I. Synopsis of the nature ofman.
Sensibility: source of passion and emotion (sense appetite) [ch. 1]
• Movements ofsense appetite the resultfrom the sense knowledge or imagination putting a sense object before us.
o First of all passions and source of others is sense-love from which the passions of desire, joy, hope, audacity, hate,
aversion, sadness, despair, fear, and anger arise.
•

o Passions meant to be ruled and disciplined by reason and will.
Man’s intellect grasps universalgood and his will desires it which isfound in God alone.
o Concupiscence becomes insatiable when man seeks supreme happiness outside of God alone; faulty reason is unable to
quiet passions.
o Unnatural desire is the result of reason gone astray which seeks unlimited good in a finite thing; action upon the object is
unsuitable to the tiling.

Will and Intellect [ch. 2]
•
Object of the intellect is intelligible universal reality (truth).
o Intellect seeks to know the cause of things; reason alone knows purpose as purpose.
o Intellect rises from limited and particular sense good to the good this is universal and unlimited; this all indicates that
man is ordered towards a universal good.
o All things exist from the Universal Cause since one cannot have an endless stream of effects.
•
Object of the will is the good.
o No morality or law without a supreme legislator (or else this would imply an effect without a cause).
Immensity of the Soul and the Beatific Vision [ch. 3]
•
God alone canfulfill the will of man, as nothingfinite can satisfy man’s desire (and capacity) for the universalgood.
o Man cannot find true happiness, which he desires naturally, in any finite good; his intellect seizes upon the limit of a
good and naturally desires a higher good.
o Collection of all finite goods does not constitute universal good any more than the collection of idiots equals a genius.
o The more perfect one possesses virtue, the better it can be communicated to others.
•
The intellect and the will attain object in the Beatific Vision in afinite matter, as the small eye grasps the landscape.
o Objectively the finite will and intellect of man possesses an infinite depth.

Source of Liberty [ch. 4]
• If an object is proposed to the will that is good in every perspective, the will must necessarily desire the object and cannot will the opposite.
o The will is able to refuse something if it is not good from every perspective.
o God, in the Beatific Vision, fulfills our affective capacity and we move towards Him, nor would be find any reason to
turn away; one possessing the Beatific Vision therefore cannot sin.
• Liberty is defined as the dominating indifference of the will in regard to any object which is goodfrom one viewpoint but notfrom another.
o Each of our deliberate acts should be done for a good end and thus be directly \ irtually towards God, or else the act is
o

wicked.
Disobedience is a privation; non-obedience is a negation.

Roots of Virtue and Vice [ch.5]
• Definitions.
o Virtue makes a man perfect and inclines him towards a good end by which he becomes good.
o (rice is an evil habitude, that of acting contrary to right reason.
■ All vices have common root of disordered self-love which is opposed to the love of the good and of God.
■ Pride acts as the truck from which the concupiscences of the flesh and eyes arise; from these arise the capital
sins and then those sins against the theological virtues.
• Immensity of the soul evident in the great virtues rooted in it.
o Acquired virtues arise by repetition of natural acts (and are perfected by charity).
■ Temperance and fortitude illuminate the sensibilities with reason.
■ Justice enables one to observe laws demanding great sacrifices for the common good.
o Infused virtues are acquired at Baptism and increase by the reception of the Sacraments and performance of meritorious
acts; thus, these proceed from sanctifying grace and have a divine root.
■
Infused virtues are the virtues of the perfect man and child of God.

o

Acquired virtues could grow continually without reaching the least degree of the corresponding infused virtues, since
both are of different orders; infused virtues perfect the acquired virtues (hence Baptism creates a habit in the souls of the
baptized).

Purgatory Before Death [ch. 6]
•
Godpreserves the soul’s existence and can move itfrom within; suffering is the instrument by which God orders the soul to Him.
o In the physical order, pain usually is the indicator to let someone know that something is wrong.
o Moral pain makes one desire a life superior to sense; suffering enables one to remedy pride, vainglory, and ambition and
further enables one to distinguish false goods from eternal goods.
• Passive purification enables divine union while on earth.
o Purification of the sense leads to a life more disengaged from the senses giving way to the subjection of our superior
faculties completely to God.
o Purification of the spirit manifests the grandeur of God and reveals the soul’s deficiencies; this leads to a mystical death
of irregulated self-love and spiritual pride joining the will into union with God.

