Provided the harmful effects of the fat and sugar are magically eliminated, sign me up.
ETA: I also note that since a dish of ice cream that exists is superior to one that does not exist, it follows that the perfect dish of ice cream exists.
This view is definitely held by some, and there are some Bible verses that suggest it. Death is but a sleep, until we are called up from our graves on Judgement Day.
There would seem to be some exceptions: a number of Old Testament Prophets were carried up to Heaven bodily, and Jesus promised the Good Thief that he would be with him in Heaven “today.”
Other Christian denominations teach that the Good are received in Heaven immediately – there is no need for Judgement on J.D. because they’re already saved, spared, and judged favorably. This is the view of those ministers who say to bereaved families, “Don’t worry; your aunt is in Heaven now.”
Christian doctrines span a VERY wide envelope of interpretations. Any viewpoint that one can take (and some one can’t!) is held by some group or other.
I think the novelty might wear off after the first couple of centuries. Or days. Or hours.
I see. So on the one hand you ask how it even makes sense, acknowledging that you don’t understand what Aquinas meant. On the other hand, you’re trying to tell me what he meant. If you don’t understand what he said, perhaps you ought to refrain from telling me what he said.
Aquinas lived eight centuries ago in a social environment very different from our own. He wrote in medieval church Latin rather than English, to and for an audience whose religious, philosophical, and cultural assumptions were very different from our own. Understanding what he meant poses considerable difficulty even to those who are well-educated in the relevant fields, doubly so to those not educated in those fields. Thus it would seem wise to approach the topic with awareness to these barriers to understanding, rather than making wisecracks.
Consider, analogously, our President orders drone strikes in certain Arab countries, which have killed and injured thousands of people. Do he and others involved in those drone strikes derive happiness directly from the fact that people are being killed? Do they derive happiness indirectly from the completion of a military campaign that they view as serving a good purpose, even if they don’t get happiness directly from the killing?
Are we told that he rejoices in it?
That’s the dead giveaway in what Aquinas said: the Saints “rejoice” in the sight of sinners.
Say you’re on the freeway, and you see another car get in a crash. Do you “rejoice” that you weren’t hurt? No moral person would. A moral person can feel relief, and he might grateful. A good person will feel some sympathy – “That poor bastard; I hope he’s going to be okay.” But he won’t “rejoice.”
Well, remember, the theory involves supernatural and miraculous attributes. The novelty never “wears off,” because it can be miraculously multiplied, like loaves and fishes, and splinters of the True Cross.
The joy never palls, because God is directly stimulating your pleasure centers. Or just radiating “perfect absolute Good” whatever the screw that means.
The fact that this necessarily entails the eradication of any of our existing human values is a small price to pay.
(One might just as well be absorbed by Azathoth. But, then, if Azathoth wanted to, he could probably make the experience totally pleasurable.)
I don’t like, don’t agree with, and don’t want to defend Aquinas’s statement, but as I understand it, at least he believed the sinners fully deserved their suffering. So the freeway analogy would probably work better if the driver who crashed was one you had seen just a minute ago barreling down the highway at 120 mph with a cell phone in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other.
A decent human would still mourn.
I explained what it meant to me, and why I fail to see how that makes it any more right or sensible, one truly has to be in an altered state in Aquinas world, nothing that would apply in our present state. Not sure how one could argue otherwise. So don’t think your analogy is a good comparison. Article three has Aquinas arguing that since indirectly Divine justice has got annexed to it, the saints may rejoice in the punished of the wicked. If it wasn’t for that, they would not be allowed to rejoice. But his last sentence in that article of I answer that also says the Divine justice and their own deliverance can be the direct cause of the joy, while punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly as well.
I suppose my wisecrack you are referring to was when I referred to fun times, indeed, when Aquinas said this: 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.
American soldiers are not expressing the same happiness and more delight giving copious thanks to God to see the suffering of their enemies, are they? Although I’m sure there are some exceptions coming from certain religious fanatics, but still would find it hard to compare it to the the eternal suffering of the damned in Aquinas world. And surely many American soldiers have many moments where they have pity and compassion for their enemy, they would hardly be human if they didn’t, but at the same time still know what their job entails. But compare this to what Aquinas says; they are not going to have pity on the damned, it will be this pitiful and compassionless state forever.
However, it might be more appropriate to substitute many of the ISIS soldiers in your analogy, seems like they give lots of thanks to their God for the suffering of their enemies, so maybe they will be in your heaven, and will give you something you can look forward to.
The first and second half of your statement seem to contradict one another
Czarcasm has the right of it. Schadenfreude doesn’t go so far as to allow me to rejoice at someone’s dire physical suffering. I might get a grin if a bad driver dinged his fender, but not if he’s got broken vertebrae.
Of course, this only goes to point out the disproportionate evil of the concept of Hell. People who have done finite ill should not be punished infinitely and forever.
Not too long ago, I was listening to a Bible radio show, and the preacher was talking about how hideous Hell was. He went on and on about how grisly, how awful, how sick and twisted the torments were. He emphasized, (quote only approximate from memory) “No matter how ugly, how sick, how nasty, a torture you can think of, in Hell it is worse. The sickest and most diseased human mind cannot think of a fraction of the loathesome tortures of Hell.”
The poor preacher didn’t realize the implications of what he said: God has a sick and diseased mind, for inventing Hell’s tortures.
The sufferings of Hell would be the measure of God’s failure to embody perfection.
No, Aquinas did not say “rejoice”. As already pointed out, he wrote in Latin, and that’s an English word. A translator chose the word “rejoice”, but there are always shades of meaning that can be lost in translation.
Why should anyone care what Aquinas did or did not day about heaven? He was commenting on the bible, he was not one of it’s authors.
I tried to open up an intellectual discussion on the meaning of what Aquinas wrote in the context of the cultural and philosophical environment that he lived, assuming that you would be interested in an intellectual discussion. Since you’re instead doubling down with more nasty remarks and sarcasm, I won’t bother.
Why should we care what Aquinas had to say? He is not an author of the bible.
The OP doesn’t ask what the bible says. It asks what Christians believe.
If their belief is not supported by the bible then it is irrelevant. It would merely be an opinion.
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?
Dude, it’s hard to find a belief that isn’t supported by the Bible, depending on how you interpret it.
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.