Humor in Heaven/New Earth?

So, we don't know THAT much about heaven and the new earth, aside from being with Jesus, being with other saints, including departed loved ones again, eternal life, and absence of sin and death. But sometimes I think of what else may or may not be there that is not sin. The most obvious being no marriage (Matthew 22:30), no seas (Revelation 21:1), and no eating meat, because there is no more death and to eat meat, an animal has to die. So if your idea of a nice day on the new earth involves a barbecue on the beach with your wife, well..

But anyway, one other thing I thought of, that I enjoy, that while not sin itself, is dependent on sinful nature, is comedy. Comedy is based on the absurdity of our condition, which is based on sin, and social commentary, which requires a social system and political system based on fallible men, not on infallible God. With no absurdities to eternal life, with no room to commentate on God's rule over heaven and new earth, what will there be to make jokes and laugh about?

A tangent on that would be fiction and storytelling. Will God allow human creativity, to create fiction, including fictional worlds and characters, fictional struggles and sin and even fictional deities or lack of deities? It's eternity. There's only so long we can go off of the same few thousand years of recorded history and factual events over and over.

Chesterton said:

Comedy's not based on absurdity, it's based on incongruity. There can still be the concept of incongruous things to laugh at in a perfect world, even if they can't or don't actually happen.

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Both incongruity and absurdity are both aspects of imperfection, and I'm not sure how either concept would apply in perfection.
Incongruity is Jesus on earth during his ministry, the most powerful being in the universe, living as a human being and restraining His power. On the new earth He's not going to be so limited (even if self limited) and humble
Absurdity can be 1 of 2 things, either a lie that's so unbelievable that it's funny, like listen to any of the "words of faith" preachers you see on TV where they say things about God being powerless to do anything on Earth unless you give Him persmission... or it can be something true, but we lack understanding of it. Someone pointed out the concept of the trinity as a source of "Godly" humor in a sense, because it's confused, 1 is 3 and 3 is 1? It seems nonsensical and we just kind of have to take it for granted because it doesn't make logical sense to us on the surface, that's why things like modalism exist, trying to make sense of something with our own limited understanding. But in Heaven, and in the New Earth, we'll understand, so it will no longer be absurd by any measure. We might try to make jokes based on the memories of our former imperfection and condition, but will they still be funny when we can no longer relate to them?

Sabertooth said:

Comedy is based on incongruities. Fiction is based on conflict & resolution. Neither is present in the absence of evil.

If they are present, at all, it will be under a new paradigm. I would really question the need for humor & escapism in a setting that is pure joy & pleasure, however.

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Humor is a form of joy, a different type of joy, I don't believe the idea that you'll be so joyous for any one thing that you'd never want smaller simpler joys as well. People like to use CS Lewis' comparison of sex vs chocolate explained to the little boy. I get that, but does sex make you never want chocolate again? God designed the sense of humor and our ability to laugh and feel joy from that. It just comes down to "what will be funny in heaven and the new earth? We won't be able to relate to a lot of what's funny to us now"
as for fiction it isn't always escapism. Some people can feel a need for escapism absolutely but sometimes you just want to read or hear or watch a good story you've never heard before. Jesus was a prolific storyteller in the bible, while a lot of the stories and parables He told were true events that happened, was every single parable only a real event that happened? I think at least some of them were stories He created as fiction in order to illustrate a concept or point so that it would make sense to us.

Sabertooth said:

I used to collect superhero comic books back when they were affordable. They were colorful and well drawn, but I cannot see any of their story lines being compatible with a sinless existence. If we go back to the standards of Eden, there may not even be money. No criminal schemes for the hero/ine to foil, etc.

If while we are ruling over angels, we run into management difficulties, there might be stories about how someone else in that position dealt with a similar problem, but I don't see that happening.

His stories included elements of sin and were told to people who are living in the midst of sin.

If there is a Heavenly analogue to humor, I'd like that (being a bit of a clown, myself), but current examples (like Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, etc.) will not play there. Even Elijah's humor [1 Kings 18:27] will have no grounds there, because false gods won't be a thing.

There still might be room for puns. (The word, manna, is supposed to be a pun on the order of Who's On First.)

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Well that's the rub with fiction. If we create fiction that has the real God as the God of the people of that story, would God not like that because we're saying in our story that He did things He didn't really do? Or would it be worse not to have God at all in that story, or to have the people clearly being in another world, another reality, where they have their own deity, or no deity at all? Put our finite history and all the real world things that happened, in the context of that being the only stories we'd be allowed to tell and read for the next several trillion years?
A lot of times I feel like people don't understand how long eternity really is and they say things like "oh I'll just be so joyous being reunited with old family I've missed and being in the presence of the Lord, I won't want anything else" and I think "sure for awhile but after who knows how long you'll be asking "so what do we do now? The Lord gave us new bodies to do something with." God's a more creative guy than to just have us falling on our faces around the throne with no other activities in mind for trillions of years. People might be that boring to imagine that's all we'll do (and enough pastors certainly treat it that way) but I don't think God who created a vast universe has an eternal plan of people doing just one thing for eternity.

Sabertooth said:

That is one of two reasons that I stopped writing amateur superhero fiction.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV

The same God who gave us that "itch" knows how to "scratch" it.

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Exactly. But some people think small and think we'll just be singing HOLY HOLY HOLY... forever. I don't know if God can get bored, but if He could, that'd be one way to accomplish that.

Chesterton said:

You could be perfect and still imagine imperfection for the sake of humor. Any basic joke like "why did the chicken cross the road" or any knock-knock joke - I think you could perceive the incongruity, absurdity or imperfection even though it's not part of your experience.

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Something stood out to me just now
Isaiah 65:17
Will we remember those things and still understand things that are funny to us now? Would God make us just forget?