Individual resurrection at the time of death. Death as the beginning of a new life

Abstract

The views, presented here, of contemporary theologians about death as the beginning of the resurrection explain in a high degree the eschatological truths of our faith. It seems that this scholarship is quite original, although it is not easy to reconcile with the teaching of the Church. It is somewhat difficult to face up to the concept of death as the “beginning” of resurrection with the Church’s teaching about the resurrection on the judgement day. However, these are problems that do not completely disqualify new concepts and new solutions.

In conclusion, a man’s death which, thanks to Christ’s salvific death, has lost the stigma of the terrible punishment for original sin. In that humans death is a mystical participation in the Redeemer’s death, which is a conclusive meeting with Him, the meeting that is a detailed judgement, the beginning of a new, full of human existence, subsistence heading towards the full adoration of a man. This is what the contemporary theological literature emphasizes very clearly.