). A different way of posing the problem is to ask what it is in “the idea of the same human being that makes the similarities between Mr X and his “replica” weightier evidence than the discontinuities between them” (ibid., 10). Voss concludes: “An account of survival that can answer this question is better off than one that cannot” (ibid.). 98

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particular moral program, the decision to treat one subject in the proposition as if they were the other. Instead we are attempting to explain why S looks or behaves like Stephen or ought to be treated like Stephen. The identity is the cause of the memory; it is the justification for the socially bestowed title, not constituted by that title.102

When “replica” theory does not resort to the covert importation of duality, its identity statements cannot constitute explanations of any sort; for the ontological continuity which would provide a reason why we should say that S was, in fact, Stephen, and which could serve as a foundation for explaining why S has certain things in common with Stephen, is simply not present. Any genuine ontological foundation having been abandoned, there can be no room for ascribing an objective meaning to such a statement and no nonarbitrary criteria for judging when it would be reasonable (or otherwise) to employ it. By contrast, when the philosophical realist makes such a claim, they are saying not only that S has things in common with Stephen of such weight and significance as to justify such a claim; they also tacitly affirm ontological continuity between S and Stephen, of a type required to preserve the identity of a being like Stephen, and which provides a necessary part of any explanation for the attributes taken to count as evidence in favor of the identity statement. In the light of the above analysis, there would appear to be every reason to suppose that if human beings are “mentating material entities” then this ontological continuity will be the same kind as for other material objects, that is, spatiotemporal/material continuity.

The “gappy object” defense A possible response remains for the proponent of “replica” theory. This constitutes an attempt to stay consistently faithful to the ontological holism which underpins and provides the rationale for “replica” theory while maintaining that this need not imply uninterrupted existence throughout time. The hypothesis which is thus proposed is that human beings are material, yet gap-inclusive, beings. Such is the theory offered, for example, by R. T. Herbert, who, searching for an example of a physical substance which might nevertheless survive complete dissolution, proposes the example of the phoenix: a mythical bird “whose existence spans its incineration and subsequent rising, a substance whose uninterrupted continuance of existence accommodates a gap of death 102

Clarke, Mysteries of Religion, 206.

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and dissolution.”103 Herbert first considers the obvious objection that “mythical substances do not yield lessons concerning real substances” and that using the case of the phoenix in such a manner is a deception that can do no more than fool someone into “buying the incoherent notion that a substance’s existence can continue after it ceases, by getting him to ignore the truth that a substance’s dissolution ends its existence.”104 He responds to this by identifying examples of objects (stage sets, certain illegal weapons) which can clearly continue to exist in spite of complete disassembly. The objection is then raised that such cases do not involve the requisite degree of dissolution to challenge the universality of the principle that “the dissolution of a substance ends its existence” because the elements surviving such disassembly are insufficiently simple. If the stage set were burned to ashes rather than struck … the weapons melted down rather than disassembled, then their dissolution would end their existence.105

In attempting to find an object which can survive even this “radical kind of disassembly,”106 Herbert returns once again to the myth of the phoenix, arguing for an interpretation of this which can provide a credible counterexample to the above principle. In so arguing, he insists that the myth’s description of the bird as “rising from its ashes” cannot be taken as meaning that, between manifestations, the phoenix exists “in the form of ashes,” for a substance reduced to ashes does not continue to exist as ashes: either it ceases to exist or it continues to do so, but “does not do so as ashes.”107 Instead, he insists that the phrase is better understood as indicating that the bird reappears on its ashes “to live anew, a process that leaves the ashes untransmogrified and the reader free of a nonsensical thought.”108 As a means of keeping such conceptual confusion at bay, Herbert counsels us to imagine that “during its existence the phoenix repeatedly rises to life, leaving countless piles of its ashes like so many abandoned nests.”109 Herbert admits, however, that this is confusing, for if it makes no sense to think that a substance reduced to ashes continues to exist in such a form, neither 103

Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 91. Ibid. 105 Ibid., 92. 106 Hasker, The Emergent Self, 218. 107 Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 92. 108 Ibid., 93. 109 Ibid. 104

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is it clear how we are to understand the idea that “the incinerated phoenix continues to exist, or that its dissolution does not end its existence.”110 If it is unacceptable to think of the phoenix as continuing to exist as ashes, and since nothing but ashes remain between manifestations of the phoenix, what mode of existence is available in terms of which the phoenix can be understood as intermittently existing? To address this difficulty, Herbert uses the example of the performance of a two-act play whose acts are separated by a twenty-minute intermission, arguing that during the intermission when the stage is silent and dark, the correct answer to the question “is the performance in progress?” can very much be in the affirmative, if, for example, the question is an inquiry concerning whether the play has begun, or has not concluded.111 This, he thinks, is simply part of “the logic of intermissive temporal entities.”112 The lack of activity on stage constitutes no reason to deny the existence of the play’s performance at that moment: rather, it is an essential element in the entity’s intermissiveness, and to seek to address the perceived tension between an affirmation of the existence of the performance and the absence of activity in the intermission by trying to identify some form of activity that the performance continues as is to fail to appreciate the ontology of such entities and the logic of statements made about them.113 Such considerations can help us make sense of the case of the phoenix; for just as the performance of a play may last for several hours including the intermission when the stage is void of all activity, so the existence of the phoenix continues throughout the interval during which, the phoenix having been incinerated and not yet reconstituted, there is nothing concrete in existence that can be identified as the phoenix.114

To deny the possibility of the bird’s incineration failing to terminate its existence because nothing remains for it to exist as is to impose on a temporal entity that is intermission inclusive an inappropriate requirement, that is, “the differing logic of intermission-excluding temporal entities.”115

110

Ibid. Elsewhere, Herbert notes that the correct response may sometimes be “no,” for example, when, if by asking the question, someone is inquiring whether or not there is any activity on stage at that precise moment (see Herbert, Paradox and Identity, 132). 112 Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 93. 113 Ibid. 114 Hasker, The Emergent Self, 218. 115 Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 94. 111

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Herbert views these reflections as a successful conclusion to his quest for a substance which can survive the most “radical disassembly,” a substance which can accommodate a period of nonexistence and yet possess uninterrupted existence. The apparent illogicality of such a thing he dismisses by comparison with the performance of a play, which can be said to be in progress (i.e., it has begun and has not concluded) and not in progress (i.e., in intermission) at the same time.116 From such considerations, he proceeds to argue that there is every reason to hold to the possibility of human beings having been created as such gap-inclusive entities.117 Furthermore, those holding to the authority of certain religious texts might believe there is every reason to affirm such an anthropology: general resurrection, for example, suggesting precisely “dissolution without remainder and a rising to new life.”118 Herbert’s argument is involved and sophisticated and has been reproduced here only in its essentials. It has been described as one of the best apologies for re-creationism.119 If it is successful, it could form the basis for a coherent version of the “replica” theory (i.e., one which avoids being explained away as either implicit dualism or mere idealism). Those holding to the view of the human being as “an indissoluble unity” or “mentating material entity” would thus be able to make postmortem identity statements which could be seen to be not only descriptive, but explanatory. To say that S was Stephen would now imply much more than “S resembles Stephen sufficiently to be assumed to be, or treated as if he were, Stephen” (contra idealism); rather, it would be to provide a reason for any such resemblances and/or an explanation why we ought to treat S as we would Stephen. Human persons being conceived now as (one) gap-inclusive material beings, such a statement would amount to a claim that S was post-gap Stephen, just as our saying that the performance of a play currently occurring on stage was Under Milk Wood120 would identify it as numerically the same performance as the one we were watching prior to our half-time drinks at the bar, a fact underpinning, rather than constituted by, any qualitative similarities it exhibits with the pre-drink performance.

116

Ibid. He makes explicit elsewhere that in the case of human beings, the intermittency of their existence extends no further than to one gap: between death (and possible dissolution) and bodily resurrection (see Herbert, Paradox and Identity, 129). 118 Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 95; see also Paradox and Identity, 127–29. 119 Hasker, The Emergent Self, 217n33, 218. 120 A clarifying statement one might make, for example, during a medley of several plays to a drunken colleague who, waking suddenly from stupor, enquires blearily: “which play are we watching?” 117

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Hasker, however, wonders whether such an account does not simply carry the difficulties of re-creationism intact into it.121 More specifically, we might ask whether it can successfully evade the challenge of the multiple-replica argument. A supporter of the multiple-replica argument could reasonably counter Herbert, it seems, by saying that on such a schema, there seems no reason why there could not be several equally valid post-gap claimants to be X. Were this to happen. though, it would not be possible for one of them to be X. It is, therefore, not possible to identify any post-gap X with pre-gap X. As noted previously, the crux of this argument is that identity is a relation which, if it holds, holds necessarily, and the mere possibility of a contender for identity existing would be sufficient to negate an identity claim. Certainly Herbert himself thinks that were this argument successful, it would validate Flew’s claims that such individuals purporting to be our resurrected selves would be simulacra at best.122 He believes, however, that the argument is flawed and counters it with what he thinks is an application of it conceived so as to make evident the supposed invalidity of its inference from X’s possibly having a contender for identity to the nonidentity of X with itself. The woman beside whom I awakened in bed this morning is not my wife, since she is possibly not my wife, since it is possible that during the night my wife split (I mean, underwent “mitosis”), resulting in two equally well qualified contenders for my wifehood. Fortunately for me she did not undergo this process, for I am, in rather late middle age, beyond the conduct of a ménage a trois. Even so, it is distressing to learn that this woman is not my wife because she is not necessarily my wife.123

However, Herbert has clearly not understood the logic of identity statements. His failure to appreciate the force of the multiple-replica argument arises from a failure to distinguish between the ontic and the epistemic in matters of identity.124 Identity is not an epistemic relation; it is ontic, and the possibility (or even the actuality) of an epistemic contender for an identity claim showing up does not invalidate the principle of the necessity of identity. Concerning

121

Hasker, The Emergent Self, 218. Herbert, “One Short Sleep Past?,” 96. 123 Ibid., 97. 124 A mistake MacIntosh himself commits immediately following his elegant proof that identity is a necessary relation (see “Reincarnation and Relativized Identity,” 158–59), one which, in Hasker’s opinion, invites this “misguided rejoinder” from Herbert (Hasker, The Emergent Self, 220n41). 122

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Herbert’s example: the issue is not whether it is a logical possibility that something might happen that would result in the woman by his side being nonidentical with the woman he married, that is, whether it is logically possible for his wife to have an epistemic contender. It is quite evident such a thing could have happened: as in the very example he gives, or in the event of his wife having been annihilated and replaced by a doppelganger in the night. Rather, the question is whether, consistent with his wife’s actual history, there could be some other woman “with an equally strong claim to be identical with Herbert’s bride.”125 Clearly, the correct answer will be in the negative. To assume otherwise one must either continue to view identity as an epistemic relation or simply deny the necessity of identity. In either case, one has ceased to be concerned with identity at all.

Recapitulation theories This title applies to those accounts which understand human immortality in terms of the eternal presence of our earthly lives to God. Within this category, it is possible to identify two types of account, which might be termed memory and reification theories.

Memory theory The first of these seems to have been suggested originally by a Catholic thinker, Miguel de Unamuno,126 who asked, in Tragic Sense of Life (1913): If there is a Universal and Supreme Consciousness, I am an idea in it; and is it possible for any idea in this Supreme Consciousness to be completely blotted out? After I have died, God will go on remembering me, and to be remembered by God, to have my consciousness sustained by the Supreme Consciousness, is that not, perhaps, to be?127

If such an account can be defended, it would seem to offer a model of personal survival compatible with the “absolute indivisibility of man” and the presence of the corpse on the deathbed, for—according to proponents of this view—in death the entire life of the historical, embodied individual is preserved by God’s 125

Hasker, The Emergent Self, 221. See Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 215. 127 De Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life, 149. It has since been embraced by various Protestant thinkers, such as Werner Elert (see Last Things, 41–42). 126

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omniscience. As John Hick expresses it: “Each human life, from the cradle to the grave, stands totally recorded in God’s memory and has an immortal existence in this form.”128 In what has become something of a classical apology for this position, Charles Hartshorne argues thus: He to whom all hearts are open remains evermore open to any heart that has ever been apparent to Him. What we once were to Him, less than that we can never be, for otherwise He Himself as knowing us would lose something of His own reality.… Hence, if we can never be less than we have been to God, we can in reality never be less than we have been.… Death cannot mean the destruction, or even the fading, of the book of one’s life; it can mean only the fixing of its concluding page.129

This position is, however, extremely problematic and unlikely, therefore, to offer a convincing account of personal identity maintenance for the proponent of immediate resurrection. Take Unamuno’s formulation. The first thing to note is that it is ambiguous. One way of interpreting it is to take his first statement as an idealistic reduction of human beings: that is, humans are just or only ideas in the mind of God. If this is true and God cannot forget any idea he holds, then it obviously follows that I continue to exist after death. However, while for orthodox Christian thinkers it would seem self-evidently true that God cannot forget any idea he holds, the reduction of human beings to ideas in God’s mind would not be acceptable. It is not in any case clear that Unamuno does hold to such a reduction, for this would seem inconsistent with the tentative manner in which he formulates his conclusion.130 He may mean, of course, to say no more here than if God exists, then God would have an idea of me. Unlike the reduction above, this is uncontroversial. However, the inference he then makes from “being remembered by God” to actually existing is not formally valid and Unamuno attempts it only at the expense of smuggling the conclusion into the premises and passing off the phrase “to have my consciousness sustained by the Supreme Consciousness” as a synonym for the phrase “to be remembered by God,” thus begging the question.131

128

Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 218. Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection, 252–53. 130 “and to be remembered by God … is that not, perhaps, to be?” (emphasis added). 131 Though again, perhaps some awareness of the inadequacy of his argument here is reflected in the tentative tone of his conclusion. 129

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What about Hartshorne’s account? Consider the following statement: “What we once were to him, less than that we can never be, for otherwise he himself as knowing us would lose something of his own reality.… Hence, if we can never be less than we have been to God, we can in reality never be less than we have been.” How are we to understand the first sentence here? Once again, this is ambiguous and depends on how we interpret “he himself as knowing us.” One way of understanding this is as referring simply to God’s own being, in which case the first sentence above implies that were our memory existence to have less reality than our existence prior to death, God’s own reality would suffer. This is untenable for a Christian thinker, for God transcends his creatures and has no need of them. Were one of them to cease to exist, his own being would remain unaltered. To deny this is to make our own existence constitutive of God’s in some manner and thus to embrace either some form of pantheism or a crude anthropomorphism.132 A less controversial reading would be that this phrase refers to God’s knowledge of us, in which case this sentence implies that were our memory existence to have less reality than our existence prior to death, God’s knowledge of us would suffer. It is hard to see why this should be so: the concept of divine omniscience entailing rather that God’s knowledge of a creature would remain undiminished by that creature’s death. Neither of these interpretations is, therefore, an option for a Catholic proponent of immediate resurrection. What then about the second sentence in this paragraph? This, assuming (very reasonably) the impossibility of God’s own reality being affected in the manner above (on either interpretation), draws the conclusion that our postmortem state must be as real as our antemortem state. While what we have here is an argument which is formally valid (unlike Unamuno’s), it is nevertheless unsound, its major premise, as we have seen, being extremely dubious. The arguments offered for this position, therefore, are fundamentally flawed. The attempt to demonstrate that “the state of being remembered as having lived constitutes as full and real an existence as the state of being alive”133 does not really get off the ground. The commonsense view or intuition that these states are in no way equivalent to each other cannot be overcome in this manner. The immortality of a subject must be precisely that: the continuation (albeit perhaps in a transformed fashion) of that subject; but on Unamuno’s and Hartshorne’s

132

Something not antithetical perhaps to a process theologian like Hartshorne but certainly unacceptable to orthodox Catholic theologians. 133 Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 219.

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accounts what continues after death cannot really count as the subject itself. As Hick summarizes it: On Hartshorne’s view there is no human life after death, no continued consciousness, no continued interaction with other people and with an environment. What continues to exist is not you or me, or anything that is any way different from and yet continuous with our present earthly existence, but simply someone else’s memory of our lives—that someone else being God. But to be alive in any ordinary sense of the word is not only to be remembered, but also to be capable of remembering.134

With a well-chosen analogy, Hick concludes that the fact that God’s mind contains a record of our lives no more entails our immortality than “the population records in a national computer bank give life to the millions of people in the past to whom these records refer.”135 In the final analysis, therefore, this sort of account cannot avoid the charge that its view of death constitutes annihilation rather than something which could accurately be described as immediate resurrection.

Reification theory Memory theories like those above do not, in fact, seem to be favored by Catholic proponents of resurrection in death. The form of recapitulation theory most favored seems rather to be what might appropriately be termed reification theory (for reasons which should become clear below). What characterizes such an account? Like memory theory, this sort of schema envisages immortality/resurrection not in terms of the persistence of a naturally immortal element which in some way guarantees the identity of the individual through death and resurrection (immediate or deferred), but rather as the eternal presence of the totality of our earthly lives to God. What makes it necessary to distinguish it from memory theory is its proponents’ implication (or, in some cases, insistence) that it constitutes a more substantial state of existence than the mere memory of an individual’s life in the mind of God.136 But in what ways is the nature of this distinctive state expressed? 134

Ibid. Ibid., 219–20. 136 See, for example, Kung who explicitly distinguishes his position from that of both memory theorists and those who would posit total destruction at death (see Eternal Life?, 171); also Pannenberg, whose rebuttal of Hick’s criticism of his own ideas implies a perceived distinction between his view and those of Tillich and Hartshorne (as well as other, more traditional views) (Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 132–33). 135

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For Eberhard Jüngel, salvation involves the participation of man’s earthly, finite, temporally limited life in God’s own eternity.137 What raises this conception above the mere memory of the individual in the divine mind is that it is to be understood as meaning that it is the life man has lived that is saved.138 In the resurrection, our person will be “our manifest history.”139 Resurrection involves the life we have actually lived being “gathered into community, made eternal and made manifest.”140 In this, the totality of our being in time is before the eyes of God and, therefore, for the one who is resurrected, “before his own eyes and those of others … revealed in all its merited shame but also its unmerited glory.”141 Similarly, for Hans Kung, the doctrine of the resurrection implies neither a naturally immortal, spiritual soul,142 nor anything to do with “body” understood in physiological terms: “as this actual body, the ‘corpse’, the ‘remains.’”143 Rather, it signifies the consummation in eternity of “body” understood in the New Testament sense of “soma,” that is, of the whole person, “the identical personal reality, the same self with its entire history.”144 Citing Josef Nocke, he asserts that bodily resurrection means that a person’s life-history and all the relationships established in the course of this history enter together into the consummation and finally belong to the risen person.145

For Kung, what is at stake in the Christian doctrine of resurrection has nothing to do with bodily continuity in the senses presupposed by proponents of the traditional schema. Rather, what matters is the “identity of the person.”146 Resurrection of the body signifies the permanent importance of our whole lives. Citing Breuning, Kung concludes that resurrection means that nothing we have experienced or undergone is lost to God, preserved in being as it is by his love for man. He has gathered together all dreams and not a single smile has escaped his notice. Resurrection of the body means that in God man rediscovers not only his last moment but his history.147 137

Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery, 120. Ibid. 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid., 121. 141 Ibid., 122. 142 See Kung, Eternal Life?, 137–39. 143 Ibid. 139. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid. 146 Ibid. 147 Ibid., 139–40. 138

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Pannenberg interprets resurrection similarly, through relating man’s life as a whole to the eternity of God. The relationship needed to maintain true identity comes not from any part of our finite existence, rather “the temporal reality of the creature as a whole is related to the eternity of God in such a way that it cannot escape his eternal presence.”148 Following death we do not cease to be present to God, not because our soul survives death but because God’s communion with us in Christ never ceases.149 Such language can at times seem hard to distinguish from that used by proponents of memory immortality. However, the position of these thinkers clearly attempts to go beyond the idea of mere preservation of the person’s life record in the mind of God. For example, in clarifying his position against Hick’s criticisms of it in Death and Eternal Life (1976), Pannenberg refutes the former’s assumption that his theory must collapse into either (i) the postmortem experience of a disembodied soul, or (ii) literal future bodily resurrection of the sort dismissed by Kung above, stating that his own position constitutes a third alternative: that in resurrection, one’s life not only remains eternally present to God, but that God restores its ability of relating to itself, granting it “a form of self-awareness … in the eternal present” by which one can “relate to the simultaneous whole of one’s life.”150 Thus, “seeing one’s life as God sees it, as a simultaneous whole”151 need not be interpreted as implying either a dualistic anthropology or a naïve materialism as far as immortality and resurrection are concerned; rather, the holistic, “biblical” view of man favored by proponents of this schema can be maintained intact by understanding this resurrection as the consummation of our life-as-a-whole, in which this life is awakened to an awareness of its self, sharing the divine perspective of its totality. The issue of how to maintain identity in this picture does not arise for its proponents, for we are not replaced in any way here by a new creation;152 the life that comes alive is not another life, rather “the life that awakens in the resurrection of the dead is the same as the life we now lead … it is our present life as God sees it from his eternal present.”153 148

Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 131. Ibid. Likewise, for Kung, following Althaus, Christian immortality is to be understood not as implying some natural property of the soul, but as something guaranteed on the basis of the indissolubility of our personal relationship with God and as implicating the whole man (see Kung, Eternal Life?, 137). 150 Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 133. 151 Hick, Death and Eternal Life, 223, cited at Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 132. 152 See Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 133. 153 Pannenberg, What Is Man?, 80; see also “Christian Eschatology,” 131. 149

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Among both Catholics and Protestant thinkers this type of account is strongly associated with an atemporalist eschatology154 and, as Chapter 3 made clear, there are fundamental difficulties for such schemata, particularly in the area of accounting for the supposed identity between those in statu viatoris and those “in eternity.” However, there would seem to be no obvious reason why it could not be adopted by nonatemporalist proponents of resurrection in death.155 Such an account might have the potential to avoid Ratzinger’s charges that the assumption that a person continues to exist apart from their body implies the concept of “soul,” traditionally conceived, and that without this it threatens to dematerialize, and thus deny the reality of, human resurrection;156 for it amounts to an explanation of personal postmortem existence which does not have recourse to the persistence of a naturally immortal, nonmaterial element in man, and yet appears to avoid dematerializing the resurrection by holding that the history of freedom is precisely that which is achieved through acts of freedom performed “always and only in and through the body”157 and which, therefore, includes the body.158 On closer examination, though, such theories reveal themselves to be extremely problematic, mainly for philosophical reasons. Characteristically, these accounts denote the entity which continues after a person’s death, that which is the subject of salvation, as “the life that was lived,”159 as “a person’s life-history and all the relationships established in the course of this history,”160 or as “one’s history of freedom.”161 Now, while it is possible to interpret such formulations metaphorically and reductively so as to imply nothing more than memory theory (couched in rather poetic terms), the proponents of such views, as already noted, seem to believe they are affirming something quite distinctive, and much more substantial than this. Consistently, the predicates they ascribe to this “risen” subject reflect this belief. Thus, our “life as a whole,”

154

See, for example, Pannenberg, What Is Man? and “Christian Eschatology”; Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery; and Kung, Eternal Life? 155 In fact, Peter Phan, a thinker who while tending to favor atemporalism (see Eternity in Time, 118– 19) later seems at least open to nonatemporalism as an option (cf. “Current Theology,” 522n57) consistently inclines toward such a theory throughout his writings (see Phan, Eternity in Time, 174; Responses, 101). 156 Ratzinger, Eschatology, 109, 267. 157 Phan, “Current Theology,” 526; see also Phan, Responses, 101. 158 See Phan, Eternity in Time, 174. 159 See Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery, 120. 160 Kung, Eternal Life?, 139. 161 Phan, Eternity in Time, 174; see also “Current Theology,” 522; Responses, 101.

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our “life history,” is to be “gathered into community,”162 it is to enter “into the consummation,”163 it “awakens in the resurrection of the dead.”164 The reason for categorizing such accounts as reification theories now becomes clear, for what Jüngel, Kung, et  al. do here is to speak about something abstract (a person’s life history) as if it were a concrete individual: the person himself/herself. That of which we are the subject (our history) is reified and treated as if it were the actual person who is the subject of the life history. As Jüngel says: “Our person will then be our manifest history.”165 Of particular importance in making evident the process of reification is the ascription of consciousness to this “life which remains eternally present to God.” So, for Pannenberg, God will restore our life’s ability of relating to itself but in a new mode, granting it “a form of self-awareness” by which one relates “to the simultaneous whole of one’s life.”166 That a category mistake (reification) is being committed by such theories is particularly clear here: for it is not lives (or life histories) that have self-awareness, but persons. It makes no more sense to say that my life can become self-aware than to say that the history of Great Britain has a beautiful coastline. Rather, it is Britain which has a beautiful coastline, a coastline which has thus been able to figure in its history (and which, in fact, has profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, that history, just as my self-awareness has shaped, and been shaped by, my life history).167 We could of course try to avoid this category mistake by saying that it is not actually my life-as-a-whole which becomes aware, rather it is I who become aware of my life-as-a-whole. Certainly both Jüngel and Kung say something which could be interpreted thus—rather than along the lines of Pannenberg’s “self-aware lives”—when they note, respectively, that the resurrection entails that our life history is made manifest not only to God but to our own eyes and those of others168 and that, at the resurrection, a person’s life history finally belongs to that person,169 man rediscovering “not only his last moment but his history.”170 162

Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery, 121. Kung, Eternal Life?, 139. 164 Pannenberg, What Is Man?, 80; also “Christian Eschatology,” 131. 165 Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery, 120. 166 Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 133. 167 One could of course ascribe a coherent meaning to “my life becoming self-aware.” But formulations which avoid the error of reification inevitably mean no more than something like “beginning to live a more self-aware life,” which, as shall be shown next, does not help this sort of theorist at all. 168 Jüngel, Death: Riddle and Mystery, 122. 169 Kung, Eternal Life?, 139. 170 Ibid., 139–40, citing Wilhelm Breuning. 163

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The problem now is how to account for this “risen person” who thus possesses or rediscovers his life history, for it was precisely to give an account of the resurrected person that “life history” was reified in the manner discussed previously. Either we abandon this sort of account altogether and look for some other way of explaining resurrection in death or we persist with it and either fall into an infinite regress of reification, trying to explain in what this “risen person” consists or, alternatively, attempt to develop some formulation which surpasses memory immortality, on the one hand, while avoiding category mistakes like those above, on the other. Given the above analysis, it is hard to see how this could bear fruit. In the light of such problems, it would appear that Ratzinger’s concerns that without the spiritual soul, the doctrine of the resurrection is at risk of being “dematerialised” 171 are well founded.172 Referring back to Phan’s cautionary remarks about how church teaching concerning the “sameness” of the resurrection body is to be interpreted,173 it seems clear at least that explanations like these (and thus, his own) will not suffice, the application of the term “body” to “life history” here constituting an extension of language beyond the boundary of legitimate meaning.