II. Death andJudgment
Final Impenitence [ch.7]
•
Final impenitence is defined as the absence of contrition which alone destroys the moral consequences of sin.
o Contrition is an act of charity· and justice towards God; impenitence is the absence of contrition or satisfaction and can
be either temporal or final.
• Dispositions towardsfinal impenitence.
o Impenitence of the will (positive resolve not to repent) differs from impenitence of fact (act of not repenting).
o Temporal impenitence leads towards final impenitence for three reasons:
1. One to culpable ignorance pertaining to a malformed conscience resulting from neglect to spiritual and moral
duties.
2. One to neglect pertaining to the failure to pray to obtain strength to break habits of sin which are known to be
sinful.
3. One to malice pertaining to the willful contempt of spiritual things.
• Petum is difficult but not impossible.
o Hardening of the heart presupposes blindness of mind, a will carried towards evil with a feeble movement towards good,
o God, however, will still send sufficient grace for conversion; if this is responded to, the person receives efficacious grace

•

to pray.
o Temporal impenitence that is voluntary disposes the soul towards final impenitence, but God’s grace can overcome it.
Impenitent death.
o This involves the lack of contrition or attrition upon death by which the soul is eternally lost; repentance is very different
from remorse (remorse continues to exist in hell, as this is sorrow over punishment.)
o In order to benefit at the final hour, it must be anticipated and foreseen and accompanied desire for conversion which is
sincere.

Grace of a Happy Death (Final Perseverance) (ch.8)
• Perseverance is defined as the gift which makes the moment of death coincide with the state ofgrace, either continued or restored.
o The state of grace sustains the voluntary and meritorious choice to love God (in adults); however, sanctifying grace
cannot be merited but can be obtained by humble supplication.
o Final perseverance since it is a grace, as a cause cannot be its own effect; eternal life is the goal of merit.
o Signs of predestination include care to stay out of grave sin, spirit of prayer, true humility, patience in trials, love of
neighbor, assistance to the afflicted, and sincere devotion to our Lord and our Lady.
• Preparation for death of thejust man.
o The just man awaits death, prepares for it vigilantly with a reverential fear, recalling past sins and coming expiation.
o Theological virtues grow in degree,
o Offers the sacrifice of life, thus united to the four ends of sacrifice: 1) adoration — recognizing God’s sovereign
excellence; 2) reparation — in expiation of our past sins; 3) supplication — gain grace of final perseverance; 4)
thanksgiving.
o Final act of love for God can obtain remission of great part of temporal punishment and can shorten purgatory·.

Immutability after Death (ch. 9)
• Immutability in its cause.
o Proportion of mode of knowledge between God and created spirit.
■ Man with a body learns by discursive reason and can change perspective on things with introduction of new
knowledge.
■
Created spirits (angels and separated souls) possess an entirely intuitive knowledge, from which it grasps the
universal, recognizing something as true or false, good or bad.
■ Because of this, choices made by spirits are unchangeable in mode; for the separated soul, merit is no longer
extended to it.
o Man’s inclination towards last end can change as long as the soul is united to the body (since body is the instrument of
tendency towards the last end); after death, soul judges in immutable fashion and remains fixed in pride or charity.
o An objection exists that the damned learn from their sufferings and can thus change their minds.
■ This is solved by the fact that the damned do not regret their sins as guilt but only as the cause of their
suffering; they possess remorse without repentance and are unable to ask forgiveness.

