Dogmas concerning the judgement. We are aware of the dogmas concerning the immediacy of the personal and eternal
judgement of each soul upon death which cannot be changed. That is
true...as long as the book of life was under seal. Our point is that the
same Authority Who defined these dogmas also created the sealed book
'from the foundation of the world' which predates original sin and
everything which came afterwards, including all defined dogma. As we
have said, the book of life was as if it did not hitherto exist. If it
was not sealed, in a way that implied its non-existence, that is, if it
was open, then those dogmas would remain exactly the same. Our point is
always that its unsealing makes a difference, otherwise there is no
point in its being there. The Church was already there, as a kind of
'open book' version of the sealed book. So each personal judgement is
'immediate and eternal' unless (the great unless) the book of
life is unsealed before the last and general judgement, in which the
soul is reunited to the body to go to its eternal fate - which changes
for the body if original sin is, as it were, 'unmade'.
That last part is the most difficult as it has no ready explanation. But the thing is, the immediate judgement is made before
the soul is reunited to the body. If the book of life factors in, what
might that do ? That is what we have been trying to explain, as in this
entirely unplanned footnote and its extension.
For
those defined dogmas concerning the immediate and personal judgement we
think 'the great unless' is the unstated part, implied with the
existence of the book of life and active
upon its unsealing. The unstated part may as well not be there (as it
is not), even as the book of life is not, so long as it remains sealed.
In other words, an unstated additional condition exists if it is stated to exist prior to the making of the original condition
- even if it is unknown to exist at the time, along with its
particulars. Even the secret of Fatima was not that hidden; the third
part was known to exist when the first two parts were revealed (but before then, it was known only that there was
a secret and nothing more); but with the book of life, the secret of
its meaning was unknown even as its existence was unknown until Daniel,
and then only really spoken of in Philippians (4:3) and in Apocalypse.
Is
there an example which conveys this ? Perhaps it is from Eden: Adam and
Eve were warned that they would die if they partook of the forbidden
fruit; the devil deceived them, and they ate, and sinned; but what
nobody knew (save God) at the time was that one day there would be a
Redeemer to save them from the death; there was no point in mentioning
that detail before they had sinned since the condition which required a
Redeemer did not yet exist.
Seemingly circular logic. The
'hidden additional condition' in fact did exist even as Our Lord spoke
the words upon which those particular dogmas are based. He could have
added, 'so long as the book of life remains sealed', but that would
defeat its purpose; but moreover, so long as the book remained sealed,
it really was as though it did not exist, so there was no point in
mentioning it. This is another 'circular' element (also discussed in
footnote #116).
We
think there is a connection between the papacy's being 'taken away' due
to the devil's attempt to deceive the whole Church by substitution of
the true pope for a false one, and the 'hidden additional
condition' we have proposed. It seems as if the one enabled the other.
As had been stated elsewhere, what the devil attempted paradoxically
resulted in a kind of reversal. So those dogmas, defined by the papacy
which, without this 'hidden additional condition', makes this
interpretation of the book of life impossible, must not speak against
this solution of the book of life (which unsealing was made possible by
the papacy's existence in the first place). This seems like 'circular'
logic again, which is why it is so difficult to explain, and why it is
necessary to try it from different directions; so to attempt to sum up
this paragraph: The same papacy which defined the dogmas which make this
interpretation seemingly impossible is the same which made the
unsealing of the book of life possible, by its existence as the papacy,
and which had to be 'taken away' (2 Thess 2:7) in due time.
Or
we can look at it from another direction: Nothing which happened
afterward applies to the book of life, although it came before. But as it was
sealed, nothing can apply to it. But the book can only be
unsealed upon those conditions in which the devil tried to subvert the
papacy and use it against the Church herself. In so doing, he subverted
his own plan.
As
there is no way of phrasing this which seems sufficient to express it,
we will only say that this particular attack upon the papacy resulted in
the unsealing of the book of life as a necessary consequence of the
devil's attempt to use the papacy against itself and the Church.
The reversal is reflected in Apocalypse. But in Apocalypse itself we can
see a reversal which reflects this new state of affairs: In chapter
thirteen it is written that all of them that adored the beast was not
written in the book of life (this necessarily implies that everyone who
did not is written in the book of life). This is an exact mirror
image of the Church, in which all of the saved are attached to the
Church through the papacy. This is why it was not enough for the devil
to install his antipapacy: No, he has to try to draw the whole world
into it, as a reverse of what the victory of the Church would have meant
for the world, in the first timeline only, before the antichrist: That all nations would become part of the Church. Otherwise, it happens after the antichrist, in the second timeline only.
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