Physical-transfer theory A possibility remaining for the proponent of resurrection in death who rejects the anthropology of duality of the traditional schema would be to argue that, at death, the person, considered as constituted by the actual physical body before us, crosses “to the other side,” there to reanimate and be transformed/ glorified. As far as it has been possible to ascertain, no Catholic thinkers have actually embraced this model as a solution, but it has been proposed by certain philosophers, such as Peter van Inwagen,174 and is, prima facie, an option for the 171

See Ratzinger, Eschatology, 267. It seems clear that this reification of life history into person has already been prepared by the view of the body championed by those favoring this thesis. This is the supposed New Testament understanding of sōma as referring not to this actual physical body, but rather to the entire reality of the person, including their history (see Kung, Eternal Life?, 139). “Body” thus having been rendered abstract, or spiritualized, it is unsurprising if predicates pertaining to human beings are then unself-consciously ascribed to “life histories” and the like without any awareness of having committed a category mistake. Reification theory can thus be seen as intimately related to that “aggravated Platonism” criticized by Ratzinger in connection with this whole debate (see Ratzinger, Eschatology, 112). Far from laboring under non sequiturs, as Phan would have it (“Current Theology,” 527n68), Ratzinger’s challenge would thus seem to threaten this account at its very heart. 173 Phan, “Current Theology,” 521–22. 174 See van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” 242–46. 172

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Catholic theologian who wishes to hold to the absolute indivisibility of man, on the one hand, and immediate resurrection at death, on the other. The central point in van Inwagen’s schema is that although it is part of the Christian faith that all shall die, it is not part of the faith that one should disintegrate entirely or be totally annihilated. He thinks it eminently possible that although it may seem that there are cases when such things actually happen, they never, in fact, occur, and that to believe such a thing would contradict nothing in the creeds. It is perfectly feasible, he thinks, that God should, contrary to appearances, always preserve our corpses, removing them whole and entire at the moment of each man’s death to that “location” which constitutes the afterlife and preserving them in stasis until the resurrection (which would be immediately for an immediate resurrectionist who wished to employ this model, but for van Inwagen seems to be at the more traditional moment of the Parousia). Such a schema clearly constitutes a solution which is consistent with its anthropological premises: relying on no idealism, reification, or covert duality to maintain personal identity through death and resurrection. As noted earlier, the form of ontological continuity one might be expected to posit for a being who is nothing more than a “mentating material entity” would be the same kind as for any physical object, that is, spatiotemporal/material continuity, and this is something unambiguously maintained here by van Inwagen.175 Certainly, his account requires that the person’s vital functions cease at death and are later reactivated by divine agency (at the resurrection), but it is no more implausible to suppose that personal identity can be maintained through this than that it can be maintained in the case of people who are resuscitated by medical intervention after being declared “clinically dead.”176 At this point, however, we are faced with explaining how if, contrary to appearances, God preserves human corpses whole and entire at death, they nevertheless seem to be destroyed, either quickly (in the case of fire or explosion, for example) or slowly (in the case of decomposition). Van Inwagen suggests as a possible explanation that at the moment of death, God replaces the corpse which he removes with a simulacrum which is the real subject of whatever processes the human “corpse” seems to undergo following death.177 The question now arises, however, even if it is clear God could do this, what possible reason could he 175

Ibid., 245–46. Hasker, The Emergent Self, 223. 177 Van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” 246. 176

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have for doing so? Anticipating this objection, van Inwagen suggests that were he to do otherwise—either making corpses miraculously disappear no matter how closely monitored or totally resistant to destruction no matter what physical processes they were subjected to—then it would be clear that we occupied a world in which “observable events that were obviously miraculous, obviously due to the intervention of a power beyond Nature, happened with monotonous regularity.”178 Van Inwagen argues that if this were the case, then belief in God and divine intervention would be forced upon us, being clearly the best available explanation for such phenomena. While he admits that if Christianity is true, then God does want us to believe in him, “experience shows us that, if there is a God, He does not do what He very well could do: provide us with a ceaseless torrent of public, undeniable evidence of a power outside the natural order.”179 He concludes by suggesting that possible reasons for such a policy would not be difficult to formulate.180 Prima facie, some such scenario might have an appeal for the Catholic proponent of resurrection in death. Hasker’s initial comments about it are certainly positive. As noted above, the material continuity it preserves would seem to be sufficient to maintain personal identity through “clinical death,” and while Hasker accuses van Inwagen of vagueness concerning the process of reanimation, he nevertheless suggests a remedy by drawing an analogy from cryogenics, with God assuming a version of “the role of the future medical rescuers,”181 reanimating, healing and revitalizing the person “on the other side.”182 The main problem with such a model for a Catholic theist is that it is in marked tension with other elements normally taken to be part of the essence of a Catholic worldview. In particular, such systematic deception would appear to be inconsistent with God’s having created us with a faculty, reason, which is complementary to faith183 and a means by which we can arrive at truth 178

Ibid. Ibid. 180 Rather lamely, van Inwagen fails to suggest what form such an apologia might take. His remarks concerning God’s reticence about making his existence plain might readily be developed, however, along the lines of John Hick’s own reflections on the need for free creatures to be created at an “epistemic distance” from God in order that their freedom remain intact, and thus human and moral growth remain possible. For Hick, this entails man’s “immersion in an apparently autonomous environment which presents itself to him etsi deus non daretur, ‘as if there were no God’” (Hick, Evil and the God of Love, 359). 181 Hasker, The Emergent Self, 223. 182 Ibid., 223–24. In fact, if the resurrection is to be immediate, then the analogy is with medical personnel resuscitating someone who died a mere instant ago. 183 See CCC paras 156, 158–59; John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, paras 24–35, 64–68, 97–99. 179

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concerning both created and uncreated being,184 concerning God’s own nature as the fullness and source of all truth and goodness.185 Dean Zimmerman draws the analogy between God’s creating simulacra which we take to be real corpses and his creating the world 6000 years ago and placing dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith in a literalist reading of Genesis, concluding that “neither is particularly satisfying as a picture of how God actually does business.”186 A further unsatisfactory feature of this theory is that it seems to require God specially to create matter (whether in advance or as it is needed is not important; it is problematic either way) in order to form it in our likeness. For an explanatory hypothesis, such a multiplication of entities constitutes a significant diminishment in its appeal. Nor is it plausible to attempt to avoid this by having recourse to something like Pierre Benoit’s theory concerning the flesh of the risen Christ as the material cause of human bodies, for the matter required by van Inwagen’s schema is not for the purpose of forming the bodies of the risen, but merely for the construction of simulacra. To employ Benoit’s hypothesis in order to support van Inwagen at this point would be theologically incongruent, to say the least. Recapitulation and physical-transfer theories would seem to be unsatisfactory as explanations of how man, considered as “an absolutely indivisible being,” can yet preserve personal identity through death and resurrection. In attempting to satisfy the twin requirements of, on the one hand, ontological indivisibility and, on the other, the continued existence of the individual in the other world (in spite of the manifest presence in this world of the corpse), the first sort of theory covertly abandons our connection with matter, redefining us in entirely spiritual terms and positing our survival as “memory” or “life history.” The second sort of theory successfully retains its monistic premises and manages a credible account of postmortem survival. In doing so, however, it abandons realism regarding the remains of the deceased, generating several extremely problematic theological corollaries as a result. Dean Zimmerman and Kevin Corcoran have tried to offer van Inwagen an alternative model which is supposedly consistent with his anthropological assumptions and yet which avoids implicating God in body snatching and

184

See CCC, paras 31–35; John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, para. 33. See Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 33–35. Ott is careful to note in this connection the explicit teaching of the First Vatican General Council that God “can neither deceive nor be deceived” (Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 1789; Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 34). 186 Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 196. 185

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deception.187 The accounts they offer amount to body splitting rather than (as with van Inwagen) body switching. Essentially, they envisage a situation in which, just prior to the moment of death, the body’s particles are made by God to undergo fission: each particle in the original body standing in an “immanent causal” relation to each of two successive particles.188 One set of these particles constitutes the corpse; the other constitutes the resurrection body. Unlike van Inwagen’s model, the corpse in this account is no mere simulacrum; for the particles from which it is composed are the very particles from which the living body was composed.189 Neither is the living post-fission individual a mere replica of the one who died, precisely because it is causally continuous with the original body.190 It is far from clear, however, that this model offers a satisfactory account of resurrection. Corcoran and Zimmerman accept that for the post-fission living body to be deemed the same individual as the one who died, there must be only one “temporally-closest continuer.”191 They acknowledge also that this would appear to be contrary to a “plausible principle of persistence”:192 the “only x and y principle,” which states that whether a certain physical object can be said to persist or not should not depend on what happens to another physical object.193 To deny this principle would, for van Inwagen, be “utterly incoherent.”194 Nevertheless, Corcoran and Zimmerman believe that arguments can be formulated which would force us to deny it. Summarizing their thought, William Hasker describes a pair of scenarios in which, firstly, an entity is divided in such a manner (literal, physical division into two halves) that if both resultant entities survived one would be compelled to admit that the life of the original had ended whereas, secondly, if one half of the original entity is destroyed in the process, the other half surviving, one would be forced to concede that the life of the individual continued in the surviving half.195 Taking van Inwagen’s part against this, Hasker replies that 187

See Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 332–37; Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 196–97, 205–7. 188 Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 335; Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 205–7. 189 Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 336; Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 206–7. 190 Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 207. 191 Ibid., 201, 206–7; Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 337. 192 Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 336. 193 Ibid., 336–37; Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 196, 198. 194 Van Inwagen, “Dualism and Materialism,” 486. 195 Hasker, The Emergent Self, 228–30; Corcoran, “Persons and Bodies,” 337; Zimmerman, “The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” 198–201.

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this example does not constitute a counterexample to the above principle; for while in the first case there is consistent with the actual history of the surviving individual a possibility of an equal claimant to identity with the original individual (a possibility which has also been actualized), in the second scenario there is no such possibility consistent with the actual history of the surviving individual; for in this case the destruction of one half of the individual is an event in its own life. The data of the proposed counterexample is thus properly understood as consistent with the “only x and y principle” rather than as an exception to it. It would appear, therefore, that a choice must be made between “closest continuer theory” and an account which “affirms that the persistence of a person is negated by the mere possibility of an equal competitor.”196 Hasker argues that we should choose the latter, for “an ‘identity relation’ that is merely contingent is not identity.”197 He continues: “to accept a closest continuer theory for the persistence of persons is in effect to admit that no person is identical with a person that existed at an earlier period of her own life. And this is a price none of us should be willing to pay.”198 Reflecting on the fission model offered by Zimmerman and Corcoran in the light of this conclusion, it is clear that it cannot account for continuity of personal identity through death and resurrection. In their accounts, the individual who is alive “post-fission” cannot be the same person as the one whose corpse remains, for it is logically possible here that the tissues that constitute the corpse might have continued in a living state. It is possible, therefore, for there to be an equal claimant to identity with the original individual. This model thus in no way parallels the second of the scenarios above wherein it was admitted that the surviving entity is to be identified with the original individual; for in that case it was simply not possible for there to be an equal claimant to identity with the original individual, the destruction of half its matter constituting part of the individual’s life story.199 196

Hasker, The Emergent Self, 230. Ibid. 198 Ibid. 199 Ibid., 231. Brian Hebblethwaite has attempted to defend Zimmerman’s account. While conceding that the “if not two, then not one” argument is fatal to a “replica” theory like Hick’s—where no genuine causal continuity exists—he believes that Zimmerman has an answer: were God to ensure that “one, and only one, prime causal chain links the old life and the new” there would not even be the logical possibility of two or more contenders for identity (Hebblethwaite, Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrine, 115–16). Such a response, however, is misguided. Certainly, if God did ensure such a thing there could be only one postmortem individual as a candidate for our resurrection. However, that the impossibility of an equal claimant for identity in such a case does not constitute a logical impossibility is clear from the fact that God might have arranged the causal chain differently. Hebblethwaite has thus failed to preserve Zimmerman’s account from the charge that it makes identity a contingent relation. 197

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In seeking a model to explain how those who adhere to man’s indivisibility can yet intelligibly affirm immediate resurrection for individuals whose corpses lie before us, it might reasonably be asked whether it would be fruitful to look between the extremes of the two previous kinds of theory, that is, to explore the possibility of combining the physical-transfer theorist’s philosophical realism regarding ontological holism with the recapitulationist’s intuition that if the individual exists after death, this implies the persistence of something which transcends the merely material. This question brings us to consider the final sort of account: individual form transfer.

Individual form transfer On such a model, death is to be understood as the point when the spiritual soul, being also forma corporis, transfers immediately from the matter which it has informed in this life to the matter it now actualizes as its resurrection body. Having once been animated by the person’s soul, the matter left behind would truly be the corpse of the individual in question (unlike van Inwagen’s physicaltransfer theory). The risen individual would also truly be the person who had died (unlike infused-immortality, “replica,” or recapitulation theories, or the fission model proposed by Corcoran and Zimmerman): possessing the same soul, and thus numerically the same body (though admittedly formed from particles of matter numerically different from those in the corpse, or indeed any earlier phase of their earthly body).200 Prima facie, such a model can be understood as presupposing an anthropology of ontological holism; being in essence the form of the body, the soul is incapable of existing apart from matter, hence the need for immediate resurrection. Nevertheless, being also spiritual the soul is such as to be able to transfer instantaneously from the matter of the pilgrim body in order to inform the new matter which awaits it. Such an account can avoid the main philosophical objection to the traditionalist account, that there is an irresolvable tension within the concept of a separable soul that is also forma corporis; for there is no period here where the soul does not actualize its body by informing matter, and so no moment when it could be said to be contradicting its nature as essentially

200

The nonrequirement of material identity for bodily, and thus personal, identity has been adequately established by numerous scholars (see footnote 222 in the next chapter).

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the form of the body. The secondary objection to the traditional schema, that there is a tension between the separated soul being the sole bearer of personal identity, on the one hand, and the concept of the human person as essentially a soul–body unity, on the other, can likewise be avoided; for in this scenario personal identity is ensured by the continuation through death and (immediate) resurrection of the whole human being. Admittedly, the numerical identity of the body necessary for maintenance of personal identity is assured by the numerical identity of the spiritual soul as the formal principle of embodiment, but because there is no period of separation, the problem of how human identity can be maintained by something that is not the human being (the anima separata) is avoided. At all moments through death and resurrection, the entire human being, body and soul, is present. Unlike physical-transfer theory, such a model appears to be more than just a theoretical option as far as Catholic proponents of immediate resurrection are concerned, for there are several Catholic thinkers whose own descriptions of immediate resurrection are susceptible to such an interpretation (either in their present form or with modifications). Certainly it is possible to interpret some of Rahner’s statements concerning anthropology and personal identity as exemplifying such a model. Firstly, he espouses a vision of man which precludes the anima separata; it is because the soul is essentially, and not only accidentally, the form of the body201 that it cannot exist just by itself:202 the necessary relation between spirit and matter entailing “the enduring ‘informedness’ of the glorified body by the perfected spiritual soul,”203 that is, immediate resurrection. Secondly, in his discussion of bodily identity through death and resurrection, he rejects the need for continuity of material particles, stating clearly that “identity consists, now and in the future, of the identity of the free, spiritual subject, which we call ‘the soul.’”204 Within the context of his anthropological holism, Rahner can here be understood as grounding the identity of the body through death and resurrection in its formal principle, the spiritual soul. Other thinkers whose description of immediate resurrection might admit of such an

201

See Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119. That is, the soul is forma corporis through “its own substantial reality,” the act whereby it informs the body not being an “additional and … ‘accidental’ determination.” 202 Ibid., 121. 203 Ibid., 120. 204 Ibid.

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explanation include Ladislaus Boros,205 E. J. Fortman,206 Michael Schmaus,207 Anton van der Walle,208 Zachary Hayes,209 John Sachs,210 and Dermot Lane.211 Such a solution, however, is not unproblematic. As we have seen, on one hand, this model posits an anthropology of ontological holism, wherein the soul, being essentially the form of the body, is judged incapable of existing apart from matter. It is this impossibility of the soul existing in a separated state which makes immediate resurrection a requirement of its continuing in existence. On the other hand, the model requires the soul to possess a degree of ontological autonomy sufficient for it to undertake an instantaneous transfer from the matter it actualizes as the pilgrim body to the entirely new matter from which it is to form the risen body.212 These two requirements, however, seem to be in tension; for it is not apparent why a soul possessing such a degree of ontological independence should be inseparable from the matter it informs, and it is thus possible to call seriously into question one of the main reasons thinkers like those listed here insist that death must be followed immediately by resurrection.213 To illustrate more clearly and justify this understanding of the second requirement, it will help if the reasons Rahner gives to explain why, in his view, the soul is not separable from the body are examined. Rahner’s arguments concerning the inseparability of the soul are based on his understanding of the Council of Vienne’s teaching that the soul is per se the form of the body, a doctrine which “asserts the real, substantial unity of body and soul.”214 Rahner interprets this doctrine to mean that the soul’s informing of the body “is identical with

205

See Boros, Living in Hope, 24–25, 35–39; “Has Life a Meaning?,” 18–19. See Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 115–16. Fortman’s qualifying remarks about the need for some degree of material continuity (ibid., 116) can be seen to be redundant in the light of the above explanation of individual form transfer. 207 See Schmaus, Last Things, 195–98. 208 See van der Walle, From Darkness, 167–73. 209 See Hayes, Visions of a Future, 165–66. 210 See Sachs, Christian Vision, 54–56, 83–84, 89–91. Like others who can be interpreted in this fashion, he does also say things which smack of reification theory (see Christian Vision, 89). This is a tendency which may well be an inevitable consequence of attempting to combine a spiritual soul, on the one hand, with inseparability, on the other. 211 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 150–54. 212 See Cooper, Body, 164–69. 213 There may, of course, be other reasons for holding that death should be followed immediately by resurrection, in which case individual form transfer could be called upon to account for the maintenance of personal identity. Further reasons for preferring immediate resurrection to the traditional schema are to be considered in Chapter 5. 214 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119; see ND, para. 405. 206

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the soul itself.”215 Thus, to posit an anima separata is, for Rahner, to posit a soul minus that with which it is identical. The notion of the anima separata is thus self-contradictory. It is for this reason that if the person is to survive death, “the enduring relation between spirit and matter”216 must persist through death and into (an immediate) resurrection. The main problem with this explanation of inseparability is that the concept of soul it employs is indistinguishable from the forms of purely material things in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy. These kinds of forms, while not reducible to the matter they inform nevertheless possess no ontological independence from their matter. Rather, they have actuality only insofar as they are instantiated in matter, otherwise being purely conceptual, abstractions made by the intellect from the individual material beings in which the forms are exemplified or realized.217 But if the soul is understood thus, then it is difficult to see how it can be the carrier of personal identity through death and resurrection in the manner described by individual form transfer. For the risen person and the person in statu viatoris to be identical, the soul informing both must be numerically the same,218 and for the individual form of a purely material object this implies spatiotemporal/material continuity.219 If spatiotemporal/material continuity is how identity is to be preserved in Rahner’s picture, then this account in fact reduces to a physical-transfer account like van Inwagen’s, with all the attendant theological difficulties. For Rahner to explain the inseparability of soul and body in terms of the soul being identical with its act of informing the body, therefore, is for him to jeopardize the possibility of providing a credible account of how it carries personal identity through death and into (immediate) resurrection.220 If he wishes to maintain that the soul is the bearer of personal

215

Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119. Rahner thinks that to deny such an understanding implies a denial of “a real substantial unity of man, whether this be admitted or not” (ibid.). 216 Ibid. 217 Such forms include those souls which animate nonrational creatures such as animals and plants; when the matter loses the form at death, the form likewise ceases to exist (see Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 364–65; ST I 75.3 & 6c). 218 “Same” can also be understood generically or qualitatively of course but, as has been made clear during the examination of ‘replica’ theory, sameness of form understood in these ways cannot constitute personal identity. 219 As was made clear in the section on “replica” theory. See also Edwards, “Thomas Aquinas on ‘The Same Man,’” 92. 220 The only other alternatives are to interpret him either as Peter Phan does, understanding “soul” as “one’s history of freedom” (Phan, Eternity in Time, 174), in which case he must face the criticisms leveled at reification theory, or as affirming apparent annihilation and re-creation, in which case he must face the criticisms leveled at “replica” theory.

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identity through death and resurrection, it would seem he must modify his understanding of what it means to say it is essentially the form of the body, and thus his understanding of man as a substantial unity. Returning to the formulation of individual form transfer above, it is evident that spatiotemporal/material continuity through death and resurrection is entirely absent here. Rather, there is marked and dramatic discontinuity in this respect. For this model to work, therefore, the kind of individual forms in question cannot be ontological principles whose essence is exhausted by their act of informing matter. To suggest otherwise is, as has been shown, to imply material continuity between the corpse and the risen body (and there is none). Instead, such forms must be ontologically independent of the matter they inform. They must be subsistent forms.221 As formae corporum, they would be capable of informing matter so as to actualize a body, but being ontologically independent of this matter, they would be able also to secure the numerical identity of the body through the total and instantaneous change of matter implied by death and immediate resurrection. With this point, we return to the issue of the apparent tension in individual form transfer theory and the question: if souls are subsistent forms, then why should it be the case that they cannot continue to exist in separation from the body? Anyone who wishes to argue for immediate resurrection on the basis of an ontologically holistic anthropology (and its implied inseparability of soul and body) must seemingly either abandon individual form transfer as a model of accounting for personal identity through death and resurrection and attempt to develop a cogent formulation of one of the other types of model considered in this chapter, or, if they wish to make use of individual form transfer intelligibly must be able to explain why a soul that is not ontologically dependent on the matter it informs nevertheless cannot be separated from it. The next chapter begins by considering several of the main arguments which might be put forward by proponents of immediate resurrection to account for the inseparability of such a soul, before moving on to examine the possible responses which could be made to these arguments, and to a defense of the explanatory power of the traditional schema to account for the preservation of personal identity through death, intermediate state, and resurrection.

221

  subsist “which exist in themselves, and not in another” (ST I 29.2c). For Aquinas, things

5

Philosophical and Theological Objections to the Traditional Schema Addressed

In this chapter, following a defense of the coherence of the anthropology of duality and its role in the traditional schema against the various criticisms leveled at it throughout this debate, consideration is taken of a variety of further arguments which might be offered in support of an embodied, rather than a disembodied, interim state. These focus on the nature of the respective eschatological tensions generated by the various schemata and the implications of these for their relative overall coherence.

The inseparability of the spiritual soul Among theologians uneasy about the concept of the anima separata, it is commonly asserted that such a thing threatens that substantial unity of the human being to which both sacred scripture and modern philosophical anthropology bear witness,1 and which the church enshrines in her anthropological teaching, most notably in the doctrine defined by the Council of Vienne (1312), that the substance of the rational and intellectual soul is truly and of itself the form of the body.2 As already noted, for Rahner, the church’s teaching here is to be understood to mean that the soul’s informing of the body is identical with the soul itself. Unless this is so, he thinks, the union between soul and body is merely accidental and entails the abolition of a real substantial unity of man, “whether this be admitted or not.”3 As demonstrated, however, 1

2

3

See, for example, van der Walle, From Darkness, 36–37, 152, 167–73; Kung, Eternal Life?, 171; Pannenberg, “Christian Eschatology,” 128–29; Sachs, Christian Vision, 52–56, 84, 90. ND, para. 405. Since reaffirmed by the Fifth Lateran General Council (1513) in the Bull Apostolici Regiminis (ibid., para. 410), the Second Vatican General Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (1965) (ibid., para. 421), and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) (CCC, para. 365). Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119; see also “Body,” 80–87. Although Rahner does not make it explicit, such a relation between body and soul would also render it impossible for the soul to be the carrier of bodily, and so personal, identity.

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this interpretation leads to extreme difficulties in accounting for personal identity through death and resurrection. But is Rahner’s interpretation of Vienne’s doctrine justified? To ensure we interpret Vienne correctly, its anthropological teachings must be read in their own context, that is, in the light of the precise theological issues they were formulated to address. In making its statement concerning the soul, the Council was condemning the doctrine of John Olivi, OFM, who taught that “the spiritual soul is not by itself the ‘form of the human body’, i.e., the principle of organic life.”4 In affirming, against this, that the spiritual soul “is by itself also the principle of organic life,”5 the Council was defining as contrary to Catholic truth any anthropology which would “separate the spirit from the realities of nature and history and so … split human nature into two heterogeneous spheres.”6 What is being rejected by Vienne as contrary to Catholic truth, therefore, is dualism of the Platonic or Cartesian variety. Rahner is right to resist this, but is the only alternative which can realistically preserve human unity an anthropology that in its reduction of the human soul to its act of informing the body renders it indistinguishable from the forms of material things? If so, Vienne’s formulation is seemingly in serious tension with the teaching of the Fifth Lateran General Council (1513) which affirmed, against the Aristotelianism of Pietro Pomponazzi, that the “intellectual soul is not only truly, of itself and essentially, the form of the human body … but it is also immortal.”7 But if the soul is indistinguishable from the forms of material things, then it cannot be immortal but perishes in death. Rahner’s insistence on interpreting Vienne in a strictly Aristotelian way entails that he must understand Lateran V’s teaching concerning the immortality of the individual soul as affirming no more than the continuing existence of the individual human person through death;8 that is, as implicitly affirming resurrection in death. As has been shown though, commitment to resurrection in death on the basis of such an anthropology results in extreme difficulties when it comes to explaining how the same bodily individual subsists through death and resurrection, a belief which is foundational to the Catholic faith.9 A strictly Aristotelian interpretation of Vienne’s teaching on human unity is thus problematic, for both philosophical and theological reasons. It is 4 5 6 7 8

9

ND, p. 164. Ibid. Ibid. ND, para. 410. That Lateran V’s teaching can be interpreted thus is a view that has, however, been challenged (e.g., by Candido Pozo [Theology of the Beyond, 242–43]). See, for example, Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20).

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possible to surmise, however, that it is not the only option left once dualism of a Platonic/Cartesian kind has been rejected. Indeed, an interpretation of both Vienne and Lateran V which prima facie seems to avoid the difficulties outlined above would be along the lines suggested by the anthropology of Thomas Aquinas. On Aquinas’s model, the soul, contrary to a dualism like Plato’s or Descartes’s, is truly and of itself the form of the body and thus the principle of organic life. Yet Aquinas goes beyond Aristotle in arguing that it is, nevertheless, truly subsistent: able to exist in separation from the body, and thus able also to ensure bodily (and thus personal) identity at the resurrection. According to this model, Vienne’s affirmation of an essential union between soul and body should not be taken as meaning that the soul is united to the body in such a manner that for it to exist in separation implies a formal contradiction. To understand Vienne thus, as Rahner does, is to fail to take seriously the nature of the soul as spiritual, as a subsistent form. In denying the accidental nature of the union, the Council goes no further than a rejection of the view that the principle of organic life in the body is other than the soul, affirming, contrary to this, the real substantial unity of man. It teaches that man, like all other beings, has one substantial form, the soul, which makes him the kind of thing that he is. Man is thus not merely a contingent association of two independent substances, but rather a real unity.10 While the human soul indeed transcends the body, possessing the ontological independence necessary to ensure personal identity through death and resurrection, it is nevertheless also that which actualizes the body.11 Body and soul thus share one existence, the act of existence of the soul, whose various powers actualize the body’s different organs, organs which, in turn, are essential for the exercise of these powers.12 Unlike Plato, who thought that the soul did not belong in the body by nature, but is better freed from it,13 Aquinas holds that it is natural for the human soul to be embodied.14 Only thus can it exercise its full range of powers and reach perfection,15 and although, because of 10 11

12

13

14

15

See Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 37, 50–52; Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 99, 105. See SCG II 57.14; Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 105; Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 50–52; Potts, “Resurrection of the Damned,” 342; Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 103–4; Copleston, Aquinas, 160. Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 96, 104–6; Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 51; Copleston, Aquinas, 160–63. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 34; Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 99–100. See ST I 90.4c; Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 101–3; Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 152. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 51, 151–52, 159.

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its spiritual nature, it is able to exist in separation from the body,16 it has in this state “an incomplete existence until reunited with it.”17 The Council of Vienne’s affirmation that the “rational and intellectual soul”18 is the form of the human body “of itself and essentially”19 should not, therefore, be taken as entailing a logical contradiction in the concept of the anima separata, signifying, as it does, no more (but no less) than this natural union. The ontological status which Aquinas ascribes to the anima separata makes evident the difference between his view and a substantial dualism of the type rejected by magisterial teaching. Considering the view that the soul’s subsistence indicates that it is a substance in its own right, Aquinas makes an important distinction in terms of which he is able to distance himself considerably from substance dualism. He explains that there are two different ways in which something can be subsistent. We might term these weak and strong subsistence. A thing is strongly subsistent if it is (i) not an accident (or a “material form”20) and also (ii) something which, in itself, is complete in some species and genus of substance.21 Examples of something strongly subsistent would be a horse, an angel, a tulip, or indeed a human being, the “composite whole of body and soul.”22 On the other hand, a thing is weakly subsistent if, while having no place of its own among individuals sorted out in the species and genera of substance, and so failing to satisfy condition (ii), nevertheless cannot accurately be classified as either an accident (or a “material form”), thus satisfying condition (i). Examples would include a hand, a foot, an eye and, according to Aquinas’s model, a human soul, which, while being the substantial form which actualizes the human body, and so the complete human being, nevertheless lacks per se the complete nature of a human being.23 So, while the soul indeed subsists, it does not qualify as a complete substance24 and so can be termed “substance” in

16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

ST I 75.2 & 6; Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 99–104. Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 99. ND, para. 405. Ibid. This phrase is to be understood as nothing more than a convenient shorthand for the more cumbersome “form of a material object.” It is, of course, not meant to be understood literally; for in the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas “form” is, by definition, not material. Taken literally, therefore, it is oxymoronic. Kretzmann, “Philosophy of Mind,” 134; Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 49. Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 106. ST I 75.2, ad 1. Oguejiofor believes that this notion of incomplete substance is obscure (Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 167). While accepting that in separation it exists contra naturam and can operate only praeter

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only the weak sense.25 A further difference between Aquinas’s hylomorphism and substantial dualism concerns his views on the ontological status of the body. As noted above, for Aquinas, the soul, as the substantial form of the body, is the sole principle of actualization of the human body. An implication of this, of course, is that the body, minus the soul, is no longer a human body. Aquinas, of course, accepts this implication.26 What is left behind is a corpse only, an accumulation of matter bearing the accidental form (or figure) of a human body.27 For Aquinas then, soul and body are linked not accidentally, but in a real substantial union.28 The union may thus accurately be characterized as essential, not in Rahner’s reductive understanding of the term, but in the sense that they are a natural union, the body being actualized by the soul, and certain powers of the human soul being exercisable only in and through the human body. The term “body” logically implies a union with the soul (in the present tense) for it is “the union with its substantial form which keeps the body in existence.”29 Likewise, “soul” implies union with the body in the present, past, or future tenses, the latter two options possible because of the soul’s subsistent nature. Given this clear distinction between Thomistic hylomorphism and substantial dualism, there seems good reason to suppose Aquinas’s model is one which could be accommodated by the teachings of the Council of Vienne on human unity as well as those of the Fifth Lateran Council on the individual soul’s immortality. That Aquinas’s model is not satisfactory is, of course, something which Catholic theologians unsympathetic to the traditional schema believe,

25 26

27 28 29

naturam, he fails to see how this makes it incomplete in the species of substance. He resists defining its incompleteness in terms of “the yearning for and adaptation to the body that still persists in it” (ibid.), arguing that “all finite beings have lacks in their nature that create a yearning for the ultimate” (ibid.) and that if this signifies incompleteness then only God qualifies as a complete substance (ibid., 168). Oguejiofor seems confused on this point. The soul qualifies as an incomplete substance not because it requires things other than itself in order to be totally fulfilled, but simply because it lacks things it requires in order to exercise all its natural powers. Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 106–7; Copleston, Aquinas, 160. See ST 1 76.8c, where Aquinas makes clear that the term “body” is applied to animal and human corpses only equivocally, “as we speak of a painted animal or stone animal.” See Vaske, Introduction to Metaphysics, 57. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 52. Ibid.

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although they usually do not try to demonstrate this systematically, confining themselves to asserting that such a separable soul is not consistent with the vision of man’s substantial unity supported by both sacred scripture and modern philosophical anthropologies,30 and interpreting magisterial teachings like that of Vienne according to their own, more monistic understanding of human unity.31 However, it might be argued that the very differences affirmed here between Aquinas’s model and a thoroughgoing dualism of the Platonic or Cartesian kind can themselves be used as a basis for calling into question the possibility of the soul existing in separation from the body, or at least seriously undermining either the reasonableness of such a view or its value as a means of accounting for the identity of the person through death and resurrection. In other words, Aquinas’s reasons for holding that it is natural for the human soul to be embodied might themselves be used to cast doubt on the plausibility of the anima separata and its role within the traditional schema. The various problems generated thus can be summarized as 1. 2. 3.

The impossibility of such a soul maintaining its individuality apart from the body. The impossibility of such a soul remaining active, and therefore in existence, apart from the body. Even should (1) and (2) be solvable, the inadequacy of such a soul to account for personal identity through death, interim state and resurrection.

