# A few questions about the Christian heaven **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 24, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643 "2015-10-24T17:26:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/21 "2015-10-26T00:47:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 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. All I have is the Aquinas, where he says that the Saints will “rejoice” and that they will do this while observing the damned. The statement, as it reads, goes beyond them merely rejoicing that they aren’t damned: they certainly seem, in this text, to be celebrating the conditions of all concerned. (You’re the first person I’ve ever met who holds otherwise!) The implication that they cannot pity the damned, by itself, requires a change in the mind-set of the blessed. As I noted, a good number of Christians find this difficult to accept. The power of compassion would have to be paralyzed, and that is a falling away from the good. ETA: when Googling this, the first cite I found refers to the “Delight of the Saints in the Suffering of the Damned.” Delight in someone else’s suffering, specifically, is the only way I can figure to read that phrase. If I saw someone else suffering, I might be relieved, but I sure as hell (!) would not be delighted. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/22 "2015-10-26T01:29:55Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > All I have is the Aquinas, where he says that the Saints will “rejoice” and that they will do this while observing the damned. The statement, as it reads, goes beyond them merely rejoicing that they aren’t damned: they certainly seem, in this text, to be celebrating the conditions of all concerned. There’s a few quotes from Aquinas that express celebration of those burning in hell IIRC, can’t remember the exact quotes that express these sentiments at the moment, but also there are other earlier church fathers that do the same, especially Tertullian who writes an entire chapter in _De Spectulatus_ Chapter 30 to be precise, carrying on how much of a kick he gets of seeing sinners burning in hell. If others are interested, and nobody else has dug up the quotes, I’ll find them tomorrow when I get the time. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/23 "2015-10-26T01:39:04Z")
I got lucky and found this poster on a Catholic Answers forum that already digs up Tertullian, Aquinas and quite a few others along with the sources: > **[Catholic Answers](https://www.catholic.com)** > > Search the world's largest database of answers about the beliefs and practices of the Catholic faith. Learn more about Catholicism through articles, books, videos and more. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/24 "2015-10-26T02:04:11Z")
**razncain** : Thank’ee most kindly for those quotes. I’m still pretty sure there’s only one way to read the Aquinas, but these others bolster the view pretty strongly. Anyway…these are only one particular viewpoint, and I want to re-emphasize that there are a good many Christians who don’t envision themselves taking any kind of glee at the suffering of those in Hell. The ones I’ve talked to believe that there will be compassion, even in Heaven, and that Heaven could not be “perfect” without it. I only brought it up as one view that is out there. (A fair number of Christians are “universalists,” who hold there is no suffering at all, because Hell is empty. Also, there is “annihilationism” which holds that, yes, there is a brief period of suffering, a shameful judgement of damnation, when the souls in Hell are destroyed completely. But there is no suffering after that.) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/25 "2015-10-26T02:15:57Z")
Here is the direct Aquinas quotation from the _Summa Theologica_: > **[SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The relations of the saints towards the damned...](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5094.htm)** > > Do the saints see the sufferings of the damned? Do they pity them? Do they rejoice in their sufferings? I do not seem to read it the same way that you do: > [@](#): > > I answer that, A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: **and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked**. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly. but my only point was that I had never encountered that interpretation, (possibly because the interpretations I have encountered focused on the bolded text). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/26 "2015-10-26T02:27:57Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > I got lucky and found this poster on a Catholic Answers forum that already digs up Tertullian, Aquinas and quite a few others along with the sources: > > [Catholic Faith, Beliefs, & Prayers | Catholic Answers](http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=215315&page=2) Interesting. I had not encountered that thought, before. It comes from a pretty wide variety of denominations, too. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/27 "2015-10-26T02:42:10Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > All I have is the Aquinas, where he says that the Saints will “rejoice” and that they will do this while observing the damned. The statement, as it reads, goes beyond them merely rejoicing that they aren’t damned: they certainly seem, in this text, to be celebrating the conditions of all concerned. > > (You’re the first person I’ve ever met who holds otherwise!) > > The implication that they cannot pity the damned, by itself, requires a change in the mind-set of the blessed. As I noted, a good number of Christians find this difficult to accept. The power of compassion would have to be paralyzed, and that is a falling away from the good. > > ETA: when Googling this, the first cite I found refers to the “Delight of the Saints in the Suffering of the Damned.” Delight in someone else’s suffering, specifically, is the only way I can figure to read that phrase. If I saw someone else suffering, I might be relieved, but I sure as