Bruce Charlton's Notions

The religion of the Ancient Egyptians - which is massively documented - provides a detailed picture of how the world of God's creation was before the work of Jesus Christ. 

Creation was made by the pushing aside of chaos; civilization was like a clearing in the wild forest; and the chaotic forest was always trying to take back the world of religion, agriculture and the domain of the creating Gods. 

Most of the Gods were Good, but the representatives of chaotic evil remained - such as Set (or Seth) who dwelt in the deserts around the fertile and civilized state of Egypt; and Apophis the primal world-serpant who, every night, attacked the ship of the sun, to try and prevent dawn. 

Thus light/ life/ goodness/ order was engaged in a continual and eternal battle to hold-back the chaos/ evil that surrounded on all sides; and which would otherwise return the world to its primal disorder. 

 

This may be taken broadly to represent the situation of divine creation on earth before the work of Jesus. And Jesus's work can be seen as the additional creation of Heaven, as a New Place to be inhabited by resurrected Men who have first been temporarily incarnated onto earth as mortals. The mortal state is that from-which each Man must choose Heaven - or Not.

 

By this understanding, Heaven is - and for the first time - a place that free men can inhabit where evil has been excluded - permanently.

By 'free men; I mean Men who are agents; operating-from their own distinctive divine selves; generating their own thoughts - mini-gods. In other words: In Heaven Men are secondary creators (operating within God's primary creation) - who can fully participate with God on the continuing creation of God's ongoing, expanding world. 

 

Jesus gave Men the possibility of resurrection to eternal life. Resurrection means eternal bodies; and bodies can only be eternal in an eternal environment - which is Heaven. In other words, Heaven in a world without death.

By contrast; this mortal life we know, here on earth, is ruled by chaos (or 'entropy', dis-order). All changes and decays, nothing lasts unchanged; there degeneration and disease are everywhere and death is the inevitable terminus. This mortal world - taken in isolation - is therefore the same as that described by the Ancient Egyptians.

However, since Jesus Christ; we have the chance to opt-into Heaven; which is an everlasting world without evil - without chaos or entropy.  

And at the same time, when resurrected into Heaven, we remain our-selves; indeed we become even more our-selves and able to participate in the ongoing work of God's creation. 

So, our mortal lives on this earth give us all lived experiences of chaos, entropy and evil; and the opportunity to learn from these experiences in order to make a final, irreversible commitment in favour of Good. 

In other words; mortal life on earth is what enables us to understand what is being offered by Jesus: eternal resurrected life in Heaven. And knowing (by contrast and implication) both sides, both possibilities... our free choice may be informed.   

 

My understanding of this new possibility of heaven; is that it is due to the possibility of each Man making a permanent commitment to Goodness, to creation, to the work of God. Because Heaven is composed only of Beings that have made this permanent commitment - then Heaven is a place without evil. 

All the inhabitants of Heaven (Men and others) are on the side of God and creation; and everything they (we) do in Heaven is in-harmony-with God and creation. Thus, In Heaven there is no tendency towards chaos, entropy, evil...

In another description; Heaven is based on the principle of love. The harmonious working of many free agents is possible by their mutual love. It is therefore love which is the principle of cohesion in creation - which 'organises' the work of many free individuals into a coherent, ongoing, creativity. 

 

The 'process' by which any mortal Man from earth was made able to be resurrected-into Heaven was made possible by Jesus Christ; and the 'method' made simple and accessible. Since Jesus; anyone who wants Heaven merely has to 'follow' Jesus, who will lead us through resurrection and into Heaven (a path which he himself has taken) as The Good Shepherd. 

It seems that (here on earth, in this mrtal life) not everyone knows-about Heaven, not everybody wants Heaven; and among those who do want to go onto Heaven, there are some who do not want to follow Jesus, or do not believe Jesus can or will lead us to Heaven. 

But we can trust that God the creator will ensure that everybody will have the fullest chance to know such things sooner or later; and before each needs to choose between a commitment to Heaven - or Not.

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

It is striking how often the expressed Christian understanding of Heaven is extremely "minimalist". In other words; the idea is that very little happens in Heaven. 

Furthermore, in such a Heaven we ourselves are simplified (by subtraction of all sin).

Heavenly life is thus described very simply; including discarding almost everything most people might most value in this mortal life; such as family and marriage; and our most cherished creative and other activities. 

Sometimes, indeed, Heavenly life is reduced to the single activity of communion with the divine. 

This sounds, on the face of it, pretty un-appealing - except as a relief and escape from suffering. 

The usual answer to such objections is that we shall ourselves by-then have-been transformed... 

Such that what seems now to be an aetiolated existence; will, when we are actually in that situation, be wholly satisfying; indeed joyful beyond our current possibility of understanding. 

It is probably clear from the above that I - by contrast - regard Heaven in a "maximalist" kind of way; as greatly enriched by more, and continuousness, of broadly the same kind of positive things that are best in this mortal life. 

Thus I regard Heaven as a place of more, and more loving, and everlasting relationships - including family, marriage, friendship; and ultimately loving relationships of other forms with other kinds of ("non-human") resurrected Beings such as animals, plants, and natural elemental Beings. 

And I regard Heaven as a place of "work" - the best kind of work; that work which derives from creative love. 

Which is to say creative work, fulfilling work; work that adds-to, enhances, enriches divine creation. 

But to return to the minimalist view of Heaven - assuming (as I do) that it is indeed mistaken, and apparently rather ineffective as a positive inducement; it is interesting to speculate why it arose? Why might people have decided that Heaven must be minimalist?

I think it is partly hinted above, by the idea that after sin has been stripped-away; not much would remain. 

Maybe also that it is easier to imagine perfection (which is how some people regard Heaven, although I think this is a mistaken emphasis - because implicitly static) if that perfection is simple?

I think there is also a residue of "historical Gnosticism"; by which I mean the pre-existing (among pagan Romans and Greeks) Neo-Platonism that captured mainstream and traditional Christianity (and not just the recognized Gnostic sects). 

This philosophical ideology (permanently) embedded within-itself what might be termed the religion of "Gospel Christianity" by its metaphysical insistence on philosophical concepts as a mandatory framework for Christianity. 

(Such as an infinite gulf between creator and created, strict monotheism (leading to the abstractions of Trinitarianism in order to encompass the divinity of Jesus); creation being from nothing (rather than an organizing of pre-existent chaotic "stuff"), and God and the divine world being "outside of Time". There are more.) 

Other aspects of this pre-Christian philosophy included a belief that the material was innately evil, and the the purely spiritual was therefore the proper aim; and this led to an ascetic ideal that strove to achieve the greatest possible independence from the material body during mortal life; essentially by subtractive disciplines. 

From this perspective, it is natural to regard Heaven minimalistically, and the denizens of Heaven likewise. 

And the assumption that the divine world - in order to be wholly good - must not change; probably led to the deletion of sequential Time from Heaven - such that there was neither need nor possibility of resurrected Men doing anything in Heaven. They would simple "be". 

(Even the doctrine of resurrection after death, which could hardly be ignored; was transformed into an abstracted, spiritualized, "resurrection body" - which body ended by being hardly regarded as material at all - but instead something more like light than everlasting flesh.) 

Of course the minimalist Heaven may include elements of reaction against pagan (and other) understandings of the post-mortal life as simply a continuation and enhancement of this mortal life - with more of our desires fulfilled, and less of the sufferings. 

These are seen as wish-fulfilment merely - and wish-fulfilment is not (by such an analysis) distinguished from selfish day-dreaming fantasies (e.g. imagining post-mortal luxuries of sex, feasting and/or fighting - according to taste). 

It was probably not until the advent of Mormonism from 1830 that an explicitly maximalist understanding of Heaven (more consistent with the Gospels, common-sensically understood - especially the Fourth gospel) was rediscovered and linked with a metaphysical theology. 

This included a focus on marriage and procreation, family life, and co-creative activities in loving cooperation with God the Father - and a "evolutionary" emphasis on divine creation as eternally "ongoing", continuous, eternally being added-to. 

