If everyone is judged immediately after death, why do you think there needs to be a general
judgment as well?
The two judgments will both be about the same content, namely, how we have lived our lives on this Earth. The last or general judgment at the end of time will not be like an appeals court wherein God might overturn our particular judgment because of new evidence or a procedural violation.
The two judgments will be different, however, because of context. At the general judgment, all human beings will have lived and died and made their choices. With the fullness of human volition and the completion of history, the totality of interrelationship among all created persons and things will be revealed and recognized. The particular judgment reveals to us how our lives have impacted others and the world we have inhabited. The general judgment will reveal the interrelationships among the entire human family over the full course of its history. Our individual lives will be situated in the widest possible context and understood from a perspective of finality—something that would not be a dimension of our particular judgments before the end of time and history.
There is, however, that problem of time once again. If when we die we leave time and space as we know them, then the distinction just made between particular judgment and general judgment might best be held tentatively. The logic of the distinction may help us reflect here and now on such mysteries. How much it actually applies to what God has prepared for us we do not know.
Kelley, J. T. (2006). 101 Questions and Answers on the Four Last Things (pp. 55–56). New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Yikes. I was rather liking the "once and done" idea. It will be painful enough going through it the first time. I never really understood the general judgment. Hopefully, we can talk about it at the next formation class. I would very much like to hear others' ideas on the subject.
