We should often meditate on heaven,
for we hope
to spend our eternity there.

Our life in heaven

By John Young

We should often meditate on heaven, for we hope to spend eternity there. It should form a permanent background to our thoughts, never being far from consciousness. But can we know much about it? St. Paul says ". . . eye has not seen nor ear heard, neith er has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him."1

However in the next verse he explains: "But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." So we can know something of heaven. Actually, we can know a lot about it from Scripture, Traditio n and the Magisterium, aided by what human reason shows on man's nature and destiny. Let us start with human reason.

Even had man never been given a supernatural destiny, God would still have been his last end. The human mind thinks of goodness without limit and the will desires that good. But God alone is unlimited goodness. So man's end must be the Supreme Good, known to the fullest possible extent and loved accordingly. The human soul is immortal, and after death the souls of those who had led good lives would have had the most intimate knowledge and love of God the unaided intellect and will are capable of. That hap py state would have continued forever.

The vision of God

The knowledge in question would have been analogical: a knowledge of God through creatures. But we have actually been given a supernatural destiny: the face to face vision of God. This end virtually contains the natural end, but infinitely transcends it. Without Revelation we would not have known whether such a thing were possible, although we might have speculated about it, for we desire the most perfect knowledge of reality-especially of the highest reality-and the most perfect knowledge is intuitiv e: that is, with nothing between the knower and the known.

The desire to know God face to face is beautifully expressed by Plato: "But if it were given to man to gaze on beauty's very self-unsullied, unalloyed, and freed from the mortal taint that haunts the frailer loveliness of flesh and blood-if, I say, it wer e given to man to see the heavenly beauty face to face, would you call his an unenviable life, whose eyes had been opened to the vision, and who had gazed upon it in true contemplation until it had become his own forever?"2

Revelation tells us that the vision of God is not only possible, but is indeed the end to which we are called. Scripture makes that clear. "This is eternal life: that they may know thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."3 St. Paul s ays: "We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner, but then face to face."4 St. John says: "When he shall appear, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is."5 Our Lord tells us: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God."6

Pope Benedict XII, in 1336, pronounced that those in heaven ". . . have seen, and see, the divine essence intuitively and face to face, so that as far as the object seen is concerned no creature acts as a medium of vision, but the divine essence shows its elf to them plainly, clearly and openly."7 The Council of Florence defines that the souls in heaven "clearly behold God himself, one and triune, as he is, yet one more perfectly than another according to diversity of merits."8

In the present life the only intuitive knowledge we have of external things is sense knowledge. The human intellect knows by abstraction from sense data, and therefore with a certain remoteness from the concrete reality of the things known. If only the in tellect could directly apprehend the material things about us we would be enraptured by the vision! For instance, if my intellect could make direct contact with, say, a blade of grass, it would see its essence and all the properties that flow from that es sence. The knowledge would have a splendor far surpassing the most magnificent visual spectacle ever seen, or the most wonderful music ever heard.

Sense knowledge is very imperfect, showing only the surface of things. As St. Thomas says: "It belongs to sense to apprehend this colored [thing], but to intellect to apprehend the very nature of color."9 (Note that sight doesn't know even the nature of color, much less the nature of the colored thing.) In this life we directly contact only the surface of reality, but even that contact is fascinating: some people live for sense experience, will even sell their souls for it. The objects of si ght, hearing, touch, taste and smell seem so real that intellectual knowledge appears pallid and unreal by comparison. But the truth is that the unsensed depths of even the most insignificant thing have incomparably more being-and therefore truth, goodnes s and beauty-than the surface phenomena apprehended by the senses.

The vision we are offered is not of a blade of grass, but of God himself. He has not got being; he is being in its fullness. He has not got goodness or beauty; he is subsistent goodness and beauty. He is so far above any created or creatable being that the gap is literally infinite. If the material things of this world can so enchant us, even when we intuit only their sensible appearances, what will it be to experience the triune God whose dim reflection they are!

