vol 3: Development
chapter 15: Heaven:
Introduction
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Introduction
Many people believe that the conscientious practice of their religion will lead to an ideal state of existence which some call heaven. Heaven is, by definition, the goal of all our work. Heaven is a state of blessedness, the opposite of hell, a state of pain.
Christianity sees heaven as an eternity of enjoying the experience of God. This enjoyment is the reward for living a successful Christian life on earth. One goes to the Christian heaven after death. Here we assume that heavenly and hellish are not so much places as qualities attached to different phases of our present existence.
.The classical theory of the Christian heaven was written by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa. Aquinas. Aquinas' theory of heaven is based on the notion that the human desire for knowledge is infinite, only to be fulfilled by the vision of God.
The infinity of God, fulfilling our infinity of desire, brings an infinity of pleasure. Summa, part II I, qq 1 sqq. Hell, on the other hand, is the eternal denial of the vision of God, coupled with undiminished desire to see God.
This view requires little change on the hypothesis that the universe is divine. The universe, like the God of old, is capable of fulfilling all our desires. The foundations of human nature, as we have it, were laid in the 'environment of evolutionary adaptedness', the Pleistocene Epoch, centered about one million years ago. Cummins p 52 .Our desires, insofar as they are genetically controlled, were shaped by the needs of survival in those times and environments.
Human nature is a lot more complex that Aquinas realised, and for most of us heaven requires the fulfillment of needs for love, security, food, and shelter as well as our need for vision. Nor are our needs necessarily infinite, as Aquinas supposed. Hunger, for instance, is met by adequate food. Too little may lead to starvation, too much to obesity, an epidemic disease in modern wealthy societies.
Similarly, most of us are satisfied with an adequate amount of knowledge, housing, love and security. We feel that desire for excessive amounts of any good generally has some pathological foundation.
For each of us, the guide to heaven is our own feeling, tempered by prudence, that is practical wisdom. A heavenly world must be structured so that each of us may get our fair share of heaven, and be exposed to no more than our fair share of hell.
We feel that a good religion maximizes the time its followers experience heaven and minimizes their experience of hell.
Further reading
Books
| Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Editiones Paulinae 1962 back |
| Buchan, James, Frozen Desire: the meaning of money, Farar, Strauss and Giroux 1998 Jacket: 'In Buchan's view, money is civilization's greatest invention. ... As Buchan explains, money is "frozen desire" - and because money can fulfill any mortal purpose, for many people the pursuit of money becomes the point of life. In a learned and elegant survey, Buchan illuminates the many different views of money across the centuries. ... Whether or not money is humanity's greatest invention, its meanings reveal a great deal about human nature; in showing us what we think of money JB shows is who we are.' Amazon back |
| Cummins, Denise Dellarosa, and Colin Allen (editors), The Evolution of Mind, Oxford University Press 1998 Introduction: This book is an interdisciplinary endeavour, a collection of essays by ethologists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers united in the common goal of explaining cognition. ... the chief challenge is to make evolutionary psychology into an experimental science. Several of the chapters in this volume describe experimental techniues and results consistent with this aim; our hope and intention is that they lead by example in the development of evolutionary psychology from the realm of speculation to that of established research program' Amazon back |
| Damasio, Antonio R, The Feeling of What Happens : Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness , Harcourt Brace 1999 Jacket: 'In a radical departure from current views on consciousness, Damasio contends that explaining how we make mental images or attend to those images will not suffice to elucidate the mystery. A satisfactory hypothesis for the making of consciousness must explain how the sense of self comes to mind. Damasio suggests that the sense of self doe snot depend on memory or on reasoning or even less on language. [it] depends, he argues, on the brain's ability to protray the living organism in the act of relating to an object. That ability, in turn, is a consequence of the brain's involvement in the process of regulating life. The sense of self began as yet another device aimed an ensuring survival.' Amazon back |
