DANG!  That seriously puts some flesh and blood on it, big time. What more could one possibly ask for?

I like The Great Divorce.  I'm just not sure I buy the idea blishful water-treading.  Honestly is eternal bouncing of love back and forth the ultimate "high" that we should be hoping for?  Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough, but I can't see it.  "Love you."  "Love you too."  "No, really, I love you."  "Yeah...  me too."  "Guess what?"  "What?"  "I love you."  "Enough already!"  I think this would be dissatisfying.  And I'm not so sure dissatisfaction is ruled out of heaven by Christianity.  "Our father in heaven" seems to have bad days from time to time.

Now if heaven is about growing closer to God, then I guess that's something, but isn't distance/separation from God sin?  Will we have an existence that approaches holy/godly but never quite gets there?  Once again, this would seem to be less than ideal.

Meph, I too like the athlete picture, but even there we still have something to work against, some friction.  That's what makes it fun.  Ever play a game where you could make and break the rules at will?  It's gets boring quick.  Maybe it just that I'm so "depraved" that I can't see out of it, but it seems that every good thing has its corresponding bad.  I personally believe that "good" and "bad" are ultimately relative.  There is nothing that makes good good except God's choice.  There's really no reason that love is good except God said so.  As soon as the bad is taken off the table there's no good either.  When it is impossible for your tastebuds to experience anthing but perfect bliss, the formerly "good" Hershey's bar ain't all that great.

I'm still working through all this.  But even the apparent impossiblitiy of good without evil gets me excited.  God is good at doing the seemingly impossible.  I'm interested to see how he pulls this one off.

Post Edited (Sahid) : 6/21/2005 12:21:37 PM (GMT-5)

Sahid said...

I like The Great Divorce.  I'm just not sure I buy the idea blishful water-treading.  Honestly is eternal bouncing of love back and forth the ultimate "high" that we should be hoping for?  Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough, but I can't see it.  "Love you."  "Love you too."  "No, really, I love you."  "Yeah...  me too."  "Guess what?"  "What?"  "I love you."  "Enough already!"  I think this would be dissatisfying.  And I'm not so sure dissatisfaction is ruled out of heaven by Christianity.  "Our father in heaven" seems to have bad days from time to time.

I understand where you’re coming from, because I used to have the same kind of image too… “gee, if all we’re going to do is sit on clouds playing harps forever… wouln’t that be boring?”  but after experiencing some incredible times in worship, especially when I started playing in worship groups and doing signing, all I can say is “man!  I can’t wait for an even better worship time in heaven!” 

Here’s an idea… do some imaginative worship.  I mean, seriously finding some Christian music that just really gets to you (perhaps like Sonic Flood where they sing Open the Eyes of my Heart-that song just really kicks it!--IMHO), bring up the volume and get into the moment.  Imagine who God is… not just god, but God--the amazing, mind-blowing Almighty.  Imagine yourself just in the middle of the MOST ENERGETIC, excited, joyful crowd of people, along with the angels, just shouting at the top of your lungs.  It’s just like being at that rock concert that you didn’t want to end… but now, this is even better -- so much better -- that it fills your mind and makes you want to mosh or something.  Now that’s just the start of it.  Another scene, imagine you are in the most amazing garden you’ve ever seen.  Then you see some long lost friend and you are simply excited to see them.  You all discuss how awesome the concert was.  You discuss how awesome God is.  You talk for hours upon hours upon hours and you never get tired of the discussion.  You see new things all the time (God’s creating abilities doesn’t stop here on Earth… we’ve only seen a small fraction of what there is) and imagine always coming across new things that God has created and still enjoying the old.  Yeah, I’m excited about heaven from just writing this!  Our cup will runneth over – continually - because of our Lord being that source… and we’ll never get bored of it.

Now if heaven is about growing closer to God, then I guess that's something, but isn't distance/separation from God sin?  Will we have an existence that approaches holy/godly but never quite gets there?  Once again, this would seem to be less than ideal.

This has a problematic assumption: that it’s not only sin that would separate us from God and a physical separation ipso facto is sinning thus causing us to sin even more thus causing more of a physical separation ad infinitum.  However, according to the Christian view, it’s only sin that causes a spiritual separation from God.  We can interpret from Genesis that Adam spent time walking alone in the garden and he wasn’t sinning. (the moments before Adam took the fruit, God wasn’t physically in their midst, but Adam didn’t sin until the moment he ate the fruit)

Meph, I too like the athlete picture, but even there we still have something to work against, some friction.  That's what makes it fun.  Ever play a game where you could make and break the rules at will?  It's gets boring quick.  Maybe it just that I'm so "depraved" that I can't see out of it, but it seems that every good thing has its corresponding bad.  I personally believe that "good" and "bad" are ultimately relative.  There is nothing that makes good good except God's choice.  There's really no reason that love is God except God said so.  As soon as the bad is taken off the table there's no good either.  When there it is impossible for your tastebuds to experience anthing but perfect bliss, the formerly "good" Hershey's bar ain't all that great.

Here you’re saying that God can’t exist without evil which opposes the Christian view of God.  Buddhism has the yin and yang, but we don’t.  Evil is the absence of good because God is good and God exists without the presence of evil.  Also you’re saying that God and goodness are two separate things.  However, we assert very strongly that God is omni-benevolent, that goodness is part of his essence.  If God decides what constitutes as being good, then He could theoretically create a world where He decides that rape, incest, and torture are good.  However, we say that is impossible because God is good and goodness reflects God.  If rape, incest, and torture are now not good (i.e. evil) then it is true that they are always evil and can never be good.

I'm still working through all this.  But even the apparent impossiblitiy of good without evil gets me excited.  God is good at doing the impossible.

Why does the apparent impossibility of good without evil get you excited?  Are you saying that evil is good?

Also, God can do all things except things that go against His nature and things that are logically impossible (such as creating a square circle or making 2+2=5… those are not coherent possibilities). 

Hope all this makes some sense! 

First, that was a typo.  I meant "there is no reason that love is good except God said so."  The idea of anything being objectively good begs the question.  Any definition of "good" will either beg the question or be circular.  (For that matter all definitions are ultimately circular.)

I do have powerful worship times.  Stavesacre is the best music, Christian or otherwise, that I've experienced, and it's not just the asthetic; it's what's communicated.  He doesn't sing about perfection though.  He sings about God being victorious and showing love in the midst of the world's ugly stuff. Even the song you mentioned, Open the Eyes of My Heart, deals with conflict.  The whole song is a request for God to fix a problem.  Without the problem the song has no meaning.  Leave the Eyes of My Heart Open?

I would highly recommend the book "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn.  I challenge a few theological issues raised, but for the most part it is a very good book.  

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0842379428/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-5508091-8488138#readerpage

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 6/22/2005 11:53:00 AM (GMT-5)

It looks like you're saying that God is enslaved to a higher concept of "good"  Is he compelled to do good, and powerless to disobey his master?

That’s like saying I’m enslaved to being human or enslaved to having a heart.  I’m not enslaved to being human, that’s just simply who I am, part of my essence.  Just the same with God and good.  You see them as two separable things, I don’t. That which is good is not higher than God just as God is not higher than that which is good.