The Four Last Things
In her catechetical tradition, the Catholic Church points to 4 realities that we need to reflect on during this life: death, judgment, heaven and hell. They are called “The 4 Last Things” and are collectively known as “the Eschaton.”1 We do not have the time to delve deeply into each of these but we will give a cursory overview of each.
Each and every one of us will one day die. Death is the result of original sin, and all of us are subject to its effects. So what happens when a person dies? Man is a body-soul composite being.2 Death is the separation of the soul from the body, thus ending our earthly life.3 Once we are out of this life, we can no longer repent and change our ways. Our choice of either having accepted God’s love and grace, or proud rejection of them is fixed forever. Upon death, the soul is immediately brought before the Throne of God for judgment.4
Judgment
There are two kinds of judgment: particular and general.
Judgment is a natural function of Christ’s kingship in Heaven. While God our Father governs all things in love, justice, and mercy, Christ sits before us at the end of our life as our just judge. It is to Christ, the Son of God, that God the Father has conferred the power of bringing all Humanity to judgment.6 We discover this reality of the particular judgement in sacred scripture by examining the short dialogue between Christ and the repentant thief, Saint Dismas. In fact, it is precisely Christ’s response to Saint Dismas that gives us a clear indicator of how the choices we make here on Earth can influence our eternal lot the very day of our death: “This day,” said Jesus, “you will be with me in paradise.”7
For the Christian who lives faithfully in accordance with God’s Will and God’s love, judgment becomes nothing more than returning to the abode of the Father whom he has loved all his life. For the man who has deliberately and willfully chosen to live a life away from God, choosing created goods, or even other people, over and beyond loving and serving God, then judgment becomes a time of reckoning, where recompense is to be made for all the sins that have offended the all-holy, almighty God. Fulton Sheen, the great preacher, warns us about this, “For when the curtain goes down on the last day, and we respond to the curtain call of judgment, we will not be asked what part we played, but how well we played the part that was assigned to us.”8
The second judgment that awaits all man is known as the “general” or “final judgment.”9 During this judgment, every human being who has ever lived will be judged by Christ at His second coming in an act of God’s justice and mercy. In Matthew 25:31-46, Christ Himself narrates the events that will take place during the general judgment. We can also read about these events in the book of Revelation.10
At the general judgment, the souls of those who have died will be reunited with the bodies they once had.11 Their bodies, however, will not just be resurrected, but also “glorified.”12 For people who are still living at the time of the general judgment, their bodies will not be resurrected, but “transformed” into the glorified state.13
After the resurrection, Christ will “separate the sheep from the goats,” granting the inheritance of the kingdom of God to “the sheep” on his right because, during their time on Earth, they loved their fellow man in light of their love of God. The “goats” will receive eternal damnation for precisely the opposite reason, having loved themselves above and beyond God and their fellow man. In the general judgment, the actions of every single person from the beginning of history to the last man will be revealed to everyone, and we will view all these actions through the eyes of God’s own love.14
It must be noted that the general judgment does not reverse the verdict of the particular judgment. Those who had received eternal damnation will return to hell while those who were given eternal life will remain in heaven. What is different, however, is that after this general judgment, history is completed. Only the Kingdom of God, experienced as Heaven for some, and Hell for others, will exist.15
What follows immediately after a soul’s particular judgment is the eternal lot of the soul and this is where we speak of the last two of the four last things: heaven and hell.
Heaven
Heaven is the state of eternal beatitude. It is the reward for those souls that have passed from this earth in friendship with God, or as the Church puts it, being “in a state of sanctifying grace.”16 The infinite happiness to be received in Heaven is the result of the soul beholding the face of the Infinitely Loving God.17
For souls that pass from this earth in a state of sanctifying grace but with debts of justice upon their souls that require purification, they experience an intermediate state prior to receiving the happiness of Heaven. This state is called “purgatory.”18 The imperfections that are upon the soul, while not mortally wounding, marr charity within the soul. In Purgatory, the fiery love of God purifies the soul as by fire as a refiner and purifier of silver and gold.19 The Catechism tells us that “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”20 That is the wondrous hope of Purgatory.
