Feature
The Road to Heaven
It is full of mystery and foreshadowings.
“HEAVEN SYMPOSIUM”
RET
Heaven: A Symposium
John Derbyshire
Heavens to Betsy!
Shmuley Boteach
Heaven Is Overrated
When I was reading theology at Oxford, my tutor, the Regius Professor of Divinity no less, set his students this topic for our weekly essay: What is heaven and who will get into it? Toiling away on my research in the bibliography of heaven, I soon discovered that the answers to these apparently simple questions can be complex and confusing.
The confusion has been deepened by contemporary journalism. Who would have thought Time magazine would devote the cover story of its April 16th issue to “Rethinking Heaven”? At first it seems like a spoof, since the cover portrays not the usual celestial images of angels, halos, and harps, but a bow-tied Ivy League type perched on a ladder in the clouds and peering forward through binoculars. He looks more likely to fall out of heaven than to get into it. Perhaps this was Time’s way of reminding its readers that the ascent to our celestial home is likely to be a precarious climb.
Anyone interested in making this journey, whether as a questioning skeptic or a committed believer, should study the principal sources of heavenly knowledge: Scripture, Tradition, Interpretation, and Experience.
The paucity of descriptive material on heaven in the Bible is puzzling. In the Old Testament’s greatest scene of theophany (an encounter with God), the Prophet Isaiah is admitted to a heavenly throne room guarded by winged seraphs, one of whom touches a live coal to Isaiah’s lips to purify him. (Isaiah 6:1-8) His abject penitence during this purification indicates that entry into God’s presence will be preceded by judgment. Isaiah saw in his vision that heaven is the epicenter of God’s holiness and glory.
The Psalms contain clues to what heaven could be like. Psalm 48 suggests that the city of God on his holy mountain is “beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth.” In the ensuing verses heaven is portrayed as a fortress of absolute invincibility. Before its gates, kings flee, strong men tremble, and mighty ships are shattered in the wind. This is a theological way of saying that man’s power on earth offers no security, whereas God’s power in heaven gives total security.
The themes of feasting, joy, beauty, loftiness, and security also resonate in the visionary hints of heaven found in the New Testament. Its Greek word ouranos (literally sky or air) has given us the English word heaven, denoting the firmament above the earth where God has his abode. The first indication of this concept in the Gospels is found in Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, in which the heavens open and a divine voice is heard saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11)
Later in the New Testament, St. Paul finds heaven indescribable: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” (Corinthians 2:9) The author of Revelation has no such descriptive hesitation. He paints a vivid picture of multitudes that roar out Hallelujahs and praises to God while the elders keep singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.” (Revelation 19:1-4) These noisy manifestations of worship contrast with the peaceful heaven portrayed by the author of Hebrews, who sees rest as the reward for the completion of the earthly pilgrimage. (Hebrews 3:11)
THE COMMON CHRISTIAN Christian denominator in all these ideas about heaven is that it is filled with the presence of God. Intriguingly, the principal writings of other leading faiths point to a similar concept. The Koran suggests a garden (the word for heaven in Arabic) full of pleasures and privileges, of which the greatest is meeting God. Atziluth, Vaikuntha, Kailas, and Da Luo Tian are names for heaven in respectively Judaism, Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Taoism. Each is where God will be seen face to face.
The question of whether God dwells in a place, in some unimaginable sphere above the cosmos, or in human hearts is a matter of tradition—much of it the creation of artists and writers. Dante’s account in The Divine Comedy of arriving in heaven, although fictional, nevertheless reflects the visionary culture of the time when it was written. After this Medieval period, individual visions of heaven were reported less often, and were not part of a continuing culture but were one-off creations by poets and artists. A famous description from the 17th century comes from John Donne (1572–1631), who wrote a prayer depicting heaven as a house “where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling but one equal light; no noise nor silence but one equal music; no fears nor hopes but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings but one equal eternity: in the habitation of God’s majesty and glory, world without end.”