The Particular Judgment (ch. 10)
• Appropriateforparticularjudgment to occur immediately after death since the time of merit is over; otherwise, the soul would remain in
uncertainty about the general judgment which contradicts God’s wisdom, mercy, and justice.
• Nature of the particularjudgment.
o examination of the case is instantaneous since God is the Judge; the soul is enlightened decisively and inevitably on all its
merits and demerits and all its thoughts, words, and deeds, both good and evil.
o Pronouncement of the sentence is instantaneous by an intellectual illumination by which our soul sees its entire past as a glance,
seeing and agreeing with God’s judgment.
o execution of the sentence is immediate based on merit or demerit.
• Soul does not see God intuitively at the particularjudgm ent, but by an infused light, it knows God as the sovereign Judge.
The Last (General) Judgment (ch. 11)
• Man is not a mere person but the member of a human society on which he has good or bad influencefor a long or short duration; the Last Judgment
takes this into account.
• Scripture verifies that at the Last judgment Christ in His humanity will be thejudge since He is the Redeemer of humanity.
o The subject matter of the judgment will be each individual’s thoughts, words, and deeds, and will occur at a certain time
known only to God.
• Reasonsfor the Last Judgment.
o Dead men live in the memory of men on earth; Judgment day will show how much value should be assigned to various
philosophies, reveal fundamental errors, and lying propaganda.
o The dead have imitators in good and evil; truth and justice must be vindicated.
o Effects of men’s actions last long after death and the Last Judgment will reveal die impact of each person on society.
• Divinejustice wills good to recover reputation and the body must share in the reward orpunishment of the soul as its accomplice; Last Judgment will
oblige all to render homage to God’s justice.
The Separated Soul (ch. 12)
• Dor the soul after the body’s death, its immutable knowledge is the source ofits immutable characteristic of the state of separation.
• Preternatural knowledge.
o The separated soul, although deprived of the physical senses, retains its higher faculties of the intellect and will and their
accompanying habits.
■ Damned souls retain certain sciences, but have no virtue of any kind.
■
Saved souls preserve their knowledge and their virtues.
o God supplies to the soul, by way of infused ideas, knowledge which can serve it without the senses, by which it sees
itself intuitively, clearly seeing its spirituality, immortality, and liberty·.
• Aevitemity and time.
o On earth, duration measured by continuous time of continuous movement.
o Aevitenity is the measure of the substance of angels and separated souls, a perpetual present different from eternity
because it has a beginning and is united to discontinuous time which presupposes a past and future.
o Discontinuous time is the measure of successive thoughts and affections of angels and separated souls, a spiritual instant
(e.g, the time of St. Brands refers to the early 1200’s).

o
o

Beatified souls participate in God’s essential eternity, which measures the Beatific Vision and the love which follows,
The essential eternity in God measures everything in God (essence and operations) in a continual present without a
beginning or end.

III. Hell
The Scripture on Hell (ch. 13)
•
Three reasons why it is necessary to discuss hell.
o Unwillingness to preach on the subject causes people to ignore it.
o Many souls possess superficial objections to hell because of ignorance or unrepented grave sin, obstinacy, and God’s
justice.
o Hell signifies an actualplace for damned souls.
• Nationalists deny W/because they hold it to be contrary to God’s wisdom, mercy, and justice, confusing the gravity· of sin with the
time it took to commit it.
• Hell in the Old Testament.
o Prior to the prophets, condition of the wicked after death remained generally uncertain.
o The prophets and the later books affirm its existence and the inequality of punishments proportioned to the gravity of
unrepented faults.
• Hell in the New Testament.
o Christ and the Apostles clearly identify the existence of eternal punishment and the Church Fathers comment on this,
giving further testimony to hell’s existence.
Theological Reasons for Hell (ch.14)
•
God’sjustice demands that sins which have not been expiated in this life be punished in the other.
o He who unjustly rises up against justly established order must be repressed by the same ruler who established the order
since he must see to its proper maintenance.
o In the moral and social order, the natural law of action and reaction repairs the damage caused; voluntary acceptance of
suffering permits one to re-enter into the order of justice that has been violated (concept of restitution for damage).
• Tltemal suffering cannot be demonstrated apodictically because it is a revealed mystery, its appropriateness can be shown.
o Grave sin without repentance is an irreparable disorder.
■
Sin merits punishment because it upsets the moral order; unrepented grave sin destroys the vital principle of
order and the punishment remains as long as the order is violated.
■
In grave sin, disorder lasts forever and thus the punishment.
o Grave sin has unmeasured gravity and denies God His right to be rendered as our Last End; this denies God His
supreme dignity and offense without measure deserves punishment without measure.
o God cannot allow Himself to be scorned with impunity; if the pains of hell were not eternal, then no adequate sanction
would be imposed for an infinite offense.
o Recompense for merit is eternal life, so recompense for demerit is fittingly eternal death.

