homas Aquinas provides a fascinating solution to an apparent contradiction in Catholic (and indeed Christian) theology. The contradiction is between the following two doctrines: first, the disembodied souls in heaven are perfectly happy; and second, the resurrection of the body at the end of time is a good thing. The problem is that, if the disembodied souls in heaven are perfectly happy, how can it be good for them to be resurrected? Thomas Aquinas resolves the problem by carefully considering the meaning of “perfection”, and, in fact, invents the term “perfectior”, a comparative degree of a superlative concept, to solve the problem. He argues that there are two different meanings of perfection. One is relative perfection and one is absolute perfection. His solution will be that the both the souls in heaven and the resurrected bodies will be relatively perfectly happy, but the resurrected blessed are more absolutely happy. Relative perfection is having all of one’s potentialities actualised (or, if that sounds too metaphysical, having all of one’s abilities fulfilled).
So, for instance, a perfect snail has all of its snailish potentialities actualised – it is a perfected snail. However, it is still just a snail. A perfected human would have even more perfections, like a perfected intellect and a perfected love of God. It would be just as relatively perfect as the snail, since it too has all its potentialities actualised. However, it would be more absolutely perfect, or “perfectior”, than the snail, since it has more perfections to have actualised. In the case of the disembodied souls in heaven, they are perfectly happy, and they have all the perfections of the soul fully actualised, including reason, will and love of God. However, they still have less perfections than an embodied human being who also has a perfected body, perfected emotions, and perfected physical appetites. As such, the disembodied souls in heaven are perfectly happy, in so far as they are relatively perfected. However, the resurrected blessed at the end of time are even more perfectly happy, in so far as they are equally relatively perfected and more absolutely perfected than the souls in heaven. In this way, Thomas Aquinas reconciled the apparently contradictory doctrines of the happiness of the blessed in heaven and the goodness of the resurrection.
