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All I know is that I don't want to go/be there! Therefore I pray the Jesus prayer.

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If this be the case, what happens to our Resurrection body?

Dear Bob,

I can't speak for Memo, but I never thought or said that we wouldn't have our Resurrection bodies---

I simply said that I think that Heaven and Hell are different dimensions which we cannot quite conceive....and that seems to be something which we also agree on smile :

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Somehow there must be some physical dimension though not limited as it is now in its fallen state. I think we've got to be careful how far we go in our definitions because "eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, nor has it entered the hearts of men . . ."

I do agree that the dimension is quite another that we cannot now see or experience directly. But I also would agree that the saints and other blessed beings can see us and are present when the door to eternity that is the Divine Liturgy is opened and we join them mystically.

In Christ,

BOB

And getting back to Hell, I most definitely agree with this post by MrsMW! :

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All I know is that I don't want to go/be there! Therefore I pray the Jesus prayer.

In Christ,
Alice

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Dr. John,

Sorry to be late with this reply, I didn't see this thread until just now.

I did mean literary.

When I said 'actual' I mean it metaphysically, not that we could travel to a location and enter in hell. I also said actual because "spiritual existence" is too loose in many imaginations, some people read that and think it will be ephemeral or ghost-like. With the word actual I would want to stress the reality of hell. On a basic level I believe hell to be a separation of God�s presence, far darker and colder than spiritually felt by the most ideological atheist in this life.

From scripture it is clear that we will have a resurrected body in Heaven. The question of 'when' seems bound too tightly to our chronology and our sense of time. The sense of life in New Jerusalem is a mystery to me. I believe it is a mystery to theologians as well.

What we can�t know about heaven and hell, for those details which have not been revealed, tends to give many people the freedom to speculate. And speculate they do.

Terry

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Heaven and Hell indeed both have some mystery surrounding them. Christ teaches that both the damned & saved are resurrected:

"Wonder not at this; for the hour cometh, wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. 29 And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." - John 5.28,29 DRB.

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Seventh day Adventists teach the idea that the soul is sleeping until resurrection ( their understanding of Ecclesiates). it would be unfair to have a condemned soul burn in Hell (which they do not believe in)for a longer time than another condemned soul, then be resurrected and sent back to Hell. the truth is that when one dies, the next thing he knows is that he is resurrected and stands before the Bema.one is launched into Eternity at death and Time is meaningless. so to say it is unfair for someone to burn in Hlee for a longer time than someone else is pointless.
Much Love,
Jonn

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In answer to the subject question... yes, I definitely believe in a "literal" Hell. To me, it is a "place" of exile. One is cast as far from God and all His good Creation as one can be. That's a pretty scary concept to me, even if it is hard to picture or describe in substantive terms. It's scarier to me to think of spiritual exile than physical exile, so I'd always focused on the aspect of being spiritually cast out.

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And oops, I always do this wrong. I was actually replying to the original post and not to John N's.

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"Christ teaches that both the damned & saved are resurrected"

St. Augustine said in a sermon following that verse that the damned "will return to the body of this death. The body of this death is coming back to the wicked. They will never be released from it. Then it will not be eternal life but eternal death, because it is eternal punishment."

Returning to the body of this death was a reference to the pagan neo-platonic idea of the afterlife, as he said before, "You say the pagans are delivered from the body of this death, because the last day of this life is coming, and they will be released in due time from the body of this death."

Also, Gregory of Nazianzus said, "Those who have done evil shall go into the resurrection of judgment to which those who have no believed have been condemned already by the word, which judges them. . . . [They] must endure the being outcast from Good and the shame of the conscience which has no limit."

What does it mean for the damned to be resurrected? What will they be resurrected to?

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(When I said "outcast from Good" I meant "outcast from God"...and I also mean St. Gregory of Nazianzus.)

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Hi,

Modern science shows us that matter and energy are equivalent and "translatable" to each other.

It also shows us that time and space are relative. This should enable us to think about a physical reality without having to be subject to the limitations of matter, time and space (or, for that matter, energy).

How exactly a Glorfied body works? We really do not know.

The important point about the Resurrection of the Body is that God's salvation extends to our ENTIRE being, not just our spiritual "component" (for lack of a better word).

Our body has dignity as an integral part of our being, and it is God's will that our entire being is saved and goes on to live forever with Him.

So, to talk about places in eternity is a little bit out of place (pun totally intended), it is just one more of the many anthropomorphisms we use to try to understand what is ultimately beyond our understanding. These figures of speech give us a glimpse into the mystery, but the mystery is always beyond our speech.

Shalom,
Memo

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Yes, they believe in "soul sleep" and they also believe that only the just will rise to eternal life.
The unjust cease to exist.
Stephanos I

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I tend toward the doctrine of universal salvation, but I am willing to be corrected by God at the judgement. And in the Eastern context I believe judgement is healing and not fatalistic. Therefore, in my personal belief the purgation after death is experienced by most and then they are admitted to paradise. Hades is for the fallen angels and souls that absoutely hate God in their very being. However, most people do not absolutely hate and despair of God.


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One can privately hope that universal salvation will come about
but one cannot maintain it as a doctrine, teach it, or encourage
others to believe it. It is contrary to the teachings of the
Church and the plain words of Our Lord. I would like to hold
this as a "pious opinion" myself, but cannot. There is and
has been much abominable cruelty practiced in the world,
and much of that perpetrated in cold blood not by savages,
but by people who have heard the Gospel (the Nazis, for example),
and few apparant examples of repentance for it. There can be
no salvation without repentance and, as far as has been
relealed to us, it must come before death. We must believe that
eternal damnation is a real possibility and, as far as our human
judgement goes, realize that it is probable that many will be
damned. Our business is not to speculate but to seek our own
salvation and that of our neighbors.

Is there more to it than that? Not that God has revealed to us,
and He has told us all we need to know. What remains is this.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts." (Is.55: 8-9 RSV).

[And how far are the heavens-of which there are said to be
seven- from the earth? The rabbis said that it takes 500
years to walk from the earth to the heavens, and 500 years
to walk from one heaven to the next. Ginzberg, Louis, Legends
of the Jews
, vol. I, p.6, 1909-1938/ repr.Jewish Publications Soc, Philadelpia, 2003]



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Prester John wrote:

Interestingly, Catherine of Genoa, whose writings have received an imprimatur, wrote that the fires of purgatory (and likewise, the fires of hell) are the flames of God's love.

Sounds Orthodox to me.

I was thinking about Purgatory in the context of Heaven and Hell in relation to God being a Living Fire. Purgatory (or some intermediate state of purification prior to the Beatific Vision) might be an experience wherein those who love God but whose flame of love is rather low--like an ember that needs to be brought into a full, raging flame--have that ember fanned into the kind of full fire described by the Lord when He said that we must "love the Lord God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength": something not lukewarm or half way.

Bob

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Making it figurative won't make it any more bearable.

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