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the traditions of heaven have been interpreted by many commentators. One of my opposite numbers in this American Spectator symposium, John Derbyshire, highlights two of them—C. S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft—and gives both a rubbishing for their failure to produce evidence. This is an easy hit because faith consists of what we do not see. Nevertheless, because some signs from the invisible world can occasionally be sighted “through a glass darkly,” as St. Paul puts it, let’s play Mr. Derbyshire on his home turf. For the next paragraph or two, take a look at this subject on contemporary evidential grounds and consider reports from living witnesses who think they might have had a premature glimpse of the next life. In the language of heaven-watchers, these are people who claim to have had an “out-of-body experience.”
The phrase may sound like new-age jargon, but its antecedents are biblical. St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, writes of how he “was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.” (2 Corinthians 12:3-4) More surprising than a Christian saint having such a vision two millennia ago is the reality that a significant number of ordinary people, living here and now in the 21st century, claim to have had similar out-of-body experiences. Even more arresting, these experiences appear to have important features in common. People report seeing dazzling light; watching their own deaths from a viewpoint high above ground level; entering into a higher realm of great peace and contentment; and meeting wonderful people, often relatives, who have long ago passed away. If this sounds like wacky nonsense, one has to explain why so many rational people who have been on the brink of death survive to tell such tales of considerable similarity. Surely they can’t all be part of a vast international conspiracy to spin heavenly yarns? And if they were merely hallucinating, how come they had the same hallucination despite their completely different physical circumstances and spiritual beliefs? Is it possible that these near-deathers did get a peek of the afterlife? It is a mystery not easily explained.
AT THE RISK OF being thought a lunatic, I will now record for TAS readers my own near-death experience. I have rarely spoken and never written about this before, largely because at the time I thought it was just a one-off dream. Now I think differently. Subject to that health warning, here are the facts.
At the age of 15, a schoolboy adventure of midnight skinny-dipping with a bad cold led to a bout of pneumonia. My fever climbed so high that I was rushed into the local hospital. I had a temperature of 107.8 degrees, which sent me into a delirium. In rural England of the 1950s, the hospital treatment consisted of shots of penicillin (to no effect) followed by nurses fanning my bed with blankets to cool me down. I lost consciousness.
During this drama I remember looking down on the scene from a vantage point on or above the ceiling. I felt happily detached from what was going on around my bed. I could not understand why the nurses were in such overdrive with the sponging and blanket waving, or why my mother was crying. Then, in my hallucinations, I started to travel. I was surrounded by brilliant white lights of an intensity I have never seen before or since. I flew at high speed first in the sky, then through a tunnel. I arrived in a garden of exquisite beauty where a lunch party was in progress. I was welcomed with great love by two of my grandparents and an old family friend. Never had I felt happier or more at peace. Even my favorite food—roast beef and Yorkshire pudding—was on the table! But just as I was about to sit down after kissing my grandmother, I politely said, “Not today, thank you,” and left.
About the Author
Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator’s High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books). His biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new paperback edition (Regnery).
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Appleby| 6.21.12 @ 6:54AM
I am looking forward to Heaven, and I have no doubt whatsoever that it exists and is a place of perfect rest -- kind of like retirement only without any worry about the stock market taking away all my savings, or a worried evening with the bills. As the old hymn says, 'There is a place of quiet rest/near to the heart of God" ... and I have the assurance that one day I'll be done with trouble and sorrow and walk in the cool green fields of peace with God and my friends and family and all the racing drivers who ever lived.
My Daddy, who was not a fanciful man, once suddenly asked me if I thought his father (whose photo is in the dictionary next to Sinner) could be in Heaven. I told him the truth -- that only God knows our hearts, and probably many people whom we never expected to see will meet us there...and they will say they never expected to see us.
KyMouse| 6.21.12 @ 4:41PM
We cannot say whether or not a particular person is going to Heaven, but we CAN say what is required to go there -- and that is faith (obedient trust) in the Jesus of the Bible.
Not good works, not baptism in the Jordan River, not membership in a certain church or denomination, not going to church every day and twice on Sundays.
We have Jesus' word on it -- in John 3:14-18, for example:
“…And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [Numbers 21:4-9], even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him [Jesus] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God….”
I believe Jesus knew what He was talking about. I'm grateful that He paid for ALL of my sins on the cross, and I trust Him to keep all of His promises to me.
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish..." -- John 10:27-28
Jack in Wi| 6.21.12 @ 10:26PM
This is a fine, well written essay. Lets hope they have more of such in this publication. My sincere complements to the author.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.21.12 @ 6:55AM
You're right.