Eternal Hell and the Divine Perfections (ch. 15)
• Suffering is proportioned to the gravity ofsin, not its duration.
o Grave sin is an habitual disorder, completely contrary to divine perfection, and therefore merits unending punishment,
o Pains are eternally proportioned to their gravity; punishment proportioned to the offense against God.
• God turns lost souls into images of His law, and damned souls glorify God’s justice.
o Justice enters into first place when divine mercy has been scorned.
o Eternal suffering is not meant for correction of the soul itself, but is medicinal for others who are deterred from sin by
o

it.
Pain is contrary· to the soul’s nature, but is in harmony with the soul soiled with unrepented mortal sin; eternal
punishment manifests God’s right to be loved above all else.

The Pain of Loss (ch. 16)
• The pain of loss denotes the essential andprinciple suffering due to unrepentedgrave sin, the privation of thepossession of God.
•
The nature ofloss.
o Consists essentially in the eternal privation of the Beatific Vision and all the good that flows therefrom.
o Grave sin is indirectly opposed to the natural law which obliges us to obey every- command that God prescribes.
• Severity ofpain.

This consists in an eternal contradiction which is the fruit of the hatred of God, in despair, in perpetual remorse without
sorrow, in hate of one’s neighbor, in envy, and in blasphemy.
o At death, the soul loses inferior goods which hindered its progression to God and now sees that its intelligence was
made for truth and the will made for God.
o The soul realizes that only God could fill the void that it sought to fill with created goods.
Interior contradiction.
o The condemned soul still has God as its end but has now a horror of God, an aversion which comes from unrepented
sins.
o The hatred of God manifests the total depravity of the will, as the damned continually experience the effects of divine
justice.
o The damned fully understand that they have lost all good by their own fault; perpetual remorse comes from the
conscience continually letting them know that they blew it.
o The soul regrets sin, not as guilt, but as a cause of its suffering, remaining captive to its sin and judging constantly to the
distorted inclination.
o Hatred of God results in hatred of neighbor; condemned souls wish their own condemnation to be universal.

o

•

The Pain of Sense (ch. 17)
•
TheJin of hell: real or metaphorical?
o Mortal sin deserves double-suffering: privation from God and the affliction which comes from creature.
o Common doctrine is that thefires of hell are real, metaphorical language is used only when other passages exclude literal
sense or involve an impossibility, which is not the case with our Lord’s words on hell.
o St. Thomas holds that the fires of hell are the same nature as fire on earth, differing accidentally in needing terrestrial
fuel to sustain itself and in being dark without flame that bums without destroying.
• Mode of action.
o The fire affects the separated soul as an instrument of divine justice, receiving power from God to afflict spirits;
subjection to corporeal elements is a great humiliation to spiritual substances.

Degrees of Pain (ch. 18)
• Pains of hell are equal in duration (eternal) but vary in decree of rigor, those who had more given had more expected of them.
o Punishment must be proportioned to the gravity of the fault, and since faults differ in gravity and number, hell
sufferings must be unequal in their gravity and number.
o Pain of loss surpasses any and all sufferings of this world, since it is of a different and higher order.
Hell and Our Own Age (ch. 19)
• Question as to whether it isproper to preach on hell.
o It is better to go to God by way of love than by way of fear, but to keep a systematic silence on any portion of Catholic
doctrine is to radically ignore the spirit of Christianity·, since the road of life ends in Heaven or hell.
• Species offear.
o Mundane·, fear of opposition of the world that leads a soul to turn from God; the soul is ready to offend God in order to
escape evils.
o Servile·, fear of the punishments that God may inflict; this leads the soul to keep the commandments although it is not
from the highest motive.
• This soul can become bad if soul avoids sin only in order to escape punishments (serviley servile); true servile
fear will decrease, however, with the increase of charity
o Filial, fear of sin which grows from the love of God and continues to exist in Heaven as a reverential fear; this fear is a
gift of the Holy Ghost and inspires fear of separation from God because sin is displeasing to Him.
• It belongs to the Holy Ghost to rehabilitate fear by condemning human respect, by enlightening one to regard
fear of punishment as good, and by increasing charity·.
IV. Purgatory
The Teachings of the Church (ch. 20)
• Purgatoy is the place of those souls who have died under obligation to still suffer some temporary pain due to venial sin notyetforgiven orfotgiven sin not
yet expiated.
o This debt is paid by- satispassion progressively, that is, the voluntary endurance of suffering inflicted on them.