Each of these problems shall now be examined.

The loss of individuality for the separated soul If the soul is related to the body as its substantial form, then—according to the metaphysics which underpins a Thomistic anthropology like that outlined above—it is individuated in virtue of the matter in which it is received.32 For 30

31 32

See, for example, Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119–22; van der Walle, From Darkness, 36–37, 152, 167–73; Sachs, Christian Vision, 84, 90. See, for example, Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 119–20. Edwards, “Thomas Aquinas on ‘The Same Man,’” 89.

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Aquinas, it is matter which is the principle of individuation in things which belong to the same species, and the human soul thus “owes its individuality to its union with the body.”33 It is this principle which determines, and explains the fact, that—for Aquinas—each angel is sui generis. Being immaterial, angels must be differentiated according to form alone; each one is therefore the sole member of its species.34 This very principle of individuation, however, seems to threaten the Thomistic picture of a soul which is able to exist as an anima separata in the interim between death and resurrection; for if the soul is individuated by matter, then for it to separate from matter entails the loss of that by which it is individuated. If this is so, then it cannot separate and yet maintain its individuality, and thus its identity.35 It must therefore remain united to matter at all times or cease to exist as an individual thing. Within this metaphysical framework, therefore, it would seem as if the only hope for ensuring the continuation of individual animae separatae is to differentiate them by form, rather than matter, as with the angels. Thus, the defender of the traditional schema is faced with a dilemma: “it would seem that no two separated souls ought to be of the same species, or else that there cannot be two separated souls.”36 The latter option (which we might term Aristotelian) is one which clearly must be avoided by the proponent of the traditional schema (and was, in addition, condemned by the Fifth Lateran Council).37 The first alternative is no real option for the traditionalist either, constituting a renunciation of the idea of the soul as the form of the body and a collapse into the sort of dualism Aquinas strenuously tries to avoid (and which was itself condemned by an ecumenical council, in this case, The Council of Vienne).38 Aquinas tackles this problem by clarifying that in the case of human souls, the body is not the cause of the soul’s individuality. The soul is not individuated by the matter which it informs (the body), for this would indeed imply the impossibility of multiple souls once bodies were removed.39 Rather, the human soul, possessing its own being, and thus unity, continues to exist as a distinct 33 34

35 36 37 38 39

Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 54 (see also ibid., 153). See ST I 50.4c; ST I 76.2, ad 1; also Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 54; Copleston, Aquinas, 95; Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 382. See Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 108. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 382. ND, para. 410. Ibid., 405. ST I 76.2, obj. 2.

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entity after the dissolution of the body.40 For Aquinas, therefore, we should not think of human souls as “actually individuated by their bodies.”41 Rather, the relation is to be conceived less directly. As forms of their bodies, the multiplicity of souls must certainly be “in proportion”42 or “in accordance with”43 the multiplicity of bodies. However, as forms whose being, and thus unity, is not dependent on matter, human souls cannot be considered to have these bodies as the cause of their multiplication.44 By itself though, such an answer seems less than adequate, giving rise once again to the question: in virtue of what are animae separatae individuated? If matter cannot be the cause of their individual unity (and thus multiplicity), then what is? If the Thomist turns to the only other ontological principle available (form), then he/she is once more faced with explaining how these souls can be considered human souls, that is, how they are to count as belonging to the same species.45 Aquinas’s own approach to this dilemma is to qualify his principle that things which agree in species and differ numerically agree in form and are distinguished by matter. For Aquinas, substantial forms which inform matter are themselves “shaped at the very start in accord with the matter to which they are united.”46 Thus the actual forms of individuals within a species are made to differ one from the other while remaining however “alike enough to qualify as members of the same species.”47 Aquinas’s thinking in this area is expressed with particular clarity in his examination of how it is possible for people to possess different degrees of understanding, a fact seemingly confirmed by our everyday experience. One objection he raises against this possibility is in the form of the following argument:

40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47

ST I 76.2, ad 2. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 382; see also Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 192– 93. ST I 76.2, ad 2. SCG II 81.7. Ibid. Robert Pasnau thinks that one option for the Thomist would be to differentiate human souls in terms of the dispositions of intellect and will which they accumulate throughout their time in the body, and he expresses surprise that Aquinas does not opt to differentiate them in these terms. However, as Geach has shown, this would not really be an option, qualitative differences between disembodied intellects presupposing numerical difference rather than constituting it (see Geach, God and the Soul, 22–23). Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 383. Ibid., 382.

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Premise one: the intellect is that which is most formal in a human being Premise two: a difference in form causes a difference in species Conclusion: therefore, if one human being understands more than another, they do not belong to the same species.48

The above argument is formally valid, and so because Aquinas accepts the testimony of our everyday experience in this matter, he must challenge one of the argument’s premises if he is to resist its conclusion. In his reply to this objection in the same article, Aquinas makes clear that it is premise two which he does not accept without the following qualification: The difference of form which is due only to the different disposition of matter, causes not a specific but only a numerical difference: for different individuals have different forms, diversified according to the difference of matter.49

Aquinas, in other words, does not think a difference in form need cause a difference in species as long as the difference is in some way because of the matter. This interpretation, however, is not a little problematic. That differences in matter should cause (and even constitute) variations in form seems reasonable enough when it is purely material beings which are being considered, but when applied to the spiritual soul of man it seems obscure,50 in seeming tension with Aquinas’s principle that a lower being cannot be “an active agent in the production of a higher spiritual being”51 and his insistence that human souls are not caused to be individuated by their bodies.52 In applying the qualified principle above to human souls in order to account for their individuation, Aquinas is employing an Aristotelian principle, the principle of proportionality, which states that a certain proportion must exist between a particular form and its matter, and thus between souls and their bodies.53 Drawing for support on the more obvious fact that in material things which differ in species the soul received by each is commensurate with the capacity of the matter, Aquinas argues that “because some men have bodies of better disposition, their souls have a greater power of understanding,”54 and it is because particular human souls are thus adapted to particular bodies 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

ST I 85.7, obj. 3. ST I 85.7, ad 3 (emphases added). See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 383–84. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 153; see ST I 84.6. See, for example, SCG II 81.7 and ST I 76.2, obj. 2 & ad 2. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 153. ST I 85.7c.

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that they are made to differ one from the other.55 In answering thus, Aquinas attempts to affirm the body’s role in the soul’s individuation (and the truth that, as with other material beings, individuation is in some way due to matter), while denying that the matter of the body in any way exercises “in its own right a determination on the essential nature of the soul as individual”56 (i.e., does not effect that individuation in such a way as to violate metaphysical principles of causation like that above, to which he is committed). Certainly, such an account need not imply that the matter of the body impresses itself upon the soul in order to shape it in some fashion. Aquinas’s use of the passive voice in those texts where he affirms proportionality between soul and body57 does not in any way permit such an interpretation. Neither, however, does it give any clue as to what he thinks is the actual mechanism whereby such “proportioning” is brought about. While there is no possibility of understanding this in any way which might suggest that the body literally molds the soul, other explanations do remain possible for the Thomist. Two of these which Pasnau identifies are 1. 2.

God creates each soul exactly proportioned for the body it is to inform. The soul itself guarantees the necessary proportion by molding itself to the body.

Both can be traced in Aquinas’s speculations about original sin and the traits inherited from parents58 but Aquinas does not seem to pronounce decisively in favor of one or the other.59 If the general cogency of such an account can be accepted, then the Thomist would seem to be in a position to provide an explanation of how human souls are individuated both synchronically and diachronically. Rendered unique by their “proportioning” to the matter they inform, souls are distinguished one from the other even once separated from that matter. Continuing with the same existence which they possessed in their bodies, each soul retains this individuality as long as they endure, the initial “molding” remaining and marking each soul out as the form of such and such a particular body, proportioned exactly to it and to it alone.60 “Through 55 56 57 58 59 60

SCG II 81.8; see Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 54. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 153 (emphasis added). See ST I 85.7, for example. See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 384, 460-61n16. Ibid., 384. Ibid., 384–85; Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 108.

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acquiring the individual existence of this body it always remains individual in its existence.”61 Just as the human soul’s subsistence ensures that it does not perish with the body, so its enduring essence as the form of this particular body ensures that its individuality remains. If the individuation of the soul is explained thus, then clearly it cannot be understood to be retrospective only. If the soul’s existence is that of having been the form of a particular body, and if this existence remains, then clearly the soul must also retain the capacity for actualizing the very same body. The individuation of the human soul is thus prospective also: human souls differing “by being fitted for reunion to different bodies.”62 What makes this soul to be this soul is not only that it was united to such and such a body, but also precisely that it retains an aptitude to being united to this particular body, and thus a capacity for once again actualizing it. Such an explanation of the individuation of disembodied human souls, as being “fitted for reunion to different bodies,”63 entails the logical possibility of the same body existing again at some point in the future.64 How this might be conceived is something to be examined later in this chapter. However, even should one be prepared to accept that the fact of the subsistent soul being proportioned to its particular body in the manner outlined above is sufficient to account for its enduring individuality when it is apart from matter, serious objections to the traditional schema remain. The next to be considered is that of the supposed impossibility of such a soul remaining active (and thus, in existence) apart from the body.

The inactivity of the separated soul Aquinas holds that the soul has operations (cognition and volition) which are, in their exercise, independent of the matter of the body (a key reason he thinks the human soul must be subsistent65). Nevertheless, he embraces an essentially Aristotelian epistemology in requiring that the raw material or data of thought

61 62

63 64 65

Selman, Aspects of Aquinas, 108 (emphases added). Geach, God and the Soul, 23. To deny this would entail denying either that the soul had ever been genuinely proportioned to this body or that it had remained the form of that body, facts incompatible with it having been in itself the form of this particular body. Ibid. Ibid., 23, 28. See ST I 75.2c.

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(and thus will) come to our mind via the senses.66 The distinction he makes in order to reconcile these two positions is between the object and the organ of thought. Thus, the soul’s proper operation, understanding, has its object, namely, the phantasm, in the body, despite the fact that this operation does not depend on the body as though it were effected through the instrumentality of a bodily organ.67

The human soul is not naturally endowed with intelligible species. As such, it requires union with the body in order to engage in intellectual activity.68 Only in union with the body can the soul thus exercise its full range of powers and reach perfection.69 However, for Aquinas, it seems also to be the case that anything which is deprived of its proper operation cannot exist.70 If each being must have its proper operation, “and the special operation of the soul, knowing, is intrinsically linked with the body,”71 then it is difficult to see how the anima separata can continue to exist, deprived as it is of its proper operation. The question might reasonably be posed at this point: need one accept as axiomatic the view that for something to cease to exercise its proper operation is for it thereby to cease to exist? Do we have to accept, in other words, that the relation between operation and existence is one of conceptual necessity? Robert Pasnau notes that although Aquinas frequently writes as if the relation between operation and existence is one of logical (because conceptual) necessity, when he comes to justify this view, he sometimes offers arguments which suggest the relation is rather weaker, one of teleological rather than logical necessity, based only on the assumption that nothing in nature is idle.72 If this is so, Pasnau argues, then it is not required that we are committed to the inference from inactivity to nonexistence, because such teleological necessity is a qualified necessity, holding not that nature will always achieve optimal results but only those which are the best ones possible in the circumstances. So if it is possible for a separated soul to continue operating, it will continue operating, because nothing in nature is idle. But if it turns out that a separated 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

ST I 84 and 85. SCG II 81.12. ST I 76.5c; Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 51; Potts, “Resurrection of the Damned,” 343 Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 152. ST I 75.6, obj. 3; SCG II 80.6; see Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 67, 366, 368–71. Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 154. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 369.

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soul could not possibly continue to operate, then this would not show that such a soul could not exist, only that nature was hampered in what it might achieve.73

If teleological necessity is all that is being talked about here, then there would be no need to defend the traditional schema on this point. However, it would seem that Aquinas has good reason for regarding the relation between operation and existence as more than an expression of teleology, and as holding on conceptual grounds, because of his understanding of what it is for living things to exist. For Aquinas, following Aristotle, as far as living things are concerned, their living and their existing are one and the same. It would be nonsense, on Aquinas’s way of thinking, to separate a thing’s existing from its being alive. To live just is to exist in a certain way—which means, to function in a certain way.74

For a living thing to cease to exercise any functions is not for it to continue to exist in some mysterious dormant state, rather it is for it to cease to exist at all, for to exist is to exist as a kind of thing, in this case a living thing. Likewise, the soul, which is the first principle of life,75 continues to exist only if it continues to live, if it continues to carry out one or more of the operations associated with its kind of life. The anima separata, cut off as it is from the body, and thus from performing its sensory and nutritive operations, can only continue to exist, therefore, if it is able to engage in rational acts of thought and will. It might be objected that this is too stringent a condition for existence even for living things. Surely it would be sufficient if the anima separata preserved its capacity for rational acts, even if for the moment this was unexercised. Moreover, there would seem to be no good reason to think that in the absence of any actually occurring phantasms, this capacity would cease. Aquinas’s own distinction between the object and the organ of cognition76 would seem to support this line of thought, suggesting that “the faculty of intellect can remain intact without phantasms, even if the raw materials are missing.”77 Such considerations once again raise the question of whether or not the relation between operation and existence might be teleological only. Might the

73 74 75 76 77

Ibid. Ibid., 370. ST I 75.1c. See SCG II 81.12. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 370.

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separated soul not conceivably continue to exist, possessing the mere capacity for thought, while lacking thought’s necessary objects?78 While Aquinas allows that not all the soul’s different capacities need be active at all times,79 he explicitly rejects the notion of a totally dormant living substance; a living thing, by definition, must always be actually engaged in some operation. A spiritual substance admits of no other operation of life than thinking, and must always, therefore, be thinking.80 If unable to engage in acts of cognition, “the separated soul could not be said to have life, and therefore could not exist.”81 It would seem, therefore, that for living things at least, the relation between operation and existence is properly viewed as one of conceptual, not merely teleological, necessity.82 If this analysis is correct, then it would seem that the traditional schema, as an explanatory model, possesses a considerable weakness. If one does not wish to resort to a Platonic conception of the soul in order to avoid these difficulties,83 nor wish to abandon this schema entirely, it will be necessary to give an account of how the soul could continue to operate in a state in which it can receive no phantasms. Aquinas himself, of course, has recourse at this point to the soul’s adopting “another mode of operation when separated from the body,”84 intellectively cognizing through divinely impressed species as the other separated substances (angels) do, “though in a lesser degree.”85 For the soul to be able to exist in such a state, in other words, “the functions of corporeality must be miraculously replaced by God.”86 To adopt such a route in order to preserve the existence of the anima separata seems, however, to be deeply unsatisfactory, robbing the traditional schema of much of its appeal. Concerning the invocation of God as a causal agent in the face of theological lacunae of this sort, Ladislaus Boros notes: There is no reason whatever why we should implicate God in the explanation of processes involving merely secondary causes, as long as there exists any possibility of our finding a strictly immanent basis for them.87 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Ibid., 371. Pasnau offers, in this connection, the analogy of a steel factory which has no supply of iron: clearly nonfunctioning, but also clearly still in existence and ready to resume production once raw materials are available. See ST I 77.1c. SCG II 97.3. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 371. Ibid., 372. See Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 154. Ibid.; see Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 372. ST I 89.1, ad 3. Kung, Eternal Life?, 301n55, citing Greshake. Boros, Moment of Truth, 76.

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Unless we can identify a potential source of species suitable for intellective cognition by the anima separata within the nexus of secondary causes, the soul’s continued existence apart from the body would seem to be guaranteed only by appealing to special divine intervention, a solution which, to its opponents in particular, will seem irredeemably ad hoc, a symptom of the foundational difficulties which undermine the credibility of the traditional schema.88 But is this analysis correct? Granted, the relation between operation and existence in the case of living things seems conceptual and not merely teleological. But the argument from this truth to the soul’s ceasing to exist if unable to operate is not explicitly valid. For it to be made so, a tacit assumption must be made clear: that the soul is essentially a living thing. In his analysis of Aquinas’s thought in this area, Pasnau can be seen to make this assumption, for example, when he says, “A soul—‘the first principle of life’ (75.1c)—can continue to exist only if it continues to live.”89 In addressing the challenge that the capacity for thought might be sufficient for the continued existence of the human soul he again makes this assumption, contending that, while not all the soul’s different capacities need be active at all times,90 the notion of a totally inactive living substance is incoherent, supporting his case with reference to separated substances (angels) whose existence and activity (thought) are coextensive.91 In thus treating the relation between the operation of the soul and its existence as conceptual, Pasnau can find support in Aquinas’s writings: for Aquinas regularly affirms that in order to exist independently, the soul must be able to operate on its own.92 Clearly, such declarations are explicable if one assumes, as Pasnau does, that the soul is, in essence, a living thing. But the question remains to be asked: should we be compelled to accept that the human soul is essentially living? Certainly, it is the first principle of life, as Aquinas notes: that which gives life and thus existence to the human being. But it does not follow from this alone that it is per se and essentially a living thing. For something to be the cause of something does not entail that it is itself in possession of that same thing. Illustrative examples for this abound in everyday life and can also be found in Aquinas’s own writings on the soul. For instance,

88 89 90 91 92

See, for example, Kung, Eternal Life?, 301-2n55. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 370. See ST I 77.1c. See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 371. See, for example, SCG II 80.6. See also ST I 75.6, obj. 3 (that Aquinas accepts the main premise of this argument can be seen by the nature of his response to this objection).

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although, for Aquinas, the human soul is the formal, efficient and final cause of the human body,93 it is not itself a body.94 Similarly, while the spiritual soul is the cause of all the sensitive perfections in the human being, it does not (and cannot) actually possess such perfections apart from the body. Likewise, while the souls of plants and nonhuman animals are the causes of their respective lives, they do not possess this life in virtue of themselves, being mortal and ceasing to exist with the composite.95 Leaving aside the issue of the precise nature of Aquinas’s own thought on these matters, there would seem to be no obvious reason why we could not maintain that the soul, while being the cause of life in the composite, is not, per se and essentially, living. The inference from X’s being the cause of A to X’s possessing A in virtue of itself is not a valid one, as we have seen, and while an inactive, living substance undoubtedly seems incoherent, an inactive, nonliving substance which yet possesses the capacity to induce life does not. A modern analogy, in terms of which one might conceive of such an existent, yet inactive soul which nevertheless possesses the capacity to animate the appropriate matter, would be that of an electrical battery which, apart from any circuit, is inert, yet once placed in a circuit is the cause of the resulting electrical activity in the circuit, activity in which it now participates. If it is indeed permissible to conceive of the soul in such a fashion, then it would no longer be necessary to invoke the miraculous intervention of God in order to preserve the soul in existence in the period between death and resurrection. The risk of invoking ad hoc solutions in order to address an apparent theological lacuna in one’s eschatology is thus avoided. However, even were this solution acceptable, problems remain for the traditional schema. While the soul’s being inert might be logically compatible with its continued existence between death and resurrection, Catholic teaching on death, judgment, and the intermediate state would not seem to be compatible with the idea of such an inert soul. Rather, what is affirmed is immediate reward for the soul in accordance with faith and works.96 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgement that refers his life to Christ:

93 94 95 96

Farmer, “Aquinas on the Immortality of the Human Soul,” 211. ST I 75.1. See Farmer, “Aquinas on the Immortality of the Human Soul,” 211; ST I 75.3; SCG II 82. See CCC, para. 1021.

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either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through purification or immediately—or immediate and everlasting damnation.97

In heaven, the souls of the blessed enjoy the unmediated vision of God’s essence (the beatific vision),98 communion with the angels and saints,99 and continued participation in God’s will with regard “to other men and creation.”100 In purgatory, they are “assured of their eternal salvation [and] … undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”101 In this state, the holy souls are brought consolation and relief from their suffering by the prayers and suffrages of the faithful.102 In hell, the souls of those who die rejecting God’s merciful love103 suffer punishment, chiefly “eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”104 Even if all the acts of cognition thus implied for the blessed in this interim could be explained supernaturally, as an effect of the beatific vision, those of the holy souls and the damned cannot, requiring instead some kind of natural or preternatural explanation. So, even should a source of intelligible species for the anima separata in the interim state not need to be found in order to account for the soul’s continued existence, the traditionalist must still specify such a cause in order to account for those activities of the soul presupposed by the church’s teaching on what follows the death of the individual. The form such an explanation takes thus remains an important factor in one’s critical evaluation of eschatological alternatives. If proponents of the traditional schema are not to weaken their case at this point, the explanation will need to be such as to avoid susceptibility to the charges of being ad hoc or arbitrary, or of multiplying entities unnecessarily, and to compete on these terms at least as favorably as alternative schemata which might be formulated, such as resurrection in death. What then could be the source of the species which the soul employs for intellective cognition in the disembodied state of the interim? One option, already alluded to, is that the separation of the soul from the body in some 97

Ibid., 1022. Ibid., paras 1023, 1028. 99 Ibid., 1024–25, 1027. 100 Ibid., para. 1029. 101 Ibid., 1030. 102 Ibid., 1032. 103 Ibid., 1033. 104 Ibid., 1035. 98

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sense constitutes an epistemic liberation, the soul thus being able to receive a purer kind of knowledge “directly from a higher source.”105 As Aquinas puts it in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologica, a separated soul is in a way more free to use the intellect, since the weight and distraction of its body keeps it from the pure operation of intellect.106 So, for Aquinas, the separated soul, deprived of the body’s senses and thus of phantasms, is nevertheless able to function, existing now in the same manner as the separate substances (angels) themselves, and thus able to operate in the same mode, cognizing by means of divinely impressed species as they do. Therefore, although the mode of understanding vouchsafed to us in the present life ceases upon the death of the body, nevertheless another and higher mode of understanding will take its place.107

Prima facie, such an account is exceedingly problematic. The idea that the soul, on being “freed” from the data of the senses, is thus enabled to access a higher form of knowledge undeniably has something of an uncomfortably Platonic ring to it, and would, therefore, appear to be in tension with the holistic inclinations of Catholic anthropology in general, and Thomistic anthropology in particular: that the body’s union with the soul is for the latter’s good, rather than an impediment to its flourishing.108 Appealing alternatives to this are, however, difficult to find. It is tempting to hypothesize instead that because the soul has operations independent of any bodily organ, it would still be able to cognize in the interim state by making use, through reflection and reasoning, of just that knowledge acquired while it was in the body.109 There would be several advantages to this. First, supposing that the rational soul continues to rely only on knowledge acquired through the senses while it was still in the body would seem prima facie to enable the traditionalist to avoid the charge of Platonism. Secondly, such a model would not be susceptible to the objection that as an explanatory hypothesis, it is ad hoc, uneconomical, or inelegant. In seemingly bypassing the concept of infused

105

Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 154. ST I 89.2, ad 1. Aquinas cites a range of fairly commonplace experiences as evidence in favor of such a hypothesis. These include sleep, trance, and ecstasy freeing the mind to receive various sorts of preternatural knowledge, as well as the exercise of temperance which makes us more capable of achieving understanding (see, for example, SCG II 81.12; ST I 86.4, ad 2). 107 SCG II 81.13. 108 Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 154. 109 Ibid. 106

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species to account for the soul’s activity, it avoids the need to posit special intervention on the part of other agents to explain the presence of such species in the soul. In spite of these points in its favor, however, such an explanation is unlikely to prove adequate as a model of cognition for the anima separata in the traditional schema, for if the mind is restricted to reflection only on what it already knows, then it does not seem possible to account for all that the experiences of purgation or damnation are likely to entail.110 Secondly, and more fundamentally, Thomistic anthropology requires that, even though understanding “is not an operation carried out through any bodily organ,”111 the soul naturally needs phantasms as objects of cognition, even when drawing on knowledge previously acquired,112 as well as the assistance of powers (such as the cogitative power and the memory) which are acts of bodily organs in order to “prepare the phantasms so as to render them actually intelligible.”113 Given such difficulties, it is worth examining further the view that separation from the body enables the soul to receive divinely impressed species (a view toward which Aquinas seems consistently inclined in his writings on the separated soul114) in order to ascertain whether this can be couched in a manner which would preserve it from charges of being either ad hoc or Platonic.

How might the separated soul which is the form of the body continue to think? For Aquinas, two things must be maintained when considering the existence and function of the soul apart from the body. The first is that the soul’s nature must remain the same. If this cannot be maintained, then it simply cannot be held that the human soul continues to exist. The second is that the natural mode of knowledge for the soul is through phantasms. In affirming the second of these principles, Aquinas explicitly rejects a Platonic understanding of the soul’s existence and knowledge.

110

See Aquinas, De Anima, XV, obj. 16. SCG II 80.6. 112 See ST I 84.7 & 8 and De Anima, XVc; Kretzmann, “Philosophy of Mind,”140–42; Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 278–295, 388. 113 SCG II 80.6. 114 See Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 154–59. 111

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Did this not proceed from the soul’s very nature, but accidentally through its being bound up with the body, as the Platonists said, the difficulty would vanish; for in that case when the body was once removed, the soul would at once return to its own nature, and would understand intelligible things simply, without turning to the phantasms, as is exemplified in the case of other separate substances. In that case, however, the union of soul and body would not be for the soul’s good, for evidently it would understand worse in the body than out of it; but for the good of the body, which would be unreasonable, since matter exists on account of the form, and not the form for the sake of matter.115

Given the non-accidental nature of the soul’s union with the body, and the fact that death does not change the soul’s nature, Aquinas argues that it would seem that the anima separata is incapable of cognizing naturally “as the phantasms are wanting to which it may turn.”116 Aquinas addresses this difficulty, however, by arguing that although remaining unaltered in terms of its nature, the separated soul nevertheless has a new mode of existing and thus a new mode of operation, one akin to the other separate substances.117 One objection which can be raised at this point is that the idea of existence as the sort of thing which admits of degrees or kinds is extremely obscure; surely either a thing exists or it does not; “there are not ways of existing.”118 In fact, within the framework of Thomistic metaphysics such an objection would be misguided, for things do not exist simpliciter: rather a thing can only exist as a particular sort of thing. Now clearly, in positing a change in its manner of existing, Aquinas cannot be implying a transformation of nature significant enough to be termed a substantial change, for in this case identity could not be preserved. Marked accidental change would be adequate for his purpose. Robert Pasnau gives as examples the transformation of tadpoles into frogs or caterpillars into butterflies. He observes that at death, the human soul would undergo a change that is “every bit as dramatic.”119 Against such a background, he claims that when Aquinas makes reference to the soul’s having a different mode of existence after death, nothing mysterious is implied.

115

ST I 89.1c. Ibid. 117 ST I 89.1c & ad 3. 118 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 372. 119 Ibid., 373. 116

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All he means is that the soul was united to a body, and that now it is separated from that body. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose, he asks, that a change so utter and dramatic will produce differences in the way the soul operates?120

If one accepts this in principle, one is nevertheless still a long way from addressing the charge of Platonism; for Aquinas insists that upon separation from the body the soul turns from phantasms, which are no longer accessible to it, to simply intelligible objects which constitute a superior form of knowledge to that abstracted from phantasms.121 As already noted, however, he also wishes to hold that the soul’s union with the body is non-accidental, and that “it is as natural for the soul to understand by turning to the phantasms as it is for it to be joined to the body.”122 There is an obvious tension here. On the one hand, for the soul to be separated from the body is praeter naturam (“foreign to its nature”)123 and so to “understand without turning to the phantasms is not natural to it,”124 yet on the other hand, it is better to understand “by turning to simply intelligible objects than by turning to the phantasms.”125 Aquinas expresses the difficulty here by stating that if this is so, and since nature is always ordered to what is best, then God should have ordered the soul’s nature so that the nobler way of understanding would have been natural to it, and it would not have needed the body for that purpose.126

Aquinas proposes to resolve this difficulty by distinguishing between mode of knowing considered in terms of its object and mode of knowing considered in terms of its subject. Thus, while it is true that it is nobler in itself to understand by turning to something higher than to understand by turning to phantasms, nevertheless such a mode of understanding was not so perfect as regards what was possible to the soul.127

He explains this with reference to the idea that as one moves down the hierarchy of separate substances, their manner of understanding that

120

Ibid. ST I 89.1c & ad 3. 122 ST I 89.1c. 123 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 379. 124 ST I 89.1c. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. 121

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which God communicates to them changes: superior spiritual substances understanding “by means of a number of species, which nevertheless are fewer and more universal and bestow a deeper comprehension of things because of the efficaciousness of the intellectual power of such natures”128 while, lower down, inferior intellectual substances must employ a larger number of species which are less universal “and bestow a lower degree of comprehension, in proportion as they recede from the intellectual power of the higher natures.”129 Given this, Aquinas argues, were inferior substances to receive species possessing a degree of universality appropriate to a superior substance, their inferior intellectual strength would render the knowledge thus derived imperfect, being of “a general and confused nature.”130 The analogy he uses to elucidate this is the failure of men possessing weaker intellects to acquire perfect knowledge of something through the more universal conceptions of those with a superior understanding of it “unless things are explained to them singly and in detail.”131 Applying this to separated human souls, Aquinas argues that had God willed these lowest among spiritual substances to understand in the same manner as separate substances (angels), their knowledge, “so far from being perfect, would be confused and general.”132 God thus makes them so that they are by nature to be joined to bodies, and thus able to receive proper and adequate knowledge of sensible things from the sensible things themselves; thus we see in the case of uneducated men that they have to be taught by sensible examples.133

He concludes that although the soul is capable of existing apart from the body, and in this state to understand to some degree by means of simply intelligible species, its union with the body is nevertheless for its good, it being natural for it to understand by means of phantasms, through which it receives knowledge and understanding appropriate to its intellectual power. The natural state of the soul thus being union with the body, the anima separata can be said to exist in a manner which is praeter naturam, and although the knowledge which it is thus able to receive is per se of a higher kind than that which it receives when 128

Ibid. Ibid. 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. 129

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embodied, because the nature of the soul “is not proportioned to this higher knowledge,”134 such knowledge is always quasi communi et confusam,135 and so ultimately not suitable for the soul.136 Aquinas’s resolution of this difficulty in the Prima Pars marks a notable development in his anthropology. While the influence of Platonism that runs throughout his writings from The Commentary on the Sentences, the De Veritate, and the Summa Contra Gentiles remains in the Summa Theologiae and the De Anima to the extent that in these later writings the separated soul is still presented as able to cognize by virtue of “powerful universals coming directly from immaterial sources,”137 this influence is nevertheless significantly diminished here, modified by the increasing appropriation of the logic of Aristotelian holism.138 Employing the concept of the “order of intellection” in the manner outlined above, Aquinas is able to explain in what sense the soul, while still able to remain active in the intermediate state is nevertheless poorer apart from the body, thus supporting the conviction “that the union of the soul and the body being natural is for the perfection of the soul and its inherent tendencies.”139 While the tendency in the earlier writings is to characterize the existence and actions of the anima separata in a way that would seem to assimilate it to the status of an angel, thus threatening to undermine the teaching on the soul as forma corporis,140 here Aquinas takes care to follow closely the logic of maintaining that the soul retains its nature as forma corporis both within and without the body.141 Thus, whereas the earlier emphasis in Aquinas’s thought invited the conclusion that the soul reaches fulfillment with separation,142 Aquinas’s mature thought offers scant support for such Platonic conceptions. He is, moreover, explicit that the preternatural state of the anima separata in fact implies it exists in a state of “constant yearning for its natural abode,”143 possessing not only an aptitude but “a natural inclination to be united to the body.”144 134

Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 158. Ibid., 159; ST I 89.1c 136 Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 158. 137 Ibid. 138 See Pegis, “The Separated Soul,” 150. 139 Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 159. 140 See Pegis, “The Separated Soul,” 150. 141 See Oguejiofor, Immortality in Thomas Aquinas, 156–57. 142 Ibid., 156. 143 Ibid., 160. 144 ST I 76.1, ad 6. 135

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It would seem, therefore, that a way remains open for the traditionalist to resist the charge that the anima separata’s continued activity apart from the body implies a Platonic conception of the human being, constituting as it does, an impoverished and unnatural mode of existence, rather than an ontological and epistemic liberation.

