A few questions about the Christian heaven

Great Debates
1

I’ve long wondered about some of the aspects of the Christian belief in heaven. First up I’m an atheist but Christianity and other religions interest me.

  1. Most Christians seem to believe that good people when they die go to heaven straight away. They also seem to believe in the Second Coming of Christ, when he returns enthroned in glory to judge the quick and the dead, ie the living and all those who have ever lived. The Last Judgment. Corpses shall burst from their graves to stand before the Living God as he separates the goats from the lambs. So says the New Testament.

So how do Christians square these two things? People in heaven now and all the people who ever lived waiting patiently in their graves for the sound of the trumpet heralding the Last Judgment? I guess it could be argued that the Judgment is somehow outside of time, when you die Time ceases to exist and you instantly stand before the Tribunal together with people who lived long before you and long after you. Fair enough but I don’t think most Christians see it that way. They would think of little Tommy looking down on them from Heaven and confidently expect to join him when they die, not that they are already up there with him in his extra-temporal reference frame.

So how do they square it?

  1. Do most Christians believe that good Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, even atheists (!) will be admitted to Heaven with them? If they do how do they put that together with what has been (and still is as far as I know) one of the basic tenets of their religion, “There is only one way to Salvation and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ”?

In other words if all good people go to Heaven what’s the point of Christianity? They could all switch to Islam overnight and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference!

Looking forward to input from Christians and those of any belief or none.

2

Actually, don’t some of them (i.e. Catholics) believe they spend some time in Purgatory first?

I don’t know what they average layperson thingk, though I guess a lot of them just don’t worry about it. But for anyone familiar with Einsteinian relativity, the idea that time could run differently from different frames of reference seems reasonable, even if it is counterintuitive.

This is controversial and hotly debated among Christians. Among those who do believe non-Christians can be admitted into heaven, some believe that they’ll get a chance to accept or reject Christ after they die; some believe that such people have accepted or been saved by Christ without knowing him by that name; some simply trust God’s love and ability to save all, or at least all who want to be saved.

Because they believe Christianity is (nearer to) the truth?

Because they love Jesus and want to have a relationship with him now instead of waiting after they die?

Because Christianity resonates best with their heart or mind or soul?

Because it seems to them like the best way to live?

Because Christ(ianity) helps them to be “good people”?

For social or practical or habitual reasons?

3

Doesn’t much matter if the whole thing is make believe anyway. Are we expecting to go into the afterlife with our full consciousness intact like it is now? Or is more likely we will carry as much with us we did from the time before we were born? Do you remember want life was like before you were born? I don’t.

4

My brother became a Roman Catholic in ~1992.

He says that the RC now holds that the virtuous members of non-RC and even non-Christian faiths are eligible for heavenly salvation. I am not sure if atheists are eligible, though.

This is a big step forward in inclusiveness: well into the 20th century the RC held that baptism was required for admission to heaven, and that even infants, incapable of actual sin, could not go to heaven if unbaptized.

5

Biblically, when a Christian dies, his spirit/soul (there are in-house disagreements among Christians as to whether those two terms mean the same thing, but I’ll ignore that for now) returns to God in heaven, but his body remains here to decompose (or whatever fate it meets: burning, being eaten by animals, etc.). The resurrection at the Second Coming is the re-uniting of the spirit with the physical body. 1 John 3:2 seems to teach that the glorified bodies of the saved will be like that of Christ after His resurrection - physical, as Christ was able to be touched, eat food and so on, but also incorruptible and no longer susceptible to sin and death. The “sheep and goats” judgment, therefore, takes place after the resurrection, and involves the final disposition of both the saved and unsaved. The saved will experience eternity with God (who, Revelation tells us, will dwell with man on earth, presumably in the Person of Christ). Heaven is the presence of God, not a place to float around on clouds and play harps.

The biblical position, by the way is not that “good people” go to heaven; there are no good people. By faith in Christ, the sins of believers are transferred to Him and His righteousness to them. This is a forensic or legal type of transaction in God’s eyes. Christian believers while still alive on earth, according to Martin Luther, are “simul justus et peccator,” i.e. at the same time righteous (legally, in God’s eyes) and sinners (in fact).

More conservative Christians would assert that anyone not embracing Christ as Lord and Savior will not go to Heaven. He is “the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through [Him]” (John 14:6). That would certainly be the biblical position, and would explain the missionary zeal of the earliest Christians.