•

•

Protestant error.
o According to Protestants, purgatory cannot be satisfactorily proved from Holy Writ, nor are the souls there certain of
salvation.
o In denying the need of satisfaction for our sins, as this would be insulting Christ, the doctrine of justification by faith
alone denies the existence of purgatory and the need for the Mass.
Response to our separated Protestant brethren.
o First and universal cause does not exclude second causes but grants them the dignity of causality; hence, Christ’s merits
do not exclude our own but rather creates them.
o Trent affirms the necessity of satisfaction of post -Baptismal sins, either in this life by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, or
in the next in Purgatory in congruity with the justice owed to God.
o Scripture further supports Catholic position, as 2 Maccabees calls for praying for the dead: it would be useless to pray
for the damned or blessed; furthermore, Christ remarks that those who fail to settle accounts will not be released until
the last penny is paid, which cannot refer to hell which is eternal.
o Church Tradition backs up purgatory extensively (cf. pp. 153-155).

Arguments of Appropriateness (ch. 21)
• The order of justice, if violated, demands reparation; if reparation is not made before death, then it must be made afterwards with
a significant variance in the mode of punishment.
o Purgatory emphasizes the sanctity and majesty of God since nothing stained can enter Heaven.
o It further manifests justice and the often-unperceived disorder of venial faults, along with the relation of the communion
of the saints, the unity between the Church militant and the Church suffering.

Demonstrative Arguments (ch. 22)
• It is absolutelyfalse and contrary to revelation to hold that allpunishmentfor sin is remitted when Godforgives sin, except in the case ofBaptism or
perfect contrition.
o Christ and the Apostles preached the necessity of good works to satisfy for sins already forgiven; even in the natural
order, to repair an injury an appropriate punishment must be undergone (a kidnapper cannot simply return the child and
go about his business).
o The order of divine justice likewise, if violated, must be re-established by the voluntary acceptance of the compensating

•

punishment.
o Purgatory is a pain of sense because the person preferred a created good to God.
Purgatory is aplace ofsatispassion, which applies what is lacking on earth in a line of satisfaction.
o Just souls often have venial sins which will not be remitted without contrition.
o Sins already remitted still have consequences {reliquiaepeccatif, an inclination towards created good may still remain which
sanctifying grace weakens; purgatory must erase these consequences in a soul if these remain at death.

Purgatory’s Chief Pain (ch. 23)
•
•

•

The chiefpain ofpurgatory is the delay in seeing the Beatific Vision, and is sometimes referred to as the temporary pain of loss.
o Unlike the damned, the souls in purgatory have assured hope and confirmed charity.
Suffering in purgatory and on earth.
o The least pain of purgatory surpasses the greatest sufferings of the present life.
o Privation of God is sweetened by the assurance of hope of possessing Him; however, the temporary privation of God is
of a higher order of suffering, thus surpassing suffering of the temporal order.
■ The soul’s desire for God is not retarded by the body and is greatly intensified because it realizes that it would
be in possession of God had it not introduced a minor barrier.
o Purgatory may be less severe for those who sinned by feebleness than those who for a while failed in Confession or
Communion.
Two difficulties.
o Disproportion seems to exist between the punishments ofpurgatory and venial sin', in response, in the absence of merit, reparation
becomes satispassion and the separated soul has more profound knowledge that God is the one and only thing
necessary.
o Saintly souls have an ardent desire to see God and such a desire causespain', in response, this suffering pleases God and the great
pain in purgatory is compensated by the soul’s greater abandonment to divine Providence and love of the divine justice.