Ultimately, as always, this question of minimalist versus maximalist understanding of Heaven, reduces to a question of personal discernment based on the deepest intuition that we can arrive-at. Having consciously clarified our awareness of the alternatives, we each need to decide which are true possibilities, and which we most desire for our-selves.

**

Note: This post was stimulated by a comment from NLR at the NCP Blog. 

It seems that many Christians are and have been focused on the problem of achieving salvation by faith and right choices during mortal life: this links-up with an understanding of Heaven as a reward for those who have achieved salvation - and Hell as the place of punishment for those who do not.

Mortal life is then seen as a battle to attain salvation and/ or to avoid damnation (the emphasis varies) - and a good life beyond death is the reward for good performance. From this perspective nothing much important 'happens' in Heaven - it is a state of being.

But if we instead take the view that Jesus won salvation as a gift for everyone, by his life and death - then salvation is there for us, and the primary condition is simply that we accept it.

Of course, accepting salvation entails more than merely saying 'yes, okay' - because salvation is into God's world and God's plan, and entails accepting and embracing these. And this is something that, apparently, some people - probably many people - do not want and will not accept.

If salvation is a gift to those who will accept it, then salvation is straightforward and secure (for those who want it); and the main purpose of mortal life is not salvation but theosis - the process of striving to become more God-like; or more exactly the voluntary process of becoming more God-like on the basis that we begin as partly divine (being children of God) and end-up as being brothers and sisters of Christ - of the same nature as him.

Heaven is the not a reward but the place where people who have chosen theosis continue to work on this - Heaven is a place of striving, of change, of work.

Hell, by contrast, is the place for people are are not aiming at theosis - people who are not trying to become more divine, more like Jesus Christ.

Which is the reward and which the punishment depends on what is wanted.

God was creator and has a plan for his creation - this plan includes creating possibilities for those who want-to 'join' God as a god; to become fully-divine sons and daughters of God - being able to 'work on' this goal, co-operatively and with love - partly during mortal life, but also necessarily after it.

By this account, God's main concern is theosis - so that men and women may choose to become divine, and may incrementally (and over a long timescale) achieve this by being born incarnated, dying and resurrecting; and also by learning from their experiences throughout.

Our primary choice is whether to join God's plan - or not. Hell is the place of nay-sayers. Not joining the plan may mean going-it-alone, or it may mean living among the others who rejected God's plan - and seeking what solutions and satisfactions that company may bring in a universe without meaning or purpose.

In sum, since the 'Mormon Restoration' of Christianity, and the change in understanding it brings; there has been a qualitative change in explaining the basic nature and purpose of Heaven and Hell.

(The extent to which Mormonism was a cause of these general changes in understanding Heaven and Hell, and to what extent it was a shared consequence of underlying spiritual causes, I don't know - something of both I expect.)

I don't think many Christians have fully 'taken on board' this change, aside from feeling a deepening dissatisfaction with the idea of Heaven and Hell as merely reward and punishment, and mortal life as merely a kind of qualifying exam.

But if (thanks to Christ) salvation is there for for the accepting, and on conditions no more onerous than repentance; then theosis is the main business of human existence - theosis in pre-mortal, mortal and post-mortal life - then the nature and purpose of Heaven and Hell are profoundly different.

Heaven and Hell are not states of being, but domains distinguished by the positive or negative purpose of those who choose them. Their 'state' is a consequence of this choice, and of the make-up of the populations that result from that choice.   

Heaven is not a fixed state of being, but the place of mutual love where a particular purpose of divine destiny is being actively, voluntarily and joyfully pursued - and Hell is... well, all the rest.

The utopian project to make Heaven on Earth reached its zenith in the middle 20th century with the triumph of Communism in many nations; but has never been officially or explicitly abandoned - and in a covert and incoherent fashion still motivates the political Left (which now rules the world; sometimes operating under other such flimsy disguises as conservatism, republicanism, capitalism etc.).

The contrast drawn is between - on the one hand - Christianity which offers resurrected eternal life in Heaven - only attainable on the other side of that transformation that is biological death (aka. 'pie in the sky'). And on the other hand; mainstream, materialistic socio-political Western ideology; amplified by the promises of transhumanistic technologies, which offers a positively transformed Heaven on Earth.

Of course, any such thing is currently blocked by the inevitability of disease, ageing and death and the limitations of human intelligence and emotions. Also the inevitability of suffering.

But (so the utopian hopes go) assuming these can be cured by (waving of hands at this point...) advances in technology (drug progress, genetic engineering, computer-brain interfaces... whatever); then why wait for something as uncertain as Heaven-beyond-Death when we can have Heaven-Now? 

All assuming that humans can live forever, without ageing or disease; without suffering or misery (unless they want it; and then only as much as they want for as long as they want) - and with as much happiness and pleasure as they desire. Potentially a life of bliss...

Who wouldn't want that? 
 


And even if Christians can have Heaven after death - what about everybody else?

What about those (presumably a vast majority) who do not want to follow Jesus; including those who do not believe Jesus, who hate Jesus; who are bored, indifferent or hostile to Christian ideas of Heaven - especially if these require onerous restrictions on lifestyle (especially sexual expression)?

Assuming it is achievable; a techno-Leftist utopia promises a Heaven for everybody! And here and now and for-sure.  

That is the special appeal of Heaven on Earth; that is why so many people regard HoE as morally superior to the Christian Heaven.

Universal happiness forever... Better by far, yes?


No.

Not better, but in fact Hell on Earth, rather than Heaven.

But why so?


Leaving aside issues of feasibility (and I do not believe it is possible to do these things - indeed I anticipate a continuation of the already-happening collapse in human capability) there is a basic reason why Heaven on Earth is actually Hell; and that is that any actual Heaven on Earth must be based on compulsion.

Why? Because Heaven on Earth is only possible with universal cooperation.

It would not be Heaven if people were free to exploit, parasitise, destroy, foment discontent; and from everything we know about human beings, universal assent and support to anything is attainable only by universal and irresistible compulsion.


When people believe that they are engineering universal happiness and immortality (even or especially if this really were possible) then the end would justify any and every deployment of effective means.

Humans would be compelled to be whatever was required for Heaven, for their own good; and/ or humans would be replaced by something better-than (at any rate different-from) humans - who would go along with utopia.


Heaven on Earth must be utterly unfree - hence Hell.

Because Hell is not correctly defined as miserable, but as a state of permanent spiritual enslavement. Hell is still Hell even when its denizens are compelled-irresistibly to be happy - because then the denizens are no longer Men.

The condition of absolute unfreedom is the obliteration of the self, the person, the Man in essence. 

Such a state may be chosen, Hell is apparently what some people - perhaps many people - want. But when Hell is imposed, as it would need to be to make 'Heaven on Earth', then Hell would become universal. 


I'm not saying that this is possible, indeed I believe it to be impossible. The creator has not set-up creation to allow Hell to be imposed.

But I simply point-out that wanting Heaven on Earth is actually wanting universal Hell: it is to take sides with the agenda of the demons; with those who oppose God, the Good and Creation. 


What about the Christian Heaven and its selectivity? Why can't Heaven be for everybody?

I hope that the above will help make clear why. My understanding is that selectivity is the only way that Heaven can be Heavenly, and at the same time free.

Selectivity is the only way that the denizens of Heaven can be real Men, with real selves, real agency; really participating in the work of divine creation (bringing their own distinctive, additional contribution to creation).


Death and resurrection is the means by which we can make a free and permanent choice for real-Heaven. That is why Heaven cannot be attained in mortal life, in this world.  

Also; if Heaven is to be Heavenly, it must be freely chosen. If it is not freely chosen it is Hell.

You may, of course (you are free to do so) prefer happiness to freedom; in that case you have made your choice - which, as such, is neutral. But when you desire to impose that choice universally, you have chosen evil.
     

There are two very contrasting views of Heaven that are held by people who regard themselves as Christians - one as a static state, the other as dynamic.

There are, of course, other possible views of how Heaven might be - since the only essential trait is that Heaven must be Heavenly, must be pleasing and enjoyable in an ultimate sense.

