# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/61 "2015-10-27T05:42:00Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > If their belief is not supported by the bible then it is irrelevant. It would merely be an opinion. It may be irrelevant to _you_, but it’s apparently not irrelevant to the OP, since it’s what he asks about. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/62 "2015-10-27T05:42:35Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Dude, it’s hard to find a belief that _isn’t_ supported by the Bible, depending on how you interpret it. True. But not the point. The actual specific details about heaven in the bible are very very very limited. I think it mentions streets of gold and crowns for the particularly righteous. Other than that, it has very little to say. Odd, considering that Christians obsess over it so much. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/63 "2015-10-27T05:50:45Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > An awful lot of Christian belief is not from the Bible. That, in part, is why there are so very, very many Christian denominations, all holding very different beliefs, all happily criticizing each other (sometimes damning each other) over remarkably fine shades of doctrinal dissent. > > Aquinas is one of the most admired of the commentators, and his views are highly influential. There are few others quite as highly regarded. > > Some Christian denomination hold with “sola scriptura,” and claim that truth can only be found in the Bible. Others, including the Catholic Church, hold that there are other sources of revelation, including Papal decrees and the traditions of the Church, even if those traditions are purely man-made and have zero Biblical support. So? The bible is the word of god. The - word of god - this is specifically what the bible is, according to the definition of religion. This is what separates a religion from a philosophy. Divine sanction. Personal opinion lies in the realm of philosophy. Personal opinion is the very antithesis of religion, which is truth handed down by divine authority. Not that I think it is actually the truth. I am just saying if you are going to claim to be religious, you ought to at least stick by what you yourself claim is the source of truth. To do otherwise seems staggeringly hypocritical. > [@UDS](#): > > It may be irrelevant to _you_, but it’s apparently not irrelevant to the OP, since it’s what he asks about. It should be relevant to anyone and everyone discussing the topic. People making up their own personal belief system is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is what the bible actually says. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/64 "2015-10-27T05:51:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Well, what do you Christians believe you will feel about loved ones that don’t make it into Heaven with you? Will you still be 100% joyful? As in the case of the hypocrisy of public prayer, or giving all you have to the poor, Christians mostly ignore what the Bible says about being reunited with your spouse in heaven. When asked which man would be the husband in heaven of a woman who had been widowed multiple times, Jesus said none of them, because there is no marriage in heaven. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/65 "2015-10-27T05:55:38Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > It should be relevant to anyone and everyone discussing the topic. People making up their own personal belief system is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is what the bible actually says. The relevant answers here are the ones that address the questions raised in the OP. And the questions raised in the OP are about what Christians believe, not about what the Bible says. As already pointed out, the Bible says fairly little about heaven, and some of what it does say leaves plenty of room for elaboration. Christians have been elaborating on it pretty much since the get-go. Other Christians - possibly including yourself, I don’t know - may have little interest in those elaborations. But the OP definitely asks about them, and so answers which refer to them are certainly relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/66 "2015-10-27T05:58:32Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The relevant answers here are the ones that address the questions raised in the OP. And the questions raised in the OP are about what Christians believe, not about what the Bible says. > > As already pointed out, the Bible says fairly little about heaven, and some of what it does say leaves plenty of room for elaboration. Christians have been elaborating on it pretty much since the get-go. > > Other Christians - possibly including yourself, I don’t know - may have little interest in those elaborations. But the OP definitely asks about them, and so answers which refer to them are certainly relevant. Then the OP needs to narrow the focus of his question. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/67 "2015-10-27T07:41:33Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Then the OP needs to narrow the focus of his question. Or - here’s a thought - you could start your own thread asking the question that interests you! (But if you don’t feel the need to do this, I don’t see on what basis you can argue that other posters need to do it for you.) ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/68 "2015-10-27T07:46:48Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Or - here’s a thought - you could start your own thread asking the question that interests you! > > (But if you don’t feel the need to do this, I don’t see on what basis you can argue that other posters need to do it for you.) You have arrived at the demarcation between need and should. No one needs to agree with me. But people should agree with me if they were interested in being rigorously honest. Christians obsess over the idea of heaven and yet they can not even define it or describe it. I mean, accurately and definitively describe it. The fact that they have to spend so much time making up answers should point to the overall weakness of their religion. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/69 "2015-10-27T08:02:59Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > You have arrived at the demarcation between need and should. No one needs to agree with me . . . Except the OP, apparently, who . . . > [@Robert163](#): > > . . . **needs** to narrow the focus of his question. > [@Robert163](#): > > But people should agree with me if they were interested in being rigorously honest. Christians obsess over the idea of heaven and yet they can not even define it or describe it. I mean, accurately and definitively describe it. The fact that they have to spend so much time making up answers should point to the overall weakness of their religion. Or possibly the strength of their religion. If you think that lack of certitude is a weakness then, yes, Christianity suffers from that weakness (though, God knows, there are quite a few individual Christians who overcompensate for that weakness). Myself, I think that lack of certitude about things you can’t be certain of is actually a virtue. