Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology

This discussion makes it clear that both happiness and wretchedness are experienced chiefly in the soul. They affect the body secondarily and by a certain derivation. Hence the happiness or misery of the soul will not depend on the well-being or suffering of the body; rather, the reverse is true. Souls remain in existence after death and prior to the resumption of the body, some adorned with the merit of beatitude, others disfigured by deserved wretchedness. Therefore we can see that even before the resurrection the souls of some men enjoy the happiness of heaven, as the Apostle indicates in II Corinthians 5:1: "For we know, if our earthly house of this habitation is dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven." A little below, in verse 8, he adds: "But we are confident and have a good will to be absent rather from the body and to be present with the Lord." But the souls of some will live in torment, as is intimated in Luke 16:22: "The rich man also died, and he was buried in hell."