Sunday, April 3, 2011

Why Are You Afraid of Heaven; Part 1; God.

The First possible reason to be afraid of Heaven is God, and what he wants from us.  This can be divided into two categories; a lack  of trust in the nature of God, and a lack of trust in his will for us.  This post will address each in turn.



Fear: I'm Afraid that I Can't Trust God to Make Me Happy in Heaven.

Answer: God is the source of all Truth.
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
John 14:6
Jesus specifically says here that he is the truth, and therefore, he cannot lie.  Some have a problem with this claim, saying that because God is omnipotent, he can do anything; even lie.  However, this is specifically denied in the Summa Theologica; when the question is brought up of whether or not God can sin.
"To sin is to fall short of a perfect action; hence to be able to sin is to be able to fall short in action, which is repugnant to omnipotence. Therefore it is that God cannot sin, because of His omnipotence."
Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 25, Article 3
Because God can neither sin, nor lie, nor deliberately cause any harm, he can be perfectly trusted to provide people with happiness in his presence.



Fear: I'm Afraid that God's Heavenly Happiness Would Seem Somehow Artificial, Like a Drug.

Answer: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them."
Genesis 1:27
Since we only exist because God designed us, there is no one better to repair us when we're injured or unfulfilled, or aren't performing at peak efficiency.  For example, if a technician designs a thousand cars; all based on the same design, he knows which kinds of oil and gasoline will be best for running them, and if, as stated above, that technician was also incapable of lying, then he would need to service each car properly when it was brought to him for repairs.
Now, the fuel that our souls need is happiness.  Because of this, the happiness that God could provide us with is guaranteed to be much purer and more reliable than the kind found in any other place, and furthermore, it would feel more natural to us than the happinesses of this life; not less natural, because this happiness is what we were originally designed to run on.  Therefore, God's happiness wouldn't feel artificial.



Fear: I'm Afraid that God Doesn't Want Me to Desire Any Good Things Other Than Him.

Answer: "We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28
Therefore, God does all things for some purpose, though we might not understand it immediately.  Now, God clearly created the physical universe, and he wouldn't have done this, if it served only to distract people from him.  Therefore, God wants us to love both himself and his creations.  However, he wants us to love his creations because of their goodness, so since he's more good than any creation, he wants us to love him more than any creation.
The real hang-up about this point is that I've often heard it said that we have to stay detached from things that are "not God."  In order to understand these words, one needs to understand, at least on some level; the nature of God.
"Hence it is manifest that God alone has every kind of perfection by His own essence"
Summa Theologica; First Part, Question 6, Article 3
In short, in order to be the standard by which all good things are judged, God needs to have the combined and infinitely magnified goodnesses of everyone and everything you've ever seen, and much more besides.  This paints a much different picture of God than the conventional one.  Suddenly, he is both perfect being and perfect universe.  Since the imperfect universe is only imperfect by relation to him, he must be perfect in ways that the universe is not, and must be able to fill the same void in human beings that the universe does, but to a much greater degree.
To simplify it, "worldly things" just means imperfect things, but "Godly things" means things that are perfect.  To say that in Heaven, jars, or golf, or tea will come to a screeching halt is a bit incomplete, since God is the perfection of jars, the perfection of golf, the perfection of tea, etc...  We look forward to his beauty, so that we can finally enjoy his perfection, and furthermore, the perfection of those around him as well, since no one can enter Heaven without being perfected.
This is a big issue when reading the writings of the saints, because most of them understood this so much, that it was almost second nature to them, but when they compared God and the world, and said that they loved God more than the world, they viewed God as more of a universe than a man.  To say that you love sitting in a blank room with one man; no matter how fantastic, more than the entire world is a little silly, but to say that you love God's perfection AS a world more than the physical world's imperfection is far less silly, and in fact, is really very reasonable.
So, God does want us to desire good things in addition to him, but what he really wants is for us to desire the perfect things found only in his being/universe.



Fear: I'm Afraid that God Doesn't Want Me to Have Any Fears.

Answer: "I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one."
Luke 12:5
Therefore, God clearly wants us to be afraid; at least in this life.  However, in Heaven, no one has the power to cast you into Gehenna.  Therefore, there would be no one to be afraid of there.
The problem is that many people think of fear as being the same thing as thrills and excitement, and it's not.  Thrills and excitement are good things, felt when we're experiencing pleasure, while fear is an unpleasant emotion felt when we or someone/something we care about is in danger.  It can paralyze us, and keep us from reaching our full potential, and we wouldn't really mind losing our fears, if the source of those fears was gone; provided that we could still experience pleasant thrills.



Fear: I'm Afraid that God Doesn't Want Me to Have Any Dreams or Ambitions.

Answer: As with fears, hopes would cease to be in paradise; not because of despair, but because there's no reason to hope when you already have what you hope for.  Being in possession of happiness, and every other good thing would make ambitions obsolete.
However, in this life, we don't have everything we could desire, and because of that, hope, dreams and ambitions towards perfection are not only good, but a virtue.



Fear: I'm Afraid that God Doesn't Want Me to Fulfill Any Ambitions in Heaven.

Answer: Being truly happy means having all good things, all at once and constantly.  Since "good things" are anything which can be desired for their own sake, heavenly happiness means having everything desirable.  Therefore, all possible ambitions would be fulfilled by heavenly happiness.

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