Heaven: the Logic of Eternal Joy

Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy Jerry L. Walls OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS HEAVEN This page intentionally left blank HEAVEN The Logic of Eternal Joy Jerry L. Walls 1 2002 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and an associated company in Berlin Copyright © 2002 by Jerry L. Walls Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walls, Jerry L. Heaven : the logic of eternal Joy / Jerry L. Walls. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511302-0 1. Heaven. I. Title. BT846.2 .W35 2002 236'.24—dc21 2001036294 246897531 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Yukie In appreciation for your anticipation And To Angela Rose (Death, having lost its sting, will no longer raise questions I cannot answer to your satisfaction) and Jonathan Levi (Yes, Cokes are free in Heaven and that’s only the beginning, and no it will never get boring) I also dedicated Hell to you two, but this is the one you want! This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments Several people deserve thanks for help in producing this book. Among those who read parts of it in various stages and offered critical comment are: Avery Dulles, Yukie Hirose, Toddy Holeman, Curt Lee, Jim Lyons, Ed Madden, Terry Muck, Richard John Neuhaus, Sue Nicholson, Jim Thobaben, and Külli Toñiste. I also benefited much from the summer discussion group organized by Brian Marshall, which discussed earlier versions of several chapters over dinner at the Lexington City Brewery. Detailed comments on several chapters by Paul Griffiths and Mike Peterson were very useful in helping me clarify and strengthen my arguments. Pat Wilson and I have been arguing about the issues of the last chapter of this book ever since our days in graduate school together at Notre Dame. This discussion as well as his criticism of earlier versions of the chapter have been invaluable, though he remains unconvinced that life has the sort of meaning I affirm. In the same vein, thanks to my students at Asbury Theological Seminary for stimulating discussion of the issues addressed in this book over several years. Thanks also to Phil Tallon for research on the cover art. And to Billy, Collins, and Strawn for moral support. Finally, I want to express gratitude to the administration of Asbury Theological Seminary for sabbatical leaves that allowed me to concentrate on writing this book for ex- tended periods of time. This page intentionally left blank contents Introduction 3 1. Heaven and God’s Goodness 14 2. Heaven, the Nature of Salvation, and Purgatory 34 3. Heaven and Its Inhabitants 63 4. Heaven, Trinity, and Personal Identity 92 5. Heaven and the Problem of “Irredeemable” Evil 113 6. Heaven and Visions of Life after Life 133 7. Heaven, Morality, and the Meaning of Life 161 Conclusion 198 Notes 201 Index 217 This page intentionally left blank HEAVEN This page intentionally left blank introduction I In one of the most intriguing passages in Augustine’s Confessions, he relates a remarkable experience he had with his mother, Monica, just a few days before she died. At the time, he was a recently baptized Christian whose conversion was due in no small part to the persistence, prayers, and tears of his mother. They had been on a long and tiring journey and were refreshing themselves before a sea voyage they had planned. He reports that they were alone and were leaning from a window that overlooked the garden of the house in which they were staying. Their conversation, which Augustine described as “serene and wonderful,” turned to pondering the question of what life in heaven for the saints must be like. As they sought for insight into this great mystery, they were led to the conclusion “that no bodily pleasure, however great it might be and whatever earthly light might shed lustre upon it, was worthy of compari- son, or even mention, beside the happiness of the life of the saints.” Then something extraordinary occurred. While their discussion about heaven con- tinued and they were “longing for it and straining for it with all the strength of our hearts,” Augustine claims that “for one fleeting instant we reached out and touched it.”1 Shortly after this ecstatic, mystical experience in which the pair momen- tarily tasted heaven, Monica said that she was ready to die. Her only reason for wanting to stay in this world had been to see her son converted to Christian- 3 4 Introduction ity. “God has granted my wish and more besides, for I now see you as his ser- vant, spurning such happiness as the world can give. What is left for me to do in this world?” About five days after this, Monica was in bed with a fever. Earlier she had expressed a desire to die in her own country and be buried at her husband’s side. Now she asks only of Augustine that after her death, “wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord.” As he carried out this wish a few days later, Augustine prayed to God that those who read his book would remember both his father and his mother. In particular, it was his prayer that they “will be my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem for which your people sigh throughout their pilgrimage, from the time when they set out until the time when they return to you.”2 Now let us “fast forward” to the twenty-first century. It is most instructive to compare Augustine’s longing for heaven with all his heart and his convic- tion that Christians sigh for it “throughout their pilgrimage” with the attitude of some contemporary Christian spokesmen. Consider, for instance, the place heaven occupies in Harvard theologian Gordon Kaufman’s systematic theol- ogy. A few pages after expressing the view that we have no reason to believe life continues beyond the grave, he writes, “We are now in a position to dis- pose rather quickly of such symbols as the ‘last judgment,’ ‘heaven,’ and ‘hell.’”3 Augustine and Kaufman are vastly separated by far more than mere time. Indeed, it would be hard to overstate the difference between the perspective of one who believes heaven is a glorious reality to be longed for throughout one’s life and that of one who sees heaven as nothing more than a symbol to be disposed of “rather quickly.” Or compare Monica’s spurning of the happiness of this world and her anticipation of heaven with the views of contemporary feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. Ruether wonders whether the whole notion of life after death is even a concern for women. Following Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ruether suggests that male religion has focused on death and how to escape it, while for women the pivotal experience has been birth, and the pri- mary concern has been to nurture ongoing life on this earth. Accordingly, Ruether sees the cosmic matrix of matter and energy, rather than individual persons, as the thing that is everlasting. “Acceptance of death, then, is acceptance of the finitude of our individuated centers of being, but also our iden- tification with the larger matrix as our total self that contains us all.”4 In light of this, Ruether has a very different conception of our calling in life and how this affects our wishes for our children. “It is not our calling to be concerned about the eternal meaning of our lives, and religion should not make this the focus of its message. Our responsibility is to use our temporal life span to create a just and good community for our generation and for our children.”5 Again, there is a gaping chasm between the aspirations Monica had for Augustine and those Reuther says we should have for our children. While a just and good community is hardly a thing to be lightly regarded or devalued, no such temporal good could even begin to compare with the eternal community of perfect joy that Monica desired for her son to experience. Introduction 5 It may be tempting for contemporary persons to dismiss Augustine and Monica’s preoccupation with heaven as part and parcel of a precritical, even premedieval, mindset that is no longer tenable for those who have lived through the Enlightenment and beyond. The fact is, however, that heaven has been a pervasive element in Christian thinking through the ages, and contemporary indifference to the hereafter is the exception to the norm. Consider, for instance, the comments of the great Leibniz on another author he was review- ing. Leibniz noted that the author observed that frequently we are poor judges of real happiness, and that often there is more happiness in a contented poor man than in the palace of a great man. While this is a commonplace observa- tion in every age, the author went on to claim that “the greatest felicity here on earth lies in the hope of future happiness,” a view that Leibniz went on to endorse as completely agreeing with his own.6 Now this latter view is not a commonplace of every age, and certainly it is rather foreign to many persons in our age, even many who profess to believe in heaven.

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