hell (!) would not be delighted. The saints sound like a bunch of cold-hearted bastards. Or even worse, no brained automatons. Who would want to be a part of that? Also, all these authoritative visions of the afterlife were written by people who were quite alive when they wrote them. No one who has actually been “there” gets to write about it, because they’re dead. Even JC said precious little on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/28 "2015-10-26T03:46:06Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > . . . but my only point was that I had never encountered that interpretation, (possibly because the interpretations I have encountered focused on the bolded text). I blundered in using the phrase “holds otherwise,” and apologize for it; you weren’t “holding” anything, just asking for a cite. All part of the incredibly wide variety of what people believe about heaven. (I sometimes wonder about the Twelve Gates of Heaven, each made from a single pearl. Did God actually create giant oysters to produce the giant pearls, or did he cut out the middle-oyster and just create the pearls de novo? Do the pearls have the appearance of having grown in an oyster’s mantle? Did God create the pearls as spheres, and then carve them, or did he create the gates in their final form? These are questions I think I will never learn the answers to…) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/29 "2015-10-26T03:51:29Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > The saints sound like a bunch of cold-hearted bastards. Or even worse, no brained automatons. Who would want to be a part of that? We certainly wouldn’t be “us” anymore. Take away compassion, and whatever is left is, to that degree, less admirable. They simply cannot be describing a perfect place, but a place that is less than perfect by the loss of an attribute of good. > [@](#): > > Also, all these authoritative visions of the afterlife were written by people who were quite alive when they wrote them. No one who has actually been “there” gets to write about it, because they’re dead. Even JC said precious little on the subject. Worse, according to some interpretations of the “jot and tittle” clause, they’re committing the sin of adding to scripture, making declarations about God and Heaven outside of the proper channels of revelation. According to at least some theologians, the Bible is closed, and no further revelations are given. The appearances of Mary to children in a field? Diabolical. The personal dialogue some Christians have with Jesus? Wicked deception. Anything Aquinas or Calvin said, claiming divine inspiration? Demonic. (Hastening to add that some other theologians accept latter-day revelations…) ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/30 "2015-10-26T04:08:40Z")
1. I don’t think Calvin or Aquinas claimed divine inspiration, did they? 2. Of course scripture (1 Cor 2:9, quoting Is 64:3) suggests that we don’t know, and can’t know, much about the destiny to which we are called (except that it’s very, very good, naturally). And Calvin and Aquinas and everyone mentioned in the link would be well aware of this. So I think most Christian writing about heaven in any kind of detail need to be understood as either allegorical/figurative, or speculative, or both. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/31 "2015-10-26T05:09:23Z")
Wish I still had my copy of **The Book of Merlin** , by T.H. White, but I’ll have to paraphrase the serpent, who said, if human beings had any concept of how long eternity lasts, they wouldn’t be so likely to talk such rot about “eternal” rewards and punishments as though they were two different things. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/32 "2015-10-26T06:00:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Here is the direct Aquinas quotation from the _Summa Theologica_: > [SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The relations of the saints towards the damned (Supplementum, Q. 94)](http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5094.htm) > > I do not seem to read it the same way that you do: > > but my only point was that I had never encountered that interpretation, (possibly because the interpretations I have encountered focused on the bolded text). Thank you for posting both the quote and the link to the relevant passages of the Summa. I’d seen the claim numerous times that Aquinas said that the saints will rejoice at the suffering of the damned, including from Richard Dawkins if I recall correctly. Reading what Aquinas wrote on the matter fully makes it clear that it’s not a fair representation of what Aquinas actually said. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/33 "2015-10-26T06:21:37Z")
Fascinating. What Aquinas actually said is not a fair representation of what Aquinas actually said. Jesuit level causistry? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/34 "2015-10-26T07:05:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Fascinating. What Aquinas actually said is not a fair representation of what Aquinas actually said. > > Jesuit level causistry? No, no. The claim that ITR Champion has seen numerous times (“Aquinas said that the saints will rejoice at the suffering of the damned”) is not a fair representation of what Aquinas actually said. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/35 "2015-10-26T12:38:22Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’d seen the claim numerous times that Aquinas said that the saints will rejoice at the suffering of the damned, including from Richard Dawkins if I recall correctly. Reading what Aquinas wrote on the matter fully makes it clear that it’s not a fair representation of what Aquinas actually said. I’m glad you find it clear, perhaps now you can tell us in your own words why. You took time to read question 94 in its entirety, correct? Supposedly, in this future altered state it will be humanly possible for saints to not rejoice directly, but indirectly by being annexed in the way Aquinas addressed it in the third article. How does that make it any better or even make any sense? And in the other two articles that precede that starting with the first article (bolding mine) addressing whether the blessed in heaven see the suffering of the damned, he specifically says this about the saints happiness of seeing the damned: > [@](#): > > I answer that, Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude. Now everything is known the more for being compared with its contrary, because when contraries are placed beside one another they become more conspicuous. **Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.