In all knowledge the known is present in the knower. When we think about God, this is a presence of God in us through the concepts we form of him. But in the Beatific Vision he will be present directly. Further, in all knowledge the knower is the known, i n the sense that when the potentiality to know is actualized, that actuality is the known insofar as it is known.10 Aristotle alludes to this in saying that in knowing, "the soul is in a certain manner all existing things."11 In the Beatific Vision, there fore, we shall "become God" in the manner proper to knowledge, but more sublimely than in any other knowledge.

A divinized life

This means we must be "divinized"; must be elevated to a share in God's own life. Already in the present world sanctifying grace makes us "partakers in the divine nature," as St. Peter declares.12 In heaven there will flow from that grace the light of glory: the special power that will elevate and illuminate our intellect so that it can see the divine essence face to face. The General Council of Vienne (1311-12) condemned the view that "Any spiritual nature is in itself naturally happy, and the soul h as no need of the light of glory to raise it to see God and enjoy him in happiness."13

Even in the Beatific Vision, however, we will not fully understand God. As noted earlier, the Council of Florence defined that some will know him more perfectly than others. Even with the light of glory the human intellect remains finite; but to know God comprehensively would require an infinite idea. Only one Word expresses him fully, and that Word is God.

In seeing the divine essence we will see creation too. That is because God is the supreme cause of all things: their exemplary, efficient and final cause. He is the first cause of all the being had by any creature; so in knowing himself he knows all thing s. And the angels and saints, in seeing him, see something of the world he created. Pope Pius XII speaks of Jesus' beatific knowledge of us: ". . . by means of the Beatific Vision which he enjoyed from the moment he was received into the womb of the Mothe r of God, he has forever and continuously had present to him all the members of his Mystical Body and embraced them with his saving love."14

In the vision some will see more of creation than others. One reason is that a more penetrating vision of God carries with it a better knowledge of the things he has made. Theology gives a second reason: we will be allowed to see in the vision things and people in whom we have a special interest. A mother will see her children; the founder of a religious order will see how that order is faring on earth.

The divine vision causes a corresponding love in the will. God will be seen as infinitely good, and therefore loved totally. The greatest love we ever experience on earth will be but a pale imitation of beatific love, for the goodness loved on earth is a dim and distant effect of the divine goodness. When we see Subsistent Goodness face to face, the love it produces in us will be vastly beyond any other love whatever.

Above all it will be a love of God for his own sake, for his boundless goodness in itself. Secondly, it will be love of God as our friend, for we will see him as loving us in return. Even in this life, the words of Jesus to his Apostles apply to us: "No l onger do I call you servants . . . but I have called you friends."15 The divine friendship begun on earth, and to which we respond so lukewarmly, will be fulfilled in heaven when we respond unreservedly to the everlasting love of the three divine Persons. Thirdly, it will be love of God for his goodness to us: goodness we cannot fully appreciate until we have the Beatific Vision.

It will be an unchangeable love. "The will of one seeing God by essence of necessity adheres to God," says St. Thomas.16 The reason is that the object of the will is the good, and one who sees Subsistent Goodness face to face can have no motive for not ad hering to it, but is drawn totally to it.

Love causes joy, even when the loved object possessed is an insignificant material thing. The joy is far greater in the possession of a person: mother for child, or husband for wife, especially after a long separation. What, then, must be the joy of the b lessed! It is a joy commensurate with the goodness that is loved, and that is the Sovereign Good from which all other goodness flows as a faint imitation of its cause. This joy is a sharing in the joy of God himself, as he contemplates his infinite goodne ss. Therefore he can invite the blessed: "Enter into the joy of your lord."17

In the Beatific Vision the blessed are caught up into the eternity of God, with whom there is no past and no future, but simply an eternal present. The vision, the love, the joy they experience are constant and eternal. As Pope Benedict XII defined in the constitution Benedictus Deus: ". . . this vision and enjoyment continues without intermission or lessening and will continue until the last judgment and thereafter into eternity."18

Besides the Beatific Vision, other forms of knowledge are had by the blessed. This was, and is, the case with the human nature of Jesus, and the same applies to us. The knowledge acquired by the intellect in this life will remain.19 There will also be inf used knowledge given by God to the soul when separated from the body. As St. Thomas teaches: ". . . the soul in that state understands by means of participated species arising from the influence of the Divine light, shared by the soul as by other separate substances [angels]; though in a lesser degree."20 When reunited with the body there will also be sense perception and the intellectual knowledge arising from it. Let us now turn to the resurrection and the question of the nature of life in the glorified universe after the final judgment.