Hell
Hell is the eternal state of damnation for the souls that loved created goods and persons more than God, the Creator, and in this way have rejected God here on earth.21 The existence of hell can be explained in this way: An all-loving God will not impose Himself upon any man or woman that does not love him. This is why CS Lewis wrote in his seminal work The Problem of Pain, “I truly believe that the souls in hell are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”22 God continues to pursue each soul relentlessly while he or she is still alive. Death metaphysically seals the state of the soul; and the soul that rejected God in this life, rejects Him completely for the hereafter.
Concluding Thoughts
In looking at all of these Mysteries, we see that God has ordained all things in the order of his own love. Everything has been orchestrated in, through, for, and by his love. St. Catherine of Siena reiterates this reality by asserting, “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.”23
This, therefore, is a brief overarching presentation of the “four last things,” which are indeed mysteries. The fact of the matter is, the entire Christian Life should be lived in anticipation of these four Mysteries, so as to avoid the fourth of them, hell. As the Church Fathers so boldly wrote, the Christian does not fear death; in fact, he runs boldly into death knowing that through his trust in the Love of God, his lot will be resurrection in Christ Jesus.24
1 The word “Eschaton” is taken from the Greek “Eskhatos,” meaning “last.”
2 St. Thomas Aquinas ST I. Q. 75. a. 4. The soul animates the material body, and the union of these two forms the whole person.
4 This is why the Catechism says, “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of Heaven– through purification or immediately, – or immediate and everlasting damnation” (CCC 1022).
6 It is an act of justice, and even a kind of “Divine humor”, that the one who so willingly laid down His life for the sins of all is now to be the one who sits in Judgment of the sins of all when they die.
7 Luke 23:43.
8 Fulton J. Sheen, Moods and Truths (New York: The Century Co., 1932), 75. This is why the Christian Life is primarily driven by hope. Hope is given as a theological virtue, a gift infused in the soul by the Holy Spirit. It is in this hope, that the Christian may continue to live, aspiring to eternal beatitude. Man was made for Heaven, man was made for God, and it is to God that man must return. This is why all of the preceding videos have spoken about Sacramental and liturgical graces that prepare the soul for this eternal life with God. The soul that clings fast to God in consistent prayer, commitment to holiness, immersion in a life of grace, Sacraments, and the liturgy, will find itself not condemned, but instead embraced by the God who is infinite love itself. Saint Paul the Apostle understood this reality full well, and therefore, he exhorted his disciples, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2).
10 Revelation 20:11-15.
11 St. Thomas Aquinas, ST Supp.75.1. See also Tanner (Volume 1), 230.
13 Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:51-54; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
14 The Catechism elaborates by saying that, “In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare. The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life” (CCC 1039). This paints a picture of a kind of societal judgment. Man will not be judged individually, properly speaking, but rather, he will be judged as a member of the entire society of mankind.
15 The Church speculates that at this time the purification of all souls in purgatory will be brought about to a perfection and completion (cf. Joseph Deharbe, A full catechism of the catholic religion [New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 1889], 124-125 §12).
17 Cf. CCC 1023. Hence, Heaven is not the resting place for all who were subjectively “good.” It is the eternal reward of those who have loved God in this life.
18 Purgatory is not one of the “four last things” because it is not permanent as is heaven and hell. Purgatory is a transitory state. Heaven, then, is the “last thing,” not Purgatory.
19 Cf. Malachi 3:3.
21 CCC 1021–1037. It is not within the scope of this talk to discuss at length the justice of an eternal hell. What we can say, however, is that hell truly is the result of an ever-loving God who gives his creatures not only what they deserve, but what they want. If a soul responds to God’s grace and chooses to love God above all else here on Earth, then God rewards that soul with an eternity of loving union with Him. If the soul chooses to love creaturely goods or itself above God here on Earth, then God rewards that soul with its own dearest love, that is, eternity spent by itself away from God.
22 Clive Staples Lewis. The Problem of Pain (Zondervan, 2001), 130. See also the imagery in Revelation 21:25 & 22:14-15 where Scripture implies that the gates to heaven are always open, but the sinner may not enter them.
23 CCC 313; St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue IV, 138 “On Divine Providence“.
24 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation §27.