Some more liberal Christians, and wishy-washy evangelicals like Joel Osteen, who do not insist on a biblical worldview, would take the position that persons of any religion could be saved on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice, but perhaps without actually knowing of Him or embracing Him as Lord and Savior. If this position is correct, then your point is very valid - there would be no reason to be a Christian as opposed to any other religion, and no importance to Christian missionary work in general.

6

Although Pope Francis’s remarks were interpreted as saying atheists could go to heaven, I think people were reading too much into what he said. Link.

That is certainly what I was taught in Catholic school in the 1960s.

7

There’s significant difference between different Christian ideologies. If you are only concerned about “most” Christians the answers are simply a matter of looking up the Roman Catholic Church’s positions. There are more Catholics than other Christians worldwide. Since Catholics, by the nature of claiming to be Catholic, belief that the Bible is not the sole source for their beliefs (it’s supplemented by tradition and the infallibility of some guy in a pointy hat) the RCC is supposed to be their position. By that standard most Christians at least officially claim to believe what comes out of Rome word for word. Of course not all actually do which is problematic for deciding on most.

In the US, where most Dopers ares, Catholics are a minority among Christians. One of the principles underlying the Protestant reformation is Sola Scriptura (scripture alone.) The bible itself is the sole source and individuals can read it and arrive at the spiritually correct answer. Some denominations from the Protestant tradition add other sources for determining what’s right with scripture being first - Prima Scriptura. Traditions can thus vary and the individual ability to interpret scripture directly means that there’s less of a clear answer even if within a denomination there’s general agreement. That means worldwide there are potentially hundreds of billions of slightly different answers to your question since everyone from those traditions can read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Two of the other early protestant principles, Sola Fide and Sola Gratia, directly related to the issue of salvation. Sole Fide is a big one for your question since it’s a matter of faith alone leading to salvation. Works tend to follow faith but aren’t necessarily required. Sola Gratia throws on the piece that salvation is a gift from God and not earned by merit.

That’s before we even look at other Christian traditions. You’re trying to figure out a universal answer across a broad group that doesn’t all believe the same things. It’s like trying to figure out the political position of all Americans. You’ve picking chunks from the two party platforms and trying to come up with a coherent argument for how they fit together. Comparing US Christianity to worldwide is like then applying the national political position to that in a given state. There are tens of thousands of Christian denominations with related but sometimes directly conflicting answers. You could take a poll to find out the most common but it wouldn’t be broadly applicable to deciding the political position of any given American.

8

No answer regarding “most” Christians is going to be correct because there are so many different beliefs among Christians.
Various beliefs include, but are not limited to:
[ul]
[li]At death, everyone goes to their respective eternal locations and the Last Judgment is simply a formality that seals the deal.[/li][li]At death, people go to Sheol or Hades, a places of grey, lightless place of no activity while the souls simply hang out waiting for the Last Judgment. Variations include the belief that the dead will or will not be conscious and aware of their surroundings.)[/li][li]At death, people will go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory and at the Last Judgment, anyone still in Purgatory will be released to Heaven. (It is also possible to enter Heaven from Purgastory before the Last Judgment.)[/li][/ul]
And, in recent times, all these descriptions may have been regarded as metaphors for events in the spiritual realm that we cannot understand.

Some Christians believe in a literal reading that without an express declaration of a belief in Jesus as the second person of the Trinity and his saving actions and the physical rite of Baptism, one is doomed to eternal damnation.
Rather more Christians cut God some slack and figure that God will not punish people who never knew of Him or His teachings.
The Catholic and Orthodox Churches have gone further, formalizing this idea as the Baptism of Desire, holding that God’s desire that everyone be saved encourages everyone, (at a spiritual level), to desire to be one with Him and that this inspired desire effectively brings about a saving action.

The point of promoting Christianity, (among those who do not hold to a belief in the need for literal/physical baptism), is that there is more joy in being Christian and that it is God’s intention, regardless.

9

Being taught in 5th grade Catholic catechism that good heathens don’t get to heaven was the first step leading me to nontheism. Of course back then we couldn’t eat a burger on Friday and limbo was still enforced (yeah, even as a kid I realized any God who sent babies to limbo was a dick too), so the rules might have changed! :wink:

10

Here’s something I’ve always wondered as an agnostic:

Is Heaven subjective? For instance, my mother passed away this right before Mother’s Day. My mother’s idea of heaven might include being together with all of her kids and her granddaughter. She and I didn’t really get along. We loved each other, but didn’t like each other.

