(Extract from the book: "The End of the Present World and The Mysteries of The Future Life" By Father Charles Arminjon)
Let us observe that the Holy Scripture calls heaven requies, a rest. Furthermore, we are told that there are two kinds of inhabitants in this abode: first of all God, of whom heaven is the temple and throne; then the angels and men, called to be united with God and to share His supreme happiness, His beatitude.
Heaven is not the ideal of a human intellect, it is the repose of the divine intellect, the ideal and masterpiece of God, whose power fecundates the void.
O inspired prophet (John), when you tell us that eternal life is the collection of all the attractions of the world, of all the beauties portrayed in the Sacred Books.When you describe the elect in heaven as being subtle, immortal, impassible, and clothed in a sweet light or, rather, in a divine glory that dwells in them and penetrates them more subtly than the sun penetrates the purest crystals, you are not being deceived by some illusion. Heaven is that too; it is our subtleties, our lights, and our glory, but infinitely more than these.
Lastly , when you compare the future bliss to the sweetest and most intoxicating transports of the soul, to a joy ever new, freed from all disquiet and passion and maintaining its intensity and strength through all eternity, you do not feed us with false hopes; for heaven is our transports and all our joys, but raised beyond all measures, expression and comparison.
Heaven is a kingdom of such beauty, a bliss so transcendent that God has made it the sole object of His thoughts . To this creation,, the only one truly worthy of His glory, He directs the universality of His works; the destiny and succession of empires, the Catholic Church, with her dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy are ordered towards the consummation of this heavenly life. In the words of St Paul: "The gift of God is eternal life"
Heaven is God's ideal, the repose of His intellect. Let us add: It is the repose of His heart. The heart goes further than the mind. It has aspirations and impulses, unknown to genius, which go beyond all the bounds of inspiration and thought Thus , a mother sees her son rich and honored, the most brilliant crowns glitter on his head; the mother cannot conceive of any fortunes or new empires for her child. Her reason says, "Enough!" Yet her heart calls out , "More! The happiness of my child is greater than all the dreams in which my mind can indulge.
As no mother ever loved her dearest son, so the Lord loves His predestinate. He is jealous of His dignity and could not permit Himself to be outdone by His creature on the score of fidelity and generosity.
"...I must unite myself to them in an eternal face-to-face, so that my glory illuminates them, exudes and radiates through all the pores of their being, so that, 'knowing me as i know them, they may become like Gods themselves" . May they be engulfed and loose themselves in the ocean of Your splendours; may they desire, possess, enjoy, and then desire again; may they be plunged into the bosom of Your beatitude, and may it be as if nothing remained of their personality except the knowledge and experience of their happiness"
Is the created being capable of uniting itself so closely to God that it sees Him face-to-face? What will this mode of vision be? When we see God as He is , shall we know Him in His integrity and without restriction? These are three important questions that must be resolved
If we consider things from the narrow compass of our reason, God cannot be seen by any creature. In order that an object may be known, says St Thomas authoritatively, it must be contained in the mind of the person who knows; and it can be contained therein only in accordance with the forms and capacity for knowledge which that mind possesses. Thus we cannot see and know a stone, except in so far as the image of this stone , transmitted by our senses, is made present and, as it were, contained in our understanding. Hence the axiom: "Nothing is in the intellect which is not first in the senses"
To take the angels: they are endowed with a nature more perfect than ours; they have no need of the aid of tangible things in order to rise to the perception of intellectual truths; they are an admirable likeness of the divinity, and need only contemplate their own being and nature in order to rise to the knowledge of the existence of God and of His attributes. This mode of knowledge always occurs by representation. For man, it is external and material creatures that act as a mirror. For the angels, it is their cogitative nature, and although pure spirits, they do not have the power to rise to the knowledge of God directly, and without intermediary.
That is why no one has ever seen God. God "dwells in an unapproachable light: whom no human being has ever seen or can see" God is at an infinite distance from men and angels, and is invisible in Himself.
Nevertheless, it is of faith that man will one day see God, as He is , in the brigtness of His essence.
"Every soul free from sin" says the council of Florence " is immediately admitted to heaven and sees God in His Trinity, as He is , according to the degree of his merit, one in a more perfect, another in a less perfect manner. The vision of God in no way comes from the forces of nature". It does not correspond to any desire or any necessity of our hearts. Outside of revelation, the human mind could not have conceived the slightest suspicion of it - "nor , has it so much as dawned on man". The Incarnate Word has planted the seed and the root in the center of our humanity by the power of the Holy Spirit and so that we may attain eternal life, God had to imprint a new form in our minds, and superimpose a new faculty.
Let us add in passing that, as the vision of God is not connatural to man, its deprivation does not necessarily bring about sensory pain and pain of fire. Thus children who die without Baptism will not be admitted to the vision of God. nevertheless, they will enjoy God to a certain extent ; they will know Him with the aid of the light of their reason, and they will love Him tenderly, as the author of their being and the dispenser of all good.The reason for this doctrine stems from the great principle that man, considered in himself and in the state of pure nature, differs from the man degraded by sin as much as he who is naked differs from him who has been stripped of his honours and prerogatives by a deserved punishment and degradation. Consequently, every man with the use of understanding and freedom is predestined to eternal life , and possess by this fact, the capacities and means needed to reach this sublime reward. If he does not obtain it, he will feel immense grief, having through his own fault, lost the good that should have been his lot and crown.
But children who die without baptism do not possess the seed of glory; they have never been able to apprehend its price; their minds, unenlightened by baptism, do not possess any disposition or aptitude preparing them for the vision of supernatural things. These children who have died without baptism Will not be separated from God completely; they will be united to Him in the sense that they will attain their natural end, and will see God,as far as it is possible to see Him, through the medium of eternal beings, to the extent that He manifests Himself in the marvels and harmonies of creation.