** Ah, fun times, indeed. The second article addresses whether or not their future state will have any pity on the damned: > [@](#): > > I answer that, Mercy or compassion may be in a person in two ways: first by way of passion, secondly by way of choice. In the blessed there will be no passion in the lower powers except as a result of the reason’s choice. Hence compassion or mercy will not be in them, except by the choice of reason. Now mercy or compassion comes of the reason’s choice when a person wishes another’s evil to be dispelled: wherefore in those things which, in accordance with reason, we do not wish to be dispelled, we have no such compassion. But so long as sinners are in this world they are in such a state that without prejudice to the Divine justice they can be taken away from a state of unhappiness and sin to a state of happiness. Consequently it is possible to have compassion on them both by the choice of the will–in which sense God, the angels and the blessed are said to pity them by desiring their salvation–and by passion, in which way they are pitied by the good men who are in the state of wayfarers. **But in the future state it will be impossible for them to be taken away from their unhappiness: and consequently it will not be possible to pity their sufferings according to right reason. Therefore the blessed in glory will have no pity on the damned.** Seems like a future altered state to me. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/36 "2015-10-26T14:26:50Z")
Personally, I would decline to be thus “blessed”. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/37 "2015-10-26T15:20:26Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > 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? As others have said, it’s difficult to say what most Christians believe, because there’s many interpretations of what heaven is and how it all works. At least based on how I was raised, it seems to me that the idea of “good people go straight to heaven” is an over-simplification mostly used in Sunday school, and it got more complicated as I got older. Though, there are some denominations that certainly believe that. There’s obviously the whole Catholic idea of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. And another one I’m familiar with is the idea of Sheol where the dead go to wait (some say with awareness, others not) and then everyone gets judged on judgment day and either go to heaven or hell (or some variant of the concept of hell, whether it’s torture, separation from God, or annihilation). > [@](#): > > 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! This also depends. Some denominations of Christians say salvation can be granted by deeds, some say by grace alone. Even in those, there’s variations. So, for those who argue that deeds are enough, then they might believe that a Muslim or Hindu or even atheist might make it into heaven, even if they believe the “wrong” thing. For those who believe in grace, it is as simple as saying and/or doing the right things. So this is where some might believe someone could live a wicked life, but if they honestly repent and accept Jesus on their deathbed, then they’re still good, but if you miss that chance, you screwed. I was raised with the idea that it was grace alone, but basically everyone still got a second chance at judgment to accept the grace of God, which would also help account for the people who never heard of Jesus or followed the wrong religion or whatever. So, in that way, it was really only the truly wicked who rejected God directly to his face that would experience hell. I’m sure there’s plenty of other variations on this theme. > [@Superdude](#): > > 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? The way I’ve always understood it is that heaven is proximity to God, which is the purest form of joy. All of our conceptions of heaven like being around loved ones and such is just us projecting what that might be like. After all, the whole idea is that we don’t really have corporeal forms in the same sense that we do now, so we can’t even comprehend what that existence might be like. I know there’s other versions of what heaven might be like, but I’m less familiar with those. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/38 "2015-10-26T16:22:41Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > The way I’ve always understood it is that heaven is proximity to God, which is the purest form of joy. Imagine having the perfect dish of ice cream. All day. Every day. For every meal. For all eternity. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/39 "2015-10-26T16:25:57Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Imagine having the perfect dish of ice cream. All day. Every day. For every meal. For all eternity. “Hell might be perpetual without being eternal: i.e. might really be what some suppose Heaven to be—endless succession. It is almost too horrid, tho’, even for Hell.” -C. S. Lewis ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/40 "2015-10-26T16:49:13Z")
I went to Catholic school and we were taught when you die, it’s lights out, you’re unconscious, until judgement day. I have not heard this anywhere since, and perhaps I misunderstood what they were saying, but it seems one the cleaner conceptions of judgement day – we all get judged at the same time, and no-one’s in heaven before that. (fyi I’m an atheist, but sometimes enjoy theologizing, or whatever it’s called) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643.md?page=3)