Whether souls are conveyed to heaven or hell immediately after death?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that no souls are conveyed to heaven or hell immediately after death. For a gloss on Ps. 36:10, "Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be," says that "the saints are delivered at the end of life; yet after this life they will not yet be where the saints will be when it is said to them: Come ye blessed of My Father." Now those saints will be in heaven. Therefore after this life the saints do not go immediately up to heaven.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, Augustine says (Enchiridion cix) that "the time which lies between man's death and the final resurrection holds the souls in secret receptacles according as each one is worthy of rest or of suffering." Now these secret abodes cannot denote heaven and hell, since also after the final resurrection the souls will be there together with their bodies: so that he would have no reason to distinguish between the time before and the time after the resurrection. Therefore they will be neither in hell nor in heaven until the day of judgment.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, the glory of the soul is greater than that of bodies. Now the glory of the body is awarded to all at the same time, so that each one may have the greater joy in the common rejoicing of all, as appears from a gloss on Heb. 11:40, "God providing some better thing for us---that the common joy may make each one rejoice the more." Much more, therefore, ought the glory of souls to be deferred until the end, so as to be awarded to all at the same time.

❌ Objection 4 : Further, punishment and reward, being pronounced by the sentence of the judge, should not precede the judgment. Now hell fire and the joys of heaven will be awarded to all by the sentence of Christ judging them, namely at the last judgment, according to Mt. 25. Therefore no one will go up to heaven or down to hell before the day of judgment.