The catch-22 of heaven
I work in retail and some guy came in and scattered church business cards all over the store just before closing. So as I was staying late to clean up the mess, I pondered the message of “hope” written on the cards. Why would I even want to go to heaven if nobody I like is going to be there? I guess heaven is full of people who think dumping paper all over the floor of a store at 10pm is a good idea, no thank you I’ll pass.
But then I was thinking: isn’t the whole point of heaven that everyone there is always happy? So I would be happy if I was there? So I’d be happy even though nobody I like is there? I’ll never see my friends or family again because they’re eternally burning in hell... but I’m happy anyway??!
Do I even want to be happy even if my loved ones are eternally burning in hell? Honestly no not really. That doesn’t sound good to me. I think I like having morals? Do you not have a brain when you’re in heaven? Like how does that work? But it HAS TO BE good because heaven = good all the time (heavenly in fact! Har har). Right?
I’m curious, what is the Christian response to this conundrum?
How do you resolve that problem?
Or is it not a problem for you because you only like people who will go to heaven?
I think the conundrum is rooted in a popular misconception about Christian eschatology; one that is unfortunately popularized by many Christians.
For one, "heaven" isn't what the historic Christian faith looks forward to. By "heaven" here I mean "some place up there" with the usual gilded streets, pearly gates, and all that jazz; but I also mean in the sense of spending eternity as some disembodied ghost floating about blissfully in some happy sky pie by-the-by. The Christian religion, in its Scriptures, Creeds, and historic confessions and statements of faith consistently points to our hope and belief in resurrection. Christ rose from the dead, and that is what we hope for as well. We aren't looking to escape this world into some ethereal ever-after, but rather look forward to God setting His creation right, renewing and redeeming the entirety of creation. Both the Prophet Isaiah and St. John of Patmos (the author of the Revelation) describe this by speaking of a "new heavens and a new earth".
There is certainly plenty in the Bible that could be quoted, both from the Old and New Testament, but for my purpose here I'd like to simply focus on the historically authoritative statements in the Creeds say.
The Nicene Creed reads,
"We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come."
The Apostles' Creed reads,
"We believe ... in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting."
Resurrection is at the heart of Christian hope. Death does not get the final say, life wins. Even as Jesus has been raised from the dead, so God is going to do for us the same, and indeed this victory of life extends to all creation. This ball of rock and water under our feet matters to God, every tree, every thing that crawls, creeps, walks, flies, swims, matters--God's creation matters. The entire universe matters. And the Christian Gospel is that God, in Jesus, is going about redeeming all things and making all things right. My salvation is not so that I can float away to "heaven" when I die, but that I am being healed and drawn back to God from sin and death, a reality which I receive now in faith, but hope for when Christ comes again and makes new all things.
So having put forward all of that, then we can talk about happiness and Hell.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that the thing about Hell is that "it is so very nearly nothing at all". "Hell" is a complicated concept in Christian theology, in large part because the Bible says so remarkably little about it, and also because there exists no singular, monolithic view of the subject in the history of the Church. That is to say, there really isn't such a thing as "the Christian view on Hell" so much as "the Christian
views on Hell". The Church historically has a great deal to say dogmatically about our future hope, because the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come are of central importance. But Hell has no place in the Creeds of the Church, Hell is largely this matter that exists off in the periphery of Christian theology (a point that might seem strange given just how very important it is in modern popular Christian usage). But in reality Hell simply hasn't been that important in the history of Christian theology, and its significance lay chiefly in its contrast to our hope.
Now some have said Hell is a very actual place, the anti-Heaven to the popular conception of "heaven" as that place souls go after death to float about; and Hell is that place souls go after death to get flogged by demons day in and day out for the rest of eternity.
Some have said Hell is, in fact, the absence of the Divine Presence. That if the Christian hope is to dwell in the unapproachable light of God in the age to come, then Hell is its antithesis--Hell is not location or experience so much as the absence of location and the absence of experience.
Some have said that Hell is, in truth, the very same "place" and very nearly the same experience as "heaven". The difference is not where we are, or who we are with, the difference is entirely a matter of subjective response to the same stimulus. This is the view put forward by St. Isaac who says that God's love is impartial, He loves all alike and withholds His love from none, the person in Hell is not deprived of God's love, compassion, and goodness, but just the opposite. The person in Hell is surrounded by the brilliant light of God's grace, love, and kindness--and the person in Hell finds this an unbearable torment, in the same way that a person in this life feels when they have utterly betrayed a friend. For Isaac, the agony of Hell is the agony of remorse. The fires of Hell are nothing other than the flames of God's love kindled to all His creatures.
Some have said Hell will ultimately be empty.
Some have said Hell will definitely have some.
Some have said Hell will have many.
Some have said Hell will have few.
Some have said we cannot know any of these things one way or the other.
Some say God condemns men to Hell.
Some say men condemn themselves to Hell.
And there are very many who are very certain that they know precisely which of these is absolutely true and which are absolutely not true.
But there are very many who admit that we cannot hardly be certain of any of these things. For some of us, we bank on hope, not just hope for ourselves, but hope for others, for everyone, we even hope for the very worst of the worst among us. Hoping that, at the end when all is said and done and God is "all in all" (as St. Paul says) that love really, truly, actually does win--how that all looks is anyone's guess.
-CryptoLutheran
