The Seven Heavens

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Dominus Pax,
Greetings,May the peace of our lord and saviour christ jesus rest in your hearts in that the holy spirit may descend upon you and renew your mind(always)....
I have been meditating occasionly for some time on what are the requirements for salvation, i see various manners of salvation that christ mentions,as far as i can see biblicaly his minimum for a christian was to be baptised and belive(i assume this beleif will cause us to seek god in prayer and possibly the word),he also states that those whom are outside the faith will be judged upon the law written on there own hearts, but back to salvation for christians there are possibly levels of salvation from minimum to maximum,the catechism states somewhere in the first 1/4 heaven/s and i have been lead to examine while reading the gospels what this could mean and have come to the conclusions i have mentioned.And i have been filled with such zeal when also reading that class systems are a mortal sin,can we judge those whom attain the minimal requirements for salvation as lesser? I hope not.
Please someone if i am way off point and preaching the gospels falsely alert me to my fault that i may remove the log from my eye.
God Bless

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Sorry, unsure if i expressed my self fully in that the minimum i see being to be baptised and believe and that the maximum would be somone practising all the gospel exactas for salvation, and also i would like to see(have never really looked into it) whether there is a definate 7 gospel parts with the definative do this and you will be saved.
God vless

[Chamomile]

[quote name='Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye' timestamp='1295947267' post='2204114']
the catechism states somewhere in the first 1/4 heaven/s and i have been lead to examine while reading the gospels what this could mean and have come to the conclusions i have mentioned.
[/quote]

Peace be with you!

I don't understand what you mean by this. Where in the Catechism is it?

And what do you mean by levels of salvation?

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Chamomile, the chatechism doesn't actually state 7 heavens i never said that,what the chatechism has when it writes heaven it writes it as heaven/s(back slash s) unsure where i got 7 heavens from,maybe the colors of the rainbiow? the rainbow is gods signature yes,it states theis in the story about noah.
P.S. i also have to add that the church adds two other minimum requirements and that is to attend mass on holy days of obligation and confess at least once a year preferably around easter time. If someone knows the exact holy days of obligation please post that all may know, i know them not unfortunately i have a pretty serious mental illness and can't remember such dates i just goto sunday mass and otherdays if i can make it and confess as often as needed.
God Bless
JC "seek and you shall find" (i say in the word of god,the sacrements and/or prayer and meditation.I do assume there are various other ways declared in the word of how to seek gods will,i guess fellowship is one since it was jesus and the apostles not just jesus and also fitness[jesus and saint paul assumably walked alot they had to be heaps fit to take such beatings])

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

also brothers and sisters, good and evil are pretty black and white on earth but the possibilities of heaven may be a rainbow of colors that are all 100 more times holier than the holiest holies on earth, i will leave the rest to your imagination
God Bless

[phatcatholic]

Ta'ble, I had some trouble understanding your posts as well, but maybe this will help. There are indications in Scripture of different levels of beatitude in heaven.

First, it is helpful to note that God rewards every man according to his works:

[indent][b]Mat 16:27[/b] For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.

[b]Rom 2:6[/b] For he will render to every man according to his works

[b]2 Cor 5:10[/b] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.

[b]2 Cor 11:15[/b] So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
[/indent]
Now, one could say about these verses that the payment for one's works only goes so far as to distinguish between heaven and hell and not also between different levels of honor in heaven. But, what then should we make of the following verses?:

[indent][b]Mat 11:11[/b] Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

[b]Mat 18:4[/b] Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
[/indent]
If one can be the "least" or the "greatest" in the kingdom of heaven, does that not imply that there are levels of honor? I can't be the "greatest" until there are people who are less than me.

John 14 has an enticing verse that may bear on this topic as well:

[indent][b]Jn 14:2[/b] In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?[/indent]
Note that the RSV translation says there are many "rooms," in which case this verse would just mean that there is room for everyone (or, at least, many people) in heaven. It would not imply anything about levels of honor. But the DRV and the KJV translate this verse as "there are many mansions." Now we have a different picture, one of many rooms on separate floors. The Jerome Bible Commentary says, "there are no grounds for understanding 'many' to mean also 'many kinds' or 'degrees.'" However, the Ignatius Study Bible points out that John also uses the phrase "my Father's house" in 2:16 for the Jerusalem Temple. It goes on to say that the "many rooms" would make the "Father's house" similar to the Herodian Temple in Jerusalem, "which had several courts of worship, chambers for storage, and living quarters for priests." Relating the Father's house to a temple would in fact imply levels of honor because we know that, in a temple, each courtyard represents degrees of closeness to the "holy of holies." There are separate floors in the temple as well.

Furthermore, St. Augustine, has this to say:

[indent]But the many mansions point to the different grades of merit in that one eternal life. For there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory; and so also the resurrection of the dead. The saints, like the stars in the sky, obtain in the kingdom different mansions of diverse degrees of brightness; but on account of that one penny no one is cut off from the kingdom; and God will be all in all in such a way, that, as God is love, love will bring it about that what is possessed by each will be common to all. (Tractate 67)[/indent]
With the varying commentary on this verse, I am not certain if this verse would be helpful in making the case for levels of honor in heaven. I leave it for the reader to decide. There are other interesting verses as well:

[indent][b]2 Cor 12:2[/b] I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.

[b]Col 1:16[/b] for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.[/indent]
In the first verse, Paul mentions the "third heaven." I see this most often interpreted in the follwoing way: the first heaven is the sky, the realm of the birds and the clouds; the second heaven is outer space, the realm of the sun and the stars; the third heaven is the place where God dwells. However, 2 Enoch adds to this 4 more levels within God's dwelling place. If Paul were borrowing from this tradition, then we could have here another verse that proves my point.

In Colossians, we see the hierarchy of angels. This is also seen in Rom 8:38; Eph 3:10; 6:12; Col 2:15. A hierarchy not only orders individuals with different responsibilities, but also orders their rank. So, it could be said that the angels at the top of the hierarchy have a place of greater honor in heaven than those beneath them.

All of this is very interesting, and it shows that there is, at the very least, an implication in Scripture of levels of honor in heaven. For more on this, see the following articles:

-- [url=http://catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9412qq.asp]Quick Questions[/url] [see the third question]
-- [url=http://www.stillcatholic.com/CATHHeaven.htm]Heaven: Why Are People So Happy There?[/url] [see the subtitle: "Different Rewards in Heaven"]
-- [url=http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?s=&showtopic=34940&view=findpost&p=662620]EWTN Q&A on Levels in Heaven[/url] [compiled into a PM post from way back]
-- [url=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2033423/posts]Explaining Purgatory from a New Testament Perspective[/url] [this article also talks about the seven levels of heaven]
-- [url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm]Heaven[/url] [see the subtitle: "Attributes of Beatitude"]
-- [url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=472&letter=H]Jewish Encyclopedia: Heaven[/url] [see the second paragraph]

Pax Christi,
phatcatholic

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Dominus Pax, Gracious thanks phatcatholic.
God Bless
Jesus iz LORD