I am in search of information on the Christian after life.
Is it true that the departed go straight to heaven or hell? Or do the souls wait until Judgment Day? I want to know what the scriptures say about this. Is the common feeling that our loved ones are in heaven right after death true according to Christian scripture? I am confussed because I thought the Bible says that when Christ comes again he will judge the quick and the dead at that time. But I have also heard that Saint Peter holds the keys to heaven and lets in the souls of the departed. And Dante wrote about the souls of those already in heaven and hell. Do different churchs see it in different ways?
Please point me in the right direction to find the answers to this question.
Thanks very much
Yes.
Not only different churches, but different people in the same church. I believe that the Catholic Church (or at Catholics in the Church) have held both the belief that you go directly to Heaven/Hell/other and that you wait until the End of Time when everybody gets up and gets judged. Not just Dante, but the whole Medieval concept of “The Harrowing of Hell” seems to require that you got judged when you died. But at the same time there are contemporary paintings of The Last Judgment that seem to want it the other way.
I don’t know what the official Catholic Church opinion on this is, or even if they have one. It’s pretty hard to imagine them holding to the idea of intercession of saints without immediate resurrection
Many of us hang around the Straight Dope.
Yes, the dead go straight where they’re going, with a stopover for Judgement/Reward. Hard to understand? Yeah, for me too.
The best explanation I can come up with is this: Since time is only an aspect of the universe that God made, he’s not bound by it, and his “world” (for lack of a better word) is outside of it. When you die, you exit the domain of time & space, and go straight to “eternity”. You’re judged, and you go to wherever you’re going. Everybody who has ever died throughout history arrives there at the same time, whether they died thousands of years in the past or thousands of years in the future.
Kind of like people exiting a subway…Whether you’re leaving the front of the train or the very last car, you all arrive at the same station at the same time.
I know it’s kind of a weak analogy, but it’s the best way I can think of to explain my view.
Thank you Joe Cool. It is hard to get away from linear time. But of course, a god would have little to do with human time.
CalMeacham- Thanks, that is what I am confused about. Every Christian I ask says something different. This seems to me to be a very important doctrine of the faith and I know everyone sees it a bit differently but Gee, it is hard to get a handle on it.
Joe Cool- good explanation. I mean imagine you are Medea, and let’s assume you are in hell. 3000 years Hitler shows up. I’d be like
“Wait a minute, all right, I killed my 12 kids, and that’s why I’m here- but THIS sunofabitch kills 6 MILLION people, and plunges the world into a war that kills many millions more- and yet I have to burn 3 milleniums longer than HE does?”
I heard a little different take on Judgement Day.
It is God’s last chance to get things right
[sub]burst of lightning[/sub] BOOM
[ul]:eek: [/ul]
My Grandfather was as fundamental as you can get, and I had a long chat with this after my Grandmother died. He pointed me to the scripture (which I’ve forgotten) which basically says that the dead will stay dead until judgement day, when they will rise. He took that to mean that she was just a corpse, and nothing more. During the Resurrection, her soul will be restored and she will rise up. Something like that.
But Sam your grandmother may still be a corpse in our time, but still enjoying eternity. That’s kinda what Joe meant by everyone on the train getting there together, but not at the same time.