Theological Foundations new file

176 Theological Foundations In the opinion of Tertullian, with whom Father Stanislaus agrees, our body reposes in God and Christ is the depositary. Because of Him the annihilation of the body has been withheld, and it is only temporarily that the body has its recesses in the water, fire, food and animals. It remains hidden there like in vessels till the time when it “reappears.” 12 It is Father Papczynski’s conviction that if we seek the complete truth about man’s eternal fate, we must also emphasize the fact that the human soul, too, is immortal. The atheists think that after the soul leaves the body, it “dissolves into thin air.” Meanwhile, the Holy Scriptures testify that God created man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nos- trils the breath of life, and man became a living, not a dying, soul (cf. Gen 2, 7). “While it is true that what came from dust, will return to dust, yet, the breath of life which came from the mouth of God is as immor- tal as God Himself is immortal. It is not only in the Holy Scriptures that the testimony to this fact can be found, our reason provides it, too. Therefore, even people who do not believe, but who possess adequate knowledge about the human soul, teach that the soul is immortal and receives its reward or punishment after death.” 13 In the author’s opinion, this common conviction regarding the immor- tality of the soul should strengthen the Christian faith, which teaches that, after the soul leaves the body, it enters eternal glory or suffers punish- ment. The punishment can be temporary or eternal. The Holy Spirit teaches about it through a wise man who says that the evil ones moan because their spirit is in anguish, and the righteous ones receive a mag- nificent kingdom and a beautiful diadem from the hands of the Lord. 14 As he paints the prospect of eternal life, Father Papczynski does not stop at the borderline between death and resurrection. He wants to unveil at least some small part of the secret of the life which will follow after the [soul’s] temporal dwelling is destroyed. He says that this is such an incon- ceivable reality that there is no way in which it can be comprehended or described. St. Paul was able to see a small part of it when “caught up to the third heaven ... he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter, and added that the glory of the Mystical Temple is not only inde-