Hi Andy,

No, we don't believe we will be sleeping until the Resurrection. By the way, I did not get that out of the interview, although he's a bit vague on some points. He says that Paul says it is a state of consciousness (so it can't be soul-sleep), but that compared with being bodily alive it will be like being asleep. This is one of those vague points. We wouldn't agree with him there except that our existence will be limited until we are resurrected. Obviously not having a body changes your experience and perhaps what he means is that we would lose the concrete, earthy experience of being in a body and it will feel more like a dream.

I do think he has some valid points, viz., there is too much talk in our culture of our bodies being prisons to escape from rather than being an integral part of our beings. The common conception of Heaven is that our souls get separated from our bodies when we die and go to Heaven where we float around on clouds with wings in an ethereal existence for all eternity. This is manifestly not an orthodox view of the afterlife. Rather, we will be resurrected at the end of time receiving our bodies back like Jesus did, and we will live a material, bodily existence probably on a reconstituted earth for all eternity. Paradise restored. Contrary to powerful currents of thought, our bodies are good.

He is also right in that the saints will be ruling the world so, I think he is more right than wrong but you are correct with respect to soul sleep.

I just think you've misread him.

Hope this helps,

Eric Ewanco

Hi, Andy —

He leaves out St. Paul's cloud of witnesses and many other Scriptures.

Most of what he says is true, but it's not everything.  It is also true that because of union with Christ's Resurrected Body, the soul has a way to exist in a different manner than soul sleep.

Christ's and Mary's glorified physical presence in Heaven establishes a sort of place, a sort of Paradise.  His Body is not completely beyond time and space (otherwise it wouldn't be a body),
but it transcends it in some way. 

At death, we enter into Christ, the Door.  He is our Bridge to the Father, not just by His Priesthood on earth, but, I believe, in our eternal existence.  In any case, death has been transformed by Him in an entryway to eternal life for those who choose that Door.  Perhaps that life, between now and the end times, consists in working with Him.  Perhaps Heaven is all around us (the most logical view), and Heaven witnesses and helps in every way. 

Anyway, the end times is the fruition of God's work — the aim is not just to get to Heaven, but to taste the fullness of life in His Kingdom, which will only be after the New Heavens and New Earth are established.

Mary Ann

Hi Andy,

I really can't add more then what both Eric and Mary Ann have said.

Eric said:
We wouldn't agree with him there except that our existence will be limited until we are resurrected. Obviously not having a body changes your experience and perhaps what he means is that we would lose the concrete, earthy experience of being in a body and it will feel more like a dream.

The Church hasn't said anything definite on the exact nature of our existence between the time of our particular judgment and Christ's Second Coming, so as both Eric and Mary Ann have done, we can speculate openingly. This area of certitude is known as theological opinion and is not binding on the Catholic faithful.

At the [Second Coming|the general judgment], our bodies and souls will be reunited and we will either be in Heaven or Hell for eternity.

Mike