After the resurrection

As the Fourth Lateran Council taught in 1215, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats, the dead "will all arise with their own bodies which they now have." 21 The body is not a sort of vehicle in which we move about in the present life ; it is an essential part of human nature. Strictly speaking, the separated soul is not a human person, although it is personal; for a human person is a composite of soul and body. Between death and the resurrection we are incomplete beings awaiting the r econstituting of our full humanity.

What will the glorified human body be like? It will be the same body as our present one, as Lateran IV insists in the quote above. Just as Christ rose in the body that had died on the cross, just as the Blessed Virgin was assumed in the same body she had on earth, so each of us will have our present body. Christ appeared to his disciples and said: "A spirit has not flesh and bones, as you can see that I have."22 We too will have flesh and bones. We know Christ has blood in his glorified body, for the wine at Mass is changed into his blood. Our resurrected bodies will have blood; and indeed all that goes to make up the integrity of the body. The brain will be present, with memory and imagination. The external senses will be present.

But the body will be changed. "It is sown in weakness, it will be raised in power," says St. Paul.23 We often feel that our body is dominating the soul, but in heaven the soul will dominate the body. No longer will we feel burdened by our body. St. Thomas explains: "The human body and all it contains will be perfectly subject to the rational soul, even as the soul will be perfectly subject to God."24 Psychologists know that the mind has a profound effect on the body, being able to alter physiological func tions, a phenomenon particularly evident in abnormal states, such as hysteria. Justin McCann, referring to the control of mind over matter, puts the question: "Now if such is the power of mind in this life, if it so permeates and controls the bodily organ ism, what will be its power in the future life, when, according to our faith, the soul is raised to such a height of power and glory?"25 The Catechism states: ". . . in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by r eunion with our soul."26

No longer will there be death or suffering. St. John declares in the Apocalypse: "Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more."27 Even here we experience vigor and well-being in the body flowing from joy in the wil l, while despondency in the will leads to bodily lassitude and even illness. In heaven the soul's ineffable bliss, permeating the body, so to speak, will produce a sense of bodily well-being surpassing anything ever felt on earth.

The purity of our enjoyment is marred at present by the effects of sin in the imagination, the memory and the emotions. There is a coarseness about our sense life, a selfishness, a lack of balance. After the resurrection all these defects will be gone; se nse life will have a new wholeness, harmony and innocence. The blessed, says St. Thomas, "will use their senses for pleasure in the measure in which this is not incompatible with their state of incorruption."28 He suggests they will move about the univers e "that their vision may be refreshed by the beauty of the variety of creatures, in which God's wisdom will shine forth with great evidence; for sense can perceive only that which is present, although glorified bodies can perceive from a greater distance than non-glorified bodies."29

People sometimes imagine the material universe will cease; a notion suggested perhaps by the expression "the end of the world." However, things will not be annihilated, for God alone has the power to annihilate, just as he alone has the power to create fr om nothing; but his activity is towards being, not non-being. The present universe will be changed, not abolished. As the Catechism says: ". . . Revelation affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and man . . . . The visible univer se, then, is itself destined to be transformed."30 The changes may be vast, but we can be sure the renewed world will be suitable for the exercise of our bodily powers. There will be light and sound, for instance, because these are necessary for sight and hearing. It is a property of bodies to be located in a place, so our bodies will be situated in a particular place at any one time. Even now, therefore, Jesus and Mary are somewhere in the universe.

Will there be animal or plant life? Will we all be the same age? These and many other questions are asked, but we have no means of settling them. We do know there will be no marriage, for our Lord has told us that.31

There will certainly be friendship, as human nature requires this, and in heaven our human aspirations will be fully realized. Jesus said to his Apostles: "I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."32 Ho w much more perfectly will this apply in heaven when, in the Word and through his redemptive grace, we see God face to face! Not only will we be friends of God in his divine nature-friends of Father, Son and Holy Spirit-but we will enjoy the friendship of Jesus in his human nature, with an intensity far greater than would have been possible had we known him personally when he was on earth.

