As I was finishing the last post, I reflected that the topic of heaven rarely comes up in discussion, even at church. And, that’s kind of surprising. One would think that, at least in most churches, it would be a regular theme. But it’s not, other than a kind of acknowledgment that it exists and some casual toss off that believers hold the admission ticket. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a conversation in casual settings about heaven. My quick conclusion to all of this is that the topic is so convoluted, most people don’t know where to begin. Granted, the empirical evidence is rather scanty which makes things difficult. On the other hand, the consequences of it being true or not are certainly significant. Which, to me, tips the scales towards being worthy of thought and discussion.

With this post, I’d like to go a bit deeper. But, first, we need to get a few things out of the way.

At the risk of being repetitive, we need to remember that some people (including readers of these reflections) are either resistant to a belief in a personal God or are open to the possibility but not yet convinced. When we raise the idea that there is a creative force outside of our own human reality, a whole lot changes. If we are all merely particles and chemistry, governed by the laws of physics, then there can be no external creative force. Which makes the idea of heaven impossible. So, I need to move beyond that, here, and jump to the assumption that there is supernatural creative force.

(I encourage everyone to watch one or both of Tim Keller’s talks to his audiences at Google, linked several posts ago. Whether you tend to agree with him, disagree, or just don’t know, his reasoning is not easily dismissed.)

And, to review further, I’ve chosen four categories by which we can lump those mainstream beliefs on where we are in an afterlife. (1) Immersion of the human limited-self into the One True-Self, (2) A pleasant location automatically including all dead humans in some form or other, (3) A pleasant location including those dead humans who have earned admission and, (4) A pleasant location including those dead humans who have received admission via grace. The latter two possibilities have to answer what happens to dead humans who don’t receive admission.

What we can call eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism in their many forms, among others) and New Age religions (I’m not going there right now) tend to fall into either or both of the first two. The three great monotheistic religions generally fall into the latter two although there’s some bleed over into the second one on a smaller scale. (Please forgive the gross generalities. I know that there are many variations on these categories.)

While everyone is welcome to his or her opinion and free to justify that opinion on whatever basis they choose, I’ve already stated that I fall into the fourth camp. I find it the only alternative that makes sense. Of course, as a Jesus follower, I draw a lot of my reasoning from his very clear teaching; teaching that I find highly reasonable and consistent with reality. In the west, I have a lot of company. To a point.

You see, I believe in a personal God (meaning a God who knows me and with whom I can have an actual relationship). I believe that God existed before time and space (which is a very difficult thing to comprehend) and that he is the source of all we know that exists. In other words, he is the Creator. Also, as difficult as this is to comprehend, I believe that things didn’t work out the way he’d hoped (this has to do with the nature of Free Will and Love) and that mankind’s main problem (theologically referred to as the Fall) has to do with our unwillingness to let God be God and behave accordingly. I believe Jesus intervened in order to Redeem us from this sad state of affairs and that, ultimately, creation will be Restored to it’s originally intended form. (I recognize that the atheist or skeptic will probably find all of this off-putting. I know I did.) This constitutes the four fundamental pillars of the Christian story of reality: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. In a very general sense, this means that God had a beautiful plan that went awry because he inserted free will into the situation and we made/make poor choices. Jesus arrived to save creation, that will eventually be restored. If you grasp that, you’re on your way to becoming a true theologian!

And, so I believe that this thing we now call heaven is actually the place of restored creation. It is not some ethereal state where we are disembodied spirits. It is not some place where we twiddle our thumbs through eternity. It is a place of indescribable beauty and vibrancy. It is a place where all that is good and possible in God’s perfect creation comes to life. I believe it is a place (or places) where to be made in the “image” of God is completely manifest. No, we are not God, nor shall we seek to be as that’s been the central problem. There will be no room for that in heaven.