Stormzeye| 6.21.12 @ 8:04AM
"All the way to heaven, is heaven."
- St. Catherine of Siena
Ryan| 6.21.12 @ 8:29AM
"Further up and further in!" - CS Lewis
Bill84728| 6.21.12 @ 9:15AM
What's the current consensus on the resurrection of the body, which we Christians say we believe in, in the Apostles' Creed?
Do we come back in our bodies, and are our bodies our ideal bodies or the ones we lived in with all flaws?
Is it still frowned on among Christians to be cremated?
David T| 6.21.12 @ 2:36PM
For the model of the resurrected body, we look to Christ's "glorified" body after he rose from the dead. He had a physical body but he was not constrained by physical forces. He was recognizable by those who knew him before, but he could also make himself unrecognizable if he so chose.
As for cremation, it is acceptable as long as the ashes are accorded the same dignity as the body. In other words, proper burial in the ground or placement in a columbarium--no sprinkling of grandma's ashes or putting them in an urn on the mantel.
Bill84728| 6.21.12 @ 4:41PM
Bad news for my plan to have my ashes sprinkled in a particular desert river, where I could flow down to the Sea of Cortez, thence to the Pacific.
SusyQue| 6.21.12 @ 9:27AM
Mr. Aiken...thank you for sharing your experience. Let us remember, Jesus Christ is the Door into heaven. Why? Because God is Holy and cannot look upon sin. Jesus bore our sins of the Cross when we believe that and confess that.., the door to Heaven is open to us because we have been cleansed by His Precious redemptive Blood. Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who are
ONE in our new hearts.
Denver Todd| 6.21.12 @ 9:42AM
Who is getting into heaven? The answer is simply divine!
C. Vernon Crisler | 6.21.12 @ 10:18AM
I wonder, if Derbyshire were to grant for a moment that heaven exists, would there be any blacks there?
Frances| 6.21.12 @ 10:36AM
I read this book while my father was in hospice and it gave me tremendous peace. "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper. This book will bless your life.
Appleby| 6.21.12 @ 11:35AM
I have read it, and I agree. It's fascinating.
Dave Williams| 6.21.12 @ 12:31PM
Oh, for Pete's sake, the fact that 21st-century adults armed with all the knowledge that science has provided us should still believe medieval nonsense is MOST depressing. Heaven...is....a....FICTION.....as is hell, and as is any afterlife whatsoever. At the moment of death, the brain releases all sorts of feel-good chemicals, and so it is no wonder that life's most pleasant memories come floating back to the surface. This life is ALL there is, so it's important to live it with courage, integrity, humor, and compassion FOR THEIR OWN SAKES, and not for the hope of some disembodied pie-in-the-sky payoff.
Stormzeye| 6.21.12 @ 2:07PM
Dave, live your life as if there's a Hell and we'll all be better for it.
David T| 6.21.12 @ 2:16PM
Mr. Williams--I'm intrigued. I did not realize science had disproved the existence of heaven and hell and the afterlife. Please provide more detail....
C. Vernon Crisler | 6.21.12 @ 2:21PM
"This life is ALL there is, so it's important to live it with courage, integrity, humor, and compassion FOR THEIR OWN SAKES...."
Why?
Bill84728| 6.21.12 @ 4:36PM
So we can just disregard singularities and quantum mechanics, right?
Ryan| 6.22.12 @ 9:14AM
If you know anything about science, you would know that we understand less now than ever before.
henry| 6.21.12 @ 12:42PM
In the course of forty plus years as a doctor I’ve seen many people die. One day I visited a man in the ICU who was terminal. He seemed very thoughtful but not downhearted or afraid.
After he greeted me he asked me if I had noticed the three men at the door. I looked but there was no-one there. He said the men had told him they were there to fetch him, and asked me if I knew anything about it. An hour later he was dead.
I spoke to a man once who was an engineer, stationed in the Amazon forest. He had a heart attack, and his wife, a nurse, and an orderly took him to hospital by ambulance. He was unconscious while she gave him CPR. He described to me afterwards how he saw her doing this from an elevated position, and even described the appearance of the back of her neck.
I had a child in my practice who drowned. It took an hour to resuscitate him, while he was deeply comatose. I asked him afterwards what he remembered. He told me he saw that he was at the bottom of the pool, and that he looked and saw his mommy coming to fetch him.