Can this account be defended against the charge of being ad hoc? But what about the immediate resurrectionist’s charge that such an account is ad hoc. By Aquinas’s own admission, there can be no other source for the species which the anima separata requires for the forms of cognition in which it is to engage in the interim state than divine illumination.145 However, as Robert Pasnau expresses it, Aquinas seems to introduce illumination at this point as “a kind of theological life support for souls that would otherwise come to an entirely natural end.”146 In this connection the objection of Greshake/Kung has already been noted: that for the soul to be able to exist in such a state “the functions of corporeality must be miraculously replaced by God.”147 Even if one accepts the conclusion of the previous analysis, that only the separated soul’s activity (rather than its existence) requires such special divine intervention, the charge of invoking a deus ex machina to support the traditional schema at this crucial juncture remains. In spite of possessing an initial force, this problem is, on closer examination, much less serious than it at first seems. Challenging his own initial suggestion that the traditionalist account of the activity of the anima separata is a rather arbitrary construction required to plug a theological lacuna in the schema, Pasnau urges that in furnishing the soul with divine illumination, he [Aquinas] is not making any special provision for human beings, but simply incorporating separated souls into his broader account of how separate spiritual substances function.148

Aquinas, as a Catholic theologian, is committed not only to the existence of God but to an unseen creation, populated by purely spiritual beings (angels).149 145

See ST I 89.1, ad 3. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 374. 147 Kung, Eternal Life?, 301n55. 148 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 374; see ST I 89.8c. 149 The existence of such creatures qualifies as a de fide teaching in Catholicism: see Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20); First Vatican General Council, Dogmatic Constitution Concerning the Catholic Faith (Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 1783); Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, para. 8; CCC, paras 327–28). 146

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Although he speaks of animae separatae cognizing by means of purely intelligible species received through divine illumination, he does not in fact think that human souls are directly influenced in this fashion at all. For Aquinas, only the highest angels are illuminated directly by God himself.150 These are then compelled by a moral imperative to pass on their knowledge to lower angels, illuminating them “regarding everything they know.”151 This flow of information continues down the hierarchy of spiritual substances “and eventually to the lowest of separate intellectual substances, separated souls.”152 Given this, it is perhaps a little unhelpful of Aquinas to speak of the animae separatae understanding by means of “intelligible species divinely infused.”153 To the extent that this suggests direct divine intervention taken in order to illuminate separated souls, it would seem to contribute significantly to the ad hoc appearance, and thus the lack of credibility, of the traditionalist schema.154 However, the illuminations which the separated souls receive in the interim state may be considered “divine” only inasmuch as God is their ultimate source. For Aquinas, these things are always in fact conveyed to humans “by the ministry of the angels.”155 Ladislaus Boros’s stipulation that one should avoid implicating God “in the explanation of processes involving merely secondary causes as long as there exists any possibility of our finding a strictly immanent basis for them”156 would seem thus to have been met by Aquinas, who avoids invoking a deus ex machina for the purpose of saving his schema by providing instead an explanation for the separated souls’ activity in terms of the secondary causal nexus of the unseen creation, quite reasonably concluding that once separated from the sensory input associated with bodily union, “they would function much as other spiritual substances function.”157 At this point, however, an objector might reply that while this does not necessarily constitute divine intervention of the type to which Boros and Greshake object, it still nevertheless possesses an ad hoc character, relying as it does on an unusual mode of action—the special intervention of other 150

Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375, citing quaestiones disputatae de veritate, 9.2. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375; see ST I 106.4. 152 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375. 153 ST I 89.1, obj. 3. 154 See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375. 155 ST I 117.2sc. 156 Boros, Moment of Truth, 76 (emphases added). 157 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375. 151

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sentient agents—in order to preserve the necessary activity of the animae separatae. It is far from clear that this objection is conclusive. Were angelic communications with human souls enacted for the first time as the latter passed into their intermediate state, and/or the purpose of these spiritual “secondary causes” in thus communicating was to be understood only or principally in terms of providing the animae separatae with an activity befitting their status as intellectual substances, then the objection might perhaps have a degree of purchase. But there seems to be no need to assume these things to be true. For Aquinas, the flow of information from the angelic order to ourselves need not be conceived as peculiar to the interim state. Rather, it can be understood as a continuation of something which has occurred throughout our lives, the angels having being sent to guide and teach us in the pilgrim state also. Admittedly, in our current condition, we are normally insensitive to receiving truth via pure ideas and so angels propose it to us “under the similitudes of sensible things,”158 either by “influencing our imagination (111.3) or by manipulating our senses— by making us perceive things that aren’t there, or by putting actual things in front of us, as when angels take form (111.4).”159 As previously noted, however, Aquinas also accepts that such communications might happen in a more direct manner even during this life: our minds being sometimes quiescent to a degree which permits the awareness of things transcending our normal cognitive abilities.160 Given these possibilities, there is no need to characterize the illumination of separated souls by angelic agents in the interim state as special intervention in the sense that this occurs for the first time only following death or that, following death, the intention of the angels in communicating with us takes a purely utilitarian turn: performed principally or solely in order to keep our souls active, rather than remaining what it always was, the charitable sharing of knowledge (which, ipso facto, makes possible the souls’ activity). Such communication is simply the continuation of an activity which began at our conception and continued in one form or another throughout our lives on earth. Once the soul has separated from the body and the data provided by the senses has ceased to be possible, the lower angels communicate with us as

158

ST I 111.1c. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 375. 160 See SCG II 81.12; also ST I 86.4, ad 2. 159

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they always have done, though now restricted to only one of the means they employed while our souls were embodied. So, while the charge of being ad hoc can seem initially to have a degree of purchase on this aspect of the traditional schema, systematic examination of the issue reveals the charge to be less than convincing. Within the ontological framework assumed by the Catholic faith, the continued activity of the animae separatae can be accounted for without recourse to arbitrary machinations.161 Should this defense of the traditional schema not be considered acceptable, it is not clear in any case that resurrection in death compares any more favorably as an explanatory hypothesis. As with the traditional schema, some kind of preternatural knowledge seems to be implied by the sufferings of either purgation or damnation (tradition has never conceived of these in a manner susceptible to an explanation in terms of bodily privations only). Moreover, given that the new thesis posits the continued unity of soul and body in the interim, it is unlikely to be able to account for the necessary infused knowledge as economically as the traditional schema can: the latter explaining the soul’s sensitivity to intelligible species in the interim state precisely in terms of the absence of the body.

The inadequacy of the anima separata as carrier of personal identity There remains an important objection to the traditional schema which must be addressed. That is, even should it be possible to maintain the philosophical coherence of the anima separata’s individuality/existence and activity, nevertheless such an entity as the separated soul remains inadequate as an explanation of how personal identity is to be maintained through death, interim state, and resurrection. The crux of this objection is that because the human person is essentially a union of soul and matter (a body), then the separated soul, whatever it is, cannot count as the person.162 Thus, between death and resurrection, even though the soul persists to inform the new matter of a resurrection body, there

161 162

See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 374–77. See Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 114; Toner, “Death and the Separated Soul,” 587–88, 592– 93; Edwards, “Thomas Aquinas on ‘The Same Man’,” 94–95.

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is nevertheless a break in personal continuity, and the resurrected individual cannot, therefore, count as the same person as the one who died.163 One of the main advantages which the proponent of the traditional schema might perceive himself to have over the Christian monist, that he—unlike them—can account for personal identity through death and resurrection, would thus seem to be illusory. E. J. Fortman hints at two possible forms of response to this which, if successful, would allow the traditionalist to deny the break in continuity which the objector urges. The first is to accept the premise that a person is essentially a union of body and soul, but nevertheless hold to the view that the separated soul is that same person, though now “constituted in a different way.”164 The second is to view the soul, even when embodied, as the essence of the person. Both are problematic. The first seems to imply a contradiction: that a person’s essence could change and yet the same person remain in existence; the second constitutes an abandonment of the view that man is a substantial unity, and a return to Platonic dualism. It would seem, therefore, that this argument against the traditional schema has considerable force. Certainly, Aquinas did not avoid what he took to be the clear implications of his anthropology, insisting that “the soul is not I.”165 For this reason, although the human soul indeed survives death, no human being can be said to do so. Unlike Plato, who takes a biological view of human death, Aquinas’s account is metaphysical: “man is corrupted by death.”166 That this is consistently affirmed by Aquinas is demonstrated by Robert Pasnau, who shows that across a range of texts which concern the separated soul, Aquinas makes clear that this surviving remnant of human death is (i) not the whole human being (ii) not a person (iii) not the individual whose soul it was.167 That (i) and (ii) are thought to be true by Aquinas is unsurprising, thinks Pasnau. Concerning (i), the nature of a human being, like the nature of any species (other than an angel), consists not in the form alone, but “the form and the matter.”168 A human being is essentially a union of soul and matter (a body)

163

Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 185, 189, 196; Edwards, “Thomas Aquinas on ‘The Same Man’,” 95. 164 Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 107. 165 See Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 189; ST 1 75.4. 166 SCG IV 80.1 (emphasis added); see Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 385; Toner, “Death and the Separated Soul,” 592. 167 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 385–86. 168 ST I 75.4c.

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and so the soul alone cannot qualify as a human being. Concerning (ii), because a person, like a human being, must be a complete substance, and the anima separata is not complete, then it cannot be a person.169 Concerning the third way of expressing the separated soul’s ontological poverty (that the soul is not the individual whose soul it was), Pasnau expresses some reservation. Certainly, if we assume that Person P is essentially a human being or person, then it would seem to follow from (i) and (ii) that P’s soul by itself is not P, for it lacks an essential quality of P: humanity or personhood.170 While conceding that this is a valid argument, and one Aquinas would endorse, Pasnau thinks this is nevertheless an extremely problematic conclusion, for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is the philosophical problem of the identity of the separated soul. If this continues to be conscious, as Aquinas and the traditionalist hold, then it is reasonable to ask: who is doing the thinking? If not myself, as Aquinas argues, then it must be someone else, “not another person or another human being, but another conscious, thinking entity.”171 But this would seem to be absurd. Secondly, even were we to negotiate this difficulty philosophically by establishing that this entity is indeed to be correctly viewed as someone else (or as no one at all), considerable theological and philosophical problems remain; for it is Catholic teaching that the souls of those who die immediately go to heaven, hell, or purgatory according to what they deserve.172 However, as Pasnau poignantly enquires: “why should anyone (or anything) else suffer for my sins?”173 Furthermore, it is Catholic doctrine that the saints in heaven intercede for those still on earth.174 But, on this view, this cannot convincingly be maintained, for it has been established above that P’s soul, by itself, is not P. All prayers to the saints, therefore, are prayers to people who—if Aquinas’s logic is correct—no longer exist. Finally, Pasnau invokes the crucial philosophical point with which this section began. The whole function of a separated soul is to preserve my existence, to ensure that “no interruption occurs in the substantial existence of the human being” (IV SENT 44.1.1.2 ad 1). But if I, the human being, go out of existence, and if

169

ST I 75.4, ad 2. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 386. 171 Ibid. 172 A teaching accepted, of course, by Aquinas (ibid., 387). 173 Ibid. 174 See, for example, CCC, paras 956, 1029. 170

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some other thinking thing takes my place, then how does that soul’s continuing existence contribute to my resurrection?175

If the traditional schema is to have any chance of being preserved, therefore, it would seem that some justification is needed for viewing the separated soul as still, in some sense, the same individual whose soul it was in this life. Pasnau thinks it is possible to provide this. The root of Aquinas’s difficulty, he thinks, lies in his commitment to the essentiality of species membership along with his belief that the separated soul is not human; for together these imply the cessation of one’s existence at death. In the light of this, Pasnau identifies two main options for those wishing to adhere to Catholic doctrine while holding to such an anthropology. The first of these options involves abandoning “the assumption that I am essentially a human being.”176 It thus seeks to avoid Aquinas’s conclusion by challenging his major premise (the essentiality of species membership). On this view, one might hold that while existing as a human being in this life, in the interim state one could continue to exist as something other than a human being: an anima separata. Pasnau suggests that although this is clearly not a strategy that Aquinas considers (holding, as he does, the essentiality of species membership as axiomatic, and repeatedly denying that the human individual continues through death as a separated soul), 177 nevertheless, it might be defensible. It is extremely difficult to see how. The essentiality of species membership seems self-evidently true. Existence, as noted previously, is never existence simpliciter: for X to exist is for it to exist as such and such a thing. Moreover, as argued in Chapter 4, numerical identity is noncontingent. Thus, for something to change species is for it to undergo substantial change and thus for it to cease to be the individual which it was. Pasnau’s first option thus seems extremely unattractive. His second option, however, looks more promising. This proceeds by challenging Aquinas’s minor premise (that the separated soul is not human) rather than the major premise (the essentiality of species membership). If we consider Aquinas’s reasoning above concerning the status of the separated soul, we can see that it assumes throughout that personal survival is something which cannot admit

175

Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 387. Ibid. 177 Ibid. 176

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of degrees: it is “an all-or-nothing affair.”178 Pasnau observes that while it is natural to suppose that “I either exist or do not, and that there is no middle ground, no way to make sense of partial existence,”179 if this assumption is rejected, Aquinas’s account becomes more credible. It would then be possible to interpret all talk of a person’s soul not being that person as meaning simply that it is not entirely that person, not that person in his/her entirety. In answer to questions about who or what the soul becomes once separated from the body, one can reply that it does not become anyone or anything at all: “it stays what it was, a part of a person.”180 Pasnau accepts the view of those who pose this objection: that if I do not continue to exist in the interim, then I can never exist again, the necessary continuity having been disrupted.181 However, challenging the assumption that personal existence admits of no degrees, he argues that one need not view the anima separata in the interim as amounting to a complete disruption in personal existence: rather, when I die, “I cease to exist, as a whole, but part of me continues to exist, and hence I partly continue to exist.”182 Whether or not Aquinas in fact tacitly adhered to such a view of personal identity, this would seem far less problematic than the one he expresses, given the part he requires the anima separata to play in accounting for personal identity through death and resurrection, and given also his particular theological commitments in this area. The question might reasonably be asked however whether the introduction of the concept of partial existence in this manner can in fact enable Pasnau to reach his intended conclusion. In particular, how secure is Pasnau’s inference from “part of me continues to exist” to “I partly continue to exist”? Certainly, the general inference from “part of X exists” to “X partly exists” would not seem valid. It would be far-fetched were one to insist that one’s sports car still partly existed simply because prior to its being crushed and melted down one had removed the personalized walnut gear knob as a memento. If such 178

Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 387. Montague Brown makes the same assumption, moving seamlessly in his own exposition from the idea that the disembodied soul is not “the complete human being” to death being “the dissolution of the individual,” or from talking about our “full identity” being bound up with our materiality to questioning how our “identity can survive disembodiment” (“Resurrection of the Body,” 193 [emphases added]). The same assumption underpins Patrick Toner’s analysis: “We humans die. Afterwards, we either exist, or do not exist” (Toner, “Death and the Separated Soul,” 587). 179 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 387–88. 180 Ibid., 388. 181 Ibid.; see, for example, Edwards, “Thomas Aquinas on ‘The Same Man’,” 95; Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 189, 193. 182 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 388 (emphases added).

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talk is not to be dismissed as stretching language entirely beyond the point of meaningfulness, it can surely be interpreted as no more than a rather overwrought poetic flourish intended to convey something purely subjective about the car, such as that it continues to exist in the owner’s memory or affections, a state of affairs expressed and facilitated by his/her retention of the gear knob. Similarly, it might be argued, it is far fetched to understand in any objective sense the statement that such and such a person still partly exists because one is in possession of one of his/her parts. Were I to preserve my father’s eyeball or finger from cremation, then to affirm on the basis of this his continued partial existence (if not understood subjectively in a manner like that above), this could surely amount to no more than either delusion or grim humor. In the light of such reflections, Pasnau’s assumed validity of the inference from “part of me continues to exist” to “I partly continue to exist” starts to look poorly grounded. Is it though? Although, at first sight these two cases look analogous, on closer examination it can be seen that they are not at all similar. The first point to make is that within the metaphysical framework in which Catholic anthropology is traditionally expressed, a severed body part such as a finger does not really count ontologically as that thing at all. For the Thomist, as it is the soul which is the substantial form that bestows identity and existence on a living substance, and thus to each part of that substance,183 it follows that a particular part of the substance simply cannot remain in existence once apart from its soul. Therefore, on the withdrawal of the soul, as we do not speak of an animal or a man unless equivocally, as we speak of a painted animal or a stone animal; so it is with the hand, the eye, the flesh and bones.184

To refer to a severed eyeball or finger as an “eyeball” or a “finger” is thus to signify a resemblance based on a convergence of accidental forms. An artifact such as a car, however, possesses no real substantial unity.185 Each part thus remains what it was even when apart from the whole, and when referred to it is done so univocally.186 183

Ibid., 66, 83; see ST I 76.8c. ST I 76.8c. 185 See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 88. 186 It is for this reason, incidentally, that arguing for the possibility of “gappy persons” on the basis of supposed analogies with phenomena and artifacts such as stage plays, stage sets, and various machines can be seen to be flawed at the foundations, for in fact none of these things are in any way analogous to a living thing, possessing no genuine substantial unity in the whole (see ibid., 79–88). 184

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The second point which can be made is that given this understanding of the substantial unity of living things, the particular inference which Pasnau makes above can in fact be seen to hold. For if something happens to one part of me, then in a very real sense, it can be said to happen to me, and if this part can be said to be present somewhere, then ipso facto I can be said to be present there also. Thus, if Stephen is stabbed in his hand, it is correct to say that Stephen has been stabbed, and if part of Stephen, such as an arm, manages to squeeze through a gap between a door and a wall into a room, then not only is part of Stephen through the gap, but Stephen is thus partly through the gap. Stephen is truly present in the room, even though one could not accurately describe him as being present in that space in his entirety. Now, unlike any particular body part, or indeed the body as a whole, the soul does not cease to exist once the soul–body union has terminated. As the subsistent form of the body, it is incorporeal and imperishable187 and continues in existence as exactly what it was when in the body (a human soul): “a part of a person.”188 Where the soul is, therefore, it can truly be said that the person of whom it is a part is ipso facto present, admittedly not in his/her entirety, but nevertheless still partly in existence. Pasnau observes also that in the case of the anima separata, talk of partial personal survival makes particular sense, for the soul in this state continues to possess the mental qualities and knowledge possessed by that person in life, being able also to make use of the latter according to his/her previous habits and dispositions.189 This is an important point, but it should be said in addition here that the logic of Thomistic anthropology demands that we should view the soul as considerably more than a mere “part” of a person, in the sense that a hand or an eye is part of a person, for the soul is in fact the substantial form of the body.190 As such, it actualizes—gives existence to—the entire person.191 Unlike the hand or any other bodily part of the rational animal, the human soul “as the [substantial] form of the body has the role of fulfilling or completing (perficiens) the human species”—that is, the soul is not only the rationality but,

187

Ibid., 66; ST I 75.1, 2 & 6. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 388. 189 Ibid.; ST I 89.5 & 6. 190 Kretzmann, “Philosophy of Mind,” 135. 191 See ST I 76.1, ad 5. 188

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indeed, the full rational animality of the human body, specifying that corporeal thing as a human being.192

The soul is thus an essential element in the existence of the human being (unlike body parts such as hands or eyes), containing within itself the other essential component of humanity: embodiment.193 For Aquinas, the very corporeity of the human body is “nothing else but its substantial form,”194 and “there is only one form of the human composite, which is the rational soul.”195 At death, therefore, while corporeity in the quantitative sense (the particular dimensions, mass, etc. which at any one time constitute one’s physical existence) is certainly lost, “the essential principle of corporeity is not destroyed.”196 The anima separata is thus necessary in order to secure personal survival through death and resurrection because, as the one substantial form of the human being, it possesses “all the formal elements of the human being, including the form of body.”197 As far as the personal identity of the resurrected person is concerned, nothing is contributed actually and independently by the material principle because this is merely “the receptive component which receives all its actuality from the form.”198 All that is formal and actual in the human being “is contained in the rational soul.”199 Because of this, all the formal requirements of a person’s resurrection continue to exist in the intermediate state: “all the formal reality, all specificity, is contained in the immortal rational soul.”200 Yet, without doubt, in spite of the status of the soul in these respects, this is not sufficient to make my anima separata entirely me. For, as has 192

Kretzmann, “Philosophy of Mind,” 135. While the soul, as we have seen, is—like the eye or hand— subsistent only in a weak sense, having no place “among individuals sorted out in the species and genera of substance,” it is nevertheless that which “gives the human being its unique place in that system” and so it is “more nearly a hoc liquid than any bodily part could be” (ibid.). 193 See Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 189; Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 104; SCG IV 81.7. 194 SCG IV 81.7; see Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 104–5. 195 Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 190; see ST I 76.1, ad 5. 196 Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 190; see SCG IV 81.7. 197 Brown, “Resurrection of the Body,” 192. 198 Ibid., 191. 199 Ibid. 200 Ibid., 193. In spite of this exposition of the qualities of the soul, Brown sees an insurmountable problem if an interim state is assumed. As noted above, this is because, like Fortman, Toner, and others, he seems unquestioningly to assume that personal existence admits of no degrees, and thus that an interim state implies total loss of personal continuity and, therefore, an ontological gap between death and resurrection. To overcome this he proffers a quasi-atemporalist solution (ibid., 193–96) which would seem prone to the objections raised against such schemata in Chapter 3.

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been seen, “although all formal reality of embodiment is contained in the rational soul,”201 this soul is not itself the entire human being/person. Rather, our “full identity is bound up with our materiality.”202 As Robert Pasnau expresses it: Abraham’s soul is not fully human, and the life of Abraham’s soul is not the full life of Abraham himself. It is half a life, a merely intellectual life, which for human beings is not a full life.… Without both mind and body … most of the operations that make us human will not occur, and to that extent we will not exist.203

Yet, if personal existence is not defined as an all-or-nothing affair (and there seem no compelling reasons why it should), then because the soul continues to exist and is able to function, it seems reasonable to view this as the human being existing in part. While, for Aquinas, death is not only biological, but metaphysical, there seems no reason why this should be taken to imply personal extinction so long as one is prepared to have a “flexible conception of survival.”204 So my separated soul is not anyone other than I, and in a sense it is I, but it is not fully I, not I in the strictest sense. The soul’s survival is a necessary condition for personal identity, not a sufficient condition. The soul is responsible for all of what makes me be me, in the sense that my defining attributes, physical and mental “flow from” that soul. But unless those attributes are actually instantiated, I do not (strictly, fully) exist. The core of who I am is my soul, but it is not all of who I am.205

Some such position would seem to have been assumed by the ITC in 1992’s Some Current Questions in Eschatology in its statement that the survival of the soul in the interim state is what preserves the continuity and identity between those who live and those who rise “inasmuch as in virtue of such a survival the concrete individual never totally ceases to exist.”206 In its commentary

201

Ibid., 193. Ibid. (emphasis added). 203 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 388 (emphases added); see ST Supplement 75.1, ad 2. 204 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 389. 205 Ibid. (emphases added). 206 ITC, para. 4.1 (emphasis added). 202

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on Aquinas’s statement that “my soul is not I,” the ITC draws attention to the preceding context of the statement which emphasizes that the soul is nevertheless a part of people, and chooses to nuance Aquinas’s rather negative description of the soul’s personal status thus: “inasmuch as the human soul is not the entire person, it can be said that the soul is not the ‘I’ or the person.”207 Later in the same paragraph, however, the Commission is explicit that it nevertheless ought to be said that “the ‘human I’ itself subsists in the separated soul” because it is due only to this “conscious and subsistent element of people” that we can affirm “true continuity between the person who once lived on earth and the person who will rise.”208 Like Pasnau, it particularly emphasizes the cognitional and volitional qualities of the soul in this respect: the anima separata preserving the “acts of intellect and will that were done on earth” and continuing in the intermediate state to perform “personal acts of understanding and will.”209 Because it does not set out systematically to refute the objection we have dealt with here, simply affirming instead the traditional view concerning personal identity through death, by itself the ITC’s summary could seem to a proponent of this objection merely to beg the question. In the light of Pasnau’s analysis of the assumptions behind the objection and our exploration of the unique status of the soul in the composition of the human person, however, it can be seen that the ITC’s assumptions are eminently justifiable. If the separated soul can thus be viewed as the individual who died (albeit in a qualified sense), then it would seem that the philosophical and theological problems raised in association with this objection can be satisfactorily addressed. The answer to the question “who or what is doing the thinking in the interim state,” is “I am,” not “something or someone other than me.” Catholic teaching concerning the rewards and punishments administered in the intermediate state can thus remain intact, for it is not necessary to view the subject of these experiences as someone (or something) else, but myself. However, because it is not myself in my entirety, the associated beatitude or suffering is not yet experienced by me in my entire being, but only in, and by, part of me: my soul. Similarly, Catholic doctrine concerning the intercession of the saints is meaningfully preserved by the concept of partial personal existence, for although P’s soul cannot count as P in his/her entirety, it is nevertheless

207

Ibid., 5.4 (emphasis added). Ibid. 209 Ibid. 208

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correctly viewed as P (rather than –P), being the saint’s actualizing principle, or existential “core,” able to exercise his/her powers of cognition and volition, and thus to respond to prayers addressed to him/her by those in statu viatoris. Tugwell and van der Walle’s concern that the traditional schema is in notable tension with the piety associated with the communio sanctorum,210 because “anima Petri non es Petrus,”211 can thus be considerably alleviated.212 Using such a concept, it would appear that the two extremes posited by Fortman as alternatives to the traditional view can be avoided. The first of these was to accept that a person is essentially a union of body and soul, but nevertheless hold to the view that the separated soul is that same person, though now “constituted in a different way.”213 This is problematic as it would seem to combine an assertion of personal identity in conjunction with substantial change. However, if partial existence is accepted as a possibility, the need to the think of the person having to be “constituted in a different way” vanishes. Rather, part of the person (part of his/her essence) remains in existence as what it was before death (the substantial form of that person) and thus he/she partly continues to exist. The second extreme was to view the soul, even when embodied, as the essence of the person, which seems to threaten substantial unity. However, on this model, the soul can instead be conceived as part of one’s essence, even the most significant or substantial part: that part without which one cannot be said to exist, partially or otherwise. Thus should one understand Pasnau when he says, “The core of who I am is my soul, but it is not all of who I am.”214 On the basis of such an anthropology a response can be made to Rahner’s objection to the traditional schema, that sacred scripture knows nothing of a resurrection of the body, teaching only the resurrection of the whole person and communion with Christ in death.215 For if the anima separata is not the whole person, and if the matter of the body apart from the soul counts as the body in only an equivocal sense, then what happens at the general resurrection when 210

Tugwell, Human Immortality, 122; van der Walle, From Darkness, 163. ST II-II 83.11, obj. 5. 212 Neither is the traditional schema really challenged by the tendency of the faithful to envisage the saints as more complete than this (contra van der Walle [From Darkness, 163] and Tugwell [Human Immortality, 122]); for such imaginative representation is practically unavoidable for creatures who are themselves embodied, being applied equally in devotion to those spirits who are incorporeal even in their completeness (the angels). 213 Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 107. 214 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 389 (emphases added). 215 See Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 116. 211

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the soul once again informs matter is not any resurrection of the body, but the resurrection of the whole person, for the first time, as the CDF recognizes.216 This section began by considering the objection that even should it be possible to maintain the philosophical coherence of the anima separata’s individuality/existence and activity, this anima separata would still not be adequate to explain how personal identity is to be maintained through death, interim state, and resurrection. It is difficult to see now why this should be so, for there is no need to conceive of death as constituting the total extinction of the individual, and this cannot be taken to preclude personal continuity unless it is assumed that part of X cannot secure the continued identity of X in such a scenario, an assumption which seems hard to justify, and which, without justification, simply begs the question. There seems no good reason, therefore, why the traditional schema should be considered untenable on this account. However, even if survival is not necessarily an all-or-nothing affair, the traditional account nevertheless demands rigorous requirements for the granting of full personal identity: the soul requiring to be reunited not only with a body, or just a human body, but numerically the same body it possessed in life (notwithstanding qualitative changes it will have undergone in the meantime). How this is to be conceived is to be considered next.