But the static and dynamic concepts of Heaven have characteristics that are opposite. Actual Heaven could be a mixture of them only at a superficial level - and deep down, the reality Heaven must be one or the other but not both.

I will explain them in terms of a list of contrasting paired descriptive words:

Static                           Dynamic

Peace                           Joy
Completion                Creating
Rest                             Energy
Stillness                      Developing, growing
Home                          Family
Presence                     Friendship
Bliss                             Love
No questions              Evermore answers
Certainty                     Increasing understanding 
Infallible                     Expanding vistas
Out-of-Time                In-Time    
Lost individuality       The same 'self'
Impersonal                  Personal
Everybody same         Each person different


You can see that the dynamic Heaven has a lot of 'ing' words, representing change; whereas the static Heaven is about an unchanging state of existence.

Regular readers will know that I believe that the Heaven offered us by Jesus Christ (especially in the Fourth Gospel) is the 'dynamic' Heaven.

But the point I wish to make here is simply that there are people who want the static Heaven; they want it deeply - it is the Heaven that they want. Of this I am sure.

Now, whether these people would be satisfied by static Heaven for eternity - I don't really know. It might be suggested that they would become bored at nothing happening. On the other hand, they would not be aware of any passage of Time - so why should they become bored?

But it could be said of dynamic Heaven that people would get exhausted and frustrated by never ever achieving final satisfaction, and the tedium of Time stretching ahead for ever...

One answer is that Heaven has 'many mansions' - in other words, different sub-Heavens for different people. I'm sure that is true - but ultimately the reality cannot be both of the above; if one of them is real, then the other is a subjective illusion. If one is the truth of Heaven the other must be a mistaken interpretation.

Either way, my point is that some people response to the list of characteristics of static Heaven with a heartfelt yearning: that is what they most want for themselves.

This means that any specified description of Heaven we may give to another person - to explain what Jesus has promised to his followers - is likely to put-off some people, even as it attracts others. This might be taken to imply we should keep our description of Heaven very vague and abstract - but that sounds evasive and uncertain - and will put-off those whose deepest hope is for a dynamic Heaven.

So if we are definite and precise concerning Heaven - it will attract some and repel others; but speaking in broad generalisations, or claiming ignorance of something so vitally important, will not work any better!

Thus the nature of Heaven has become one of the key issues for modern Christianity; and a subject which deserves a great deal more attention than it has customarily received in the mainstream and orthodox denominations.

The basic reason is that I have an extremely different understanding of ultimate, metaphysical reality from that which underlies the belief in universal salvation.

Universalists tend to regard Heaven as the only place of happiness and therefore a place where everybody - sooner or later - wants to go, and God as gatekeeper to this place. A loving God would - on this model - want all of his children to be happy, and would not bar the door to the place of happiness to anybody who wanted to enter.
 
In other words, universalists are unable to conceive of anybody who would not want to be in Heaven, rather than the alternatives.

In this sense, universalists regard all humans as being fundamentally alike in their nature and aspirations.

I, by contrast, see humans as having fundamental differences in their nature, and differences in what they want, from the beginning. I regard some people as having always been evil, in the sense of being opposed to Good (and Good derives its meaning from God's creation - so that to be evil is to oppose creation, and favour its destruction - to want to prevent the possibility of Good).

I presume that some souls have always been - by their nature, and for many possible - opposed to the idea of joining God's creation. This is not necessarily evil - because Heaven is an optional opt-in; a positive option.

So throughout eternity, there have been souls that preferred (for many reasons) not to join the creative and loving endeavour that is Heaven. Only some of these are the fallen pre-mortal spirits that we call demons. Others might have chosen permanent solitude, others might have chosen destruction of the Self and permanent bliss. Such choices are not necessarily irrational. 

There is also a difference in the understanding of freedom. Universalists see that any choice other than Heaven is a failure of freedom; that Heaven is the only rational choice for every person - or, that every choice other-than Heaven must be based on ignorance which, and when (sooner or later) eventually ignorance is cured - then the decision to reject Heaven would certainly be revised. And then God would (being loving) accept them into Heaven.

In sum; I believe there are some people whose nature is such that they have rational grounds for rejecting Heaven, and there are also some people whose evil opposition to creation, whose desire to see other people suffer, to inflict pain etc. is a trait they have possessed from their origins.

My understanding is that God, as our loving Father, keeps open the possibility of redemption for these people as long as possible, But a vital part of freedom is the freedom to make permanent commitments - for Good and also for evil. Indeed, this freedom seems to me vital for the existence of Heaven.

Heaven is only possible because people can make a permanent commitment to live in love, and work in participation with God's creation, with the other inhabitants - for eternity.

And the 'flipside' of this is that it must also be possible to make permanent commitments in the other direction, in the directions that involve choices other-than Heaven (some of which are actively evil, others of which are more of a passive opt-out).

So, I am not a universalist - nor do I regard universalism as evidence of God's goodness. But I can understand why, for those who accept the 'standard Christian metaphysics' of who reality is set-up, they can be led into universalism - because God's love is indeed his one essential characteristic.

However, universalism is not - long term - and in a church setting, a sustainable answer. Because when universalism is inserted within a traditional Christian framework introduces a kind of fatal flaw that tends to destroy the institutional system.

But perhaps this is itself an inevitable and necessary phase? Because if churches rely on God being seen to exclude people from Heaven who want to be there, than perhaps such a gross distortion to the essence of Christianity is so great that it invalidates any particular instantiation of the religion that depends too heavily upon it?

By my understanding - there are two common wrong ways of conceptualising Christianity: one is the traditional, the other liberal.

The traditional is that Christianity is primarily a system of morality; and salvation (i.e. resurrection into Heaven) is a reward for a 100% effort to live in accordance with a moral system (repenting all failures to do so).

Traditionalists believe that to advocate and/or not to repent, sexual behaviour outside the code is at least a self-exclusion from Heaven, or (more traditionally) an absolute barrier to acceptance in Heaven.

The liberal view is that Christianity is a gift of salvation from Christ to all; and has essentially nothing to do with morality, especially not with sexual wishes, expressions and behaviours.

Nowadays; the traditional way, in practice, puts a system of sexual morality at the heart of Christian living; while the liberal believes that sexual morality is a matter of worldly expedience merely - an accidental (non essential) product of individual disposition and social circumstance.

Liberals believe that anybody who wants it can dwell in Heaven post-mortem - and sexual behaviour is of near-zero significance; except that those who falsely-insist sex is primary are excluded from Heaven; on the basis that if the sexual code adherents were included, then Heaven would not be Heaven.


I regard both as wrong. Essentially, Christianity is about mortality, not morality; but morality is linked with resurrection into Heaven. I need to explain this, because it is not obvious to most people.

Where does Christian morality come-from? I believe it comes, ultimately, from the condition of Heaven; which is 'organised' (spontaneously, naturally) on the principle of loving creation.

Heaven is a matter of immortal, resurrected persons living (loving, creating) in families*. 

Yes, Heaven is for all of those who want it; but - because Heaven is 'a family affair' - sexual morality is deeply linked with the wanting of Heaven. Because sexual morality is about families.

Those who - in mortal life (unless they repent) - reject the Heavenly-reality of marriage and family Do Not Want Heaven; and therefore will not have it.


Any explicit this-worldly System or legal code of morality - including sexual morality - will inevitably be deficient; since all verbal expressions are both incomplete and distorted. Nonetheless, there is, in actually-existing reality, a morality of Heaven.

The morality of Heaven is based on love, and love is bound-up with creation - the primary (but not only) form of creation is generation, reproduction, i.e. family.

The reality is that we Just Are God's Children and spiritual siblings; Jesus is our brother. It is ultimately all a matter of relations and relationships.

This mortal life is a domain of learning, therefore not intended as a place of perfection; mortal living is temporary, intrinsically corrupted and corrupting; and our salvation is to become saved-from this intrinsic sin. Sin is the condition of mortality. To be saved from sin is to want what Heaven offers - immortal resurrection into the condition of Heaven.

