Heaven Recurrence ~ BitterSweetLife

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Heaven Recurrence

I find myself thinking and writing about heaven pretty frequently:

The BitterSweet Life Unpackaged
Scarcity In Heaven?
All Roads Lead To Heaven?

Some might say this is unrealistic or escapist or something. I disagree. In fact, I’ll argue the reverse. Regular contemplation of heaven helps us in at least two very significant ways:

1) Grows in us a longing for “highest reality”—pleasure and joy in their perfect, unadulterated forms.
2) Teaches us to view the inadequacies, inconsistencies and apparent injustices of earth in the correct light—the light of impending heaven.

Implicit in item # 1 is the fact that someone may have a successful and happy life…and long for heaven more rather than less as a result. For many, the very inadequacy of abundant pleasure and joy is a sure path upward. (Consider Ecclesiastes.) In C.S. Lewis’ words:

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. - The Problem of Pain

Also often overlooked in discussions about heaven are the “theological” implications of such talk. Heaven, spoken about ambiguously, can only be a nebulous sort of a “good”—if good at all. (And no doubt this is why many people think of “heaven” as a sort of neutered earth.) Ultimately, heaven must be faith-specific and god-specific to have any meaning whatsoever. To put it plainly (if I may quote Lewis exorbitantly), “Heaven enters wherever Christ enters, even in this life.”

Ultimately, a genuine longing for Heaven is a longing for Christ. And that is the most “realistic” longing conceivable. So here’s my claim: