Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!fernwood!uupsi!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Not Straight to Heaven - Re: Believers Life after Death Message-ID: Date: 7 May 91 04:05:11 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Harvey Mudd College Lines: 35 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , dmp@iowa.epg.harris.com (Donald Patterson) writes: > Perhaps a simple way to reconcile the *seemingly* contradictory arguments > that have been posted on this subject: the moment we die, we leave space-time > as we understand it. That is, we are no longer *in* time. If this is true, > it would be perfectly proper to say we are with Jesus the moment we die, and > also that we all stand before the judgement seet of Christ at *the* `time' > of judgement. Since we are presently bound by time, I have explained this > `theory' in this way: the moment you die, you are `zapped' forward in time > to the judgement at the end of `time'. Also *because* we are `in' time, it > becomes impossible to say whether grandma is `now' with Jesus. Grandma left > space-time the moment she died, and immediately faced Christ... but if we > had to plot out a time line (which is the only way we can understand > existence this side of eternity), Grandma is in a `wait state', or is *being > zapped*. This is only my opinion, but is is the only way I can reconcile > several of the scriptures cited in this discussion. Well, what you've just described has been Catholic orthodoxy dating back at least to the nineteenth century. It tends to appear only in books intended for seminary use (it is, after all a little difficult to follow for most), but occasionally will pop up in apologetic works. The basic idea is that in the "eternal" (which is the time state that heaven and hell exist in) our worldly conception of time is completely invalid. For God, the angels, the dead, all of our time appears as one moment (ever wonder how Satan could tempt Job from God's side while some millenia earlier he had seemed to have fallen already with the apple bit (although part of that conception is doubtless related to a tradition received through _Paradise Lost_ among other sources)? now you know). It's a nice cosmology and goes a long way towards explaining a good deal of Christian belief and practice. -dh