Those who do not want resurrection, and/or who do not want to remain conscious and free agent selves, and/or those who do not want family - all such do not want Heaven; and will not have it.



Why do people reject family? Look around, it isn't uncommon...

Some expediently reject their actual mortal family, perhaps because their earthly family is unloving - some are rejected-by their families; but that is not significant unless they reject the ideal of family.

Many who have utterly miserable and dread-full actual mortal families will - and perhaps with greater intensity - wish for a life of ideal, immortal, uncorrupted family life. They will yearn for the ideality of Heaven because the actuality of earth makes them aware of their need and desire for the truth of family.

Such will be saved, and will find their way to Heaven; because that is precisely what Jesus made possible.


But it seems that there are many (especially nowadays, in the West) who reject family - not in practice but in principle; not specifically but generally.

Often because the Heavenly condition of loving creation in familial relationships (including Men and extending to the divine  - the divine being Men in exalted condition) is something they reject as an ideal.

Such may want to be fully independent agents, without any family ties; perhaps because family ties block what they most want - which may be sexual, or may be related to other gratifications from status, power or whatever. A prime motivator of anything other-than the family ideal, means they do not want what Jesus offers.

There are those who reject the ideal of divine Heavenly family - and therefore in this mortal life they quite spontaneously seek other primary goals; and advocate other ideals...

Some do not want resurrection but prefer to remain spirits. Some do not want to become more divine, but are satisfied with them-selves as they are. Some do not want eternal life of any kind. Some hope for an end to their consciousness - they are tormented by self-awareness. Some want eternal happiness, but do not want eternal and loving relationships. Some want to use people, not love people.

None of these want Heaven; and (since God loves us) they will not have Heaven forced-upon them; theirs is some other destiny.


So, in an ultimate sense, the link between salvation and mortality is real because of our motivation and our ideals.

Those who are motivated to accept Jesus Christ's gift of Heavenly life will - quite naturally and spontaneously, as a consequence of this motivation - have and express and advocate the ideals of Heavenly life during their mortal lives... albeit that ideal will always be modified and impaired by mortal constraints of human limitations in understanding and corruption.

After all, salvation to eternal life is salvation-from these mortal constraints. Salvation is necessarily on the other side of 'biological death'; so there is zero possibility of attaining the ideal in this mortal life.

But not-to-have the ideal is not-to-get the ideal.


Therefore, actual earthly morality is inextricably-linked with immortal Heavenly life.

In other language: ultimately and primarily, sin is the condition of mortality, not morality; and morality is necessarily a part of Heavenly immortality.

Thus Heavenly immortality is attainable only via the motivations of mortal morality. 


*Note: It might be asked where this idea of Heaven organised in families comes from? Three possible, staged, answers are that 1. The idea is to be found in the Fourth Gospel. 2. This is confirmed and amplifed by the Mormon Restoration. And 3. that anyone who has this idea may have it confirmed by divine revelation and direct intuition.

Luke 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

(See also Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–34.)

 

I am struck by how exactly the 'two great commandments' - first to love God and then your neighbour - fit with my metaphysical understanding of reality; and how they are said to suffice to enable us to enter Heaven. 

(Because, in the above passage, when Jesus is quoted as saying "This do, and thou shalt live"; the 'live' refers to resurrected eternal life in Heaven.)

My understanding of God's overall intention is that he wishes to enable Men to develop spiritually, to rise-up to become fully Sons and Daughters of God. This means to become fully divine; which means to dwell together in Heaven as a family (or rather many families, interlinked). 

And what do Men do in Heaven forever? My answer is To Create. Specifically we shall be participating in God's divine work of creation - including the pro-creation of new Men to begin the process of development. 

 

(This derives from my understanding that God is essentially 'the creator' - and that to become 'more divine' is to become more fully a participant in the ongoing creative development of God's already-existing divine creation. And my experience and intuition tell me that creation is the only activity which never palls, is always motivating and gratifying. Creation is also open-ended. Anything other than a Heaven of creation would both be dull, and would run-out and cease - on a timescale of eternity.) 

 

And God's purpose is understood in the context of my belief (metaphysical assumption) that Men are and always have been unique and different individuals. 

So, God's purpose entails getting this diversity of Men and enabling a situation in which these many and different Men can work together with the same purpose and harmoniously - forever. 

Because the many and diverse do not spontaneously have the same purpose, nor do they spontaneously get-along. 

The necessary purpose and harmony come from Love - which is why Love is the primary requirement of a Christian (and that those who reject Love, or are genuinely incapable of Love, neither want the life of Heaven - nor would be allowed to enter it.) 

 

The first great commandment - to love God - is about purpose. For Heaven to be possible, its participants all need to share the same purpose, be pointing in the same direction, have the same ultimate goals. 

To 'love' God means to love God's purpose; to accept God's purpose as my purpose. This enables us to have 'faith' in God, to trust him.  

Therefore, the first qualification to enter heaven, and dwell in Heaven for eternity, is that we share God's purpose. That is why is commandment comes first. 

The second great commandment is what enables the inhabitants of Heaven to work together, to create harmoniously - to coordinate a multitude of individual creativity into a great symphony. To do this requires, as well as shared purpose - as well as everybody pointing in the same direction; attention and loving care towards other people engaged in the same work. 

Love of neighbour means that we harmonise our creative endeavour with the others in our Heavenly Family, primarily; and secondarily with all in heaven. I see this harmony as a developmental thing: individuals love the same ultimate purpose, and also a love of neighbour - therefore individuals will create, and monitor the consequences of their creativity, informed and shaped by these two loves. 

In the first place, an individual would not create any-thing he knew to be hostile to purpose, or neighbours. In the second place, when an individual dis, inadvertently, create something that turned-out to be working against purpose, or interfering with the harmony between individual creations, then he would work to compensate for this disharmony, to mend the problem, to restore purpose and loving harmony. 

God's creation is therefore a work-in-progress; and as God recruits more and more resurrected Men to join this work of creation, it is essential that this work-in-progress be maintained. 

 

I see the first commandment as being a vertical arrow, pointing up to all Heavenly residents sustaining a commonly-agreed future, keeping creation moving in the correct direction; and the second commandment as several or many sideways arrows that tend always to maintain harmony in this upward pursuit; by mutual observation and adjustments.  

And this is why someone who is prepared permanently and irreversibly to endorse the two great commandments has everything that is both necessary and sufficient to enter Heaven and receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus brought. 

 

(Note: Jesus's role in this, is that he made it possible. After we die, and if we endorse the two great commandments; then we 'merely' have to follow Jesus to Heaven.)

To answer the question Is God Good? requires first understanding what God is trying to do with creation. Many/ most people get this wrong. 

People try to evaluate whether God is Good by examining this world and drawing up a balance sheet of good-things versus bad-things - and seeing which comes out top. They ask questions like whether this is 'on average' a good world; or whether the good things that happen/ have-happened outweigh the bad. 

They assume that God sent Jesus Christ to make a better mortal world, and they try to evaluate the truth (or success) of Christianity by 'calculating' whether the world was a batter place after Christ; or whether Christian people or places are better than non-Christian.

And implicitly judging 'better' by criteria - usually 'utilitarian', to do with inferred mass happiness or suffering - that are assumed to be above (or prior to) the truths of Christianity.

But this line of thinking is nonsense - as would be obvious except that Men have been misled for a long time. 

Jesus came to bring Men the chance of everlasting resurrected life - not to make this a better world (let alone perfect, or a paradise). 

So, the first common error is to regard this transient mortal life and world, as if it was the aim and end-point of God's creation. 

The second common error is to regard this mortal life as merely preparation for admission to eternity.

The idea that nothing matters about our mortal lives except that they prepare us to take a test set by God, to pass a judgment by God. 

The background assumptions to this error is that everybody in the world and who has ever lived wants to go to Heaven. Earth is a 'pre-school' that prepares us for that divine examination which all Men want to pass. But God only allows those worthy to proceed to Heaven - the rest are consigned to Hell. 

This is wrong because not all men want to go to heaven, and many or most Modern Men in particular reject Heaven prefer to choose Hell. 