With a good deal to support this contention, I believe we will (ultimately) have new bodies that are only vaguely similar to the ones we have now. We must remember that to be made in the image of God means that we will continue with our innate nature to be creative, ourselves. I think about this and I can’t get all that far because, honestly, I am so limited by the constraints of this world. I believe the greatest joy we’ve ever experienced will be as a speck against the least of the joys in that heavenly place. In similar fashion (and drawing from C.S. Lewis), all of fear, anger, spite, grief and the corruption we know will be infinitesimally small as against the reality of that place. We will know God fully and gladly and, as such, rejoice.

Of course, this raises far more questions than answers but that doesn’t diminish the strength of the argument that this scenario, indeed, is the correct one. No, it does not prove it but I will set it up against all others as the most probable. Others are free to present their alternatives and I will gladly listen. “I don’t know,” is an honest answer but not sufficient when it comes to trying to poke holes in things presented by others. The honest approach is to try to figure out what it actually is that we believe and why. From there, consider what questions are raised and what possible solutions are the most probable.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had brief glimpses of heaven, maybe three or four all told. Just wisps, mind you, but completely stunning nonetheless. The skeptic would say that these were just mind games, altered states as a projection of some deep need or desire. It is hard to argue against that logic, especially with someone who does not believe in God or a place like heaven. Pretty close to a dead end. Except, in none of those experiences was I seeking such transcendence. They arrived unbidden but, in retrospect, perfectly timed. I would have been hard pressed to conjure up the full context of why, how, and what happened. I have shared those experiences with others and they serve to give me a small window into an eternal reality that awaits. I have all sorts of images in my mind of what it could be like. Now, that would be an interesting discussion!

As much as this kind of thinking can be enticing, we need to call attention to two important things.

One is the notion of justice and the other is the nature of choice.

If God cares about us, then justice is real. He cannot be a loving God without being a just God. No loving parent exercises parenthood without exercising justice. To love is to “will the good of another.” (Dallas Willard) To will the good of another means to assist with movement away from bad. Of course, there can be no good without non-good, if we insist on splitting hairs. And, there can be no justice without a discerning and acting judgment. Yes, actions have consequences both in this life and the next one. (Try living in a reality that doesn’t believe this for even the tiniest bit if time.) As the one prayer taught by Jesus says, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Unless you’re thinking of a different kind of God, his will is to be loving and just. This has implications for heaven that we’ve already touched upon.

I said before that I believe that there is a heaven and it is accessible only through grace. Of course, good works are a natural expression from one who has received grace. The key to grace, simply, is surrender upon the recognition that we are not capable of achieving the thing without help. The loving response to such surrender is grace, especially if it involves a contrite heart that admits frailty and is genuinely remorseful. A truly loving parent cannot respond differently. This admission cannot be perfunctory but deep and raw and without conditions. Grace is the great equalizer, a truly astonishing feature of the overarching reality. It levels the scales of justice. Without grace, justice can only be achieved through other means, which is just another way of saying the imposition of corrective or punitive measures. We know this to be true. While we (or God) are perfectly free to dispense grace without receiving surrender and repentance, certainly these actions are closely tied together. A hardened heart, proud and lacking in contrition, indicates a desire to continue the broken relationship. God’s grace is freely available but in the final telling, we are the ones to unlock and open the door when he comes knocking.

And that brings us from the notion of justice to the nature of choice. After all, we are free to choose.

For the longest time, I resisted choice because that meant I had to give up autonomy and plant my flag somewhere. I felt no compulsion to try to arrive at actual conclusions. Sort of like, “what happens, happens.” This, of course, is a choice. Another way to put it, is that in the kind of passive effort to avoid choosing, we are avoiding dealing with reality. We can tell ourselves that there are just too many options. Too many variables that plain make it impossible to be sure. There is certainly a ring of truth in that. However, when you think about it, there’s not a whole lot to life that we can be absolutely, unequivocally, sure about. Life is, instead, about comparing probabilities and we do this constantly, especially when the stakes are high (note how we opt for insurance, some of which we will never use).