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/70 "2015-10-27T08:12:03Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Except the OP, apparently, who . . . > > Or possibly the strength of their religion. > > If you think that lack of certitude is a weakness then, yes, Christianity suffers from that weakness (though, God knows, there are quite a few individual Christians who overcompensate for that weakness). > > Myself, I think that lack of certitude about things you can’t be certain of is actually a virtue. How is pretending to be certain about something you actually know nothing about anything but a weakness? I am sure if you are lost in the wilderness pretending that the route you are traveling will lead you to civilization is comforting. Many other similar examples will apply. But we are not lost in the wilderness. We have telescopes and microscopes and math and science. We are - not - lost in an intellectual wilderness of ignorance the way people were 2000 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/71 "2015-10-27T08:39:07Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > How is pretending to be certain about something you actually know nothing about anything but a weakness? That’s my point. The fact that Christians have produced such a diversity of speculations about heaven indicates pretty much the opposite of certitude, wouldn’t you say? Most of the participants in this thread who have commented on the ideas of Aquinas have indicated that they disagree with them. Others have pointed to different ideas offered by different Christian commentators, while still others have pointed to different conceptions of the afterlife held by different Christian traditions. That kind of diversity is pretty much the opposite of certitude, I would have said. Obviously there are individual Christians who seek after certitude, sometimes with obvious desperation. But the Christian tradition as a whole is a pretty good exemplification of diversity on this point. That’s a strength of Christianity, not a weakness. And of course the OP’s question was framed in terms which bring out this diversity. A question about what the Bible says about heaven would get much narrower answers. Plus, it would belong in General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/72 "2015-10-27T08:53:27Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > That’s my point. The fact that Christians have produced such a diversity of speculations about heaven indicates pretty much the opposite of certitude, wouldn’t you say? Most of the participants in this thread who have commented on the ideas of Aquinas have indicated that they disagree with them. Others have pointed to different ideas offered by different Christian commentators, while still others have pointed to different conceptions of the afterlife held by different Christian traditions. That kind of diversity is pretty much the opposite of certitude, I would have said. > > Obviously there are individual Christians who seek after certitude, sometimes with obvious desperation. But the Christian tradition as a whole is a pretty good exemplification of diversity on this point. That’s a strength of Christianity, not a weakness. > > And of course the OP’s question was framed in terms which bring out this diversity. A question about what the Bible says about heaven would get much narrower answers. Plus, it would belong in General Questions. No, the fact that that there is no consensus is not a strength. It is an indicator that their beliefs are false. Competing opinions and nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/73 "2015-10-27T09:02:15Z")
> [@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). I understand him the exact opposite way that you do. It seems to me that he is takes the argument\* “the blessed do not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked.\*” and then proceeds to explain why the argument is wrong. Even in the passage you quote, you seem to have missed an important part "the punishment of the damned will cause [joy] indirectly. " ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/74 "2015-10-27T09:19:52Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > How is pretending to be certain about something you actually know nothing about anything but a weakness? > [@Robert163](#): > > No, the fact that that there is no consensus is not a strength. So if Christianity offers a single, clear view on a topic, that’s a weakness? And if it offers a diversity of perspectives on the same topic, that’s also a weakness? Right, so. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/75 "2015-10-27T09:30:56Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > So if Christianity offers a single, clear view on a topic, that’s a weakness? And if it offers a diversity of perspectives on the same topic, that’s also a weakness? > > Right, so. :rolleyes: The vast majority of christians pray for gods guidance. Yet they come back with a multitude of conflicting answers. This leaves one of two possibilities: 1- the god they are praying too does not exist 2- the god they are praying too is capricious and malicious and likes sewing seeds of confusion and dissent among his followers ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/76 "2015-10-27T09:41:05Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > The vast majority of christians pray for gods guidance. Yet they come back with a multitude of conflicting answers. This leaves one of two possibilities: > > 1- the god they are praying too does not exist > 2- the god they are praying too is capricious and malicious and likes sewing seeds of confusion and dissent among his followers There are no other possibilities? Seriously? You’re not well positioned to criticise _others_ for chasing certitude, Robert! ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/77 "2015-10-27T10:42:06Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > There are no other possibilities? Seriously? For a generic god, there might be a lot of other explanations. But for the Christian god, in light of Jesus’ promise that believers will get anything they pray for, no matter how stupid or petty it is (going out of his way to give the examples of killing a fig tree for not having fruit out of season, or casting a mountain into the sea), about the only other explanation I can see is that God lost his powers shortly after Jesus made that promise. Certainly before the Black Death ravaged Europe, with all of Christendom praying for relief, and yet dying at the same rate as the Jews, Muslims, and pagans. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/78 "2015-10-27T10:43:47Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > There are no other possibilities? None that seem logical. Can you think of any? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/79 "2015-10-27T10:51:14Z")
[Try this one.](http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/poetry/blind_men.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/80 "2015-10-27T10:54:50Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > [Try this one.](http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/poetry/blind_men.htm) that does not fit the christian narrative the bible says, specifically, it promises, that if you pray to god he will reveal himself to you so your analogy is completely wrong to this application for a generic definition of god, it works but not for the god of the bible [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643.md?page=5)