The proper way to understand this mortal life and world is as a place of opportunities for learning - a 'school'. Like an idealized school, the basic rationale of what happens in mortal life is directed toward the eternal life after 'school' - i.e. Heaven. 

The main thing we are supposed to learn is about love - love of actual persons, typically starting with the family. Heaven is for those capable of love, who commit to put love first - eternally; which is what we mean by love of The Lord, and of Jesus Christ. 

There the school experiences of this mortal life, and what we have learned from them, are not forgotten; but are brought into eternity. 

So, this life and world are created for those who want to go to Heaven - this world provides each of these with experiences from which they can learn and which will prepare them for Heaven. 

But this world contains many Men who are not sure that they want to go to Heaven, and some who have already decided that they do not want Heaven. 

For them this world, the school of mortal life, has a different purpose - which is to provide the experiences from-which they can learn whether or not they want Heaven. 

All Men are free and each decides his or her own fate - decide whether to accept the gift of Heaven - or whether they want... something else, which may be (and in 2021 probably is) hell. 

Mortal experience cannot make somebody want Heaven - certainly not if they are incapable of love or reject love. 

But it can provide each person capable of love with experiences from-which they may become clear about their decision concerning what happens to them after death. 

God can engineer a situation in which this choice is made conscious - albeit perhaps only briefly; so that every-Man is compelled to make a choice, but no Man is compelled to choose one way or the other. 

So, the second common error is to regard God as a gatekeeper of a universally-desired Heaven - permitting some to proceed, and casting others down. 

The reality is very different. All those who really want Heaven, who are capable of love and prepared to make an eternal commitment to put-love-first, will go to Heaven. 

Admission to Heaven is not by examination; but by self-selection. 

God wants as many as possible to choose Heaven, and God's problem is that many reject it. 

Therefore, this mortal life is designed to encourage as many people as possible to choose Heaven after death - each soul in its own way, each person's mortal experience designed for such goals; and this mortal life was created for that purpose. 

Creation doesn't reverse - so how may the consequences of bad choices be dealt with?

On the one hand, all necessarily choices have consequences... or else the choices would not be real; on the other hand, this seems to suggest that every sin by every person who ever lived will be 'woven-into' the web of history and will permanently mar it.

Creation will therefore (apparently) be 'imperfect' - and yet Christians are (apparently) promised some kind of perfection in the Heavenly state...  


The problem with the above statement is that it has the inbuilt assumption of life tending towards a final static state - like a carpet that has-been woven. It also has that nasty word/ concept of 'perfection' inbuilt - which implies that Heaven is a single, predetermined and preplanned state of perfection - any departure from which is therefor a shattering of that perfection...

Nonetheless, if Heaven is love, and yet people so often reject love, and this has unloving consequences - then how can Heaven be a loving state?


Well, there is an answer - a satisfying answer! - and it is underpinned by the proper (as I regard it) understanding of love: specifically of love.

And therefore we already know the answer, because we all have sufficiently experienced love and its workings (even if it was more of a lack-of and yearning-for love - which is built in as a hope and indeed expectation).


Reality is a process in time, changing, dynamic - it is creation, which entails change; it is love, which entails change - reality is not a timeless state; and Heaven is therefore an ideal situation, but not a state-of-perfection.

(In fact, process is too physics-y a word for it, so is dyynamic - biological metaphors are preferable: reality is life, growth, development, transformation, evolution, consciousness etc...)


Therefore Heaven is not a 'blueprint' (any departure from which is necessarily im-perfect/ flawed/ not-Heaven...) but instead a matter of establishing that ideal situation.

Another way of thinking about it is that Heaven is not something imposed upon us from above, not something we are fitted-into; rather heaven is a 'bottom-up process of discovering, learning, loving, creating...

It is not built to a plan, but generated moment-by-moment by free, agent, conscious entities...


We have perhaps already experienced this (at least so far as love goes) - but did not know we were experiencing it; I mean in early childhood in the context of loving and being loved. We just lived immersed in the current moment - and when that was good, then it was ideal.

But Heaven withdrew from us even as the capacity for knowledge arose - the capacity to know can arise only by separation from what is experienced. And as we know, we fear; so that the current is no longer ideal, since we fear that it may be - will be - lost.

Consciousness ejects us from Heaven. (At first...)

Insofar as we know, of can imagine, the happiness of a loving family through generations; we can know or imagine Heaven.


Heaven is a return to what we have already experienced, but this time with consciousness. We return to the immersive experience of happy childhood in a loving family; while knowing that this is happening, that this is the situation we are in.

But instead of immersion we have creation. Instead of taking everything for granted, being swept-along by events, just in a state of 'being'; in Heaven we participate in God's work of creation.

That is what it is to be - like Jesus - a Son of God. A co-creator with The Father.

Not only to be part-of creation; not only to be an observer of creation; but to become a participant in creation.

That is - indeed - our 'job' in Heaven.


So, how does sin not mar Heaven?

Because sin does not mar the family - not when there is repentance and love.

All families are made-up entirely of sinners - yet even on earth and during mortal life we know (because we have experienced) that loving families can be ideal, for periods of time.

And that which is ideal, is not marred.

 

There is a point of view that regards the requirement for forgiveness as sub-optimal, in the sense that 'If God knew his business, there would be nothing to forgive'. In other words, there are some who think that life ought to be perfect, and if so then there would be no need to forgive, because nothing even sub-optimal (let alone bad) would ever happen. 

And some people see Heaven that way. As a place of always-perfection. With zero need for forgiveness.

 

But I see Heaven as a place of Love, and Love is creative, creation (like Love) is dynamic - and if heaven is a dynamic situation, a place of doing; then it does not make sense to regard Heaven as the kind of perfection that is unvarying, unchanging.  

That ends-up with something more like a blissful/ static 'Nirvana' than Christian Heaven - which is made by a personal and loving God for his divine children - who remain persons (and are resurrected, presumably with unique bodies). 

 

My understanding of Heaven is that our main 'work' there (which is also the highest form of play) is to participate in God's on-going loving-creation. Thus Heaven is a place where there are many creators, in addition to God; each an unique person. 

This means that all these individual creators need to be brought into harmony; or else there would be a clash and opposition of creative activities - as there is on earth. 

My understanding is that this Heavenly harmony of multiple creation is quite naturally achieved by Love. If we have experience of a loving family, we already know that the individuals are continually - quite naturally and spontaneously - making their (creative) contributions to family living within this imperative of Love. So the many acts of many individuals are, over time, harmonised by Love. 

But at any given moment-in-time, there are dissonant aspects. 

Individuals are motivated by Love - nonetheless, the distal consequences of their love-motivated actions are not wholly predictable - and things may turn out worse than intended, errors will be made; there is need for compensatory correction. 

 

Here in mortal life on earth; our creations are temporary, because every-thing is temporary. So many mistakes and errors of creation just disappear over time. But in Heaven, all the creation is eternal. What then happens to the inevitable errors? 

Well, in Heaven errors cannot be erased - but they are compensated. I believe that compensation must be a divine principle. 

Of course, compensation is important here on earth as well. As a family member, we may do something, and it turns out badly - we have made an error. Often this cannot be undone, and so we do our best to compensate for it. 

 

That - I assume - is the nature of creation. Creation is full of errors, and full of conpensations. 

Over time, mistakes are compensated - but they are still present. Still woven into the fabric of reality... 

And this is the reason why forgiveness is vital for Christians.  

 

Love does not lead to perfection, Love cannot prevent all errors. Therefore we can, should - and in Heaven we Do - compentate for our errors (repentance in action!). 

Yet those errors remain, and therefore need to be forgiven. 

Forgiveness is integral to the functioning of Heaven - Forgiveness is, indeed, integral to Love. 

 

The same happens here in mortal life on earth. There are no 'perfect' parents, siblings or children - and we should not want any such nonsense. But there are (within earthly constraints) Loving family. 

(If you must have perfection; then 'the perfect family' is simply a perfectly-loving family.) 

Loving parents, sibs or kids will make mistakes - they surely will... 