So her idea of heaven might be in direct contradiction of mine.

So, hypothetically, if she and I are good Christians who worship God and live according to the bible, and all other factors being equal, is she denied eternal happiness because I’m not there, or am I denied it because I am?

11

There is not only one view of “the Christian heaven” as there is a range of beliefs regarding heaven among the Christian denominations.

12

Hah! Me, too, and in 5th grade. Sister Whatever did not appreciate my observation that it was not fair that babues born desd could not get into heaven. Thus began the road to a-theism. A place my lay teacher in Sophmore year of HS pointed out that I had arrived at before I even noticed. He was actually totally vool with it.

13

Based on my religious upbringing I would say that’s the wrong way of looking at it. As I recall, the point of heaven is to be in direct physical proximity to God the father. Any squabble we might have with other people would cease to have meaning in that environment.

14

If your spirit eventually reunites with your body, which body do you get? Your 25 year old one, or the one when you died? I mean, what if you died from some debilitating disease, or burned to death, or lived to be 102 - are you stuck with that body for eternity? Because that would kinda suck.

15

Paul talks about this in a passage in 1 Corinthians.
[QUOTE=Paul]
And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
…
It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.
[/QUOTE]

16

Apparently, we are changed (in the twinkle of an eye) into spiritually reborn people who only want to worship God. All personal things fall aside. There is no marriage in heaven, for instance: a husband and wife would be separate (and equal.)

Also, in heaven, our sense of compassion is said to be paralyzed, for it is said that the saints take joy in looking at the suffering of those in hell. That would require a big, big change in the minds of at least some Christians. Most of the Christians I know do not accept this particular slur upon their sense of compassion, and believe that they would feel sorrow for the suffering of those in hell.

But…that means there would have to be sorrow in heaven…

At least one Christian denomination holds you get a 33 year old body – the age Jesus was when sacrificed.

Some denominations, in the past, suggested you got your own, real body, as it was when you died. These churches were very strongly against cremation. But they envisioned people in heaven with arms missing, legs missing, drowned sailors all corrupt with seaweed, and ordinary people worm-eaten.

Much Catholic iconography suggests the Saints are in heaven with the wounds of their martyrdom. Sebastian has arrows through him, and Agatha carries her breasts around on a platter.

17

Fascinating stuff. And since no know can prove or disprove the afterlife one can conjecture pretty much anything one would like.

Ever seen the Mr. Deity series of podcasts? Always good for a chuckle as well as a deep thought or two, this particular episode is anout the relationship between Mr. Deity and Lucifer.

18

Was there not a reincarnation tradition ?

19

Alas, very true. As the chap said about the origin of evil, “The subject of an appalling quantity of barren speculation.”

By the way, DC Comics, a few decades ago, explored the notion that Hell was subjective. They depicted Hell as pretty much whatever the person sent there imagined it was going to be like. Those who anticipated lakes of fire…got lakes of fire. Those who expected quiet drawing rooms with people they couldn’t stand…got that.

(One might sneer at what a comic book publisher thinks about theology, but DC has always been a good place for exploring such ideas, as with the John Constantine: Hellblazer titles, another Lucifer title, the ground-breaking Sandman series, and so on. They really aren’t just lightweights here.)

This can’t be supported Biblically, but, yes, many Christians actually do hold with reincarnation as a model for the afterlife. The “Bridey Murphy” phenomenon was a Christian affair as much as anything else.

At very least, reincarnation can be explored scientifically: if a very young child has unexpected knowledge of subjects he or she could not possibly have learned, that’s very suggestive. Also extremely tricky, because kids are exposed to all sorts of knowledge, and retain odds and ends without any obvious reason. A little kid might have heard, say, a few words in Japanese, and, by repeating them, lead people to imagine a reincarnation scenario.

20

Do you have a citation for this view? It runs counter to everything that I have ever encountered.

I have seen claims that the saved rejoice that they are not damned.
I have seen claims that the saved mourn the loss of those who were damned.
I do not recall encountering any claim that the saved express happiness at the suffering of the damned.

Aquinas claimed that the saved could not pity the damned, because to feel pity is to share in suffering and the saved cannot feel suffering. He then went on to say that the saved rejoiced in the perfection of God’s justice. However, he did not say that they rejoiced in the actual suffering.