How full personal identity is ensured through death and resurrection According to the analysis of the ITC, that numerical sameness of body is required for personal identity would appear to be firmly grounded in both sacred scripture and sacred tradition.217 From the foregoing discussion, it can be seen that there are good metaphysical reasons for this requirement. Personal identity is secured through death and resurrection by the spiritual soul which is the form of the body. The individuality of such a soul resides in its having been proportioned exactly to the body which it has informed. As such, the soul cannot remold itself without losing its identity. For resurrection of the same person to

216 217

See CDF, point 2. See the discussion of this at the start of Chapter  4 based on ITC (1992) (especially on paras 1.1 and 1.2.5).

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occur, therefore, the same body must be provided by God, for only such a body could receive this precise form. Thus, for Aquinas, it is simply impossible for a human soul to reincarnate, either in a body which belongs to another species218 or in the body of a different individual belonging to the same species.219 So, for Aquinas, ignoring the metaphysical principle that form must be proportioned to the matter it informs can lead to heresy, and theological truths about the resurrection body can be seen to be rooted in metaphysical considerations.220 How then is this numerical sameness of the body to be conceived? It is unnecessary to hold that bodily identity implies material identity,221 and so numerical sameness of body need not imply numerical sameness of constituent matter.222 All that would seem to be required is that the individual form be joined “to matter which is qualitatively the same as the matter the soul originally informed.”223 However, theologically, this seems problematic; for in Christian revelation, the resurrection body is conceived as radically different from the earthly, pilgrim body: numerically the same, but qualitatively different.224 If, for it to be numerically the same, it must be composed of qualitatively the same matter, this seems potentially to undermine the possibility of resurrection. This difficulty is not insurmountable though. For the matter of the resurrection body to be able to receive a particular soul, there is no reason to suppose it must be qualitatively identical in all respects to that of the pilgrim body. The kind of qualitative “sameness” implied here is something which could admit of considerable elasticity; after all, on earth, the attributes of the pilgrim body (size, shape, mass, colors, textures, sounds, smells, biological functions, and the like) change markedly throughout the span of a person’s life,225 all the

218

Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, 1.153; SCG IV 84.4–6. Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, 1.153; SCG II 83.34–37; IV 84.6. 220 See Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 391. 221 ITC, para. 1.2.5. 222 See Ratzinger, Eschatology, 178–81; Schmaus, Last Things, 195–96; Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 316; Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 120; Phan, Eternity in Time, 119; Reichenbach, Is Man the Phoenix?, 87. Moreover, numerous thinkers have demonstrated that, in fact, it is both philosophically and theologically problematic to suppose otherwise (see, for example, van Inwagen, “The Possibility of Resurrection,” 245; Hasker, The Emergent Self, 214–15; Cooper, “Identity of Resurrected Persons,” 29–30; Body, 169–73; Merricks, “Resurrection of the Dead,” 272–76). 223 Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 392. 224 Traditionally, the resurrection bodies of the blessed are described as possessing the qualities of subtlety, agility, brightness, and impassibility (see, for example, Catechism of the Council of Trent, 128– 29; SCG IV 85–86; Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, 1.168). By contrast, those of the damned are carnal, burdensome, darksome, and incorruptible (incorruptibility being implied by, but not implying, impassibility) (see SCG IV 89.2–7). 225 See Merricks, “Resurrection of the Dead,” 267. 219

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while remaining informed by the same soul. Only when the matter degenerates past a certain point is the soul compelled to abandon it. With regard to the matter’s capacity for receiving a particular human soul, some qualities would seem, therefore, to be accidental and others essential. The kind of qualitative sameness under consideration here would seem only to have to apply, therefore, to whatever counts as the essential features, features which, unlike many of the accidentals, may not even be apparent to the senses.226

The resurrection of the dead and the significance of relics Rooting the numerical identity of the risen body and the pilgrim body in the numerical identity of the soul which is unica forma corporis constitutes an “elegant solution”227 to the problem of how personal identity is to be maintained through death and resurrection. Nevertheless, such a view has not infrequently been criticized by Catholic theologians for its supposedly adverse implications for the cult of relics.228 On the one hand, the faithful consider the remains of a saint (or, indeed, any person) to be his/her body, and thus in some way to constitute his/her actual presence in their midst.229 On the other hand, if the soul is per se the substantial form of the body, then at death, when it separates from the body, that which remains behind cannot correctly be viewed as a human body, the term “body” applying to it now only equivocally.230 But if this is so, then what sense is to be made of the veneration of such remains? Clearly, for both immediate resurrection and the traditional schema, a mnemonic rationale for the veneration of relics is possible: relics being honored “because they bring before our memories the life and suffering of the saints.”231 If the meaning of such veneration is reduced to this function, however, the religious significance of these remains extends no further than

226

Without entering into sustained speculation here concerning the precise nature of such essential features, it is worth noting that one constant throughout all the bodily changes which occur in this life is the genetic code of the individual. Given this, it does not seem fanciful to suppose that an essential quality of the matter which makes a resurrection body suited to the receipt of a certain soul might consist, at least in part, in identity of this kind. 227 Bynum, “Material Continuity,” 259. See also van der Walle, From Darkness, 157–58. 228 See Bynum, “Material Continuity,” 258–65. 229 See Tugwell, Human Immortality, 129–30; Bynum, “Material Continuity,” 263–65. 230 See ST I 76.8c. 231 Bynum, “Material Continuity,” 262.

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that of an icon or image of the saint in question.232 The awareness of the faithful that such veneration is also in some way an acknowledgment of the saint’s actual presence in their midst can be justified, if at all, in only a subjective sense. Is it possible, however, to justify this awareness in more objective terms? Certainly, unlike a mere image of the saint, the corpse possesses real ontological continuity with the actual person whose memory is invoked, preserving their likeness (or part of it) in matter once animated by their soul (the cause precisely of any likeness still conveyed by the matter), matter which was thus a vehicle for a particular life of holiness generated and sustained by the Holy Spirit dwelling within it.233 Such considerations clearly elevate the significance of the saint’s remains above that of a mere icon or image.234 Nevertheless, it is still not evident how they can justify any more than a mnemonically based piety. It may, however, be possible to go further, providing grounds for the faithful’s sense that the relics signify the saint’s presence in their midst in more objective terms; for the mortal remains of the saint, while not unequivocally his/her body, possess a real ontological connection with the person not only in terms of past historical association but future association,235 as contributory matter within the resurrection body of the saint.236 The various models of immediate resurrection encounter more serious problems in this regard. As Simon Tugwell has intimated, one might embrace atemporalism precisely in order to offer an objective justification for such piety.237 However, this schema has been shown to be untenable for fundamental philosophical and theological reasons. Among nonatemporalistic schemata, infused-immortality, “replica,” and recapitulation theories are unsatisfactory. For such monists, the corpse can have no more than a mnemonic significance. 232

A reduction suggested indeed by the example Aquinas gives to illustrate that “body” in this connection is to be understood to refer to a corpse only equivocally: “as we speak of a painted animal or a stone animal” (ST I 76.8c). 233 See ST III 25.6c. 234 Thus Aquinas notes that we honor a saint’s relics “in memory” (ST III 25.6c) of the saint, “for the sake of the soul which was once united thereto, and now enjoys God” (ST III 25.6, ad 2). 235 See ST III 25.6c, ad 3. 236 A fact which provides a foundation for the “fittingness” of God continuing to work through such matter in the meantime (see ST III 25.6c). This position harmonizes with the model of Christ’s own resurrection, in which the mortal remains are used by God “as the raw material for the new creation” (O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 127), an occurrence which although perhaps not logically necessary to maintain personal continuity between the earthly and the risen Christ, nevertheless constitutes a powerful sign of this continuity and thus of the objective reality of the resurrection (ibid., 127–29; also Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 317–18). 237 See Tugwell, Human Immortality, 128–30, 164–67.

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More fundamentally, because they are unable to establish genuine ontological continuity between the one who is “risen” in the interim state and the matter which remains here, veneration of such relics can amount objectively to no more than remembrance of a life now extinguished. Physical-transfer theory, on the other hand, is able to offer a coherent account of ontological continuity through death and (immediate) resurrection for those holding such a monistic anthropology. However, the simulacra invoked by this theory do not even qualify as corpses, the matter of which they are composed having played no part in the history of the saints in question. While logically conceivable that such entities could have some positive function in the life of the church, the theology and devotions associated with them would objectively be indistinguishable from that associated with icons and images. Corcoran and Zimmerman’s “body-splitting” development of this model fares no better, suffering from all the difficulties faced by infused-immortality, “replica,” and recapitulation theories. Finally, although— unlike physical-transfer theory—individual form transfer preserves the fact that a saint’s remains possess a real, if limited, ontological connection with the person,238 and—unlike infused-immortality, “replica,” recapitulation, and bodysplitting theories—can satisfactorily account for personal identity through death and (immediate) resurrection, it is unable—unlike the traditional schema—to find a place for this material in the saint’s final glorification,239 the matter for the risen body having already been provided by God from some other source.240 As such, it is unclear how it can provide a meaning for the saint’s remains beyond the merely mnemonic. While a formal theory of identity undoubtedly faces considerable challenges in attempting to harmonize perfectly with the piety of the faithful surrounding

238

In virtue of the matter common to the remains and the body which the saint had during life (see ST III 25.6, ad 3). 239 A key factor behind Tugwell’s rejection of (nonatemporalistic) immediate resurrection as a model able to harmonize satisfactorily with popular piety (Tugwell, Human Immortality, 128–29). 240 It is sometimes argued that there is a tension amounting to an inconsistency between the formal theory of bodily identity defended here, on the one hand, and what can appear to be an accompanying theory of partial material identity smuggled in to preserve a distinctive place for relics, on the other (see, for example, Bynum, “Material Continuity,” 262; van der Walle, From Darkness, 158). The charge of inconsistency applies, however, only if the traditionalist claims that any remaining matter must necessarily be included in the risen body for bodily identity to be maintained. As argued above, there is no need to hold such a view. Nevertheless, that such matter is to be included in the risen body can reasonably be established through argumentum ex convenientia, particularly in the light of the nature of Christ’s own resurrection (argumentum ex convenientia is a form of theological argument which, although not constituting a sufficient proof of a principle, confirms an already established principle “by showing the congruity of its results” [ST I 32.1, ad 2]).

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the dead, it would seem nevertheless to offer the most promising framework within which to articulate a satisfactory explanation of such piety.

Ontological duality necessary for maintenance of identity through death and resurrection The foregoing has been a defense of the coherence of the anthropology of duality and its role in the traditional schema against key philosophical and theological objections which can be leveled at it by proponents of immediate resurrection. Other objections against it could no doubt be found. There are a number of contemporary Christian thinkers who think Thomistic “duality” is problematic.241 Others defend its coherence, or attempt to give it a more modern formulation.242 A critical evaluation of this entire corpus of work and a systematic examination of every objection and response on each side of the debate is beyond the particular remit of this book, and clearly much work remains to be done in this area. What this analysis does suggest is that something like Aquinas’s anthropology seems to be required if Christians are to be able adequately to explain how personal identity is to be maintained through death and resurrection. What is needed is an anthropology which includes a nonmaterial and separable element and is thus able to account for identity independently of the matter of the pilgrim body. The relation of this element to matter must be such, however, that it is able to ensure numerical identity between the pilgrim body and that of the resurrection. The Thomistic model appears to be able to do this, and the philosophical and theological objections to it which were examined above seem far from conclusive. By contrast, anthropologies which do not admit of such a separable, nonmaterial element seem unable to offer the philosophical realist a credible account of how personal identity is to be preserved through death and resurrection and/or are fraught with serious theological difficulties.

241 242

For example, Hasker (see The Emergent Self, 161–70). For example, Eleonore Stump (“Non-Cartesian Dualism and Materialism Without Reductionism,” 505–13); David Braine (The Human Person: Animal and Spirit, 480–528); Robert Pasnau (Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 45–72); Gyula Klima (“Aquinas on the Materiality of the Human Soul and the Immateriality of the Human Intellect,” 163–82); and James Madden (Mind, Matter and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind, 250–86).

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Because of this, it does not seem tenable to insist on immediate resurrection on the grounds of ontological holism. Individual form transfer would seem to be the only model which could account for personal identity through death and immediate resurrection, but the ontological independence of soul which it requires would seem to imply separability, and thus the main anthropological reason for preferring immediate resurrection cannot be upheld. Attempts to argue for a spiritual soul which can yet be considered inseparable are unconvincing: either tacitly reducing the soul to a “material form” or making philosophical or theological assumptions which do not necessarily have to be accepted. Arguments against the possibility of the separable soul carrying identity make assumptions which are questionable in themselves (e.g., personal existence is all-or-nothing), and particularly so in the light of a correct understanding of the nature of Aquinas’s soul and its relation to the body (the soul being not just another part of me, but the actualizing principle of my existence, that which preserves and continues my habits and acts of intellect and will). The issues so far discussed are crucial in attempting to arrive at clarity concerning the anthropological conditions of the interim state. They are not, however, the only considerations. The fact that an anthropology like Aquinas’s— and thus the logical possibility of an anima separata—would seem to be the only way of preserving personal identity between death and resurrection (immediate or otherwise) does not, by itself, establish the traditional schema as the one to be preferred. There may, after all, be additional reasons, theological or philosophical, why it would be preferable to conceive of the interim state as embodied, rather than disembodied. The key factors in this regard are to be examined in the next section.

Immediate resurrection as a solution to some eschatological tensions As Dermot Lane has observed, dissatisfaction with the traditional “anthropology of duality” is only one factor generating pressure for the adoption of resurrection in death. An additional, although intimately connected, issue concerns

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the relationship that exists between individual eschatology and collective eschatology, that is the relation between the destiny of the individual in death and the significance of the second coming of Christ.243

As noted already in Chapter  3, atemporalistic eschatological schemata can be understood as particular efforts to address perceived tensions between the individual and collective aspects of eschatology, attempts to accord to both the respective prominence they would seem to be given in scripture and tradition. The overall coherence of atemporalism, however, has been seriously called into question. Lane himself is cautious about Rahner’s proposed solution, preferring instead to opt for a nonatemporalistic model in which individual resurrection occurs in death and is “completed and perfected”244 at the general resurrection inaugurated by the Parousia. Lane sees such a proposal as a way of safeguarding the centrality of bodily resurrection, while also preserving the “eschatological importance of the second coming of Christ.”245 In critically examining immediate resurrection as a possible solution to such tensions, it will help first to make clear the perceived shortcomings of the traditional schema in this regard. The main problem here centers around an apparent implication of the proposition that immediately following death, the disembodied soul may experience beatitude: this is that an essential and distinguishing characteristic of Christian eschatology, the resurrection of the body, is thereby reduced to a marginal element in the glorification of the individual, a mere footnote or afterthought to Christian eschatology,246 a fact which in turn appears to threaten the unity of the human being.247 If immediate resurrection is to constitute a preferable alternative to the traditional schema, then it must be shown to be capable of resisting these or other, equally serious, charges.

Beatitude and the traditional schema One way of avoiding the inference from the beatitude of the anima separata to the marginalization of bodily resurrection would be in some way to relativize or 243

Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 151. Ibid., 154. 245 Ibid.; as does Schmaus (see Last Things, 198–99). 246 See, for example, Schmaus, Last Things, 198 (who implies that resurrection in death is necessary to avert this marginalization); also van der Walle, From Darkness, 163, 170; Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 151–54. 247 Van der Walle, From Darkness, 157, 170. 244

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substantially qualify the sort of beatitude of which the anima separata could be a subject. Essentially, this is the approach taken in various ways by Ss. Bernard and Bonaventure, Pope John XXII, Peter Lombard and St. Thomas Aquinas (in some of his earlier writings, such as the Commentary on the Sentences).248 For this strand of thought, while the separated souls in the interim state experience a degree of beatitude, they do not yet experience perfect beatitude,249 this only being possible after (and due to) either the resurrection (in the case of Bonaventure or Aquinas) or the last judgment (the preferred emphasis of St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, and Pope John XXII). Concerning the nature and source of the beatitude experienced in the intermediate state, the Catholic Church has since decided definitively in favor of the beatific vision.250 Given this, any attempt by the traditionalist to avoid the inference from the soul’s experiencing the beatific vision to marginalization of the resurrection by relativizing the beatitude of the saints in the intermediate state must, if credible, be able to explain how possession of the beatific vision by a human soul can yet fall short of perfect beatitude. St. Bonaventure offers one such argument. Perfect beatitude implies the satisfaction of all desires. However, since the anima separata, being by nature forma corporis and thus ontologically incomplete, desires union with its body, then it follows that prior to reunion with its body it cannot be perfectly blessed. For Bonaventure, the glory of the body is thus part of the substance of beatitude, increasing the joy of the saints “in a way which is related to the essence of beatitude.”251 Prima facie, such an approach seems credible. It is not obviously inconsistent with the text of Benedictus Deus, which says only that the blessed truly have beatitude (not that they have it perfectly or completely).252 Basing itself, as it does, on a key implication of the doctrine of the soul as forma corporis, it seems 248

See Tugwell, Human Immortality, 133–37, 142–45. Either because the object of their beatitude is the glorified humanity of Christ only, rather than the beatific vision (as with St. Bernard and John XXII), or because their desire for the body diminishes in a significant way their enjoyment of the beatific vision (as with St. Bonaventure or Aquinas). 250 Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, paras 2305–6). 251 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 143 (emphasis added). 252 That “truly” does not imply “perfectly” in this document is a justifiable interpretation. The author of this statement, Benedict XII, presupposes this very distinction in his own account of the relation between interim and final consummation. Like Bonaventure, Benedict posits an extant desire in the beatified anima separata. Unlike Bonaventure though, he understands this not principally in terms of a desire for the body, but for those truths which are to be revealed only at the last judgment. While he thus disagrees with John XXII about whether the soul truly possesses the beatific vision in the interim state, in common with John he admits a substantial increase in the soul’s happiness at, and because of, the last judgment (see Tugwell, Human Immortality, 145–49; Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 962–63; Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, 283–85). 249

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to offer a sound foundation on which to maintain a significant role for the resurrection of the body. As Simon Tugwell has indicated though, this is not unproblematic. In seeking to identify the precise nature of this increase in beatitude, Bonaventure identifies four ways in which, in general, one joy can be greater than another, dismissing the first two as possible explanations in this case. These four ways are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

An increase due to the enjoyability of the object (ex maiori objecto); An increase due to the virtue (charity) of the subject (ex maiori habitu); A broader joy and an enjoyment of more things (latius et de pluribus); A more intense enjoyment of something already being enjoyed.

In the case of the beatific vision, an increase in beatitude at the resurrection cannot be due to (1), for the saints enjoy the same, infinite good (God) before and after this. Likewise, it cannot be understood in terms of (2) because, while beatitude does indeed vary ex maiori habitu between different members of the communio sanctorum,253 different saints enjoying the vision of God to different degrees according to the degree of their charity, such charity does not increase at the resurrection, and so beatitude cannot increase in this fashion in one and the same saint.254 Instead, Bonaventure conceives of the increase in beatitude at the resurrection in terms of (3) and (4). Thus, beatitude at the resurrection increases quantum ad extensionem because the soul “enjoys the glory of the body as well as its own, and also the glory of all those who are saved.”255 It also increases quantum ad intensionem because, the soul’s desire for the body now being satisfied, nothing remains to impede its full enjoyment of God. For Tugwell, it is unclear how, in the case of the beatific vision, the third sort of increase is to be distinguished from the first (which, Bonaventure admits, cannot apply in the present case); for it is obscure how adding finite goods (the glory of one’s body and that of the other saints) to an infinite good (the vision of God) can produce a greater good. Bonaventure’s own response to this difficulty, that we are not here considering a greater good, but only “greater enjoyment of the same good,” seems unsatisfactory: a departure in fact from an

253

See General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2309; Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 693); General Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, Canon 32 (ND, para. 1982). 254 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 143–44. 255 Ibid., 144.

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explanation of the third kind, and an appeal instead to the fourth type.256 This fourth type of explanation, however, Tugwell views as less problematic than the third. To illustrate its coherence he uses the example of a person at a concert whose thorough enjoyment of the music is nevertheless impeded by an itchy leg which once ceasing to itch allows a more intense enjoyment of the same music. Such an explanation certainly does not seem to “fall foul of the exclusion of any increase ex maiori habitu,”257 nor of any increase ex maiori objecto. However, its coherence as an explanation in the present case depends on our accepting that the soul’s desire for the body can constitute “a real obstacle to full enjoyment of the beatific vision,”258 that it is a distinct desire which can render beatitude imperfect or incomplete before the resurrection, even though the essential object of beatitude, the beatific vision, “is already definitively given before the resurrection, so that there is no change in the primary object of beatitude.”259 This, however, would seem to be no less problematic than the third type of increase, and for similar reasons. If it is difficult to see how adding finite goods to an infinite good could produce a greater good, it is no less difficult to understand how privation of a finite good could cause a diminishment in the enjoyment of an infinite good. Examples like that used by Tugwell above to illustrate this sort of increase, while convincing in themselves, do not seem able to apply to the case of the beatific vision; for whatever scenario they employ, they can only ever describe a finite good as the object of enjoyment, the enjoyment of which privation of another finite good can obviously sometimes impede. Although tending toward a similar conclusion as Bonaventure in his earlier writings, Aquinas came to be dissatisfied with the concept of an experience of the beatific vision which yet amounted to only incomplete beatitude: Beatitude proper must mean complete beatitude; anything short of that belongs only to viatores, people who have not yet arrived.260

Pope John XXII’s own thoughts on the relation between the condition of souls in the intermediate state and the condition of souls after the last judgment reflect a similar dissatisfaction with contemporary theories of an augmentation of the beatific vision at the resurrection. The only diversity in beatitude which John

256

Ibid. Ibid. 258 Ibid. 259 Ibid. 260 Ibid., 145; see ST I-II 4.5; I-II 5.4; III 59.5. 257

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admits is that of different saints seeing God with differing degrees of clarity due to their differing degrees of charity (i.e., ex maiori habitu). He is clear, however, that such souls would be perfectly blessed, desirous of nothing and incapable of experiencing an increase in beatitude once they have the beatific vision. The souls of the blessed, therefore, could have no concern about regaining their bodies, and the resurrection would add nothing to their existing happiness. However, because John believed that the scriptural evidence is best interpreted as meaning that beatitude follows from the final judgment,261 he applies Aquinas’s logic above to conclude that “even the saints in heaven are still viatores until the judgment.”262 As already noted, Catholic orthodoxy did not side with John XXII on this: Benedict XII defining as a dogma that those who die in a state of grace go to heaven immediately or when they have been purified in purgatory. There, even before the resumption of their bodies, they see the divine essence with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature by way of object or vision.… Moreover, by this vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already died are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest.… Such a vision and enjoyment do away with the acts of faith and hope in these souls.… And after such intuitive and face-to-face vision and enjoyment has or will have begun for these souls, the same vision and enjoyment has continued and will continue without any interruption and without end until the last Judgment and from then on forever.263

In spite of this, Benedict seems to have been “deeply impressed by John’s concern to restore the last judgment to its proper place.”264 In attempting to preserve something of this thought, he tried, in a treatise prepared for publication after the official definition, to explain how, notwithstanding the reality of the beatific vision in the interim state, it is still possible to conceive of an increase in the joy already experienced by the blessed. Benedict linked such an increase in blessedness, not principally to the resurrection of the body, but to the last judgment itself, as John XXII did.265

261

For example, Rev. 6:9; Mt. chs 20 & 25; see Tugwell, Human Immortality, 133; Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, 283. 262 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 145; see also Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, 284. 263 Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, paras 2305–6). 264 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 145. 265 Ibid., 146–49; Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 963.

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In essence, Benedict’s position is that those experiencing the beatific vision in the interim state are nevertheless lacking in a certain kind of knowledge. The knowledge in question concerns the propriety of all God’s judgments and entails awareness of the merits and demerits of all men, as well as the thoughts of all men which lie at the root of these merits and demerits. The purpose of the last judgment is precisely to make such things known to all “so that the rightness of God’s judgment will also become clear.” 266 That this event should imply an increase in the joy of the blessed is explained by Benedict through his affirming that their lack of such knowledge prior to the last judgment constitutes the absence of something which they do, or could, legitimately desire. Following Augustine’s principle (assumed also by Bonaventure) that beatitude is not perfect unless all such desires are satisfied, Benedict concludes that until the last judgment “neither angels nor men will be fully blessed.”267 While the blessed in the intermediate state do indeed see the essence of God and thus possess that which is most important in beatitude, their ignorance of these other things means that they do not yet possess all goods, and thus cannot yet be fully blessed.268 Full beatitude is experienced, therefore, only in the last judgment, any actual or potential desires for such knowledge being satisfied with the revelation of these things in their entirety. In addition to these elements, Benedict also acknowledges (along with both Augustine and Bonaventure) the separated soul’s extant desire for the body as a factor contributing to a substantial lessening of beatitude in the interim state.269 Therefore, for him, as for Bonaventure, the increase in beatitude which is to be expected at the judgment is to be understood both extensively (through knowledge of the totality of God’s wise judgments) and intensively (through satisfaction of any yearning on the part of the soul for such knowledge and also its desire to be reunited with its own body). Thus, Benedict attempts to uphold the truth of the beatific vision in the interim state (against John XXII) while acknowledging the authoritative sources John XXII cites as giving substantial emphasis to that beatitude which is to be experienced after the judgment.270

266

Tugwell, Human Immortality, 146. Ibid., 147. 268 Ibid.; see also Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 963. 269 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 147. 270 Ibid., 148. 267

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Benedict’s account is problematic though in a number of ways. The first concerns its internal consistency. One implication of his understanding of the condition of the blessed in the interim state is that they “still have to take a lot on trust and they still have much to hope for.”271 It is for precisely this reason that Benedictus Deus’s statement concerning faith and hope in the blessed prior to the last judgment is qualified in the way it is: these being said to lapse only inasmuch as they are “properly theological virtues.”272 However, it is in explaining why they cannot remain as theological virtues that Benedict seems to undermine the possibility of the blessed having anything left for which to wait: “because the trust and expectation of the blessed are combined with such a clear vision of what is to come.”273 If the blessed possess such a vision, then it is not at all clear how this is to be reconciled with the ignorance which must be postulated in order to secure the kind of role for the last judgment which Benedict envisages. And yet, if they do not possess it, grounds for positing faith and hope as theological virtues in the intermediate state remain and these souls appear therefore to be in statu viatoris as in John XXII’s schema.274 The second problem is more foundational. As already noted, when examining Tugwell’s discussion of Bonaventure, it is not entirely clear whether it is feasible to account for an increase in the essence of beatitude by the removal of privations/addition of finite goods. If it is difficult to see how the restoration of the body could cause an increase in the enjoyment of a soul experiencing the visio dei, then it is equally difficult to see how increased knowledge could do so. For either account to work, the presence of a distinct desire for absent, finite goods (the body, knowledge) needs to be posited of souls which yet experience the unmediated vision of the infinite good: the very essence of God. It is difficult to see how one is to make sense of this. It might be possible to give an account of how the bliss enjoyed by the souls of the blessed can be substantially added to by various created goods275 if we reconceive the manner in which we are said to experience the beatific vision in something like the following way. While, what we possess in the beatific

271

Ibid. ND, para. 2306. 273 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 148. 274 Something Benedict almost concedes in his view that the blessed’s ignorance leaves them with room to continue to make progress in knowledge and understanding until the (last) judgment (see Tugwell, Human Immortality, 147–48). 275 Such as the glorified body, increased knowledge, the glorified humanity of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints. 272

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vision is the infinite God, we—being finite—do so only finitely. Because of this, the bliss we enjoy as a result of the beatific vision is finite, that is, limited (although clearly very great). As such, the souls of the blessed are perhaps able to experience distinct desires for absent, finite goods, and the joy of the beatific vision might thus be substantially augmented by the addition of such things. The possibility of such an account seems to be implicit in the concept of the different degrees of beatitude possessed by the saints, something defined as a dogma by the Council of Florence276 and reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.277 As already noted, such variations in beatitude are to be explained in terms of the differing degrees of charity in the subjects of beatitude, different saints seeing “God himself, one and three, as he is, though some more perfectly than others, according to the diversity of merits.”278 That such is possible may seem obscure; for God is absolutely simple, and “it is difficult to understand how the immediate and intuitive vision of a simple being can admit of different degrees of perfection.”279 However, an explanation can be offered in terms of God’s incomprehensibility.280 Though God is simple, he is infinitely perfect; the created mind would have to possess an infinite capacity (which is contradictory in its very terms when dealing with a creature) in order to be able to know the infinite intelligibility that exists in God, who is infinitely rich in perfections.281

The distinction made by scholastic theologians in attempting to express the mystery of, on the one hand, God’s infinite simplicity and, on the other hand, his infinite intelligibility is that in the beatific vision “one sees the whole God (one cannot see a part of a simple being) but not wholly (in so far as God’s intelligibility is incomprehensible and inexhaustible).”282 The doctrine defined by Florence implies, therefore, that the beatific vision, “although immediate and intuitive, is not itself infinite, but limited.”283 For each member of the communio sanctorum

276

See Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 693. See ND, para. 1982. 278 General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2309; Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, para. 693). 279 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 361. 280 Defined at Lateran IV and reaffirmed at Vatican I (see Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma, paras 428 and 1782). 281 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 362. 282 Ibid.; see SCG III 55. 283 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 362. 277

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the degree of intensity of the vision corresponds to the state in which the man finds himself when he arrives at his heavenly glory and, more precisely to the “light of glory” that is awarded to him as a consequence of that state.284