And therefore these mistakes must be forgiven if Family Living is to be maintained - on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Indeed loving errors are forgiven, quite naturally and spontaneously, when Love is present and effective. It is only the incomplete and transient nature of love in this earthly life that causes problems. In Heaven, we shall be resurrected to eternal life, with a permanent commitment to Love. 

Eternal Love between all persons is what makes Heaven heavenly - and forgiveness is just one of the many consequences. 

 As a young child, aged about five or six, I quite suddenly became afraid of death. That is, I became afraid of other peoples' death - I became afraid that someone I loved, among my family, relatives and close family friends - would die and be lost to me. 

At this point in my life I was not an atheist; but neither was I a Christian. I was, indeed, somewhat hostile to Christianity as it was taught me. And I was (as perhaps all Men are) a natural pagan; therefore I did not love the gods, and I assumed that the gods did not love me; but instead they wanted propitiation, worship, sacrifice. They did not want to be 'asked', but needed to be begged. 

Thus I prayed - whenever the thoughts of death came to mind - with desperate pleading and multiple repetitions. I prayed for the preservation of those I loved; that they would not be taken from me and lost from my life. 

Death seemed like the greatest disaster that could befall me - but at that point I could hardly comprehend my own death; so the worst I could imagine was to be left bereft, unprotected, in a world of strangers who were probably indifferent and uncaring at best; and some were spiteful, hostile, nasty. 

I realized, with perfect truth, that to live within the loving warmth of family was the greatest possible benefit the world had to offer; and that death threatened this happiness and security more - and more irreversibly - than anything else. 

In general; I think that these spontaneous and natural beliefs of early childhood are truths - truths implanted by God or known from our pre-mortal lives. Therefore, not only truths about this earthly mortal life; but eternal truths. 

...Yet, of course, truths as understood by the mind of a child. 

Therefore, our best goal as adults to to return to these spontaneous childhood beliefs, but this time consciously and by choice; and understanding what they really mean in an eternal context. 

I now understand my young-childhood fear of death to be representative of the real terribleness of death when (as naturally) understood as an end to mortal life with loss of the self - loss of what makes each person who they are. 

It is this legitimate fear that Jesus Christ came to save us from. A child could understand it - and indeed a young child is nowadays more likely to understand what Jesus offered than almost anyone else. 

A child's fear comes from the fact that he knows, deep down, that the death of our loved ones in mortal life can only be delayed - and that sooner or later everyone will die. It is indeed, the awareness of death that triggers this stage in childhood. 

Spontaneous human thought (among children, and those whose minds are child-like) cannot get further than this the fear of death and the desire to delay death. The child cannot see past the fact of death. Neither, apparently, could the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament who regarded all Men's lives as terminated in Sheol, nor the Ancient Greeks who regarded all lives as terminated in Hades - both of which entailed loss of the self. 

The dead were not the people they had been in mortal life; and so there was no consolation in their persistence as 'ghosts'.   

Nonetheless, a Christian knows that he has been instructed Not to fear, that fear is a sin - and this prohibition on fear includes death. So for a Christian the fear of death is just the beginning of the matter - not its end. 

As an adult we can and should realize that the best (and only) possible gift to address this childhood fear of death would be that this mortal life would be followed by an immortal life in which were still our-selves, and could (potentially) live forever with those that we had loved in mortal life. 

In other words, The Answer to death is: that-Heaven promised by Jesus Christ - that Heaven (I would add) particularly as clarified by more recent, more detailed Mormon revelations concerning the nature of Heaven and the continued existence and importance of the family*. 

Unlike paganism; Heaven is not a spontaneous insight of childhood. Its necessity - as the only solution to the problem of death which answers to the desires of a loving young child - could perhaps consciously be derived from the conviction that the Christian God the creator is our loving parent (thus very far from the gods of paganism, and from the abstract deities of some philosophies and religions). 

But the Christian Heaven - that is, of resurrected Men living eternally as 'children of God' (ie. as ourselves creative gods) and in familial 'brotherhood' (i.e. in families and divine friends) and knowing the ascended Jesus... such a Heaven could not realistically be inferred by a child. The child would need to be told; and then he might - or might not - believe Heaven was true. 

I decided (as child of about six, a while later than the above-described stage) that the Heaven I was told-about was not true, but was made up from manipulative motives... 

I would still agree - that Heaven as it was told me (or, as I understood it) was Not true; and that the description had been contaminated by this-worldly motives related to making me behave in certain ways. 

Yet I erred in throwing-out the whole idea of Heaven; rather than (as I should have done) thinking more deeply about Heaven, aimed-at discerning how Heaven really was. 

I disbelieved in the Heaven that I was told-about - but I should have believed in Heaven as it really is; and I should have made it my life's task to comprehend that that real Heaven offers the only full and satisfying answer to the problem of death. 

My suggestion is that others should do the same. You should think upon the idea of Heaven, and how Heaven would need to be in order to answer the problem of death. 

Only when you have grasped what Heaven really would answer that problem, have you discovered what it is that Jesus is asking you to believe... Or, more exactly, what Jesus is offering to those who want Heaven.

And you will find that when the problem of death has been answered; then the fear of death - I mean that inescapable existential angst - is indeed cured. 

At least, such fear is cured whenever we have Faith and Hope based upon Love (or 'Charity'); and even when we don't experience the cure, we can know that restoration of that Faith, Hope and 'Charity' will drive-out our fear. 

*I regard mainstream Christianity as having lost sight of some of these key revelations about the nature of God, Heaven and the Family - which was why I believe that Joseph Smith and some of the other Mormon prophets were inspired to articulate these vital truths in a new, radical, and superior metaphysical theology. This appears in the work of early Mormons and some recent writers - along with other non-essentials and errors; therefore requiring, as always, discernment. But these truths having been articulated was of great value to me. Instead of having to work them all out, I was more easily able to recognize intuitively their truth, beauty and virtue; then (without too much effort) to organize them in my understanding.   

It is interesting to try and understand the essence of 'Christianity' - the single main thing that Jesus did, if you like - and when you do, it seems that there are actually quite a wide range of answers. 

My own (Fourth Gospel derived) idea is that Jesus brought the new possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven to those who followed him. 

Others regard the coming of Christ in terms of setting up a new religion - and then participating in the prescribed activities of that religion. Or a changed relationship between Man and God. Or provision of a source of guidance for (this mortal) life. Others focus on a change in 'reality' in the totality of the universe - an 'evolutionary' view. Others take a morality-focused view; which see immorality/ 'sin' as The Problem, and Jesus offering a solution. There are also other ideas - a surprisingly large number!

But if my own understanding of Christianity as "following Jesus to Heaven" is accepted (as a thought experiment, if nothing more) then it is interesting to consider what happened during the years of Jesus's ministry when a Jew or a Roman Pagan decided to 'convert', to become a spiritual follower of Jesus - to consider what this meant in terms of their pre-existing religion. 

My understanding is that - initially - a belief in Jesus was understood in terms of an addition to what was already believed. The Jew added a belief in Jesus to his pre-existing religion, and the Roman likewise. 

In other words, the new thing about becoming a follower of Jesus was the expectation ('hope') of eternal resurrected life in Heaven - to come after this mortal life and after death; and that this resurrection was to be attained by following Jesus. 

'Following' involved having faith in Jesus (in his being the Son of God, thus divine - therefore able to do what he claimed) - and 'faith' meant something like loving and trusting him. 

I think this - specifically about the Jews - is what Jesus meant in those passages of the Gospels where he implied that no aspect of 'being a Jew' needed to be changed in order to become one of his followers. 

It also fits with the miracles of faith; where the miracle happens in someone who 'believes-on' Jesus - specifically, personally; without regard to the nature of his specific religious life - which might be Jewish, Samaritan, or any type of Pagan. 

This idea of 'Christianity' as pre-existing religion-plus, fits with the observation of people who seemed to be (to to believe themselves to be) Christians and Jews, or (presumably) Christians and Samaritans, or Christians and Roman or Greek Pagans. 

It happens because the original Christianity was actually composed of "pre-existing religion"... and then 'adding Jesus'. 

