onewithhim wrote:
I would say that the anger and despair is something that wicked people experience BEFORE they die. It is not something that occurs after they are dead.
"The living know that they will die, but
the dead know nothing at all....There is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave [Sheol], where you are going." (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10)
This is an expression universally attached to the dead. There are no pockets in a shroud; when you is dead, you is dead; live now while you can ..... Poets through the ages have vilified or glorified death and here we have the same expression, not some huge theology but a simple observation that corpses stop taking part in life.
We could take the parable of the rich man, tormented after death, to indicate another viewpoint. Jesus would hardly use a parable about the afterlife that was completely false. He had an insight into what happens.
We become adept at finding phrases to suit our views. When we have to take a commonplace observation and attach high theological significance to it, we should worry that we are moving into error.
But on the positive side, onewithhim, I am reminded by your certainty of my Catholic primary teacher whose certainty may even have excelled your own. Perhaps there is merit, as well as risk, in proudly asserting one's opinion as divine truth, as she did. Eventually, I suppose, God will get round to making corrections and no doubt her soul somewhere is sorry for her cruelty to little Marco.
