Chapter 85 — That the bodies of those who rise again will have a different disposition

Although the bodies of those who rise again will be of the same species as our bodies are now, they will be of a different disposition.

In the first place, in the resurrection the bodies of all men, both good and wicked, will be incorruptible.

There are three reasons for this. The first is taken from the end of the resurrection. Both good and bad will rise again in order that they may receive in their own bodies the reward or punishment due to the works they performed while yet they lived in the body. Now the reward of the good, namely beatitude, will be everlasting; likewise, eternal punishment is due to mortal sin. Both these points have been proved. Therefore, in both cases must they receive an incorruptible body.

Another reason may be found in the formal cause of those who rise again, namely the soul. We have already said (Ch. 79.) that the soul will resume its body at the resurrection, lest it should remain forever separated from it. Since, then, the body is restored to the soul for the sake of the soul’s perfection, it is becoming that the body should be disposed in a manner suitable to the soul. Hence, seeing that the soul is incorruptible, an incorruptible body will be restored to it.

The third reason may be taken from the active cause of the resurrection. God will restore to life bodies already corrupt; therefore, a fortiori will he be able to preserve forever the life which he will restore to those bodies. Thus, when he so willed, he guarded from corruption even corruptible bodies (for example, the bodies of the three children in the fiery furnace).

Accordingly, the incorruptibility of the life to come is to be understood in the sense that the body which is now corruptible will, by divine power, be made incorruptible, in that the soul in giving life to the body will exercise perfect dominion over it, nor will anything be able to hinder the soul in this life-giving effect. Hence the Apostle says: This perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53).

Consequently, man will rise immortal not through resuming another and an incorruptible body, as the aforesaid opinions maintained, but because that which is corruptible now will be rendered incorruptible.

Therefore, we are to understand the saying of the Apostle: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50), in the sense that in the life after the resurrection there will be no corruption of flesh and blood, but that these things will remain in substance. Therefore, he adds: Nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.