This idea of Jesus as 'an addition' to religion is quite different from - almost the opposite of - 'syncretic' ideas of a religion formed from combining aspects of "Christianity" (as it later became) and "some other religion". 

The idea is instead that Christianity has an essence - which is the following of Jesus to resurrection - and this essence can be added to almost any other "religion". 

But of course, adding Jesus does not leave the pre-existing religion untouched, unchanged! Far from it! In the first place, the Christian idea of death as followed by resurrection (for those who believe-on Jesus) must displace whatever description of death was given by the pre-existent religion. 

So the expectation of Heaven needs to replace Sheol, Hades, paradise, reincarnation, annihilation or whatever was previously expected. 

Furthermore, adding-Jesus inevitably works-back on the pre-existing religion. 

In other words, the expectation of immortal life in Heaven affects the understanding of mortal life on earth - affects it in innumerable ways. 

I suppose that this was the basis for the development of the various Christian churches - these are the various consequences of the expectation of Heaven, on Man's understanding of life on earth. 

And the churches vary because the order and priority of these changes strikes people differently. Since the changes in mortal life are secondary consequences of the primary reality of resurrection; there will often be disagreement as to which ought to come first, which ought to be most enforced. 

But our situation here-and-now, in 2022, is that of no pre-existing religion. "Following-Jesus" cannot easily or obviously be added to Zero - not in the way Jesus could be added to Judaism or Paganism. 

Atheism is the - increasingly mandatory - basis of all serious social life and discourse. Religion is everywhere subordinated to ideology - and that ideology is top-down, imposed, and evil. 

Our rituals and rules are secular (i.e. Satanic in nature and by intent) - not divinely-attributed. 

Jesus is not believed in his promises because he 'cannot be' divine, because 'the divine' is seen as untrue, mistaken, a lie - and indeed impossible. 

Resurrection and eternal life are seen as sheerly incoherent in a materialist world where spirit and the soul are seen as merely mythical, pathological or manipulative.  

 

Such is our situation. Men of 2000 years ago (and much more recently) were able to understand what Jesus meant easily and quickly. They could become 'Christians' (followers of Christ) almost instantaneously; simply by understanding that Jesus offered something more than their existing religion, and by experiencing the spiritual conviction (faith) that this offer of resurrection was real and possible. 

The offer still stands, and can still (in principle) instantaneously be accepted - and then the expectation of Heaven can still begin its inevitable (but unpredictable, because so wide-ranging) working-back to transform a Man's pre-existing convictions... 

Yet the Good News of Jesus Christ cannot nowadays simply add-onto and re-shape existing religious convictions because there are none, and even the basis for religion is destroyed and replaced by a secular, materialist, leftist ideology*.

(An ideology which is in-actuality a mostly-covert Satanism - not neutral but evil.)

The potential follower-of-Jesus ("convert") must also choose to reject many foundational modern metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality; and choose instead to adopt beliefs within-which Christianity makes sense, and can do its work. 

And against the background of evil materialistic nihilism - this must indeed be a conscious choice; and (because the world of institutions and rules opposes it) this conscious choice must be personal - that is, individually-motivated. 

The essence of Christianity remains the same as ever - what makes a huge and adverse difference is that Modern Man is deeply damaged by this-worldly materialism, a nihilism that is deep and habitual, and by a tacit-and-denied allegiance to the evil agenda of Satan. 

*Note: This is why I regard it as a misleading error to call the global, mainstream modern ideology of 'leftism' (or political correctness, or 'woke') "a religion" as so many of those who oppose it do. Despite some superficial resemblances, the leftist ideology is not a religion, it is instead anti-religion - the negation of religion. This is proved by the fact that it cannot (like Judaism, Greek or Roman Paganism etc) be added-to by Jesus, to make someone a real Christian. Precisely because leftist-ideology is Not a religion; if you "add Jesus" to leftist ideology you merely get a fake-Christianity. You get that Christianized-leftism of the kind propagated by the leaders of the major Christian churches and denominations. 

My understanding is that we are incarnated into this mortal life after a pre-mortal life as (unembodied) spirits. 

This means we are born with dispositions - and sometimes these dispositions may make salvation very unlikely. 

(Unlikely but never impossible, else we would instead have become demons, and not been incarnated at all.) 

In other words, some people are 'born evil' with dispositions that - unless they change during mortal life - will lead to the rejection of Heaven. 

Most obviously evil are those people incapable of love. 

Obviously these would reject Heaven and choose hell: reject Heaven because it is a place based-upon an eternal commitment to love; choose hell because without love there is only selfishness and manipulation. 

But another group of less-obviously evil are those who are capable of love, but who refuse to repent their sins. 

All Men (except Jesus Christ) are sinners, and one who refuses to repent his sins cannot enter Heaven, since that is a place without sin. 

Sin is Not to be aligned with God's will; whereas all in Heaven are wholly in accord with divine creative purpose. So all Men (except Jesus Christ) need to be 'purified' of sin before we can enter Heaven - and this requires repentance. 

T

here are various reasons for not repenting sins. Such as a refusal to admit we are or ever have been wrong. 

Or the wish to blame other people or circumstances for our sins - which is the wish to be regarded (and regard oneself) as an 'innocent' victim. 

Or having made some sin The Most Important Thing in our life; and refusal to give it up...

To refuse to repent is, in effect, the desire to have Heaven (and its inhabitants) re-made around one's sin. 

It is implicitly to assert that 'my sin' is more important than Heaven. 

But Heaven cannot be remade without ceasing to be Heaven - therefore this refusal to repent is to self-exclude from Heaven.

What happens to one who loves but will not repent? My guess is that such include those people who seek the oblivion of ego-less, passive bliss - oneness with God conceptualized as abstract and impersonal love. 

This is perhaps the choice of one who wishes to live eternally 'in' a being-state of pure awareness of love; but who can only achieve this by an annihilation of the self, and choosing the incapacity for action, thought, and agency. 

It is a consequence of the 'all you need is love' attitude, which claims that love dissolves sin, and therefore renders repentance unnecessary. 

In effect; such a person chooses to live-out mortal life without repenting his sins; and then (rather than give up sin) wishes to cease to be a person and become merely a minimally-aware spirit, unaware of time, in a situation of rest/ peace/ silence and pleasant almost-nothingness - which might conveniently be termed Nirvana.     

Therefore some loving people do not want Heaven and prefer Nirvana; and (to recap) I think it will be found that many such people carry with them unrepented sins - which I suggest is the reason behind this preference. 

Whether such people will indeed get Nirvana after depends on whether that is truly what they want. 

If someone genuinely wants Nirvana instead of Heaven I see no reason why God would not be able to grant this experience (whatever the underlying reality of that experience might actually be).

Yet, as of 2022 - at least in The West - it seems that the desire for Nirvana is often insincere; because in-practice those who profess Nirvana often preach sin - and will publicly defend and deny sin in principle - and thereby endanger the salvation of others. 

And this is demonic activity; and demons actually want hell - not Nirvana. 

*
Those who believe in a pre-mortal, un-incarnated, spirit existence need to have an answer to the question of why so many people apparently cannot remember anything about it.

The usual example is that there is a 'veil' placed between that phase of our lives, and now; between the eternal lives of Men and Angels dwelling in Heaven, and life on earth; and this veil is necessary to the fulfilment of our mortal tasks. We need to be on our own.

*

The difficulty is that while this veil explanation works for many phenomena, it doesn't account for the important fact that communications do apparently 'pierce' the veil, from time to time - sometimes those in Heaven seem to communicate with those on earth, and seem aware of the activities of those on earth.

Also, how to account for those of us who do feel a strong (albeit extremely imprecise and incomplete) conviction and memory of the reality of pre-mortal existence - and the numerous reports of such an experience throughout human history?

*

For example, evidence of pre-mortal life is widespread if is seen to be present in the form of belief in re-incarnation.

I interpret the intuitive belief in systematic reincarnation in such terms. I think it probable that true reincarnation is very rare indeed - done only for special divine purposes; but that the intuitive belief so many people have about their own personal reincarnation, is in reality a rational misinterpretation of what are actually true memories of their own pre-mortal life.

