Questions For Christians: Heaven

First, the usual disclaimer: the purpose of these posts is to pose questions to Christians who come here (or go anywhere, for that matter) with the intent of converting us to Christianity, but also with an open mind about their own faith. My ultimate goal in asking these questions is to have you deconvert from Christianity. If you are not open to at least the possibility of that happening, then I suggest you not respond to these questions, as that will be a waste of your time and our bandwidth. At the same time, I am open to the possibility of learning a thing or two about Christianity along the way -- but if you plan to post a comment with the intention of deliberately being a teacher, instead of a learner, then please don't bother. These questions are for your benefit.

Today's questions concern Heaven, the place where the "saved" will purportedly go after death to live with God and Jesus in eternal bliss for all eternity. There are a number of different conceptualizations of heaven, depending on the Christian sect you adhere to, so one or more of the questions below will not apply to you. But most of the questions will apply to most Christians.


1. How is Heaven ultimately any different from Hell?

The Buddhists believe that the time between incarnations of fully enlightened Buddhas is incredibly vast -- so vast that they have invented picturesque metaphors to describe them. One of the more popular ones is this: Imagine a mountain, greater than Everest. Imagine that, once every thousand years, a bird comes along and sharpens its beak on that mountain, then flies away, leaving the mountain alone for another thousand years. Try to imagine the amount of time it would take for that bird to wear away the rock of the entire mountain.

The Buddhist epoch is an absurdly long time -- but it is not forever. Heaven, according to the Christians, is forever. That means, no matter how arbitrarily long you make the metaphor -- say, the amount of time it takes for the bird to wear away all the rock of all the planets in the entire universe by sharpening its beak every thousand years -- you will still be spending your days and nights doing nothing but praising God!

Perhaps there will be things to do other than praise God -- commune with fellow "saved," perhaps play board games, write and perform plays, perhaps other activities we presently cannot even conceive of. But remember, we're talking about forever. Whatever form you'd take after death, you'd still be a finite being given an infinite period of time. Eventually you'd run out of things to do. Eventually you'd tire of the bliss. How could you stand it? Wouldn't you start to long for the tortures of Hell, just to get away from the monotony?


2. Is there free will in Heaven?

If people in Heaven do have free will, then they would have the freedom to sin. Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga wrote that people with the freedom to sin will necessarily choose to actually do so on occasion -- I do not agree with Plantinga on this issue, but let's say that he's right. That would mean that, eventually, there would be sin in Heaven. What happens to people in Heaven who sin? Are they kicked out? That would mean that someday Heaven would completely empty out, with the entire human race ending up in Hell, leaving God all alone with whatever celestial beings he created -- which would defeat the purpose of creating humanity in the first place, wouldn't it? On the other hand, are they allowed to stay? What, then, would be the point of earthly existence and salvation and all that?

If people in Heaven do not have free will, however, then they would be, in the words of some Christian apologists, "mindless robots." Would God desire communion with such beings for eternity? If so, why not have created mindless robots to begin with?

Let's say that Plantinga is wrong, however, that people can somehow be caused to never sin and still have free will in a significant sense. But why, then, did God not cause people on Earth to be in that state? Can you find any non-arbitrary answer to this problem?


3. How is heaven fair?

Many if not most evangelists believe that attainment of Heaven is awarded by grace, that it is a gift of God, and that he alone decides who receives it and who doesn't. Most evangelists also believe that some people receive Heaven and some receive Hell. How is that fair? If Heaven truly is a gift, and not earned entirely on merit, wouldn't a loving father gift the gift to all his children?


4. Could you really be happy in Heaven with loved ones in Hell?

Suppose you arrive in Heaven only to discover that your parents, your siblings, your spouse, your children, your friends, all the people that you ever loved, having failed to "make the grade" as you did, are now in Hell, where they will be tortured forever, by decree of the God with whom you now get to live with for all eternity. Would you be sad? Angry?

If so, how is that compatible with the eternal bliss that Heaven entails? If not, if God arranged matters so that you would not feel sadness or anger or the state of affairs, how would you still be you? How could you cease to care when your caring for these people is a core aspect of the person you are on Earth, and still be you? Wouldn't you be an entirely different person? Wouldn't the you that existed on Earth have, for all purposes, ceased to exist? What, then, is the point of promising salvation, when the promised reward will not be given to you, but to someone else?

Moreover, if you are aware that if in spite of your best efforts your loved ones wind up unsaved, and that you will then cease to care about them as you do today, and you don't have a problem with that . . . wouldn't that make you ultimately uncaring about your loved ones? As an atheist, I would have a huge problem with that -- doesn't that make me a more caring person than you?


5. Can you prove that a single person is in Heaven right now?

The central message of Christian evangelism is God's promise that he will award Heaven to those who . . . whatever. Repent, or accept Jesus, or stand on a soapbox, or whatever is necessary for this to happen. (The concept of salvation will be addressed in a future "Questions" post.)

Yet no Christian I have ever spoken with has been able to point to a single person and say, "See? God has kept the promise he made to that person!" Can you do so? If not, how do you know that such a promise, even if made in the first place, will be kept?