The Pain of Sense (ch. 24)
•
The pain of sense punishes the soulfor having turned towards creatures without reference to God.
o Existence of fire in purgatory is less certain that the fires of hell, but the doctrine is sententiaprobabilissima, based on well
supported Tradition and Scripture.
o The purgatorial fire has power to bind the soul and to prevent it from acting when and where it would.
• Pains ofpurgatory are voluntary.
o The soul wills to bear them as benefits imposed upon it of divine justice, which is always united to mercy.
o The pain is seen as suitable in order to get rid of all inordinate self-love which the soul was too weak to rid itself of on
earth.
Souls in purgatory experience diminishing pain in one sense as the reliquiae peccati disappear, but, in turn, their desire to
see God increases as this happens so their pain increases in another sense.
Soul’s duration in purgatory.
o Purgatory will be emptied at the end of time; all souls will have obtained sufficient purification by then.
o For particular souls, time in purgatory and degree of suffering will correspond to the expiation required by the soul;
suffering corresponds to guilt and duration to the rootedness of sin.

o

•

The State of the Souls in Purgatory (ch. 25)
•
Certitude ofsalvation and confirmation in grace.
o The particular judgment gives the souls in purgatory assurance of salvation, knowing that their state is transitory where it
loves God above all things.
o As confirmed in grace, these souls are called holy:
■ By a special protection from God, the souls are incapable of sin in order not to delay entrance into Heaven.
■ As pure spirits, the souls judge in immoveable fashion concerning their last end and are fixed in the good.
• Remission of venial sins.
o It is probable that just souls, who die at times when sufficient control of reason is lacking, are able to make an act of
charity and contrition at the moment of death; suffering for the faults must still be endured.
• Defective dispositions.
o Reliquiae peccati remain after the remission of sin as the fuel of concupiscence.
o Evil dispositions, as a rule (though there can be exceptions), disappear progressively.
•
Voluntary satispassion.
o The divine order, like the social order, must be re-established by a penal compensation; acceptance of the penalty
enables re-entry into the order violated.
o Purgatorial satispassion is accepted by the will and offered with ardent charity as an act of adoration, in recognition of
God’s rights and the value of eternal life.
• Freedom regained.
o Certainty of salvation prevents the souls in purgatory from suffering anxiety of fear or terror (due to the adoration of
divine justice).
o The souls love their sufferings because they know that it is pleasing to God, and thus the soul regains full personal
liberty, that is, full mastery of self with the order willed by God.
•
Growth of virtue in purgatory.
o Acquired virtues grow with repetition of natural acts and can grow in purgatory at least in the purely spiritual faculties.
o Although the infused virtues may increase (e.g. charity) the degree of glory is proportioned to the merit acquired upon
•

earth.
Ultimate dispositionfor Heaven.
o This disposition excludes all sin and defective dispositions, and it further includes firm faith, assured hope, and ardent
charity for God. (cf. pp. 190-193 for St. Catherine of Genoa’s treatise of this subject).

Charity for the Poor Souls (ch. 26)
• All thefaithful in the state ofgrace are united with one another by chanty, members of one sole body, the Church; every member is aided by the merits of
others by the merit of congruity, which is based on charity instead ofjustice (which pertains only to Christ (condign)).
o Souls in purgatory can do nothing for themselves or others; they have a special right to be aided by others and return the
prayers upon their release.
• How the charity of the Church militant is exercised.
o Praying for the dead by offering prayer, merits, satisfactions, gaining indulgences, and offering Mass for their divine
repose.
o Intentions offered for the soul have a special value for that soul, but by charity· can also assist other souls.

•

o The effect of the universal cause is limited only to the capacity of the subjects to receive the influence of that cause.
Fruits of charity.
o God rewards our least service and these souls will aid those who pray for them by their own gratitude in Heaven.
o Charity for the suffering soul leads us into the mystery of the communion of the saints.

V. Heaven.
Existence of Heaven (ch. 27)
• FLeaven refers to the place, and especially the condition, of supreme beatitude; revelation does notpermit doubt of its existence.
o The souls of the blessed in Heaven before the resurrection of the body behold God by vision which is intuitive and
facial.
o Souls see God as He is in Himself, but in degrees that are more or less perfect according to merit.
•
Testimony ofScripture.
o The testimony from the Old Testament is obscure, for it was given in preparation of the coming Saviour.
o The New Testament leaves no room for doubt, as Christ’s redeeming action opens up Heaven and points toward eternal
life.
• Reasons of appropriateness.
o Beatific Vision is a gratuitous gift from God; thus, reason cannot demonstrate the existence of it, for it surpasses the
natural object of every created intelligence, since these are infinitely inferior to God.
o From the quality of man’s intelligence.
■ Man possesses a natural desire to know the first cause of all things; such a desire would be vain if beholding
God was not possible.
■
Intelligence grows more perfectly the more it knows the essence of things; knowledge of the existence but not
of the essence of the first cause would leave the natural desire wanting.
o By the life of grace, man has a connatural desire to see God; grace is the seed of glory and this seed tends of its own
accord to its final development.
■
Infused faith is directed towards the Beatific Vision; sanctifying grace and charity are naturally everlasting.