If such is the case, then prima facie we have a foundation for an account of the visio dei which leaves logical space for its substantial augmentation by various created goods. On closer examination though, such an account is problematic. If the beatific vision, being in fact finite, confers only limited felicity on the blessed, then it is obscure how it can be a constitutive element of a beatitude which would suffice for all eternity. The addition of other goods cannot make up what is supposedly lacking in this experience; for the sum of any amount of finite things cannot confer more than limited (no matter how considerable) satisfaction, and so cannot confer ultimate and thus everlasting felicity.285 The difficulty here seems to arise due to a non sequitur from the finite nature of the beatific vision for each of the blessed to the limited nature of the resultant felicity. While it may indeed be the case that the beatific vision, “although immediate and intuitive, is not itself infinite, but limited,”286 it simply cannot be the case that this entails that the resultant happiness is limited, for God is the supreme good, “who alone by His infinite goodness can perfectly satisfy man’s will.”287 While it is true that, in the beatific vision, the blessed do not possess God fully, nevertheless he “the infinite and perfect good”288 possesses them fully; he fills them, and they are thus completely satisfied, their wills entirely and finally at rest.289 Although the beatific vision admits of different degrees of perfection, “because the actual degree corresponds to the specific capacity of the blessed one, it is fully satisfying for that individual.”290 It would appear, therefore, that the possibility of offering an explanation of how the beatific vision might yet be substantially augmented by other goods in terms of the beatific vision’s finitude is illusory. At this point it is possible to object that, notwithstanding such apparent difficulties, divine revelation provides good grounds for supposing that such a

284

Ibid.; see SCG III 58. See ST I-II 2.8c; SCG III 63; 62.3, 9; ST I 89.2, ad 3. 286 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 362. 287 ST I-II 3.1c. 288 ST I-II 2.8, ad 1. 289 See ST I-II 2.8c; SCG III 59.1 290 Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 362 (emphasis added). 285

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thing is nevertheless possible. The example which might be given here is that of Christ himself, who the Gospels present as, on the one hand, “seer of the Father, and on the other, as a man who suffers,”291 that is, as experiencing at all times the beatific vision292 and the plenitude of joy that this implies, yet capable also of directing his human will “to certain other created objects, conferring on him a joy (or by their absence a privation or suffering).”293 Thus, sacred scripture itself witnesses that the human soul is able to desire absent goods while in possession of the supreme Good. If this supreme Good suffices to satisfy the soul, it does not necessarily confer on it all the created good which it desires.294

It is far from clear, however, that this example of Christ can serve as a model for the simultaneous experience of, on the one hand, the beatific vision and, on the other, a continuing desire for finite goods on the part of the anima separata. In explaining how the supreme happiness effected by the visio dei can yet be reconciled with Christ’s suffering, Aquinas is forced to invoke special divine intervention. In the case of Christ’s bodily suffering, the joy of the beatific vision is prevented by God from overflowing into the body. His spiritual suffering is explained analogously, the bliss experienced by Christ in the highest reaches of his soul (ratio superior) being prevented from overflowing to the lower regions (ratio inferior) by the miraculous intervention of God.295 Our Lord’s human will to suffer for us prevented happiness flowing from the summit of his soul, where he looks on the face of his Father, down to its lower slopes, where he is assailed by the storms of agony.296

That such a mechanism is required is, in itself, an implicit yet profound acknowledgement that beatitude per se precludes the desire for lesser goods: the latter being possible in the soul only if the effects of the former are restricted in some extraordinary manner.297 Such an account could serve as an apologia for schemata like those of St. Bonaventure and Benedict XII, therefore, only if convincing reasons could be found to invoke such a mechanism in the case of the souls of the blessed in the 291

De Margerie, Human Knowledge of Christ, 35. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 162–65. 293 De Margerie, Human Knowledge of Christ, 34. 294 Ibid. 295 ST III 15. 5, ad 3; 46.8. 296 Saward, Mysteries of March, 56. 297 To certain faculties of the soul, for example, and not others (see ST III 46.8). 292

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intermediate state. It is hard to see what these might be. The sufferings undergone by Christ, and made possible by such an intervention as that described above, are a crucial element in the sacrifice which he offers to the Father on our behalf: “if sin is separation from God, Jesus had to experience, in the crisis of that union with the Father, a suffering proportionate to that separation.”298 Thus, “Christ assumes Godforsakenness … in order to make satisfaction for human sin.”299 Christ, through his passion and death, renders vicarious atonement to the Father for the sins of mankind,300 meriting for them grace and eternal life.301 The disciples of Christ, united to him by the power of the Holy Spirit, are called in this life to participate in this sacrifice and in Christ’s own redemptive suffering as co-workers for the kingdom.302 Thus does grace enable those who are in Christ really to acquire a claim to the supernatural rewards obtained for them by his sacrifice,303 their good works and sufferings meriting for themselves an increase in sanctifying grace here, and eternal life and an increase in heavenly glory in the world to come,304 as well as grace and the remission of sins for other members of the Body of Christ, whether in statu viatoris or in purgatory.305 However, with death, the possibility of merit, demerit, or conversion ceases.306 Postmortem suffering continues, nevertheless, for both the damned and the souls undergoing purgation: the latter as expiation for any unrepented venial sins or as temporal punishments still due for sins whose guilt has been remitted, the former as eternal punishment for definitively rejecting the love and mercy of God.307 For those in heaven, however, there can be no more reason to suffer, the condition of entering heaven being freedom from all guilt of sin 298

Saward, Mysteries of March, 55 (quoting John Paul II, Osservatore Romano, 1988, n. 49, p. 15). Saward, Mysteries of March, 55. 300 Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 187. 301 Ibid., 189–90. 302 CCC, paras 307, 618, 1505, 1508, 2100; see Rom. 12:1; Col. 1:24. 303 General Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Decree on Justification, Chapter 16 (ND, para. 1947); Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 264–67. 304 General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2309); General Council of Trent, Sixth Session: Decree on Justification, Canon 32 (ND, para. 1982); Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 267–68, 479. 305 Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); General Council of Florence, Decree for the Greeks (ND, para. 2308); General Council of Trent, Twenty-Fifth Session, Decree on Purgatory (ND, para. 2310); Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 315–18, 321–22. 306 Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 474–75; Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, para. 2305); CCC 1021. 307 The Pseudo-Athanasian Symbol Quicumque (ND, para. 17); Fourth Lateran General Council, Symbol of Lateran (ND, para. 20); Second General Council of Lyons, “Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus” (ND, para. 26); Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (ND, para. 2307). 299

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and punishment for sin, and the glory of heaven transcending the sufferings of this world, precluding all physical, moral, and spiritual evils.308 In heaven, the blessed continue, however, to work for the kingdom, interceding for those on earth (and possibly those in purgatory also),309 though their prayers now have impetratory value only, the possibility of atonement and merit being limited to those who are in statu viatoris.310 Given that there are no grounds for supposing that the souls of the blessed continue to suffer, there are no reasons for suggesting that, in their case, God would intervene in order to restrict the effects of the beatific vision to one part of the soul only, as with Christ during his ministry on earth. It is far from clear, therefore, that divine revelation provides grounds for supposing that the souls of the blessed may yet experience distinct desires for absent, finite goods. The foundational problematic would seem, therefore, to remain. In essence, this is the question of whether God alone can constitute a rational being’s ultimate fulfillment, or whether he constitutes but one of a number of goods required for this (albeit, perhaps, the most important one). Those who envisage the possibility of a substantial increase in beatitude at the last judgment/general resurrection clearly embrace the latter option. Thus Benedict XII asserts that while the souls of the blessed in the intermediate state see the essence of God and thus possess that which is most important in beatitude, they do not yet possess all goods and, beatitude being “the condition which is complete with its collection of all goods,”311 they are thus not yet fully blessed.312 By contrast, Aquinas’s mature position would seem to have been that God alone constitutes man’s ultimate fulfillment,313 so that the souls of the blessed experience perfect beatitude even before being reunited with their bodies.314 As already noted, it is difficult to make sense of the first of these positions. Moreover, the sympathies of the Catholic Church’s magisterium seem to lie firmly with the latter. While Benedictus Deus remains open to the possibility “that beatitude consists in man’s fulfillment by creatures along with God,”315

308

Benedictus Deus (ND, paras 2305, 2306); CCC, paras 1023–29. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 322. 310 Ibid. 311 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 147 (emphasis added). 312 Ibid. 313 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 960–61; Tugwell, Human Immortality, 152–55; see ST I-II 2.8; 3.8; 4.5–8. 314 ST I-II 4.5. 315 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 962 (emphasis added). 309

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later authoritative statements would seem to preclude this. Thus, Vatican I’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, interpreted against its theological background, can be seen to teach that God alone is man’s ultimate end.316 Such verifiable, yet implicit teaching has since been frequently and explicitly affirmed, important contributions to this having been made by Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.317 The Catechism of the Catholic Church likewise affirms this teaching, stating that “the ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity,”318 and that God created the world “for the sake of communion with his divine life.”319 As Ezra Sullivan indicates, this means “being made to participate in the life of God Himself with no mediating creature, as Benedict XII taught,”320 a fact which removes any doubt about the identity of man’s ultimate end (whether God alone or God with creatures); “for God’s beatitude in itself cannot essentially involve any creatures,”321 and it is to this very same beatitude that we are called.322 Sullivan proceeds to make absolutely clear why this implies that the “object of man’s end cannot essentially involve any created good”:323 for God’s beatitude consists in “the uncreated perichoresis … of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—a beatitude that existed before all creation.”324 Such implicit teaching the Catechism elsewhere states explicitly: “The beatitude we are promised … teaches us that true happiness is not found … in any creature, but in God alone.”325 The Catechism concludes by quoting Gregory of Nyssa: “Whoever sees God has obtained all the goods of which he can conceive.”326 Given these realities, attempting to avoid the marginalization of bodily resurrection by relativizing the experience of the beatific vision and making created goods such as the resurrection of the body or increased knowledge (or social and cosmic transformation327) part of the substance of beatitude would 316

Ibid., 966–67. Ibid., 967–70. 318 CCC, para. 260. 319 Ibid., 760. 320 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 980; see ND, para. 2305. 321 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 980. 322 CCC, para. 1719. 323 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 980. 324 Ibid. 325 CCC, para. 1723 (emphasis added). 326 Ibid., 2548 (emphasis added). It would appear that the ITC holds such a view, interpreting Benedictus Deus’s confirmation of the saints truly experiencing beatitude in the interim in these terms, as “full beatitude” which is “perfect in itself and nothing specifically superior can be given” (ITC, para. 5.4). 327 See Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 158–59. 317

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seem not to be a credible option for a Catholic theologian. As Simon Tugwell observes, Thomas’ account of beatitude, as the triumphant and definitive arrival of a human story at its proper and blissful conclusion, apart from his manifest embarrassment about the resurrection, seems to … make far more sense than the picture given by Benedict XII.328

If the anima separata can experience the unmediated vision of the divine essence, then it does not seem coherent that it could remain desirous of its body, or indeed of any other created goods. For Tugwell, a Bonaventurian or Benedictine compromise is not feasible. Either John XXII is correct and the anima separata is not a plausible subject for beatitude, or Aquinas is correct in his later writings and the souls of the blessed are so satisfied by the beatific vision that they can suffer no needs or wants, even for something as fundamental as their bodies.329 As already noted, though, the latter option is criticized by proponents of immediate resurrection precisely because of its apparent “embarrassment about the resurrection” and the manner in which it seems to reduce a central element of Christian eschatology to an afterthought, by implication compromising another essential doctrine, that of human unity. Their own solution, therefore, is to assume, with John XXII, that the anima separata is not a proper subject for beatitude. Thus, Tugwell himself attempts to move the resurrection back to center stage by suggesting that “beatitude essentially belongs to human beings, not to human souls.”330 Similarly, Dermot Lane asks rhetorically, “how a halfperson could enjoy the beatific vision?”331 Agreeing with Benedict XII, rather than John XXII, on the matter of the moment of beatitude, however, these thinkers are led to posit their distinctive alternatives to the traditional schema rather than postpone bodily resurrection for those who have died. As awkward as the traditional schema can seem on this point, these alternatives are no less problematic. If the rational soul is capable of subsisting apart from the body, then it is difficult to think of a reason why it could not enjoy the beatific vision, which is essentially a spiritual, rather than a bodily or physical, experience.332

328

Tugwell, Human Immortality, 154. Ibid., 154. 330 Ibid., 154–55. 331 Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 152. 332 See SCG III 51, esp. 5; ST I 12.3; 84.7; ST I-II 4.5c, ad 1 & 3. 329

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“God is the first and supreme truth, and the mind alone feeds on truth. God is perfect holiness and the sovereign good, to which only the will can desire and attain.”333 Questions like that asked by Lane above might suggest there are substantial counterarguments to this aspect of the traditional thesis, but these are nowhere made explicit and it is far from clear what form they could take. That the anima separata is unable to enjoy the beatific vision seems to be assumed by the thinkers in question in order to try to avoid what they perceive as the consequent marginalization of the resurrection, but nowhere do they explain why this should be so.334 If it is hard to formulate a convincing reason why the anima separata would not be able to experience the beatific vision, then it is difficult to maintain that the souls of the blessed continue to yearn for absent, finite goods. Because the intellect and the will are spiritual, “the only human faculties capable of directly attaining God,”335 it would seem to follow that the soul can be perfected in heaven with or without the body. The beatific vision constitutes an unmediated experience of that which is sufficient to satisfy all desires and remove all suffering. To claim that something created could add substantially to such beatitude would be to imply that God’s own being was “lacking in some perfection,”336 that his own substantial perfection is capable of augmentation.337 Lane comes extremely close to this implication when he argues that a reason for inclining toward resurrection in death is that it places the “risen Christ at the centre of … eschatology,” and in doing so “recovers the essential mediating role of Christ in the beatific vision.”338 Now, “mediating role” cannot here be understood only extrinsically, in terms of Christ through his Paschal Mystery meriting for us the experience of the beatific vision, for this holds also for the traditional schema and so would not constitute any sort of “recovery” by the new thesis. Some other interpretation is required. Lane’s adherence to Benoit’s account of the material cause of the resurrection body would suggest that he means at

333

Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, para. 1. Some of these thinkers, of course, believe that the concept of the anima separata is untenable per se, but this is a distinct argument, one which, as has already been argued, makes it extremely difficult to explain how personal identity is to be maintained through death and resurrection (immediate or otherwise). 335 Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 978. 336 Ibid., 973. 337 See ibid., 965. 338 Lane, Keeping Hope Alive, 154. It would appear Lane believes the new thesis does this because he follows Pierre Benoit in holding that after death the blessed “become embodied in and through the body of the risen Christ” (Ibid., 158). 334

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least that possession of the body is a requirement for the soul to experience the beatific vision, something which, as already noted, remains obscure per se: the beatific vision being essentially a purely intellectual apprehension. It might, however, be understood to mean that in clothing the saints in death with his own glorified flesh, Christ thus enables them to experience his risen and transfigured humanity. The difficulty now is that this would seem to imply that Christ’s humanity in some way contributes formally to their experience of the beatific vision, returning us to the problem above concerning how something created (glorified though it may now be) can in any way augment the substantial perfection of God’s own essence.339 Rather than attempt to argue along such lines, it seems less problematic to accept the position that God being sufficient for man’s perfect happiness, the beatific vision will so engage and satisfy him that in heaven “he will be in a psychological state wherein he will not be longing for the reunion of soul and body but fully accept his condition as a disembodied soul.”340 On this view, the tension Rahner would seek to relieve341 between the soul’s being, on the one hand, “already with God in its perfected state” and, on the other hand, having to wait “for the reassumption of its function towards its own body”342 is an illusory one, the second conjunct being unsustainable.343 It would, of course, be possible for immediate resurrectionists to address what they see as marginalization of the resurrection by attempting to call into question the view that the beatific vision is a purely intellectual experience. The difficulty would then become one of explaining this without in some way implying at least a partly materialist conception of the divine essence, something to which no Catholic thinker is likely to want to subscribe.344

339

As well as flatly contradicting the teaching of Benedictus Deus that the beatific vision is experienced “without the mediation of any creature by way of object of vision” (ND, para. 2305). 340 Schmaus, Last Things, 198. A view to which Schmaus does not seem fully committed and which is incompatible with his suggestion elsewhere that the heaven of the interim is a mere “fore-heaven” in which both Christ and the individuals who have already attained glorification “look forward with longing to the final glorification of all humanity” (ibid., 273; emphasis added), a position which, in the light of the foregoing analysis, looks increasingly untenable. 341 By embracing atemporalism. 342 Rahner, “Intermediate State,” 118. 343 If this is understood to involve an experienced privation in the soul as Rahner seems to suggest, rather than, for example, the simple knowledge that this reunion is to take place in the future. 344 For an examination of the incoherence of such a notion, see SCG I 17.

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Beatitude and immediate resurrection The reason why immediate resurrection can prima facie seem to suggest a solution to problems associated with the traditional schema such as the apparent marginalization of the body is that it makes possession of the substance of beatitude in all its fullness coincide with the resurrection of the whole person. On closer examination though, it is clear that this provides us with no more reason to say that the marginalization of bodily resurrection has been avoided than does the traditional schema. For although, according to the schema of immediate resurrection, perfect beatitude coincides with bodily resurrection, it does not follow that this beatitude is in some manner because of bodily resurrection. The traditional schema is deemed by its critics to marginalize bodily resurrection because the body does not contribute anything to the substance of beatitude, a fact which is particularly obvious within the traditional schema because the experience of the beatific vision by the anima separata and the resurrection of the body occur in different moments. But unless the immediate resurrectionist can demonstrate that the body in some way contributes to the substance of beatitude, they are no more placed to deny marginalization of the body than proponents of the traditional schema. Merely locating bodily resurrection in the same moment as the bestowal of perfect beatitude is not sufficient to confer on the body a constitutive role in that beatitude. If immediate embodiment is to constitute a genuine solution to the problem, rather than merely seeming to, then it must be established not simply that the body as a matter of fact always accompanies the soul’s perfect blessedness, but that it contributes to it substantially.

The significance of bodily resurrection Given the extreme difficulties associated with explaining the resurrection’s significance in terms of substantial augmentation of the beatific vision, what options remain? Within the frame of reference provided by the traditional schema, the significance of bodily resurrection has sometimes been explained in terms of accidental (rather than substantial or essential) beatitude. Thus, the beatific vision of God constitutes that which is essential to beatitude, whereas those other goods pertaining to human life and salvation are understood to enhance this beatitude not substantially but per accidens, as it

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were.345 The question which now presents itself though is: in what manner are we to conceive of these other goods bringing about such an augmentation in the beatitude already possessed by the saints in the intermediate state? Aquinas addresses this very problem in the Summa Theologica.346 Here, he expresses his mature doctrine of beatitude (that “once the vision of God is attained, there is nothing more to be desired”347), at the same time attempting to make sense of how such beatitude might nevertheless still be augmented by the body’s resurrection. In this text, Aquinas makes clear his shift from the earlier position he took in the Compendium of Theology and Commentary on the Sentences (that the souls of the blessed are not totally fulfilled until reunited with their bodies) by employing the arguments used there as objections to his new thesis in the Summa. His replies to the first three objections make clear his general position: 1.

2.

345

The anima separata lacks no perfection required for beatitude, beatitude being an intellectual perfection and so attainable by the rational soul (reply to objection 1, an argument from the Compendium that beatitude presupposes natural perfection). The soul, being not only forma corporis, but subsistent, can exist perfectly on its own and so operate perfectly even though incomplete in its specific nature (reply to objection 2, an argument from the Commentary on the Sentences that it is impossible for something existing imperfectly to operate perfectly and, therefore, for the anima separata to be perfectly fulfilled).348

See, for example, Pohle, Eschatology, 34, 36; Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 478; Catechism of the Council of Trent, 136–40. For Pozo, such an answer does not constitute a real solution to the problem of the traditional schema’s apparent marginalization of the bodily resurrection. Citing F. Wetter, he argues that if what is new in the resurrection is merely an accidental joy, “then the importance of that event is in itself accidental; and thus the resurrection acquires, in this perspective, only an accidental prominence in the whole of eschatological doctrine” (Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 268), something which seems at odds with the emphasis this event is accorded in both sacred scripture and the writings of the church fathers (ibid.). Others interpret things differently. Bernardo Bazan, for example, understands the possibility that the beatific vision could be enhanced even in such a manner as “the highest encomium of the human body” (Bazan, “Highest Encomium of Human Body,” 115), a corollary, in fact, of the “enormous ontological value” (ibid., 110) ascribed to it in Thomistic anthropology. 346 See ST I-II 4.5. 347 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 150. 348 This response contains a notable tension: between the idea that the anima separata lacks a perfect specific nature and the idea that it nevertheless exists perfectly. It is not clear that in addressing the objection Aquinas needed to compromise himself in this fashion. It might have been better if he had instead responded along the lines of the third paragraph of the main body of the article, that is, by emphasizing not the perfect natural existence and thus operation of the anima separata (which is extremely problematic and in fact contradicted by Aquinas elsewhere, for example, at ST I 89.1c), but rather the beatific sufficiency of the vision of God.

Objections to the Traditional Schema Addressed

3.

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Since the rational soul remains and can have happiness after death, happiness can be said to belong to the man whose soul it is (reply to objection 3, that beatitude being the perfection of human beings, and animae separatae not being human beings, beatitude is not possible for them).

Having thus firmly established his basic commitment to the complete sufficiency of the beatific vision for the happiness of the blessed souls, Aquinas attempts to explain in what sense the resurrection of the body can, nevertheless, be understood to contribute to their beatitude. The replies to objections 4 to 5 and the main body of the article attempt to explain this. The essential thrust of the reply to objection 4 is that although the soul is not precluded from bliss by the absence of its body, the beatitude it experiences is not perfect in every way because “the soul desires to enjoy God in such a way that the enjoyment also may overflow into the body,” and while, in enjoying God, its appetite is at rest, it is so “in such a way, that it would still wish the body to attain to its share.”349 There is a noticeable tension in what Aquinas says here and he veers close to sounding like he thinks this desire that the body should share in the soul’s enjoyment is sufficient to detract from the intensity of the beatific vision, for example, when he says: “thus it is that separation from the body is said to hold the soul back from tending with all its might to the vision of the Divine Essence.”350 The problems with this concept have already been considered earlier in this chapter when examining the schemata of St. Bonaventure and Pope Benedict XII. Aquinas’s reply to objection 5 is similar. This objection is that desire and beatitude are incompatible and yet the soul desires to be united to the body (as Augustine says), therefore, it is not possible for the anima separata to be happy. In response, Aquinas makes explicit the distinction between the desire of the soul as regards the thing desired (ex parte appetibilis) and as regards the subject of desire (ex parte appetentis), arguing that while the desire of the separated soul is satisfied in terms of the first of these (for “it has that which suffices its appetite”), it is not in terms of the second; “it is not wholly at rest, as regards the desirer, since it does not possess that good in every way that it would wish to possess

349 350

ST I II 4.5, ad 4. Ibid. (emphasis added); see also ST I-II 4.6, ad 2.

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it.”351 As a corollary of this Aquinas thinks that once soul and body are reunited, happiness increases “not in intensity, but in extent.”352 Unfortunately, this seems to return us once again to the challenge of explaining how finite goods can add to the experience of the divine essence. The attempt to maintain, on the one hand, that the soul is “entirely at rest, as regards the thing desired” and so experiences perfect beatitude, and yet, on the other, that it does so in some sense imperfectly because it is not “wholly at rest, as regards the desirer” is clearly not unproblematic. Simon Tugwell observes that while it can make sense to say, for example, that one could be perfectly happy enjoying something even while conscious of wishing someone else were there to enjoy it as well, Aquinas’s understanding of the experience of the beatific vision is such that this sort of wish is precluded by it; for in the beatific vision “there is really nothing left to be desired ex parte appetibilis.”353 He suggests that if Aquinas had been more rigorous here he should have said that while there is nothing more to be desired in the beatific vision, “there is something else which is still desiring it (ex parte appetentis).”354 Given Aquinas’s view of the beatific vision, the only candidate left for this would be the body (now the corpse) from which the soul has been separated, something which is clearly untenable because, even if it still existed it would be inanimate and so unable to be the subject of desires. It is for this reason that Aquinas is forced to attempt to ascribe this desire in some way to the soul, something which, given his understanding of the experience of the beatific vision, is not really possible and results in the rather unstable formulae examined above. In the main body of the article, Aquinas attempts to make sense of the idea of the body’s resurrection adding to the happiness of the beatified soul by distinguishing two ways in which “something may belong to a thing’s perfection.”355 The first concerns that which is necessary for the thing to exist; the second concerns that which is necessary for its well-being (bene esse). As an example of the first of these, he names the soul as being necessary for man’s existence, and as an example of the second, physical beauty and sharp 351

ST I II 4.5, ad 5. Ibid. 353 Tugwell, Human Immortality, 151. A point made abundantly clear by Aquinas in the seventh and eighth articles dealing with this question which deny the necessity of either external goods or the fellowship of friends for beatitude. 354 Ibid., 152. 355 ST I-II 4.5c. 352

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wits, concluding that “wherefore though the body does not belong in the first way to the perfection of human Happiness, yet it does in the second way.”356 As an explanation of this, Aquinas then seems to concede what he denies in the answers to the objections 1–3 (and 2, in particular): that “the soul will possess its own operation more perfectly the more perfect it is in its own nature, and the perfection of its nature requires union with the body.”357 Tugwell denies Aquinas is involved in a real contradiction here by arguing that because he holds, on the one hand, that in the absence of the body beatitude does not yet have every perfection and, on the other hand, that the anima separata lacks no perfection necessary for complete beatitude, then he clearly understands the body’s contribution to beatitude to be accidental only, “such as might be contributed by having a brilliant soprano who was also dazzlingly good-looking.”358 It is unclear, however, that this explanation resolves the apparent contradiction. The analogies employed here fail to establish the desired point because, employing finite goods only, they cannot be applied coherently to the case of the beatific vision. Physical beauty and sharp wits, although not essential for human existence, are able nevertheless to augment the happiness of that existence because of the additional benefits and joys that they bring to it. Similarly, one’s enjoyment of a soprano’s performance can be enhanced by certain physical charms which the singer might possess. But it is hard to make sense of anything adding, even in such a qualified way, to the joy of one who already possesses the supreme, infinite good. Given what has been established here about the object and nature of beatitude, the concept of its augmentation in such a manner, in either a substantial or an accidental sense, is one which remains obscure. In a later article examining the purpose of the general judgment (ST III 59), Aquinas makes no further mention of such accidental augmentation of beatitude at the final consummation. Rather, he simply affirms that the beatitude experienced by the souls of the blessed following the particular judgment is

356

Ibid. Tugwell, Human Immortality, 152. 358 Ibid. Anton van der Walle likewise understands Aquinas to be arguing that the body makes only an accidental contribution to our beatitude (see From Darkness, 157). Aquinas seems to imply as much in his response to the first objection in the succeeding article where he admits that while happiness does not involve bodily good as its object, bodily good can nevertheless “add a certain charm and perfection to Happiness” (ST I-II 4.6, ad 1). 357

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definitive,359 that they here receive the totality of their reward, and that their state in this respect is unchangeable.360 In the light of this, Aquinas argues that the purpose of the general judgment consists in making manifest to all “everything concerning every man in every respect.”361 It is a public judgment of each man’s life which makes clear its significance and worth in relation to the whole of human history rather than, as with the particular judgment, a bestowal of reward/punishment based on an individual’s merits and demerits. One element within this public judgment is the sharing of the body in the reward/ punishment already possessed by the soul,362 an event which does not seem to be in any way constitutive in this regard, being merely one of the things said to “accompany his reward or punishment.”363 At this point the advisability of conceiving of an augmentation of beatitude in more objective terms (such as “glory”) rather than the subjective ones so far considered (“joy,” “happiness”) might be urged. For the anima separata to experience the beatific vision is for it to possess a degree of happiness which is totally sufficient and which cannot be augmented by the addition or removal of any other factor. Subjectively considered, therefore, its beatitude is complete. As  a separated human soul though, it possesses an incomplete nature. Objectively considered, therefore, its beatitude is incomplete. Although its individual happiness is already maximal, its glory is not, for this is not yet the glory of a complete human being (of which the soul is only a part). Once the soul again informs its body, conveying to it a measure of the glory which it already possesses,364 then this objective beatitude increases, for its blessedness is now that of a complete human being. Glorifications of various other elements of creation (human society, the cosmos) would augment this objective beatitude further, it being natural for man to have human companionship and to dwell within a certain sort of physical environment. While the degree of happiness experienced by the human soul before and after these restorations (subjective beatitude) would remain constant throughout, considered objectively, the resurrection of the body and the consummation of 359

ST III 59.5. See esp. ST III 59.5, obj. 3 & ad 1 and 3. The language here converges with that of Ratzinger when he describes the heaven of the interim as consisting in a joy “which infinitely fulfils and supports and which, incapable of being lost, is in its pure fulness ultimate fulfilment” (Eschatology, 189). 361 ST III 59.5c. 362 ST III 59.5, ad 3. 363 ST III 59.5, ad 1 (emphasis added). 364 See ITC, para. 5.4; ST I-II 4.6c. 360

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all things would constitute increases in its beatitude, and a manifestation in more numerous ways than before of the glory of God who is the source and supreme good of all being.365 It is easy to understand someone not being wholly satisfied with such an account. While one might concede that the concept of an objective augmentation of beatitude/glory possesses coherence, it would still seem open to us to insist that without some corresponding subjective increase in beatitude as a result of bodily resurrection it does not seem possible to give due prominence to such a distinguishing feature of Christian eschatology. The resurrection of the body, the transformation of human community, and the transfiguration of the physical universe might constitute, in some abstract, metaphysical sense, an augmentation of the blessedness of the animae separatae, but, unless something happens which makes a real difference to those souls who are already blessed, these things would appear to be of marginal importance.366 While seeming to possess considerable force, such an argument is, in fact, quite poorly founded. The inference from the total sufficiency of the beatific vision for the soul to the marginalization of other created elements is a valid one only on the assumption that for something to qualify as eschatologically significant implies that it is capable of adding substantially, or at least accidentally, to the happiness of the individual human soul (i.e., to its subjective beatitude). Such an assumption is questionable, expressive of a theological hermeneutic which is unjustifiably anthropocentric and which conflicts with the magisterial teaching already examined concerning God as the ultimate end.367 For if one

365

It might be possible to interpret thinkers like Ratzinger (Eschatology, 189–90) and Kasper (“Final Coming of Jesus Christ,” 387–88) thus when they claim that resurrection and Parousia perfect the fulfillment which the blessed already possess in the interim state. 366 Such would seem to be the view of Candido Pozo, who argues that unless we suppose that the resurrection causes “an intensive increase of that which is substantial in beatitude; that is … an intensive increase of the vision of God … of the very possession of God” (Theology of the Beyond, 268), then due value cannot be given to it. Because the only way of valuing final eschatology seems to be by affirming such an intensive increase of the visio dei due to the bodily resurrection, argues Pozo, belief in such an increase must be maintained “even supposing that it were not possible for us to satisfactorily indicate how and why the body contributes to a more intense possession of God” (ibid., 269). He indicates, in this connection, St. Augustine’s suggestion—alluded to earlier in connection with the thought of Bonaventure and Benedict XII on this topic—that the separated soul’s appetite for union with the body would constitute “an impediment that would retard it from the most complete surrender to the vision of God” (ibid.). His commitment to this explanation is, however, avowedly tentative (ibid., 269–70) and he ends by admitting, not a little unsatisfyingly, that “it seems … more important here to assert the fact than to know precisely how to explain it” (ibid., 270; see also ibid., 314–15). 367 See Sullivan, “Seek First the Kingdom,” 966–70.