Of all created persons, our greatest friendship will be with Our Lady, the mother Jesus gave us as he died on the cross, the mother who has cared for us all through our pilgrimage. The angels, too, will be our friends: the most magnificent of God's creatu res in the natural order. Our guardian angel in particular will be a close friend for all eternity. Nor will every bond we have with relatives and friends here be dissolved: when we meet them in heaven a special relationship will still exist. The basis fo r this conclusion is that nature is not destroyed by glory, but perfected.

One can tend to think the vision of God would absorb other knowledges, like the sun obliterating the light of the stars. But in fact the other forms of knowledge, both intellectual and sensitive, will remain clear and distinct. And so will the pleasure a ssociated with them: our senses providing us with objects which will give emotional pleasure; our intellectual knowledge, other than the Beatific Vision, bringing pleasure of the will, as in the company of our friends.

These conclusions follow from the truth that human nature remains in its integrity after the resurrection and is perfectly fulfilled. Rather than being dimmed or diminished, human activities will be clarified and strengthened. There is a foreshadowing of this in the life of Christ on earth: he possessed the Beatific Vision from the moment of his conception, as Pope Pius XII clearly teaches in his encyclical The Mystical Body of Christ ;33 yet he fully exercised his natural faculties of knowing and loving.

The fact that human faculties will retain their nature-they won't be changed into something else-completely rules out the idea that the glorified eyes of the blessed will see God. St. Augustine had strongly rejected this idea,34 but later thought it might be true.35 Theologians in general deny the possibility of such a corporeal vision of God, but I was surprised to find Monsignor James T. O'Connor favoring it in his book Land of the Living.36 Sight from its very nature can perceive only bodies, an d indeed only the qualities conveyed by light. God is infinite spirit, and therefore unattainable by sight or any other sense.

Perfect happiness

Boethius defined happiness as: "a state perfect by the aggregation of all goods."37 That is heaven, where all our true goods of body and soul will be possessed securely forever, with no mingling of evil. That is the everlasting bliss to which we are c alled.

Aristotle saw that "the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness."38 This is realized in heaven in a mann er even the great Philosopher did not envisage: by sharing supernaturally in the divine life by direct vision, with the love and joy that flow from the vision. This above all is what heaven means, yet the lesser knowledges and loves and joys of which we h ave spoken are not eliminated or even emasculated, but enhanced. n

1 1 Cor. 2:9.

2 Plato, Symposium, 211.

3 John 17:3.

4 1 Cor. 13:12.

5 1 John 3:2.

6 Matt. 5:8.

7 DS 1000. Cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1023.

8 DS 1305.

9 St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 25, a. 1.

10 I discussed this in an article, "The Splendor of Knowledge," in Faith and Reason, vol. XXI, nos. 1, 2, Spring/Summer, 1995.

11 Aristotle, De Anima, III, 8, 421b 20.

12 2 Peter 1:4.

13 DS 895.

14 Pius XII, encyclical The Mystical Body of Christ, DS 3812.

15 John 15:15.

16 St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, 82, 2.

17 Matt. 25:21.

18 DS 1001.

19 Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, 89, 5.

20Ibid., a. 1, ad 3.

21 DS 801. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 999.

22 Luke 24:39.

23 1 Cor. 15:43.

24 St. Thomas, Summa Theol., Supp., 82, 1.

25 Justin McCann, "The Resurrection of the Body," in The Teaching of the Catholic Church, ed. G.D. Smith (London, Burns and Oates, 1952 edition), p. 1246.

26 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1016.

27 Rev. 21:4.

28 St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, IV, 86, 4.

29 St. Thomas, Summa Theol., Supp., 84, 2.

30 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1046, 1047. Cf. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 48.

31 Matt. 22:30, and parallels.

32 John 15:15.

33 DS 3812.

34 St. Augustine, Epistle XCII.

35 St. Augustine, The City of God, XXII, 29.

36 James T. O'Connor, Land of the Living, (N.Y., Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 327ff.

37 Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy, III, 2.

38 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, X, 8; 1178b 22-23.