Abstract:
The article Particular and last judgement considers theories dealing with the distinction between the two types of God’s judgment: those closer to the Orthodox tradition generally acknowledge only the final parousia, prior to which souls ‘sleep’ It happens that theologians of this option justify the doctrine of apocatastasis, claiming that Christ will repeat his coming many times until all are saved. Others, including almost everyone who prefers Protestant approaches, reject the final parousia, especially understood cosmologically, and thus, also the last judgment. They favour the parousia and individual judgment, arguing that there are as many parousias as people dying, each individual judgment already being the last judgment. A vast majority of Catholic theologians, following the guidelines of the Magisterium of the Church, accept the particular judgment and the last judgment, though their references are interpreted in different ways, ranging from a failure to distinguish the particular judgment to the acknowledgement of two separate judgments: one at the moment of death and the other at the end of the world, associated with the second coming of Christ in glory. Only then will it be publicly disclosed what good deeds each person performed and what he failed to do in his earthly life, together with all its consequences.