I was rereading a paper I wrote last year in philosphy concerning Boethius’s views on happiness. When I got to the last page, I found something that may be a somewhat pertinent to this discussion:
“I in fact favor an unstable happiness. This way, you understand what it means to be happy and how it differs from suffering. If you have a single, unwavering state of happiness, you have no frame of reference upon which to base how happy you are. Your state is then more equivalent to flat out, neutral apathy. Varying degrees of happiness won’t cut it either. A lower degree of happiness would be equivalent to a state of suffering, which disqualifies such a setup from being the pure, true happiness Boethius seeks. Thus, an unstable happiness seems, to me, to be the necessary – if popularly undesired – state of being. Variation is the cause of all growth and change; out of nothing comes nothing.”
I know this can probably be refuted with the argument of the afterlife being out of out plane of reality and all that, but that’s my input anyway.
But if this is true, this goes completely against the Christian stance that sin exists in the world precisely because God gave humankind free will. If it were possible for God to have given mankind free will and not the ability to sin, an all-loving omnipotent God surely would have done so.
tracer, Earth is meant to be a testing ground, thus the choice to sin or not to sin. If you get to heaven, you’ve passed the test, so there’s no more need for God to be testing you. True, free will to choose sin or ritcheousness is fundamental to the Christian faith, but being a Christian and having faith are Earth concepts that would cease to have meaning once one arrived in heaven.
Also, when I conjectured “removing sin from the table” of possible choices, I was thinking of the environment being so different that the sins that we know on Earth are moot. Thus, the person isn’t changed, but cannot sin because the environment doesn’t permit it.
For example:
Murder: Everlasting life makes it impossible to kill.
Adultery, Coveting anothers wife: No marriage in heaven–all souls are one with God.
Stealing, coveting another’s goods: No need for material possessions or alternatively, every material need and want met.
Honoring one’s parents: no Earth form parents or children in heaven–one father and his children.
Keeping holy the Sabbath: No days of the week in heaven.
Bearing false witness: the only judge in heaven can’t be lied to because he knows everything already.
etc. etc.
I think a Christian would disagree with you on two major points here:
(1) By characterizing Earth as a “test”, and saying that when you’ve attained heaven, you have “passed the test”, you strongly imply that people can get to heaven through their own efforts, which goes against what I’ve heard most Christians state: that Christ’s sacrifice was necessary because without his intervention, humans would be utterly unable to attain a state of sinlessness.
(2) Stating this for the umpteenth time, sin does appear to be quite possible in heaven given the traditional Christian story of Satan’s downfall. And what about the seven deadly sins? Are you arguing that the environment in Heaven yields no possible room for Pride, Envy, Anger, or Sloth? You seem to have constructed and argument surrounding an arbitrary (albeit important) list of possible sinful behavior, without considering what is the nature of sin itself. That’s rather pedantic, in my view.
I don’t know if you are a Christian, I’d be careful about the argument you’re making here: you seem to be going down the Ten Commandments and checking off each one, saying “nope, I didn’t commit adultury, nope, I didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, guess I pass the test!” I don’t say this in order to attack you. I’m just saying that in your personal, spiritual life, you might want to consider that we’re given very little room for self-congratulation.
Depends upon the Christian, I suppose. This Christian thinks this view of one possible heaven is reasonable.
And with it, humans are ultimately able to attain a state of sinlessness in heaven; thus a sinless heaven.
It is a fundamental tenet, perhaps the fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, that Christ’s sacrifice is what permits salvation. But whether good works are neccessary in addition, and the nature of such good works, is one of the main points of divergence among Christian denominations, including, but not limited to, the Catholic/Protestant divide. The view I’ve expressed about Earth being a test of faith is one shared by many, though far from all, Christians.
First this isn’t in the bible, so it is hardly canonical.
Second, if you follow that story, you find that God separated Lucifer, the source of the sin, from heaven and created Hell as a place for him to have dominion over sin. Humans in heaven are with God and separated and protected from the source of sin.
Exactly. The nature of the earth, with its limited resources and Satan having access to tempt those on Earth is what makes sin here possible. Heaven isn’t subject to these conditions.
Notice the “for example” at the top and the “etc. etc.” at the end of my list? That means that my list is not meant to be comprehensive, but a representative sample. I have neither the time nor the inclination to list every possible sin and explain a condition that would prevent its being possible.
The nature of sin is a different debate, but I would classify sin as being apart from God.
I said nothing about my personal spiritual life, self-congratulatory or otherwise. I have been speculating as to possible conditions of heaven that would make sinlessness compatable with free will. The Bible is somewhat vague on the nature of heaven, and I don’t claim to know the answers. My arguments are meant to illustrate what I think may be one possible form that heaven might take, not what I believe is the one truth about what heaven is like. You may have noticed that I also speculated that heaven might be like a Japanese movie or might include being able to wipe your memory so that you could watch your favorite movie over and over again. I don’t think that those are neccesarily the one true view of heaven either.
I didn’t read all the replies so I’m not sure if this was said yet, but here’s my opinion on if Heaven can get boring:
Heaven, where you cando anything you want provided it is not inherently “evil” (ie. if you wanted to rape someone you couldn’t in Heaven, although 'm not sure why you would want to if you made it to Heaven in the first place). So technically you can’t get bored, because you can always do what you want. If you want to be bored you can be bored, but if you don’t want to be there are trillions of things to take upyour time, everything from listening in on a lecture by Plato, praising God, partolling the edges of Heaven to protect against any possible Demons (Even Warriors goto Heaven) to occupying yourself with endless free games of laser tag. Which brings me to my next point. Everyone has their own little place in Heaven. This place can be whatever you want it to be (ala What Dreams May Come). However this is just your home where everything works your way. If you wanted to pursue in Social interactions simply refer to example one. Next is the fact that it would take a LONG time in earthly sense to get bored of Heaven. Heaven does not exist on the same plane of existence as Earth, and therefor we don’t know what the time difference is between us and them. What could pass by in a minute in Heaven could be a year on Earth. Finally, my last point is that once things get boring, you simply start making things more like Earth, you start desceding into the lower Heavens (Within which things gradually get more like Earth. (Need to get a job, things are perfect, things can screw up, certain laws of the Universe do apply, etc.)) until you either becoming interested in returning to perfection (God) or returning to Earth (Reincarnation). So, in conclusion, if you ever do get bored with Heaven, you always have one of two options: 1) Start doing whatever you want and end up the same way as all the other Selfish souls and Angels, or 2) Reincarnate and return to Earth for another go at life, maybe then you’ll realize just how “boring” paradise is.
I once went to an American embassy overseas, and the whole place reeked of stale socks. An embassy is considered the territory of the country running it, is it not? Then by your reasoning, all of America reeks of stale socks.
I assume you mean this in jest, but you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Your statement assumes that the Catholics have it right. Let’s run with that for the moment, and take it to its logical conclusion.
True believers beleive that they are in a state of being one with god during mass. This is a truly joyous feeling. Non-believers would indeed be bored by a mass, it’s just a meaningless ceremony to them. Of those two groups, only the true beleivers are going to heaven, so for the true beleivers, being in Mass for eternity would be the same as being one with God for eternity, which is a pretty good description of Christian heaven.
I was saying the same thing…but not limited to “Mass” but any church service. That is what heaven is like, eternal church. I’ll just sleep in thank you.