I’m afraid that I agree with Shakespeare: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
GW| 6.21.12 @ 12:48PM
“If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” --C.S. Lewis
The problem with Derbyshire's experience, both with God and Lewis, is that of pure ignorance. Lewis's novels had much deeper meaning than whatever silly names he gave to his characters, and it is only the obtuse materialist who treats Lewis with such disdain. But, as it's said, we loathe what we don't know.
Mr. Aitken's experience is not atypical, and whatever heaven is like it will be even grander and more satisfying than anything we could imagine. But one doesn't have to have a near-death experience to believe heaven exists.
Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you." This promise is to all who believe in Christ as their personal savior, which Christians have good reason for.
GW| 6.21.12 @ 12:48PM
http://www.reasonablefaith.org.....n-of-jesus
Four, largely accepted historical facts exist regarding the events surrounding the Resurrection. Jesus was crucified for blasphemy, his tomb was empty a few days later, hundreds of his followers claimed to have seen appearances of Jesus, and his closest disciples all strongly believed Jesus indeed rose from the grave.
One of those disciples, John, went on to write a gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation under inspiration from the Holy Spirit. In the final book of the New Testament, John writes, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
We were indeed not made for this world, but the next. All experience tells us this, despite what blind materialists assert.
irish19| 6.21.12 @ 10:26PM
One small nit. I don't think the John who wrote Revelations is the same John who wrote the Gospel and epistles. I could be wrong.
Silver Bullet| 6.21.12 @ 12:55PM
Mr. Derbyshire (and other non-believers) would not want to believe in a divinity whom they could examine under a microscope and "understand." If you understand "it," then it cannot be God.
The issue is whether Derbyshire believes that "he" exists at all -- an autonomous agent of free will.
If so, and if not believing in "God," then he has just made himself into "god" -- and humanity as a kind of god-in-the-making, en route to creating an eternity and a universe of their own -- or at least in a race against the clock of the known universe to do such a thing.
If Derbyshire does not believe in free will, then he must take the dismal view that pleasure is "god"; and that he exists solely to maximize his own, before his expected demise.
Who would want to live in a such a way? Well, I guess quite a few people, given the likes of Larry Flynt and his minions. There is no shortage of people quite overtly living for the moment, for themselves, for pleasure -- partying til they drop.
It is why I have often thought that the National Anthem ought to be Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" -- "Celebrate Good Times!! Come On!!" It might be a far better representation of the national ethos these days than the "Star Spangled Banner."
Bill84728| 6.21.12 @ 4:37PM
If God could be understood, He wouldn't be God.
Who Knows?| 6.21.12 @ 1:35PM
Are you conscious? Are you aware of being conscious? When in orgasmic bliss, are you in heaven or hell?
The prime problem in our times, wherein conventional wisdom is utter belief in scientific materialism and religious provincialism, has to do with consciousness.
We’re all materialists! This means that cutting edge belief is simply recycled flat-earth-ism. So, most “normal” people believe consciousness is a feature of material, an attribute.
So, you have knee jerkers who believe all those near death experiences are just the PHYSICAL brain flickering off.
In truth, materialism is an attribute of Consciousness, which is Being, as well as Bliss. Consciousness is ALL there is, as weird as that seems, in our “heavy, man” stepped down frequencies of Light, as energy.
Belief IN whatever doesn’t cut it!
Any putatively educated fool can repeat e=mc(squared). AND not have the slightest clue of what it means, or its TRUE implications. I dare you to ask the first person you see, today, to tell you what it means. Or, try to explain it, to yourself---and I’ll bet 90% of you can’t do so.
Mr. Know-It-All, “Who Knows?”, is ever ready to help—
Energy and matter are ONE and the same, only apparently different.
That means, when you SEE (or otherwise sense) all the weighable stuff in your world, it is simply slow moving energy. Picture ice from liquid water from steam from—light.
This IS Heaven, always and already, folks.