All of this brings us back to Jesus, that enigma to many. If he did not exist or if he was terribly misguided … or if he was purposefully deceitful … or if he was completely misunderstood … or if there was a deep conspiracy by his ragtag group of followers who mourned his passing, then he can readily be dismissed. But, if he is to be believed after we take the time to investigate his life and what he said, then therein lies the dilemma. Again, it’s all about choices. Jesus flatly says that not all will have eternal life (with him). Many people, in a sense, will choose another alternative and he says we are free to choose.

I believe heaven is heaven because of who created it and who resides there. To me, its probability best matches the facts of life and reality as I see them. Eternal life there is not a fait accompli. Love is a choice as is salvation. That undoubtedly rubs the modern sensibility wrong. And part of the reason for that is the current moral relativism that sees ultimate justice as inconsistent with individual rights through a lens that worships equality (equivalence) in all things.

I have been admonished, “By what right do you have to tell me that my beliefs are wrong?” My answer is, “By the same right that you have to tell me I shouldn’t say that.”

We can’t all be right. Yes, I believe we are eternal beings and that there is a life after this one. I believe that the thing we call “heaven” is real and attainable, although not by everyone. I believe that an eternity apart from that heaven would be hellish and we have a small glimpse of what that might be like by looking around us all of the time.

I do not choose to follow Jesus because he promises me heaven. When I made that choice, such a possibility was far from my mind. I chose to follow him for many other reasons but not that one. When, an instant after I made my choice, the gates of heaven opened up for me to glimpse, I discovered the connection. Not all who make that choice, receive that impression. However, all who make that choice will experience the real deal. The essence of reality lies in the balance of Love, Grace, Truth and Justice, in other words, God. We now know what God is like, what he values, what he teaches and what he requires. After all, we have Jesus. Heaven is what awaits us when we accept that reality. I purposefully will not get into many of the finer points of all of this, now … such as what happens to people who’ve never heard of Jesus or is hell for real?

Although this is getting to be quite long, I need to circle back to one of the main questions asked by both believers and skeptics. And that is, when and on what basis is the decision made for admission to this eternal paradise? Many Christians stand firmly on the belief that the opportunity for surrender is open until death. Then the door closes. Others see it differently, believing that God in his loving nature is all for second chances. In other words, death might be followed by some other process by which admission may ultimately be granted. This is a big sticky point and is one reason some people are turned off by the common Christian teaching. They argue that this isn’t “fair.” While I affirm the point, I must object that neither life nor reality are fair. And, neither is God. He’s not about fairness. He’s about love and justice.

I wish I was more wise in the way of things and I humbly admit that I don’t know exactly how all of this works. Instead, I look for all sorts of clues on which to hang my hat. I’ll bluntly state my thinking on this issue, here, and I appreciate that some will find it unattractive.

I subscribe to the truth contained in several verses that “every knee shall bow.” The writers are referring to our relationship with God, as he exists through Jesus. I read this both figuratively and literally. In the first sense, it is the recognition that we are not in charge and that we are completely humbled by God. To have a different posture is to deny the reality of who he is and who we are and that means that heaven is not a place for us. We are presented with a different door to walk through, whatever that might be. In the second sense, it is the realization that we will come face to face with God (Jesus) and that we will have an opportunity to actually demonstrate our realization. To some of us, that happens in this life. I believe that all will have that opportunity. In my picture of this, it’s possible that there will be a moment after death when Jesus asks something to the effect, “Do you recognize me and want to live with me at the center of your eternal existence?” As I mentioned, many Christians will say that the shelf life of this question expires with our last breath. I’m not so sure. I’m far more sure of the question than the timing.

In conclusion, I’ve tried to lay out my thinking on the subject of heaven in these past two posts. With what I know, I believe them to be accurate, although only in a limited sense. I encourage everyone to examine the topic and come up with your own set of beliefs, including the values and details that support those beliefs. Perhaps you believe that there is no God or that the essence of God is other than Love, Grace, Truth and Justice. Do our choices in this life matter when it comes to the next one? I guess we’ll find out.