Heaven . . . Is Not a Place on Earth

Last night, my friends and I were approached by a Korean business man who ostensibly was wanting to practice his English while at the same time wanting to discuss the flaws of Christianity. He just kind of wanted to talk and not listen . . . although, who am I to say, maybe He was listening. He was killing two birds with one stone, so we can at least applaud him for efficiency.

He just seemed to ask questions that he thought would stump us, and when we'd actually answer his questions, he'd ignore the answers and start asking new ones.

I can't get all "high and mighty" about his behavior. He was just acting normally. How often when we feel we are right about something do we actually stop and listen to what is being said on the other side? So we can't really blame him for acting this way. Not if we are honest with ourselves, at least. It's the old nature not wanting to accept that there just might be another perspective that we didn't think of initially.

Least ways, it made me think of something.

He brought up the old argument that if you are a good person, you will have a good afterlife. I brought up the old counter argument that if you had a glass of water and someone added three drops of poison in it, would you still drink it even though MOST of the water was pure? Then he told me that I was using an analogy that didn't relate to the issue at hand. That made me think about something.

While the water analogy is arguably not relatable to this issue, I think it still . . . holds water . . . not b/c water and holiness are the same, but b/c holiness and unpoisoned water both have to do with purity.

Let me explain without analogy for a second. Think of the word heaven. Do you think of:
(a) a perfect place,
(b) a place just like here where there are good things that happen and bad things that happen, or
(c) a bad place?

Chances are you would rule out "C" right away, b/c we have another word for a place like that: hell. Now, the next pass over "A" and "B" should give us the answer "A" b/c the word heaven has been integrated into our minds and even every day vocabulary as something way better than we can know now. A place of divine ecstasy. Somewhere where happiness abounds evergreen. A place of zero sadness.

However, although most people would choose "A" as the correct no-brainer answer, quite a sizable group of naysayers would say that in order to get to such a place, one merely needs to be "mostly good." While critical thinking is a necessary skill, sometimes people regard nay-saying as the same thing--which it isn't in this case. Being "mostly good" doesn't make any sense. How can anything but perfection dwell in a perfect society? The second someone or something flawed enters a perfect society, the society ceases to be perfect. Think of a diamond. A perfect diamond is almost priceless; however, just one tiny speck--not even distinguishable by the layman's eye--and the diamond is decreased considerably in value (and would actually be worthless except for "the man" wanting to take your money). You can't have imperfection in perfect or perfect would not exist. Saying that imperfection can dwell in perfection is not "deep thinking." It's the Emperor's New Clothes.

Now . . . let's assume that you immediately saw through the "A, B, C" ploy and instead of answering "A" like a naive child, you were a highly educated intellectual and answered "B." Answering "B" actually becomes a much harder problem for you, and not just b/c of what I've already discussed (imperfect does not = perfect). If you answer "B" that heaven is actually just a place much like here, then you need to explain why the word heaven has such a good, Utopian, fantastic connotation. I suppose you could explain it away like Freud does for terms like guilt. (He says it only comes from the fact that we ultimately desire power, and so when we kill those in power we actually suffer from not having protection anymore...but that doesn't actually explain why we feel guilty--we just feel bad. But it's more of a selfish "I shouldn't have done that, b/c I now need protection" bad, not a "I shouldn't have done that b/c it was wrong and I know I am to blame" bad. In other words . . . he actually doesn't answer the question of guilt at all.)

Heaven is a much harder conundrum than guilt even and here's why. If we currently live in a society of good and bad and if everything happened b/c of natural causes . . . then why would we ever expect anything to be better than it is now? How would we ever have known that anything COULD be better? How would we ever long for heaven? . . . Or intellectually: How would we ever know that heaven was something we could overcome by explaining away? This is something my mother calls the "Eden Syndrome." We all have a hidden memory of Eden and how perfect it was and how we all messed it up, and this is the reason we are all unhappy and discontent.

Anyways . . . why does heaven have such a positive connotation? Well, you have to explain that if you are going to choose "B." Are you up to it?

Personally, I'm going to stick with "A."

Fortunately, the work has been done for us. Just believe and trust in Jesus. He did everything necessary for you to get to heaven. It's really the only way. Just think about it. Get all the information you can and think about it (Proverbs 4:7).