E B | 6.21.12 @ 1:49PM
Thanks for sharing your insights and experience. They match up with my own understanding of heaven, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons believe that families can be together forever, that we will all come before God to be judged on our faith and works, and if we are cleansed of our sins through Christ, then we can live with Him forever in incomprehensible joy and love and peace. Following Jesus Christ and becoming like Him is the core belief in the LDS (Mormon) Church. We also believe that the opportunity to learn about Christ is given to those who have died who did not learn about him in life, to give all the opportunity to know Him and be saved.
www.conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com
MK48| 6.21.12 @ 5:58PM
EB.......families can live together in "heaven" and you don't get there by good works. How could you be judged by God if you are in a cult.
Saved you say the only way is to believe Jesus died on the cross for you. The last time I looked this up in the book of mormon gee ......I couldn't find it.
Try the real bible..................:-)
Who Knows?| 6.21.12 @ 2:01PM
Mr. Aitken, if you haven’t already done so, read “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Best, though, if you “believe” you’re going to die, is “Easy Death”, by Da Free John, from 1983, a book with the following quote from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., author of “On Death and Dying”, on the back jacket—
“Easy Death is an exciting, stimulating, and thought-provoking book that adds immensely to the ever-increasing literature on the phenomena of life and death. But, more important, perhaps, a confirmation that a life filled with love instead of fear can lead to ultimate meaningful life and death. Thank you for this masterpiece.”
Petronius| 6.21.12 @ 3:45PM
The old Baltimore Catechism began with the question, Why did God create us?
Ans. "God created me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be with Him in the next."
This antique teaching has now been supplanted with the demands of those who believe they have the right to acceptance by any and all on their own terms. So it goes with sinners who turn pro. And the Father will do as He will when we pass and the demands turn to cries. Better to make no noise and expect nothing.
Peggie from Georgia| 6.21.12 @ 4:01PM
Let’s just say that all the atheists are right and all Christians are wrong.
Then I am no worse off when I die than you are when you die.
BUT, as a Christian, if I am right and you are wrong, then you are a Hell of lot worse off.
Butch| 6.21.12 @ 5:57PM
I remember reading a general behavioral science text in graduate school by an author named something like Keuhn. You can either believe or not believe, and you will be either right or wrong.
Four possible outcomes: believe and you're right, eternal salvation; believe and you're wrong, you missed out on a lot of fun; don't believe and you're right, nothingness; don't believe and you're wrong--uh oh.
The author was positing that a rational evaluation of these possible outcomes was why most people believe. Never forgot it.
Kingofthenet| 6.21.12 @ 6:22PM
It's called Pascal's Wager, and it's flawed, what if you Worship the wrong God? What if the belief isn't genuine, and merely a ploy?
Stormzeye| 6.21.12 @ 7:47PM
God knows what's in your heart.
Kingofthenet| 6.21.12 @ 4:36PM
'Near Death' occurrences are what the Brain does when it's semi-conscious and lacking in oxygen.The same results can be obtained with drugs (LSD) or direct electrical stimulation of parts of the brain, nothing magical here folks.
Bill84728| 6.21.12 @ 4:39PM
How do you know? When was the last time you experience death?
Not near-death, but death itself.
oldbuck| 6.25.12 @ 8:50PM
Each of us Jesus Freak, Bible thumping, Evangelicals that hold this Heaven as our life's final and everlasting home, must as some point find closure on the subject or die doubting. I've settled it for myself with a rhyme I wrote sometime ago.
I will copy part of it here if there is room.
Our lovely dog Snickers
Much of the rhyme is not here for the sake of space.
Some time a while back, I read of two men.
Who were speaking of Heaven, but of course hadn’t been.
One fellow wondered, would they barbecue there,
Will they melt down some smores, Could the steaks be grilled rare?
Will they use charcoal briquettes, or does propane heat the air?
Would there be a choice of soft drinks, Or is it just water there?
They were so filled with queries, about life then in heaven.
Well one of the questions, I would ask of those two.
Will my Snickers be there? On my slippers to chew?
Will Heaven be heaven? If that really ain’t so.
Is it finally the place where I’ll want to go?
I'll not forget how it ended, Then came the conclusion.
Perfection in heaven, Is no foggy illusion.
For as my dog had her favorites, Chew toys and a chair.
She’ll be as happy as ever, when her master gets there.
That seems now so clear, that’s settled for me.
I have hope and joy, as the end now will be.
If when at the gate, I don’t, my little dog see.
I’ll know I’m in heaven, for my Master will be.