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holds that creation, or any aspect of it, can have an ultimate end other than God’s own goodness, then one thereby “denigrates God’s intrinsic perfection.”368 As Sullivan notes, the Schema for the third session of Vatican I states that the Council Fathers “intended to condemn the ‘damnable heresy’ that the world was not created for the sake of God in Himself,” and the Council’s Annotationes show that “their teaching was meant to ‘exclude false doctrines about the end of creation,’ including the idea that ‘the end in creating was only the happiness and good of the creature.’”369 Because of this, the Fathers of the Council definitely [sic] declared that the end of all creation, human and otherwise, was not ultimately human good. Rather, God created all things “in order to manifest His perfection through goods which he communicates to creatures.” Put negatively, the doctrine runs, “If anyone … denies that the world was made for the glory of God: anathema sit.370

Consequently, to hold that if the souls of the blessed are perfectly happy then the resurrection is superfluous371 is itself contrary to faith. Far from being of limited or marginal significance, the glorification of such elements of creation is central to Christian eschatology; for having created such things for this reason, it is only fitting that God should restore their integrity, whether this affects the happiness of individual creatures or not.372 In doing so, he is restoring the full dignity of his creatures, extending his salvific action to remedy not only sin but its effect, death (see Rom. 6:25; 1 Cor. 15:26), which “disrupts not only the order of human nature, but of the universe itself.”373 In the light of the foregoing analysis, such a form of justification for the significance of the resurrection would seem to be the only one available for Catholic thinkers, whether they favor the traditional schema or one of its more recent alternatives. In order to challenge this conclusion, it would be necessary to produce a demonstration that the body contributes significantly to

368

Ibid., 966. Ibid. 370 Ibid. 371 See ibid., 979. 372 It is worth pointing out here that as far as the damned are concerned, the restoration of such things may in any case be of profound subjective significance (see Pozo, Theology of the Beyond, 321 and n179), the suffering they experience due to their disordered will being augmented considerably perhaps by a glorified creation which “will continually frustrate, enrage and torment them” (Geach, Providence and Evil, 146; see also Potts, “Resurrection of the Damned,” 347; Fortman, Everlasting Life After Death, 319–21; Winklhofer, The Coming of His Kingdom, 95–97). 373 Potts, “Resurrection of the Damned,” 345. 369

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the subjective beatitude of blessed souls, something that has been shown to be extremely problematic. Given this, how are we to assess the claim made at the start of this discussion, that the thesis of immediate resurrection, unlike the traditional schema, safeguards the centrality of bodily resurrection as well as the eschatological importance of the Parousia and final consummation? If the eschatological significance of a thing is to be located in its potential to bring about a substantial increase in the happiness (i.e., subjective beatitude) of a beatified soul, then it is hard to see how making resurrection immediate could constitute an improvement on the traditional schema, for it is unclear in either scenario how the body could make such a contribution to the soul’s experience of the beatific vision. Making the experience of the beatific vision coincide with bodily resurrection only serves to obscure this fact. Likewise, using this criterion, it is difficult to see how immediate resurrection could preserve a greater significance for the Parousia and associated elements than the traditional schema. If the criterion is modified so that eschatological significance is admitted even should subjective beatitude be augmented per accidens, then it is equally unclear how immediate resurrection could constitute an improvement on the traditional schema, for the logical difficulties associated with the concept of a substantial increase in the joy of the blessed souls re-emerge here, and for the same reason: the singular, unsurpassable nature of the object of beatitude. Alternatively, one could attempt to interpret the eschatological significance of things less anthropocentrically and more objectively, in terms of their relation to the ontological completeness of the created order. Applying such a criterion, however, offers scant support for the claim with which this discussion started; for whether resurrection occurs immediately or not, its significance would appear to be identical in both schemata; likewise for those other events or elements associated with the consummation (Parousia, last judgment, the completion of the communio sanctorum and the glorification of the cosmos).374 What remains, therefore, of that criticism directed at the traditional schema, that it makes of resurrection an accidental or marginal element in Christian

374

In fact, if the concept of an increase in beatitude is best understood objectively (as explained above), then it may be possible to argue that the traditional schema would ensure a more significant place for the Parousia and general consummation than nonatemporalistic resurrection in death; for in the traditional schema a greater number of things remain to be resolved at the end of time than in the newer thesis.

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eschatology and so seriously undermines the concept of the human being as a substantial unity? In the light of the above analysis, it seems clear that there can be no reasons for thinking the traditional schema entails a marginalization of the resurrection which do not apply equally to the thesis of immediate resurrection (in both of its main forms). The sufficiency of the beatific vision for the happiness of the human soul entails nothing which threatens the concept of man as a substantial unity. The anima separata, as has been shown, is in a thoroughly unnatural state, a state of incomprehensible ontological indigence. Apart from the consolation implied by the experience of the beatific vision it would be plagued with an unimaginable yearning arising from the essential relation between itself and the matter of the body. Such privations would contribute significantly to the soul’s suffering in the states of either purgation375 or damnation. That the beatific vision might completely satisfy the anima separata in such a way that nothing extra could augment its happiness, far from being a negative judgment for anthropological holism is rather an entirely positive one about divine plenitude.

375

Schönborn, “Resurrection of the Flesh,” 24.

Conclusion

That what has been termed here “the traditional schema,” of a two-phase eschatology consisting in (i) an eschatology of souls and (ii) the reuniting of soul and body at the end of historical time, should be abandoned for immediate resurrection (or “resurrection in death”) is a belief which, for the last half a century, has crystallized into something of a sententia communis among Catholic theologians. The reasons given for such a change are scriptural, philosophical, and theological, the particular emphasis and combination of these varying from thinker to thinker. Although these arguments seem initially to possess considerable force (especially when taken collectively), on closer inspection they are not compelling, and systematic analysis reveals the new thesis to be at least as problematic as the traditional schema is perceived to be by its critics. Scriptural argument for resurrection in death admits of a threefold taxonomy embracing (i) the implications of a supposedly biblical monistic anthropology for Christian eschatology, (ii) the teaching of certain Pauline texts (notably 2 Cor. 5:1-10) which supposedly make explicit a development from the traditional schema to the proposed alternative within the Pauline corpus itself, and (iii) the logic of the New Testament’s realized eschatology which, it is claimed, is in marked tension with the postponement of resurrection in the traditional schema. The premise of a monistic biblical anthropology is not well founded. While scripture’s holistic vision of man seems incompatible with a Platonic/ Cartesian substance dualism, its apparent openness to the possibility of a personal, nonmaterial element of man capable of existing apart from the body seems equally to preclude substance monism. Arguments that certain Pauline texts teach immediate resurrection seem after careful analysis to be cases of special pleading. While the argument that the realized eschatology of the Pauline and Johannine corpus is incongruous with the traditional schema has a certain initial force, there is reason to believe that arguments for the delay of embodiment can find support from within the Pauline corpus

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itself. By themselves, therefore, arguments from scripture for the envisaged development are not compelling, and far from appearing contrary to sacred scripture, the traditional schema seems able to draw considerable support from it. To attempt to address philosophical and theological difficulties seemingly generated by the traditional schema by positing postmortem atemporalism is extremely problematic. Philosophically, atemporalism renders very unlikely a meaningful account of the numerical identity between human persons in statu viatoris and those in eternity. Correspondingly, it cannot support the idea of historical fulfillment traditionally envisaged as a central part of Christian revelation. It thus undermines its purported project of restoring due prominence to the collective and cosmic dimensions of eschatology (and in a more fundamental manner than the traditional schema could be accused of doing). It also makes giving a theologically coherent account of Catholic doctrine concerning the communio sanctorum impossible. Arguments against the concept of postmortem temporality which assume that free acts can only be exercised in statu viatoris have been shown to be poorly founded. Thus a significant lacuna in the dialogue which might have continued to invite atemporalism as a possible solution has been addressed. Additional problems are caused for atemporalism by those dogmas of the faith associated with the purification of the faithful departed; for compression of purgation into the “moment of death” makes it impossible convincingly to explain the purpose of the church’s practice of praying and offering suffrages for the dead. While there remains the logical possibility for proponents of this model to attempt to combine an atemporalistic state of beatitude with a quasitemporal, postmortem purgatory, such modifications threaten to complicate the schema in a manner which significantly erodes its power and attractiveness as an explanatory hypothesis. Arguments against purgation in death do not by themselves constitute a conclusive refutation of atemporalistic resurrection; nevertheless, they have serious implications for most proponents of such a state, and thus count as a significant factor which supplements the already considerable rigor of those arguments that challenge atemporalism’s ability to maintain anthropological, historical or soteriological realism. Given that atemporalistic versions of resurrection in death are too problematic to constitute a serious option for the Catholic theologian, the only genuine alternative to the traditional schema must be some form of

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nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection. Compelling reasons for adopting such an account in preference to the traditional schema are, however, lacking. Arguments for immediate resurrection in death which are based on the supposed absolute indivisibility of the human being struggle to account satisfactorily for the continuing identity of the individual through death and (immediate) resurrection and/or the human and full religious significance of the corpse. An anthropology capable of accounting for personal identity through death and resurrection would seem by implication to presuppose a concept of the soul susceptible to continued existence apart from the body and thus to eliminate one of the key reasons for preferring resurrection in death to the traditional schema. Arguments against the separability of such a soul are uncompelling. The objection that the anima separata could not retain individuality apart from the body is less than convincing and can apparently be addressed by the idea of spiritual souls being differentiated through their being “proportioned” to the individual bodies of which they are the forms. The argument that such a soul could not remain active (and thus in existence) without divine intervention (a supposedly ad hoc and thus unattractive solution) is likewise inconclusive, for it presupposes that the soul, in order to be the cause of life, must itself be living, a presupposition which can itself be called into question. Furthermore, the activity which the traditional schema does ascribe to the soul in the intermediate state is in any case susceptible to an explanation from within the nexus of secondary causes, without invoking the seemingly ad hoc device of special divine intervention. A third argument is that immediate resurrection is to be preferred because the anima separata does not by itself qualify as the individual whose soul it was and thus is incapable of carrying personal identity across an interim state. As a consequence, Catholic beliefs concerning reward and punishment immediately after death as well as prayers and devotions to the faithful departed seem decisively threatened. Negotiation of such difficulties is possible however once the concept of “partial existence” is admitted, the cogency of which seems particularly clear given the unique status of the soul and its relation to the body. The relative probability of the competing eschatological schemata is not, however, to be determined by such considerations alone. If an anthropological duality such as that presupposed by the traditional schema is found to be necessary in order to secure personal identity through death and resurrection, then certainly one key argument for immediate resurrection (that which is premised on the total indivisibility of the human being) is undermined. Other

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arguments, however, remain. These tend to focus on perceived tensions arising from the individual and collective dimensions of eschatology, and in particular the supposed marginalization of the bodily, communal, and cosmic dimensions of eschatology by the traditional schema, a factor admitting of amelioration, it is suggested, if some form of the alternative thesis were adopted instead. Systematic analysis of the various explanations employed by proponents of the traditional schema to account for the beatitude of the anima separata, on the one hand, with the meaningfulness of the resurrection and associated elements, on the other, makes clear that a solution in terms of some form of subjective augmentation of the happiness of the blessed soul at the Parousia is problematic. The first form of explanation, that beatitude in the interim state lacks certain qualities essential for the perfect happiness of the blessed soul, seems incapable of a formulation which would not threaten the view that a rational entity can find complete fulfillment in God alone, which in turn seems to imply the lack of some perfection in the divine being. The second form of explanation, that beatitude in the interim state lacks only certain inessential (or accidental) qualities which could nevertheless augment the happiness of the blessed soul by being superadded in some way, seems to be similarly unsustainable. What the analysis also makes clear is that the thesis of immediate resurrection is equally incapable of addressing these difficulties: its merging of the moment of the individual soul’s beatitude with the glorification of all (in the case of atemporalistic versions) or some (in the case of nonatemporalistic versions) of those other created elements destined for consummation merely obscuring, rather than actually resolving, the tensions said by its proponents to undermine the traditional schema. It would seem that for either schema, an explanation of the eschatological significance of body, society, and cosmos must be found which locates their meaning other than in the subjective augmentation of the individual soul’s experience of the beatific vision. Such an account might be given in terms of the full and proper manifestation of God’s glory in and through the objective completion of those beings which he has created, a form of explanation which by itself would seem to contribute little to resolving the question of whether immediate resurrection is to be preferred to the traditional schema or not. Arguments for adopting the thesis of immediate resurrection, while perhaps initially attractive, are not, therefore, compelling. By itself, though, this does not constitute an apodictic proof of the truth of the traditional schema. Firstly, it may be possible to construct versions of these arguments which have sufficient

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force to render the newer thesis preferable to the traditional one. Secondly, it is conceivable that there might be reasons for affirming some form of resurrection in death over the traditional schema which have yet to be articulated by thinkers unhappy with the latter model. Until this occurs though, what has been termed here “the traditional schema” would seem to remain a credible option for Catholic theologians, one which is perhaps even a little less problematic than the alternatives.

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Index Note: The letter “n” following locators refers to notes. aevum and atemporalism, 89–90 criticism of the, 106–7 defense of the, 91, 107–10 Aldwinckle, Russell, 8n58 Alexander VII (pope), 24n170 Althaus, Paul, 5, 14n97, 156n149 angel/s, 207n212, 220 the blessed and, 108 the Catholic faith and, 194 the cognition of, 184, 188, 195 communion with, 187 existence and activity coextensive in, 185 freedom of, 119n167 individuality of, 177 the separated soul and, 184, 188, 192–93, 195–97 subsistence of, 174 anima(e) separata(e), 125, 232n348, 240 and beatitude, 10n65, 19–20, 87–88, 108, 110–11, 215–37, 216n252, 227n326, 237n366, 240, 244 cognition in the, 187–94 criticisms of/objections to, 6, 10, 87–88, 110–11, 130–31, 167–68, 171, 176–77, 181–90 defense of, 172–74, 177–81, 189–207, 243 inactivity of, 181–89 individuality of, 177–81 and the intermediate state, 2, 20, 126, 214 and personal identity, 2, 19n132, 130–31, 166, 197–207, 229n334 and popular piety, 10, 19, 98 and resurrection, 207–8 sacred scripture and the, 11, 40, 59, 71–72

annihilation at death, 35, 36n31, 89n10, 154 in the Old Testament, 36n31 and re-creation, 9, 37, 40n64, 144, 168n220 anthropology Aristotelian, 4, 168, 172–73, 174n20, 177, 193 Cartesian, 31, 31n1, 33, 34n18, 172–73, 176, 241 Catholic, 188, 202 dualistic, 3n18, 4, 6, 31–33, 31n1, 34n18, 41–44, 44n88, 49, 52–55, 156, 172–76 of duality, 3–5 , 3n18 , 9 , 16 , 18 , 31 , 36–47 , 41n69 , 45n96 , 46n103 , 49 , 50n127 , 51–59 , 127 , 130–31 , 141 , 145–46 , 159–60 , 171 , 213–14 , 243 holistic, 31, 31n1, 33–35, 58–59, 73, 166, 240 (see also holism) of the intertestamental period, 37–40 modern, 136, 171 monistic, 9, 9n62, 18, 33–35, 39–40, 40n64, 42–45, 46n103, 51–53, 55–57, 56n173, 60, 60nn196–97, 80, 82n319, 131, 141–45, 162, 176, 198, 211–12, 241 New Testament, 40–59 Old Testament, 31–37 Pauline, 51–60, 55n166, 60nn196–97, 67, 77 (see also Paul, Saint: anthropology of) Platonic, 6, 31–33, 31n1, 34n18, 38–39, 121n180, 172–73, 176, 184, 188–91, 193–94, 198, 241 Thomistic, 34n21, 98, 168, 173, 175–78, 180, 188–90, 202–3, 213, 232n345

258

Index

Apostolici Regiminis (Fifth Lateran General Council), 4–5, 10n63, 171n2 Aquinas, Thomas on angels (see angel/s: cognition of; existence and activity coextensive in; individuality of; the separated soul and) anthropology of, 34n21, 173–76 (see also anthropology: Thomistic) and beatitude, 100, 215–36 on choice/free acts, 108–9 and dualism, 173–77 on the operations of the soul, 181–97 and the personhood of the soul, 198–208 and resurrection, 213–16, 227–28, 232–36 on the soul, 172–81 Arendzen, John Peter, 3n17 Aristotelianism (of Pietro Pomponazzi), 4, 172 Assumption, the dogma of the. See under Blessed Virgin Mary atemporalism, 29, 87, 157 Catholic proponents of, 10n65, 11–13, 13n65, 14, 157n155 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and, 14–15, 92, 95 criticisms of, 14, 15n105, 89–98, 102– 5, 107–10, 215, 239–40, 242, 244 definition of, 8 International Theological Commission (ITC) and, 8n56, 14–15, 15n105 protestant proponents of, 8n56, 14n97 and purgatory, 112–26 reasons for adopting, 10n65, 12, 87–88, 98–102, 106–7, 110–12, 211, 215, 230n341 baptism church teaching on, 122–24, 124n194 as dying and rising with Christ, 80–82, 124, 133 the effects of, 122–24 and immortality, 133 sin before and after, 124 Barrett, C. K., 56n167 Barth, Karl, 5, 8n56

basar (flesh), 31–32, 32n11, 44, 46 Bazan, Bernardo Carlos, 232n345 Bear, John, 43n82 beatific vision and the anima separata, 20, 87, 216, 218–19, 221, 224, 226–29, 231 and the blessed, 187, 217, 219, 222–23 Christ and the, 229 as compatible with suffering, 223–26 and desire, 111, 218, 223–24, 226, 228–30, 232–34 as finite, 222–23 and freedom, 107–9 as imperfect/incomplete beatitude, 216–23, 216n249, 218, 220 as an intellectual vision, 229–30, 232 and the intermediate state, 91, 216, 216n252, 218–21, 226 beatitude. See also beatific vision accidental, 231–36, 232n345, 235n358 and the anima separata (see anima(e) separata(e): and beatitude) atemporalistic, 125, 125n198 and bodily resurrection, 19–21, 98, 215–40 complete/perfect, 226–28, 227n326, 231, 234–37 degrees of, 216–19, 222–23 essential, 226–27, 231, 237n366 and freedom, 107–9, 110n129 and human desire, 109, 111, 228, 233–34 and immediate resurrection, 21, 111, 231 incomplete/imperfect, 8n57, 19–20, 111, 216–23, 226, 233–34, 236–37 and the intermediate state, 6, 10n65 objective, 236–37, 239, 239n374, 244 and ontological incompleteness, 106, 110, 112 subjective, 236–39, 244 and the traditional schema, 98, 215 Benedict XII (pope), 216n252, 219, 224, 226–28, 233, 237n366 Benedict XVI (pope), 227 Benedictus Deus (Benedict XII), 133n36, 216, 221, 226, 227n326, 230n339 Benoit, Pierre, 9, 9n62, 11, 13n91, 45, 60, 82n319, 133, 162, 229, 229n338

Index Berkouwer, G. C., 88nn4–5 Bernard, Saint, 216, 216n249 Berry, Ronald, 68n245, 71, 72–73n271 Betz, Hans Dieter, 53, 56n173 “biblicism”, 14n97, 88, 91 Blessed Virgin Mary Assumption of, 22–28 Immaculate Conception of, 24 as type of the Church, 25–26 “body of death” (Pauline concept), 54 Bonaventure, Saint, 216, 216n249, 216n252, 217–21, 224, 233, 237n366 Boros, Ladislaus on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 23–24, 24n166 The Moment of Truth: Mysterium Mortis, 24n166, 113 as opponent of the anima separata, 9, 9n63, 19n130 and personal identity through death and immediate resurrection, 167 on prayers for the dying and the “final decision” in death, 118–20 as proponent of nonatemporalistic resurrection in death, 13n91, 13n93, 114n142 on purgatory as purifying encounter with Christ in death, 113, 116 on the retroactivity of prayers for the dead, 115 on using God as a causal explanation, 184, 195 Braine, David, 213n243 Breuning, Wilhelm, 155 Brown, Montague, 201n178, 204n200 Bruce, F. F., 8n58, 16n109, 56n167, 56n171, 60n197, 82nn319–20, 88n5 Brunner, Emil, 5, 8n56, 88n6 Bultmann, Rudolf, 56n167, 57–58 Butler, Joseph, 139, 139n75 Bynum, Caroline Walker, 212n240 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 5, 50n127, 78, 120, 171n2, 227 Catechism of the Council of Trent, 122, 124n194, 209n224 CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), 4–5, 14–17, 28nn187–88, 92, 95, 114, 124, 130, 207–8

259

Charles, R. H., 8n58, 16n109, 36n31, 43n82, 60n197, 63, 73n276, 75–76, 81n317 Christ. See Jesus Christ church and the Blessed Virgin Mary, 23n158, 24–25, 28n187 as the Body of Christ, 225 Catechism of the Catholic (see Catechism of the Catholic Church) and the communio sanctorum, 94, 105 Corinthian, 57 doctors of the, 25 Dogmatic Constitution on the, 120 early, 39 fathers of the, 23n160, 25, 129, 232n345 heavenly, 25–26, 51n135 lex orandi of the, 94, 115 liturgy and piety of the, 94, 105, 114–15, 124–25, 129, 212 magisterium of the Catholic, 4, 127, 226 Pastoral Constitution on the, 4, 171n2 pilgrim, 25–26 and prayers and suffrages for the dead, 2, 114–15, 118n164, 124–25, 124n194, 242 and the resurrection, 17, 128–29 and the soul, 17 teaching of the Catholic, 1–2, 3n18, 4, 14, 17, 94, 105, 107, 114, 122, 125, 128–29, 159, 171, 187, 216, 226–27 Clarke, J. J., 141n85 Clarke, Stephen, 145 Commentary on the Sentences (Aquinas), 193, 216, 232 communion of saints, 91, 94, 187. See also communio sanctorum communio sanctorum, 11, 94, 98, 102, 105, 108, 207, 217, 222, 239, 242. See also communion of saints The Compendium of Theology (Aquinas), 209n224, 232 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), 4–5, 14–17, 28nn187–88, 92, 95, 114, 124, 130, 207–8 consummation, 83, 88n4, 93, 108, 110n128, 244

260

Index

of all things, 1, 8, 27n184, 81n317, 97, 236–37 and atemporalism, 90 cosmic, 75n283, 84n328, 88, 96–97, 103 in death, 12, 111 final/general, 19, 106, 216n252, 235, 239, 239n274 of history, 12, 95–97, 96n66, 101–3, 106–7, 109–10 interim, 216n252 postmortem, 110 purgatory as, 113, 118 and resurrection, 155–56, 158 of the world, 3 Cooper, John W. on anthropological holism, 31n1, 34–35, 34n20 on dualism, 31n1 on Heb. 12:23, 51n135 on intertestamental eschatology, 39n57 on the methodology of monistic exegesis, 36n31, 42–43 on Mt. 10:28, 46 on New Testament anthropology, 46 on Old Testament anthropology/ eschatology, 35, 36n31, 46n103 as opponent of “replica” theory, 136n55, 141n85, 145n99 on Pauline duality, 56n167, 57–58 on Pauline eschatology, 7n50 on Phil. 3:20–21, 78 on Rom. 8:18–23, 75n283 on synecdoche, 32n10 on 2 Cor. 5:1–10, 73n272 on 2 Cor. 12:1–4, 56n167 Corcoran, Kevin J., 162–65, 212 council. See place name of the council Craig, W. L., 72 Credo of the People of God (Paul VI), 4–5 Cullman, Oscar, 92n39 “cultural amalgams”, 13, 120 damnation, 6, 10n65, 44–45, 107, 120n176, 187, 189, 197, 240 (see also hell) Danielou, Jean, 23, 23n158 Davies, W. D., 16n109, 53n153, 88n5 Davis, Stephen T., 136n53, 143–44n96

De Anima (Aquinas), 193 Death and Eternal Life (Hick), 156 Decree for the Greeks (General Council of Florence), 122 Dei Filius (Dogmatic Constitution on/ concerning the Catholic Faith) (Vatican I), 4, 227 Dei Veritate (Aquinas), 193 Denys the Carthusian, 27 Dhanis, Edouard, 18 dialogical lacuna/e, 1, 29, 31, 87, 106 Dilley, Frank, 136n53, 139 Dogmatic Constitution on/concerning the Catholic Faith (Dei Filius) (Vatican I), 4, 227 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) (Vatican II), 120 dualism, 88 anthropological (see anthropology: dualistic) Cartesian (see anthropology: Cartesian) ethical, 55 (see also dualism: of value) Gnostic, 55n166, 57 Greek/Hellenistic, 53, 55, 55n166, 58 implicit, 149 and materialism, 76 ontological (see anthropology: dualistic) philosophical (see anthropology: dualistic) Platonic (see anthropology: Platonic) substance/substantial, 4, 6, 33, 174–75, 198, 241 (see also anthropology: dualistic) of time and eternity, 92, 97, 104–5 of value, 52, 55, 58 Dutch Catechism, 9, 9n61, 13n91, 114n142, 117, 121 “earthly tent” (Pauline concept), 57, 60–62, 66–68, 72 Edgar, Brian, 18n125, 47n111, 56n173 Elert, Werner, 7n48, 151n127 Elijah (prophet), 25 elohim, 36n32 Enoch, (patriarch), 25, 56n171 Enoch, the First Book of, 38, 38n45, 38n50, 39, 49n121, 51 Enoch, the Second Book of, 49n121

Index eschatology and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 25 atemporalist, 157 (see also atemporalism) biblical/scriptural, 6, 29, 31, 36–37, 88 Christian, 104, 215, 228, 237–41 collective/communal, 8, 10n65, 19, 29, 87, 92, 97n78, 103, 215, 242, 244 cosmic, 8, 10n65, 19, 83, 87, 242, 244 eschatological tension/s, 8, 8n57, 10, 80, 97n78, 110, 112, 171, 214–15, 230, 242, 244 general/final, 8n57, 19, 91n32, 94, 237n366 Gnostic, 68n245 individual, 8, 29, 83, 87, 92, 94, 97n78, 103, 215, 244 intermediate, 21, 114 Jewish/rabbinic, 50, 51n135, 73 Johannine, 81, 81n317, 84n329 Old Testament, 36–37, 46 one-phase, 100 particular, 8n57 realized, 10–11, 16, 21, 26, 60, 60n197, 80–85, 82n319, 88n5, 241 of St. Paul, 15–16n109, 59–85, 60n197, 88n5 of souls, 3, 5, 7, 241 two-phase/dual-phase, 3, 39, 63, 85, 95, 100, 241 Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Ratzinger), 3n17, 14, 15n105 Esdras, the Second Book of, 38n50 esō anthrōpos (inner man) (Pauline concept), 52–53, 55 Essay on Human Understanding (Locke), 136n51 eternity and the aevum, 91 atemporal, 8–9, 88–89, 91–92, 100, 103n99, 105, 107, 157, 242 and beatitude, 223 of Christ, 11–12 of creatures, 91, 93, 103–4 of God, 91–93, 103–4, 155–56 nonatemporal, 93 as opposed to time, 88–89, 88n4, 93 and its relation to time, 14–15, 92–94, 97, 100–2, 104

261

exō anthrōpos (outer man) (Pauline concept), 53, 55 Ezra, the Fourth Book of, 39 Feinberg, John, 50 Fides Damasi, 129 final decision in death (theory of), 118–20, 119n167, 125 First Vatican General Council (Vatican I), 4, 162n185, 194n149, 222n280, 227, 238 fission model/theory (of identity), 162–65, 164n199, 212 Flanagan, Donal, 24–26 Flew, Anthony, 134, 137, 150 Florence, General Council of, 120, 122–23, 222 forma corporis. See soul: as forma corporis Fortman, E. J., 9, 10n63, 13n91, 13n94, 19nn130–31, 116, 116n157, 121–22, 133, 167, 167n206, 198, 204n200, 207 Franciscan “spirituals”, 4 functional holism. See holism: functional Ganztod, 7–8 “gappy object” defense, 146–51, 202n186 Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald, 3n17 Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) (Vatican II), 4–5, 171n2 Geach, Peter, 139n69, 178n45 Gehenna, 39, 43, 46–47, 47n107 general judgment. See judgment: general glory/glorification, 236 of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 22–26, 28n187, 221n275 bodily/of the body, 3, 10, 20, 24–26, 49, 59, 75–76, 79, 128, 137, 155, 159, 166, 212, 215–17, 221n275, 230, 236–38, 244 of Christ, 74, 95, 128, 216n249, 221n275, 230, 230n340 of creatures, 104 degrees of, 53 “garments of ” (biblical concept), 49n121 of God, 124, 237–38, 244 of God’s children, 83