*

Anyway; why set up a veil that is partial and incomplete, and sometimes intended to be breached - when the veil amounts to a total obscuration for some people but not for others?

Well, such objections to 'the veil' are not critical. All mortal understanding is metaphorical (even when true), and all metaphors are incomplete and break-down when pushed. The metaphor of the veil may serve for the most important purposes.

*

However, my own understanding of the apparent-veil is different; my understanding is that there is not so much a material barrier, but a barrier of thought-forms which divides pre-mortal and mortal life. Specifically that, when looked at from a Heavenly perspective, mortal life is extremely slowed-up, as if we lived in a more viscous medium than Heaven.

The spirit existence of pre-mortal life was swift and immediate - there was no significant gap between thought and action because there was no body, and because the Heavenly environment had little resistance.

Heavenly life, and thought, was fluid and frictionless.

*

Earthly life, by contrast - and necessarily, as being vital to the purpose of it - is slowed-up and delayed.

Mortal, earthly life is experienced as having resistance; there is resistance interposing between the spirit and the body, and events (both creation and corruption) unfold in slow-motion (compared with Heaven) - sometimes with what is experienced as painful slowness.

Patience and prudence are always necessities in mortal life; and courage of course - exactly because of the potential for suffering, and the gap between the ideal and the actual.

*

From this I infer that our mortal memories of pre-mortal life are always present and for everyone - if we choose to introspect - but that these memories are of a life that was so swift and fluid and frictionless, that from our earthly perspective they are a blur.

Our memories of pre-mortal life are (by analogy) somewhat like watching a video recording sped-up a thousand-fold: we see just a blur of shapes and colours and sounds, creating a general impression that is mostly un-interpretable, but from which we may occasionally perceive the flicker of a recognisable picture or soundscape.

*

For those who are most attuned to these pre-mortal memories, most gifted and skillful at interpreting them, the experience may be perceived as an 'instantaneous' understanding of so many simultaneous things as to be indescribable.

Furthermore it is extremely difficult for our slow, viscous, meaning-oriented mortal memories to retain this kind of ultra-sped-up information - there is just far too much stuff to take-in and store, its sequence cannot be properly perceived, the elements cannot clearly be resolved.

*

I would push this metaphor even further. Quite often, reports of knowledge of other worlds, other lives, of Heaven has been experienced in an opposite way to that I have described: experienced as a static state-of-being - such as Nirvana. Experienced as if it was mortal life on earth that was 'swift and slippery', and Heaven that was unchanging: an eternal, unitary state of being.

My explanation is that when something is sped-up fast-enough, it becomes perceived (by mortal minds) as static and unchanging.

Try the experiment of doing this with music - as the playback is sped-up, at first the music is experienced as faster and faster, but a line is crossed when the notes blend together, and a much slower and more gradually modulating chord-like sound emerges (representing the overall dynamics, the average pitch, the tonality etc.).

This is my explanation for how Heaven is perceived by mortal minds, and how the limitation of earthly human perception may mistake what are in reality extreme degrees of swiftness and fluidity for (what appears to be) slow, gradually modulating, even static states of being.

*

It is pretty well recognized that if you want to understand how demons think, the CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters - followed by Screwtape Proposes a Toast - are the best source. 

It is much less widely appreciated that the best understanding of why so many reject Heaven and prefer to choose Hell can be found in Lewis's later The Great Divorce - text version here, and downloadable ebook from here.  

The story has the protagonist (Lewis himself) visiting Heaven on a holiday from Hell with a group of other (self-) damned souls, with the chance of remaining in Heaven - if only they will repent their sins.

The meat of the book is an exploration of the foothills/ outskirts of Heaven and series of encounters between Lewis and a range of representative unrepentant sinners (insubstantial ghosts - by comparison with the hardness and density of Heavenly beings and landscapes). 

What comes across - in a way that I found revelatory and unforgettable - is why people will not give-up and be cleansed-of what seem quite 'trivial' sins, even when the reward is Heaven. 

It is shown how people come to build their life and self-image around some particular sinful activity, such that they can scarcely imagine putting it aside - even when it makes them miserable. This is a fact of everyday life, found in many people around us - and we can surely see it in our-selves. 

A few examples include a 'liberal Christian' Bishop whose self esteem is so based upon his delight in debate and skeptical analysis, that he does not want to know the real answers to his questions - but only to go on showing-off his cleverness and discussing them forever, without end. 

A particularly hard-hitting instance is when a ghost from Hell meets a man who was a murderer in earthly life but repented and chose Heaven; whereas it emerges that the ghost is kept in Hell by his own consuming resentment against the murderer, and the 'unfairness' that a murderer can be forgiven. He chooses Hell rather than forgiveness. 

A woman who spent her life micro-managing her miserable husband into someone more in-line with her own wishes, wants nothing more than to be 'given him' so she can continue the process forever. Unless she can continue to tyrannize over this husband (now one of the happy and blessed in Heaven) - she insists on remaining in Hell. 

A ghost man called Frank meets his Heavenly wife who has become a saint and is followed by a joyous 'family' of those whom she loved and sustained during mortal life. But this man will not speak to his wife directly, but only via a kind of Shakesperian ham-actor 'tragedian' puppet; who is always speechifying to make her feel sorry for him. 

Lewis here quotes some deep insights about this particular sin, through the mouth of the sainted wife (slightly edited by me):

You are using pity, other people's pity, in the wrong way. 

We have all done it a bit on earth, you know. Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity... 

Even as a child you did it. Instead of saying you were sorry, you went and sulked in the attic... because you knew that, sooner or later, one of your sisters would say, 'I can't bear to think of him sitting up there alone, crying.' You used your pity to blackmail them, and they gave in in the end... 

"And that," said the Tragedian, "that is all you have understood of me, after all these years!..." 

"No, Frank, not here!" said the Lady. "Listen to reason. 

Did you think joy was created to live always under that threat? Always defenceless against those who would rather be miserable than have their self-will crossed? 

For it was real misery. I know that now. You made yourself really wretched. That you can still do. But you can no longer communicate your wretchedness. 

Here in Heaven, everything becomes more and more itself. Here is joy that cannot be shaken. Our light can swallow up your darkness: but your darkness cannot now infect our light. 

No, no, no. Come to us. We will not go to you. Can you really have thought that love and joy would always be at the mercy of frowns and sighs? Did you not know they were stronger than their opposites?"

This is marvelous stuff, making points I've never found elsewhere, and there is a good deal more of it; making The Great Divorce one of the key books in my Christian understanding...

Because it is a very common stumbling block that people literally cannot understand why anybody would choose hell over Heaven; and therefore they jump to the conclusion that God is keeping people out of Heaven and that our task on earth is to persuade God to let us in. 

The truth is almost the opposite. God's intention is, through the experiences of our mortal lives, to persuade us to set aside sin and accept the offer of resurrection (which leaves-behind sin) and follow (as a sheep follows the Good Shepherd) Jesus Christ to Heaven. 

Yet it seem to be the hardest thing in this modern world to persuade Men that it is worth giving up their favourite sin to receive the blessings of Heaven - which can only be Heaven when inhabited by Men who have, voluntarily and by positive choice, set-aside evil.

Probably it has not always been thus - and in the ancient world Men merely needed to be told of Heaven and believe it was possible, to wish to follow Jesus. 

Indeed, those who come to know the truth about Jesus and the possibility of Heaven only after their death, and who then recognize and love him, can also make the choice.

Anyone who loves and wishes to follow Jesus, and is prepared to pay the 'price' of repentance, is welcomed by God. 

But Modern Man does not want this - he prefers to hold onto his favourite sin (often some resentment disguised as a political 'ism'; perhaps a sexual sin - a preference for lust over love; perhaps a clinging to mortal life and the refusal to regard death as a portal to everlasting life; perhaps that despair which prefers extinction to eternal participation in creation)... and to take the miserable consequences. 

And if the above does not make sense to you; then you need to read and ponder CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.