324. The agility of the resurrection body
324. THE AGILITY OF THE RESURRECTION BODY
If we will have bodies in Heaven, how will we move? On our feet, on wings, on horses, in cars?
The human body and all that it contains will be perfectly subject to the rational soul, even as the soul will be perfectly subject to God. Wherefore it will be impossible for the glorified body to be subject to any change contrary to the disposition whereby it is perfected by the soul. . . . In the saints after the resurrection, the soul will have complete dominion over the body, and it will be altogether impossible for it to lose this dominion because it will be immutably subject to God (S82,1).
The glorified body will be altogether subject to the glorified soul, so that not only will there be nothing in it to resist the will of the spirit, for it was even so in the case of Adam’s body, but also from the glorified soul there will flow into the body a certain perfection, whereby . . . by the gift of agility it is subject to the soul as its mover, so that it is prompt and apt to obey the spirit in all the movements and actions of the soul. . . .
The more the power of the moving soul dominates over the body, the less is the labor of movement. . . . Hence those in whom the motive power is stronger, and those who through exercise have the body more adapted to obey the moving spirit, labor less in being moved. And since after the resurrection the soul will perfectly dominate the body . . . there will be no labor in the saints’ movements, and thus it may be said that the bodies of the saints will be agile (S84,1).
It is written (Is 40:31): They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint; and (Wis 3:7): (The just) shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds (S84,2).
Some say that a glorified body passes from one place to another without passing through the interval, and that consequently it is possible for the movement of a glorified body will be instantaneous. . . . Others with greater probability hold that a glorified body moves in time . . . but that this time is so short as to be imperceptible (S84,3).
As usual, St. Thomas answers a difficult and uncertain question by beginning with a certain and obvious premise: that the Heavenly body will perfectly obey the will of its soul as the soul perfectly obeys the will of God. Our present body often disobeys its soul (especially by dying!) just as this soul often disobeys God (by sinning). In fact the body disobeys the soul because the soul disobeys God, as the nobleman’s servant is free to rebel against the nobleman once the nobleman rebels against his king. So in Heaven both rebellions will be reversed. What follows from this principle about the body’s agility?
Surely, that the body will do everything the soul wants it to do, both physical and spiritual. Thus its movements both of matter and of spirit will be perfectly conformed to its will because that will will be perfectly conformed to God’s will. So if it wants to move somewhere instantly, in conformity with God’s will, its body will instantly obey, better than the transporter beam aboard the starship “Enterprise” on Star Trek.
Even unfallen Adam’s body could not yet do that because it was in training, so to speak. It failed its test and had to take the long, hard, crooked road that we now walk to get to its glorious destiny.
St. Thomas mentions an obvious analogy to this even now: that stronger and healthier people have more obedient bodies. His answer about Heaven is only an extension of what is obvious on earth.
Thus in Heaven many Biblical prophesies, like the one he quotes about running without being weary, will be fulfilled in a way far more literal and concrete than we think.
There are many different ways to move. God moves at infinite speed by being omnipresent, or is omnipresent by moving at infinite speed. Angels move without any time gap between their disappearance from one place and their appearance in another, like electrons changing orbit in quantum physics. We will probably still move through some kind of time, unlike angels—but perhaps not.