The Nature of Eternal Beatitude (ch. 28)
•
The beatifying object.
o The object of the beatitude is the perfect good which completely satisfies the desire of the rational being.
o The mind notices the limits of natural finite goods and looks towards a higher good and desires it.
■ Natural beatitude consists in that knowledge and love of God which is attained by natural faculties, that is,
knowledge of His perfections as reflected in creatures and love of God a s a servant rather than an adopted
son.
■ Supernatural beatitude consists in the very sharing of the beatitude of God, as an adopted son.
• Subjective beatitude.
o Subjective beatitude consists in a vital union with God through the intellect and the will.
o Essential beatitude consists in the immediate vision of God and is consummated in love which follows the vision; the
intellect has a more absolute and universal object (being as truth) which enables the will to recognize the good.
■ The will is carried on towards a true real good on the condition that it follows the right judgment of the
■

intellect.
God preserves in just souls all that they have by nature and grace.

The Sublimity of the Beatific Vision (ch. 29)
•
The vision is intuitive and immediate.
o The act of the beatified intellect is a vision, clear and intuitive and immediate, of the divine essence, enabling us to know
God as He is, although this vision is not comprehensive.
o Intuitive vision is higher than all abstraction, reasoning, and analogy, but the fact that it is not comprehensive is not
contradictory.
■ All the blessed see God without a medium, but with a penetration that varies in proportion to their merits, as
many grasp truth with more or less degrees of clarity while still more remains to be known in any case.
• Tumen gloriae.
o The light received in permanent fashion in the intellect of the blessed in order for them to behold the vision of God is
called the lumen gloriae.
o The Beatific Vision arises from the intellectual faculty as its radical (remote) principle and secondly from the light of
glory as its proximate principle.

The lumen foriae upon the intellect and the infused charity upon the will arise from the consummation of sanctifying
grace, received like a divine gift onto the soul’s essence.
Object of the Beatific Vision.
o The first and essential object is God Himself; the secondary object is creatures as known in God.
o The blessed see God’s essence, perfections (attributes), and the three divine Persons, and how these are all harmonized
in the singular unity of the divinity.
o In the Beatific Vision, the saints contemplate the eminent dignity of the Blessed Mother and her gifts.
O Everything is harmonized within the supernatural knowledge.
o

Beatific Joy (ch. 30)
•
The saints in Heaven beholding Godface-to-face love Him above all things because they perfectly see that God is better than all matures.
o Charity is perfected, implying a friendship above all with God with all its simplicity and intimacy.
•
The satiety of the blessed.
o Heaven is a perpetual amen and alleluia; highest joy is found in the most elevated act of the most elevated faculty.
o Saints live in perfect abundance which satisfies completely and produces a pleasure ever new.
o Heaven is described as a simultaneous totality; saints possess repose in an action which never ceases in an immediate
vision which floods the soul with a joy forever new.
o In the earthly life, God seizes and wounds the soul, that it may possess Him fully in Heaven.
• Love beyond liberty.
o In Heaven, we cannot find in God the least aspect which displeases or the least pretext for preferring to Him anything
whatsoever (because reason is perfected); there exists in Heaven a happy necessity of love (will conquered by the
supreme Good now clearly seen).
o Our love for God, arising from the Beatific Vision, can never be interrupted or lose any degree of fervor.
• Impeccability.
o The blessed are in a state of sinlessness because God preserves them from sin and by virtue of the Beatific Vision, they
cannot conceive the least pretext to love Him less.
o The blessed perceive God as the ultimate good, and the will is unable to turn from this because it is the possession of
the object that fulfills all desires.
o The blessed are at liberty to prefer finite goods (e.g. soul of a family member), but such liberty never deviates from God.
• Beatitude that cannot be lost.
o Perfect beatitude cannot have an end (or else it would not be perfect) for if it did, a soul would recognize the limit and
would have sorrow (which is incompatible with perfect beatitude); such would be contrary to God’s attributes of justice
(in light of His covenant) to grant the Beatific Vision and then take it away.
o Beatific love corresponds to the intensity of our merits; comprised in the realization of the lofty degree of spiritual goods
over material goods (since they can be possessed by all).
o The blessed behold the Trinity and clearly see that goodness is essentially self-commutative.
• Love of the saintsfor our Lord and the Blessed Mother.
o Beholding the Trinity, the blessed understand the hypostatic union and what follows from it:
■
In beholding Christ’s merits, grace, glory, and the value of His acts, the blessed realize the role of the Blessed
Mother and the realization of her maternity to the hypostatic order.
• Love of the saintsfor each other.
o Seeing one another in God, the saints love each other; degree of this love is measured by their respective nearness to
o
o

