The Intermediate State and Heaven

 Heaven is God’s presence which is manifested to incorporeal creatures. The beatific vision is required. 

I find it odd that there is very little scholarly work written on the nature of the intermediate state. Yet non-scholarly work like Randy Alcorn’s Heaven is quite popular. Alcorn provides an ad hoc speculation that the intermediate state is a physical location in which God bestows disembodied souls temporary (loaner) physical bodies. I can provide an alternative proposal with equivalent or greater explanation power and scope. Suppose at death our disembodied souls are consigned by God to the intermediate state. The intermediate state is a created spiritual/mental realm with temporal location but not spacial location or extension. The obvious objection to my alternative is Christ dwells with His people in the intermediate state with a physical glorified body. But if we stipulate glorified bodies may voluntarily take on the property of incorporeality. Much like angels who are pure spirits can voluntarily materialize. Souls can communicate the property of immateriality to their glorified bodies. The objection is overcome. Yet it must be kept in mind this power of souls is divinely mediated. In the intermediate state, Christians dwell with Christ in comfort. Non-Christians suffer mental anguish and misery. Both await for the final bodily resurrection and judgment. 

Aquinas thinks the intermediate state is a place. A place in which disembodied souls are able to reside. It has both spacial and temporal location (E.g. souls and bodies). It has spacial extension by Christ’s glorified body alone. The disembodied souls of the saved are in union with Christ.  

William Lane Craig’s speculation:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxskWq8O95830kSU-I1gSNX9j3a5kBe3o2