262

Index

heavenly, 223, 225–26 of humanity/mankind, 20, 230n340, 236 of the interim, 20, 230n340 “light of ”, 223 of the saints, 98, 212, 217, 221n275, 230 and time/history, 103–4 of the universe/cosmos/all things, 3, 19–20, 111, 236, 238–39, 238n372, 244 Gnosticism, 58n181 God and the angels, 191–92 communion/union/fellowship with, 36, 47, 47n111, 50, 93, 111 and the communion of saints, 109 and death, 94 eternity of (see eternity: of God) glory of, 124, 237–38, 244 and hell/damnation, 44–48, 47n111, 48n113, 187, 225 judgment of (see judgment: of God) justice of, 123–24, 123n185 kingdom of, 12, 77–78, 83 opposition to/rejection of, 82, 124, 124n193 and prayers for the dead, 105, 117, 119–20, 125 and purgatory, 113–14, 118–24, 125n196 his relation to time, 12, 115 and resurrection, 6–7, 15n109, 39, 61–62, 83, 132, 143–44n96, 208–9, 211–12, 211n236 (see also infusedimmortality theory; physicaltransfer theory; recapitulation theories; “replica” theory) and the soul, 4–5, 38n50, 50, 106, 110, 180, 184–89, 191–94, 224–26, 230 as supreme good/end of all things, 95, 97, 108–10, 217, 223, 226–27, 229–30, 232, 232n248, 234–38, 240, 244 throne of, 39 and time/history, 92, 97, 101 the vision of, 20, 187, 211n234, 217, 219–24, 226, 228–29, 231–37, 232n348, 237n366, 239–40 (see also beatific vision)

Gregory the Great, Saint (pope), 25 Gregory of Nyssa, 227 Greshake, Gisbert, 9n60, 13n91, 97n72, 114n142, 132, 194–95 Guardini, Romano, 3n17 Gundry, Robert H., 36n31, 45n96, 54–55, 56n164, 57 Haffner, Paul, 28n187 Hanhart, Karel, 8n56, 88n6 Harris, Murray, 9n58, 16n109, 60n197, 64–66, 66n235, 68–69, 68n245, 70n255, 73, 81n317, 82–83 Hartshorne, Charles, 152–54, 153n132, 154n136 Hasker, William, 136–37, 136n55, 141n85, 143, 150, 150n124, 161, 163–64, 209n222, 213n241 Hayes, Zachary, 14n91, 15n102, 94–97, 94n56, 96n66, 101, 112, 167 heaven bodily assumption into/transport to, 24, 27, 57 with Christ in, 133 church in (see church: heavenly) entering/going to, 2, 7, 56, 123, 187, 199, 219 “foreheaven”, 20, 230n340, 236n360 freedom in, 108–10 glory of, 223, 225–26 heavenly altar, 48, 48n117 heavenly dwelling/garment (Pauline concept), 60–62, 66–68 of the interim, 20, 230n340, 236n360 joys/blessings of, 187, 223, 229–30 new, 3 revelations from, 57 saints in, 50, 99–101, 105, 187, 199, 219, 226 and suffering, 225–26 third, 55–56 Hebblethwaite, Brian, 164n199 Heim, Karl, 5 hell, 2, 27, 39, 43–47, 47n111, 48n113, 121n178, 187, 199 (see also damnation)

Index Hellwig, Monica, 118n164 Herbert, R. T., 143n96, 146–50, 148n111, 149n117, 150n124, 151 Hettlinger, R. F., 63n213, 68n245, 70–71 Hick, John, 134–45, 134n39, 137n58, 143n92, 143n95, 152, 154, 154n136, 156, 161n180, 164n199 Higher Catechetical Institute, 9n61 history and atemporalism, 89–90, 94–98, 101 consummation/fullness of, 89–90, 95–98, 96n66, 101, 103, 105 earthly(terrestrial)/world’s, 11–13, 94, 96, 98, 102 free, 12, 106, 106n113, 107, 109–10, 110n129 of freedom, 95, 96n66, 106–7, 106n113, 107n115, 109–10, 110nn128–29, 157, 168n220 God’s relation to, 20, 97 human, 12, 53, 236 of Israel, 35 ongoing, 90, 101, 103 relation to eternity, 92, 94n56, 97, 102–3 and resurrection, 94n56 salvation, 41n70, 55, 98, 101, 103 holism anthropological (see anthropology: holistic) Aristotelian, 193 biblical, 35, 37, 42–43, 51, 59, 77, 82 functional, 34, 34n21, 37 Hebraic, 52–53, 58 and/or monism, 33–34, 42–43 ontological, 34–37, 41–43, 46, 51, 59, 77, 82, 132, 146, 165, 167, 214 Holy Mass, 2, 26n180, 116 “Hope in the Final Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory” (Kasper), 3n17, 92 Humani Generis (Pius XII), 4–5 idealism, 144n96, 145, 149, 160 identity bodily, 18, 22, 127–30, 165n200, 166, 171n3, 173, 209–10, 212n240 formal, 130 judgments/statements/claims of, 134–39, 142, 145–46, 149–50, 164

263

material, 22, 129, 140, 165n200, 168, 209–10, 212n240 Messianic, 27 as necessary not contingent, 143, 150–51, 164, 164n199, 200 numerical, 17, 104, 126, 128, 130, 141n84, 144, 166, 169, 213, 242 as ontic, not epistemic, 150–51, 150n124 personal (see personal identity) post-mortem, 149 qualitative, 141–43, 141n84, 143n92, 144 of/and the soul, 177, 190, 199, 201n178, 202, 208, 210, 214 of type, 129 Immaculate Conception, 24 immediate resurrection, atemporalistic. See atemporalism immediate resurrection, nonatemporalistic Catholic proponents of, 13, 13n91, 14–15, 15n102, 94–98, 114n142 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and, 15, 95 criticism of/objections to/problems with, 14–17, 15n108, 20–21, 88, 98–100, 106–7, 110–12, 211–13, 228–31, 239, 239n374 definition of, 8 International Theological Commission (ITC) and, 15, 15n108 Peter Phan and, 157n155 protestant proponents of, 8n58 and purgatory, 114n142 reasons for adopting, 107–10, 214–15, 228 (see also atemporalism: criticisms of) individual form transfer (theory of identity), 165–69 Ineffabilis Deus, 24 infused-immortality theory (of identity), 132–33 interim state. See intermediate state intermediate state and apocalyptic literature, 39n57 and the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary, 24–25

264

Index

beatitude and the, 20, 91, 216, 218, 220–21, 225–26, 232 and the Catechism, 5 Catholic teaching on, 1–2, 114, 186, 206 Christ’s own, 21–22 and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), 4–5 as contrary to scripture, 10–11, 35 definition of the, 1–2 immediate resurrection and the, 126–27 International Theological Commission (ITC), 5, 20, 36–37, 48n116, 114 and the intertestamental literature, 38–39, 39n57, 40n64 necessity of the, 126 and the New Testament, 37, 48–51, 48n116, 51n135 and the Old Testament, 40n64 personal identity and the, 126, 131–69, 176–208 problems with/objections to, 6, 8n57, 10, 19, 98–99, 106–7 and purgatory, 114 and rabbinic literature, 39, 39n57 scriptural foundations for, 36–37, 48–51, 48n116, 51n135 and the soul, 20, 194, 196, 200–1, 204–6, 216, 216n252, 218-21, 224–26, 243 theology of the, 112 International Theological Commission (ITC) and anthropological dualism, 3n18 and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 21n188 and atemporalism, 8n56, 14, 15n105 and beatitude, 20, 227n326 and bodily identity, 22, 128, 208 and the intermediate state, 5, 20, 48n116, 78, 130, 227n326 and nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection, 15, 15n108 and personal identity, 17–18, 19n132, 22, 208 and prayers for the dead, 114 and purgatory, 114, 124, 125n196 and resurrection, 18–20, 128, 130, 205–6

Some Current Questions in Eschatology. See document and the soul, 5, 17–20, 19n132, 35, 43, 48n116, 78, 130, 205–6 and the traditional schema, 15n105, 35–37, 43, 78 and 2 Cor. 5:1–10, 71n263 Irenaeus, Saint, 129 ITC. See International Theological Commission Jensen, Joseph, 38n46 Jesus Christ ascension of, 103 and the beatific vision (see beatific vision: Christ and the) blood of, 26n180 coming again/Parousia/return of, 2–3, 15, 27n184, 40n64, 53, 64n221, 73–76, 75n284, 76n287, 78, 80, 84n328, 95, 97, 118n164, 215 communion with, 7, 7n50, 10–11, 20, 60, 64–65, 73n271, 77–78, 77n294, 82nn319–20, 87, 133, 156, 207 death of, 11, 23, 27, 225 glory of, 75, 128, 216n249, 221n275, 230n340 and hell/damnation, 48, 133, 187 and history, 11–12, 95 and the intermediate state, 11n71, 20–22, 39, 48, 50, 97, 230n340 and judgment, 61, 186–87 Messianic identity of, 27–28 participation in the death and resurrection of, 11–12, 15, 80–82, 124, 133 passion/suffering of, 115, 124, 224–26 prayers of, 118n164 as purgation, 113, 116, 125n196 relationship with, 47–48 resurrection of, 10–11, 21–23, 27, 29n187, 49–50, 80, 103, 128–29 resurrection of, as model of our own, 21–22, 128–29, 211n236, 212n240 risen, 81, 128, 136, 162, 211n236, 229–30, 230n340 risen body of, 11n71, 60, 78, 128, 133, 211, 214n251, 216n249, 221n275, 230

Index as source of eternal life, 81–82, 84, 225 Spirit of, 133 victory of, 6, 23 John, Saint (the apostle), 11, 81, 84n329 John Paul II, Saint (pope), 227 John XXII (pope), 88n2, 216, 216n249, 216n252, 218–21, 228 Journet, Charles, 23n158, 27 Jubilees, the Book of, 38 judgment death and, 5, 186 general, 3, 8, 10n65, 13, 96, 112, 235–36 of God, 1, 3, 6, 220 last/final, 2, 6–7, 39, 39n57, 64, 87–88, 88n2, 98, 100, 216, 216n252, 218–21, 221n274, 226, 239 particular, 1n3, 8, 10n65, 13, 39, 96, 112, 235–36 and resurrection, 100 seat of Christ, 61 Jüngel, Eberhard, 8n56, 155, 158 Kaiser, Otto, 7n52, 36n31, 40n64, 46n103 Kasper, Walter, 3n17, 15nn103–4, 20, 25, 92–97, 92n37, 96n66, 103–4, 112, 237n365 Klima, Gyula, 213n242 Kromholtz, Bryan, 12 Kung, Hans, 10, 14, 114n142, 117–18, 118n164, 121, 154n136, 155–56, 156n149, 157n154, 158, 159n172, 194 Ladd, George Eldon, 36n31, 41, 43n82, 49n118, 72 Laeuchli, Samuel, 52–53, 53n153, 55 Lane, Dermot, 11, 13n91, 15, 15n102, 16nn109–10, 78, 95–97, 96n66, 101, 111–12, 114n142, 167, 214–15, 228–29, 229n338 last day/day of the Lord, 2, 7–8, 12, 15n105, 15n109, 81, 81n317, 84n329, 88, 112, 118n164 (see also Parousia) last judgment. See judgment: last/final Lateran General Council, the Fifth, 4, 10n63, 171n2, 172–73, 172n8, 175, 177

265

Lateran General Council, the Fourth, 3, 194n149, 222n280 leb (heart), 31–32, 32n4, 32n8, 32n11 Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 28n187 and atemporalism, 14, 92, 95 and immediate resurrection/ resurrection in death, 15, 95 and personal identity, 15, 17, 130 and purgatory, 114, 124 and the soul, 5, 15, 17, 130 and traditional teaching, 4–5 Leo XIII (pope), 227 Lipner, J. J., 141n85 liturgy, 94, 98–100, 102, 105, 115, 120n176, 121n177, 124–25 Locke, John, 136, 136n51, 139 Lohfink, Gerhard, 12, 89–90, 97n72, 114n142 Lohse, Eduard, 7n52, 36n31, 40n64, 46n103 Lombard, Peter, 216 Loughlin, Gerard, 138–40, 141n85, 145 Lubac, Henri de, 3n17, 27 Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) (Vatican II), 120 Lyons, Second General Council of, 119 MacIntosh, J. J., 143, 150n124 Madden, James, 213n242 magisterium, 4–5, 127, 226 Mary, Virgin. See Blessed Virgin Mary Matthew, Saint, 18, 23–27, 26n180, 44–48, 44n88, 45n96, 46n103 memory theory (of identity)/memory immortality, 154–59, 154n136 Merricks, Trenton, 7n52, 209n222 Meyer, Ben F., 67n242 The Moment of Truth: Mysterium Mortis (Boros), 24n166, 113 monism anthropological. See anthropology: monistic biblical, 56 Hebrew/Hebraic, 52, 82n319 holism and/or, 33–34, 42–43

266

Index

materialistic, 33 Pauline, 60nn196–97 Semitic, 9n62, 33, 82n319, 133 substance, 241 of time and eternity, 92, 104 Mounce, Robert H., 49n118 multiple-replica argument, 141–44, 143n95, 150 Munificentissimus Deus, 23n161, 24–25 nephesh (life/soul), 31–32, 32n3, 32nn7–8, 32n11, 33n12, 36n32, 38, 41n69, 44–46, 46n103, 58 New Catechism, the Catholic faith for adults. See Dutch Catechism Nichols, Terence, 3n17, 15n103, 36n31, 130n16 Nocke, Josef, 155 O’Callaghan, Paul, 3n17, 15n103, 18n124, 21, 24n187, 130n16 Oguejiofor, J Obi, 174–75n24 Olivi, John, 4, 172 ontological holism. See holism: ontological original sin, 2, 23n158, 24, 180 Osei-Bonsu, Joseph, 49n118, 64n222, 67, 67n240, 69, 70n255 Ott, Ludwig, 162n185 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, 8n56, 154n136, 156, 158 Parfit, Derek, 141n84 Parousia, 64, 77n294, 79–80, 126 awaiting the, 120 of Christ/the Lord, 3, 15, 27n184, 53, 75n283, 76n287 (see also Jesus Christ: coming again/Parousia/ return of) dying before the, 62, 66–68, 70–72 entered at death, 8, 87–89, 126 (see also atemporalism) as the final moment of history, 90 imminence of the, 87n marginalisation of the, 6, 19–21, 87–88 not entered at death, 14 Paul’s desire to be alive at the, 65, 67, 75, 79, 88n5

resurrection at the, 2–3, 7n50, 13, 15, 15–16n109, 27n184, 59, 62–64, 64n221, 64n223, 67–68, 67n242, 73–76, 73n272, 75n283, 82–84, 84n328, 160, 215, 237n365 significance of the, 20–21, 87, 88n2, 95, 111, 239, 239n374, 244 transformation of the living at the, 68, 75, 79, 84n328 particular judgment. See judgment: particular Paschal Mystery, 26–27, 229 Pasnau, Robert, 178n45, 180, 182, 184n78, 185, 190, 194, 198–203, 205–7, 213n242 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) (Vatican II), 4–5, 171n2 Paul, Saint anthropology of, 41n69, 42, 42n72, 51–60, 55n164, 55n166, 56n167, 56n171, 56n173, 58n181, 58n187, 58n189, 60nn196–97, 67, 82n319 (see also anthropology: Pauline) on baptism, 113 on communion with Christ, 7n50, 82n319 on creation, 3, 83–84 on death, 64–65, 67, 71–72, 72–73n271, 88n5 and the Pharisees, 40 the realized eschatology of, 11, 80–84, 88n5 on resurrection, 10, 15, 15–16n109, 59–81, 60n197, 64n223, 67n242, 68n245, 73n272, 73n275, 82n318, 84n328, 88n5, 133, 137 Paul VI (pope), 4–5, 124n193, 194n149 Penelhum, Terence, 135 Perrett, Roy W., 143–44n96 personal identity, 29, 168n218 and atemporalism, 89n10, 98, 102–3, 103n99 bodily identity necessary to guarantee, 18, 127–29, 171n3 cannot be maintained by the anima separata, 130–31, 176, 197–200 divine intention and, 144n96

Index guaranteed by/requires the soul, 2, 2n12, 17–19, 19n132, 129–30, 173, 200–8, 213–14, 229n334, 243 and immediate resurrection, 8–9, 131–69, 167n213, 171–72, 212, 229n334 and material identity, 165n200 and resurrection, 127, 208–10 Phan, Peter on beatitude and ontological incompleteness, 106n111 on biblical anthropology as monistic, 9 on the meaning of prayers for the dead, 118n164, 120 on personal identity through death and resurrection, 157n155, 168n220 as proponent of atemporalistic resurrection in death, 13n91, 14, 114n142, 157n155 as proponent of nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection, 13n91, 157n155 on purgation in death, 114n143, 125n196 on Rahner, 106n111, 168n220 on the resurrection body, 18–19, 159, 219n222 on scripture and the intermediate state, 11 on the soul as unnecessary for resurrection, 18n128, 159n72 Pharisees, 40 physical-transfer theory (of identity), 159–66, 168, 212 piety concerning death/the dead, 7, 10, 19, 95, 98–102, 105, 112, 115, 117, 207, 211–13, 212n239 works of, 2, 124n194 Pius IX (pope), 24 Pius X (pope), 227 Pius XI (pope), 227 Pius XII (pope), 4, 227 Platonism, 17, 31, 31n1, 89n13, 159n172, 188, 191, 193 (see also anthropology: Platonic) pneuma (breath/spirit), 38, 41, 41nn68–70, 43, 49–51, 58, 58n187, 59n189

267

Pohle, Joseph, 3n17, 232n345 Pomponazzi, Pietro (Aristotelianism of), 12, 172 pope. See names of individual popes Pozo, Candido on accidental beatitude, 232n345 on anthropological duality, 3n18 on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 28n187 on final beatitude, 237n366 on intertestamental eschatology, 39n52 on Mt. 10:28, 43n82 on Old Testament anthropology/ eschatology, 36n31, 39n52, 46n103 as opponent of atemporalism, 90–91, 94, 112 as opponent of nonatemporalistic resurrection in death, 15n104, 15n108 as proponent of the traditional schema, 3n17 on 2 Cor. 5:1–10, 15–16n109 on the soul as necessary for resurrection, 18n124, 130n16 on the teaching of Lateran V, 172n8 prayer/s for the dead, 2, 88, 112, 114–15, 121n177 purpose of, 2, 116–21, 116n157, 118n164, 120n176, 124–25, 187 retroactivity of, 115–16, 118n164, 120n176, 124–25 prayer/s of/to the saints, 94, 98, 105, 109, 112, 199, 207, 226, 243 prayers for the salvation of all, 121, 121n178 principle of proportionality (Aristotelian concept), 179–80 Proverbs, the Book of, 39n52 Prusak, Bernard, 13n91, 15n102, 97–98, 97n72, 101, 112 psyche (life/soul), 38, 41, 41nn69–70, 42n72, 43–49, 44n88, 46n103, 47n111, 48n113, 51–53, 58 purgatory and atemporalism, 87, 110n128, 112–26, 242 Catholic teaching on, 2, 114, 123, 187, 199, 219

268

Index

intercession for the souls in, 87, 114–21, 116n157, 118n164, 124–25, 225–26 and punishment, 123–24 quereb (inner parts), 31–32, 32n4 Rahner, Karl arguments against post-mortem temporality, 12, 15, 96n66, 97n78, 106–7, 106n113, 110–11 on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 23–24, 23n158, 23n160, 24n166, 26 his arguments against post-mortem temporality refuted, 107–10, 110n128, 230n343 as opponent of the anima separata, 9, 19n130, 131, 166–68, 166n201, 168n215, 171–73, 175 and personal identity through death and immediate resurrection, 166, 168–69, 172n3 on prayers for the dead/dying, 115–16, 116n157, 118n164 as proponent of atemporalistic resurrection in death, 12–13, 13n91, 94–97, 94n56, 98, 102, 114n142, 215 on purgatory, 123n185 on the relation between history and eternity, 94, 94n56, 98, 102, 103–4 on scripture and immediate resurrection, 10, 207–8 Theological Investigations, 12, 106, 123n185 Ratzinger, Joseph on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 23n158, 25n174 and beatitude in the interim state, 236n360 Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, 29 and final beatitude, 237n367 lacunae in his arguments, 15n105, 18n128, 19–20, 96n66, 97n72 as opponent of atemporalism, 14, 89–90, 89n13, 91–94, 96–98, 101, 103n99, 104, 112

as opponent of “final decision” theory, 119n167 as proponent of immediate resurrection, 13n91 as proponent of the traditional schema, 3n17, 15n103 on purgatory and prayers for the dead, 118n164, 125n196 on the soul as necessary for resurrection, 16–17, 130n16, 132, 157, 159, 159n172 realism anthropological, 14, 94, 103n99, 242 concerning the resurrection, 19, 128–29, 211n236 historical, 14, 94–95, 103, 242 philosophical, 145, 165 soteriological, 242 realized eschatology. See eschatology: realized recapitulation theories (of identity), 151–60, 162, 165, 211–12 Reichenbach, Bruce, 7n52, 33, 42, 51–52, 52n141, 56n173, 136n53, 209n222 reification theory (of identity), 151, 154– 59, 158n167, 159n172, 167n210, 168n220 relics, 99, 129, 210–12, 211n234, 212n240 rephaim, 35, 36n32, 37, 38n48 “replica” theory (of identity), 134–51, 164n199, 165, 168nn218–20, 211–12 resurrection “anticipated”, 23, 27–28, 28n187 atemporalistic (see atemporalism) and beatitude (see beatitude: and bodily resurrection) bodily, 1–2, 10, 13, 19, 21, 23n158, 38n47, 49n118, 55n166, 58, 111, 128–29, 149n117, 155–56, 215, 231–40 of Christ (see Jesus Christ: resurrection of; and resurrection of, as model of our own) of the damned, 209n224 delayed/deferred, 2, 10, 16, 21, 23n158, 26 dematerialisation of, 14, 17, 18n128, 127–28, 157–59

Index as extinction-re-creation ex nihilo, 37 final/general, 2–7, 12–13, 21, 27n184, 28n187, 97, 102, 112, 149, 207, 215 “first”, 11n71 of the flesh, 127–29 immediate (see immediate resurrection) “in death” (see immediate resurrection) marginalisation of, 10, 19, 21, 111, 215–16, 215n246, 231, 232n345 and personal identity, 17–18, 29, 98, 102, 127, 129–65, 173 (see also infused-immortality theory; individual form transfer; physicaltransfer theory; recapitulation theories; “replica” theory; soul/s: and personal identity) realism about, 19, 128–29, 211n236 (see also resurrection: dematerialisation of) in sacred scripture, 15, 36–39, 48–51, 51n135, 55n166, 59–85, 117, 136–37 of the saints, 23–26, 211 significance of, 87–88, 88n2, 98, 217, 236–40 and the soul (see soul/s: and resurrection) resurrection in death. See immediate resurrection revelation/s (divine), 1n3, 14, 57, 75–76, 76n287, 83, 135, 209, 220, 223, 226, 242 Robinson, John A. T., 56–57 ruach (breath/spirit), 31–32, 32n3, 32n8, 32n11, 36n32, 38, 41n69, 50–51, 58 Sachs, John R., 9, 13n91, 15n102, 19n130, 113n137, 167, 167n210 sacred tradition, 5, 17, 88n2, 119n167, 127, 197, 208, 215 Sadducees, 38–39 saint/s. See under name/s of the individual/s. See also communion of saints; communio sanctorum sarx (flesh), 41, 41nn68–69, 42n70, 54, 55n164, 56, 77–78 Saward, John, 3n17, 15n103, 25, 27

269

Schlatter, Adolph, 5 Schmaus, Michael on beatitude for the anima separata, 230n340 on beatitude and ontological incompleteness, 106 on biblical anthropology as monistic, 9 on the heaven of the interim state, 20 on Mt. 10:28, 45n97 on Mt. 27:51–53, 26n179 on personal identity through death and resurrection, 167 as proponent of nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection, 13n91, 15n102, 215n246 on purgatory, 121–22, 121n180 Schönborn, Christoph, 3n17, 21–22 Schwarz, Hans, 8n56, 88n6 Schweizer, Eduard, 47n111 Scola, Angelo, 3n17, 15n103, 15n105, 18n127, 43n82, 130n16 Second Vatican General Council (Vatican II), 2, 4–5, 129–30, 171n2 sententia communis, 2, 130, 241 sentential fidei proxima, 1n3 Sheol, 21, 35–39, 36n31, 39n52, 46, 46n103, 58 Sirach, the Book of, 37 Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, 24n170 soma (body), 41, 41n68, 41n70, 42n72, 43–46, 44n88, 48, 48n113, 53, 56, 56n167, 77–78, 155, 159n172 soma pneumatikon, 77–78 (see also spiritual body) Some Current Questions in Eschatology (International Theological Commission), 5, 8n56, 15, 130, 205 soul/s activity/inactivity of separated, 181–97, 243 and beatitude (see anima(e) separata(e): and beatitude) eschatology of (see eschatology: of souls) as forma corporis, 4–5, 9–10, 19, 34n21, 165–68, 166n201, 171–75, 208, 210, 214, 216 as immediately created by God, 4

270

Index

immortality of, 1, 4–6, 17, 19, 133, 155, 172, 175 as implying dualism, 6 individuality of, 4, 176–81, 243 inseparability of, 19, 82, 130–31, 166–69, 167n210, 171–72, 176, 243 in the intertestamental literature, 38–39 man as body and, 3–4, 3n18, 6, 13, 22, 95, 97–99, 131, 166–67, 171–75 in the New Testament, 40–43, 40n69, 45–48, 45n96, 46n107, 47n111, 49n118, 51, 56, 56n167, 63 non-human, 168n217, 172 in the Old Testament, 31, 32n8, 33, 35–37, 36n32 and personal identity, 2, 2n12, 16–19, 19n132, 129–32, 157, 166, 168, 171n3, 173, 197–210, 243 in purgatory, 2, 110n128, 113, 115, 116n157, 118–24, 120n176, 121n177, 121n80, 126, 225, 240 and relics, 210–13 and resurrection, 2–4, 2n12, 17–19, 18n128, 63, 130, 157, 159, 165–69, 208–10, 210n226, 236 salvation of, 121, 121n178 as separated/separable, 2, 4, 11, 16, 18, 25, 31, 35, 106–7, 131–32, 165–66, 214, 216, 236, 237n336 (see also anima(e) separata(e)) spiritual, 3–4, 17–18, 130, 132, 155, 159, 165–66, 167n210, 171–74, 208, 214 subsistent/subsistence of, 19, 169, 173–74, 214 spiritual body, 62–63, 68–69, 78, 82 (see also soma pneumatikon) “spirituals” (Franciscan), 4 Stange, Carl, 5 Stump, Eleonore, 213n242 suffrages (suffragia), 2, 88, 112, 115–22, 116n157, 118n164, 125, 187, 242 Sullivan, Ezra, 227, 238 Summa Contra Gentiles (Aquinas), 193 Summa Theologica (Aquinas), 188, 232 Supplement to A New Catechism, The (Dhanis and Visser), 18 synecdoche, 32, 32n10, 41, 44–46, 53, 55n164

Theological Investigations (Rahner), 12, 106, 123n185 Thomas Aquinas, Saint. See Aquinas, Thomas time chronological, 11–12 cosmic, 104 earthly/wordly, 9, 11–12, 91, 103, 116, 125n196 end of, 7, 9, 13, 96–97, 107, 239n374 (see also history: consummation of) and free history, 12, 106–7, 110 historical, 8n58, 11, 94, 96, 98, 102, 241 physical, 89 post-mortem, 8, 8n58, 12, 88, 106–7, 110 relation to eternity (see eternity: and its relation to time) token (as concept), 128, 128n6 Toledo, Eleventh Council of, 128 Toner, Patrick, 201n178, 204n200 Torrance, Thomas, 8n56, 88n6 Tragic Sense of Life (Unamuno), 151 Trent, General Council of, 114, 120, 122–23, 124n193, 222 Troisfontaines, Roger, 2, 23–24, 27 Tugwell, Simon on beatitude, 217–18, 221, 228, 234–35 on personal identity through death and resurrection, 143n96 on popular piety, 10, 19, 99, 112, 207, 207n212, 211, 212n139 as proponent of atemporalistic immediate resurrection, 10n65, 14, 98–106, 102n97, 211, 212n139 on purgatory, 125n198 type (as concept), 25, 128–29, 128n6 Unamuno, Miguel de, 151–53 van der Walle, Anton on accidental beatitude, 235n358 on biblical anthropology as monistic, 9, 33, 44n88, 45n97, 47–48, 60n196 on immediate resurrection in scripture, 10, 15, 16n109, 60, 60n196 on Old Testament eschatology, 36n31 on personal identity through death and resurrection, 167, 167n208 on popular piety, 10, 19, 207n212

Index as proponent of nonatemporalistic immediate resurrection, 13n91, 15n102 on purgatory and prayers for the dead, 114n142, 118n164 van Inwagen, Peter, 44n88, 45n93, 45nn96–97, 159–65, 161n180, 168 Vatican I (First Vatican General Council), 4, 162n185, 194n149, 222n280, 227, 238 Vatican II (Second Vatican General Council), 2, 4, 129–30, 171n2 Vienne, General Council of, 4, 5, 167, 171–78 Virgin Mary. See Blessed Virgin Mary Visser, Jan, 18

von Balthasar, Hans Urs, 10–12, 14, 16n110, 26, 49n118, 80n309 Voss, Stephen, 145n101 Weiner, Norbert, 140 Williams, Bernard, 139n75, 141n45 Winklhofer, Alois, 3n17, 91n15 Wisdom, Book of, 37, 38n46 Wright, N. T., 36n31 Yates, John, 70n255, 136n55 Zeller, H., 24n166 Zimmerman, Dean, 162–65, 164n199, 212

271