God.
Each saint has his personal distinction, possessing his natural gifts and supernatural privileges in a perfectly developed
state of being.
The blessed love the Church militant and pray in particular without ceasing for those whom they have known here on
earth.

Accidental Beatitude (ch. 31)
• Accidental beatitude in the soul.
o Beatific vision is classified as knowledge in Verbo, but knowledge extra Verbum is inferior to that of the Beatific Vision
and is the cause of accidental beatitude (e.g, learning of the spiritual progress of friends on earth).
o Each blessed soul has a special joy in seeing his own good recognized and appreciated which was accomplished on earth.
• Insurrection of theflesh.
o The resurrection of the body and the characteristics of the glorified body belong to accidental beatitude.

All will rise with their own body that was possessed on earth (Lateran IV) which is composed at least in part of the same
matter (Aquinas); as the body shared in the soul’s merit or demise on earth, so it is fitting that it does so for eternity.
■ The soul is immortal and retains natural inclination to possess the body (in accord with the nature of man as
being a composite); whatever is contrary to nature is in state of violence and cannot last indefinitely.
■
It belongs to Christ’s definitive victory over death that the body and soul are united.
Qualities of the glorified body.
o Impassibility. preservation from death and pain arising from perfect submission of body to soul.
o Agility (swiftness)'. Body can go where soul pleases with ease and instantaneous movement.
o Subtility. Body is capable of penetrating other bodies without difficulty.
o Clarity: The body will radiate light and splendor which is the essence of the beautiful; this is not equal in all blessed but is
proportionate to the glory of the soul.
o

•

The Number of the Elect (ch. 32)
• Mystey of this number.
o The number of the elect is only known to God; the end of the world will come when the number is complete and the
succession of human generations has reached its goal.
o Dispute as to whether the number of the elect will be greater than that of the reprobate; several angles in consideration
of this:
■
In regard to Catholics alone, the elect could outnumber the reprobate due to the availability of the Sacraments.
■
In regard to all Christians, the elect seem to outnumber the reprobate as well; the Protestants are more likely in
good faith and can be reconciled with God by contrition while the eastern schismatics can get valid absolution.
■
In regard to the entire human race, the number remains uncertain.
o Children dying without baptism are thought to go to limbo where they possess a natural happiness and love of God and
do not suffer; this is not entirely certain, as God may grant to them the opportunity to choose eternal beatitude after
death.
Signs ofpredestination.
o Without special revelation, no one can have absolute certitude of the state of one’s soul; however, there are eight signs
of predestination which give rise to a greater moral certainty of one’s state: 1) a good life; 2) testimony of a good
conscience; 3) patience in adversities for the love of God; 4) relish for light and zeal for God’s word; 5) mercy towards
the suffering; 6) love of enemies; 7) humility; 8) special devotion to Mary.
o In addition, there are four special signs: 1) great intimacy with God in prayer; 2) perfect mortification of the passions; 3)
ardent desire to suffer much for the glory of God; 4) inde fatigue able zeal for souls.

+
Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eam.
Sit nomen Domini benedictum in saecula. Arnen.

TRACTUS DE NOVISSIMIS

A compiled outline based on the dogmatic treatise
Life Everlasting and the Immensity ofthe Soul by Rev. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.,
in accordance with the
Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas
Supplementum qq. 69-99.

+
Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retibuit mihi?
A.D. MMII