| Jackson, Roger, and Roger Makransky (editors), Buddhist Theology: Critical reflections by contemporary Buddhist Scholars, Curzon Press 1999 Jacket: 'This volume is the expression of a new development in the academic study of Buddhism: scholars of Buddhism, themselves Buddhist, who seek to apply the critical tools of the academy to reassess the truth and transformative value of their tradition in its relevance to the modern world.' Amazon back |
| Lisieux, Therese of, The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux, ICS Publications 1999 Amazon customer review: 'I believe Therese Martin speaks to all people regardless of their religion. Just by following her "little way" we could solve so many problems in our daily lives as well as in the wider world! As I was reading her autobiography there were two main thoughts in my mind: "She's just an ordinary girl like me!" and "She is an exceptional human being whom Jesus is speaking through." This is the power of Therese Martin. She is both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Her message is simple and basic and very important. She has worked miracles in my life and you don't need to be a Catholic for her to work miracles in yours.' A Reader. Amazon back |
| Oppenheim, Janet, "Shattered Nerves": Doctors, patients and depression in Victorian England, Oxford University Press 1991 Jacket: 'Victorian specialists in nervous diseases comfronted depression with vague definition, fashionable enthusiasms, and increasing frustration. Their persistent inability to help their suffering patients was rooted in poervasive dogmas about class, gender, morality and the mind-bdy relaitonship. With her accustomed sureness of touch, mastery of broad medical and social context and an extraordinary range of illustration, JO traces the English history of depression with genuine humanity and not a trace opf condescension.' R K Webb. Amazon back |
| Ranke-Heinemann, Uta, and (translated by Peter Heinegg), Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: The Catholic Church and Sexuality, Penguin Books 1991 Jacket: 'This survey of the Church's attitude to sexuality is nothing if not fair ... A formidable book, being a relentless polemic backed by enormous erudition. The only ecclesiastical response to it that seems to me possible is a bull declaring that women have no souls.' Anthony Burgess in the Observer Amazon back |
| Ridley, Matt, The Origins of Virtue, Viking Books 1997 Prologue: 'This book is about human nature, and in particular the surprisingly social nature of the human animal. ... It is the claim of this book that the answer to an old question - how is society possible - is suddenly at hand, thanks to the insights of evolutionary biology. ... This book is on three levels. It is about the billion year coagulation of our genes into cooperative teams, the million year coagulation of our ancestors into cooperative societies, and the thousand year coagulation of ideas about society and its origins.' pp 5-7. Amazon back |
| Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist, George Allen and Unwin 1976 Jacket: 'In this clear account of the essentials of mysticism, Mr. Suzuki has taken as examples the Zen Buddhism of the East and the reflections of Meister Eckhart. With a wealth of illustration and explanation, he shows how the Chinese sage and the German philosopher meet on common ground.' Amazon back |
Papers
| Glanz, David, "Left out", Eureka Street, 7, 5, June 1997, page 36-. 'DG asks whether the Left in Australia can find a future for itself'. back |
Links
| Aquinas Summa Thomas Aquinas: The medieval theological classic online. back |
| Aquinas 585 Summa I-II, 1, 1: Is it appropriate for man to act for a purpose? back |
| Catholic Encyclopaedia Heaven 'There is a heaven, i.e., God will bestow happiness and the richest gifts on all those who depart this life free from original sin and personal mortal sin, and who are, consequently, in the state of justice and friendship with God' back |
| Maharishi Creating heaven on earth 'Here is everything about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and organisations using Maharishi's programs for creating heaven on earth. With links to and reviews of every Transcendental Meditation program site on the internet' back |
| Religious Tolerance What Christian groups believe about the afterlife: Heaven, Purgatory, Hell, Limbo, etc 'What is our eventual condition after we die? Do we eventually land up in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory. Do we simply disappear? Do we sleep for a long time after death before waking up for a final judgement? Are we later reincarnated into new bodies? And what steps do we go through after death to end up in our final destination?' back |
| Synchron Data Programmers' heaven 'This site is dedicated to programmers all over the world. Our main goal is to provide a complete start-off for programming related web surfing and file downloading' back |
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