Chapter 82 — That man will rise again immortal

From this, it is clear that man will so rise as not to die again.

The necessity of dying is a defect that nature has contracted from sin. Now Christ, by the merits of his Passion, repaired the defects which nature contracted from sin. For as the Apostle says: The free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many (Rom 5:15). From this we gather that Christ’s merit is more efficacious in destroying death than Adam’s sin in causing it. Therefore, those who rise again, being delivered from death by the merits of Christ, will not die again.

Further. That which is to endure forever has not been destroyed. Therefore, if after rising from the dead men are to die again, so that death will go on forever, death was in no sense destroyed by the death of Christ. Yet it has been destroyed now indeed in its cause, as the Lord foretold by the prophet Hosea: O death, I will be your death (Hos 13:14); and at last it will be actually destroyed: The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Cor 15:26). It is therefore part of the Church’s faith that those who arise will not die again.

Moreover. The effect is likened to its cause. Now Christ’s Resurrection is the cause of the resurrection to come, as stated above. (Ch. 79.) But Christ so rose from the dead that he will not die again: Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again (Rom 6:9). Therefore, men will so rise that they will die no more.

Again. If after rising from the dead men are to die again, either they will rise again from this latter death, or they will not. If not, their souls will remain forever separated from their bodies. We have proved this to be unfitting, and for this reason it is granted that they will rise again; otherwise, if they were not to rise again after dying a second time, there would be no reason for their rising after dying the first time. On the other hand, if they rise again after this second death, either this second resurrection will be followed by yet another death, or not. If not, the same argument applies, as to their first resurrection. And if they are to die again, there will be an indefinite alternation of death and life in the subject. But this is unseemly, because God must have some definite end in raising the dead to life, while alternate death and life is a kind of succession and change which cannot be an end. For movement of its very nature cannot be an end, since all movement tends towards something else.

Further. The purpose of nature’s action in this lower world tends to perpetuity, because that action is directed to generation, which aims at the perpetuation of the species. Hence nature does not intend this or that individual as its last end, but the preservation of the species in the individual. It is thus with nature because nature acts by the power of God, the fount of perpetuity: therefore, the Philosopher (Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, bk. 2.) says that the purpose of generation is that the participation of the divine being may be perpetuated in the things generated. Much more, therefore, does the action of God himself tend to something perpetual. Now resurrection is not directed to the perpetuity of the species, since this might have been secured by generation. Therefore, it is directed to the perpetuation of the individual; but not in respect of the soul only, for the soul has this without the resurrection. Therefore, it is in respect of the composite; and consequently man will live forever after the resurrection.

Again. If we compare the soul and body from the point of view of a man’s first generation on the one hand and of his resurrection on the other, we shall find a different order between them. In man’s first generation, the creation of the soul follows the generation of the body, for at first the matter is prepared by the power of the disconnected seed, and then God creates and infuses the soul. But in the resurrection the body will be united to the preexisting soul. Now the first life, which man obtains by generation, follows the condition of the mortal body in that death puts an end to it. Therefore, the life which he obtains by the resurrection will be everlasting, in accordance with the condition of the immortal soul.

Again. If there be an indefinite succession of life and death in the same man, this alternating life and death will form a kind of circle. Now, in things subject to generation and corruption, every circle originates from the first circle of incorruptible bodies, for the first circle is composed of local movement, and this is communicated from it by way of imitation to other kinds of movement. Consequently, the alternation of death and life would be caused by a heavenly body; but this is impossible, since the restoration of life to a dead body is beyond the scope of nature’s action. Hence we cannot admit this alternation of death and life, nor consequently that bodies will die after rising from the dead.

Further. Whatever things succeed one another in the same subject last for a certain time, and all such things are subject to the heavens’ movement, of which time is a result. But the separated soul is not subject to the movement of the heavens, because it is above all corporeal nature. Consequently, its alternate separation from and union with the body is not subject to the heavens’ movement. Therefore, there is no such rotation of alternate death and life as would result if those who rise from death were to die again. Therefore, they will rise to die no more.

Hence it is said: The Lord will swallow up death forever (Isa 25:8); and: Death shall be no more (Rev 21:4).

Hereby we reject the error of certain heathens of old, who held that the history of times and temporal things repeats itself. For instance, just as once upon a time the philosopher Plato taught at Athens in the school known as the Academy, so during a space of countless previous centuries, at long but certain intervals, we shall find again and again the same Plato, and the same city, and the same disciples, and we shall go on finding them during ages without number, as Augustine relates. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 12.) To this, as he says in the same place, some would refer the words of Ecclesiastes: What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said: ‘See, this is new’? It has been already, in the ages before us (Eccl 1:9–10). This, however, does not mean that the same identical things occur over again, but the same kind of thing, as Augustine explains. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 12.) Aristotle also taught this in opposition to the foregoing view. (De Generat.)