Building in Heaven

[ProdglArchitect]

Something I’ve often found myself wondering is, what will we do in Heaven, especially after the Resurrection.

I know that we’ll all worship God forever, but I wonder if it will be a bit like it is now, where our work can be a form of worship. In Heaven we won’t need to work, there will be no toil, but I wonder if God will allow us to do things because we enjoy them.

For example, I enjoy creating spaces. I play Minecraft a lot because it lets my creative juices flow and gives me tools to create some fun environments. I also mod video games from time to time, specifically Skyrim, and enjoy creating new spaces and system for people to explore. I firmly believe that after the Resurrection, we will be able to freely explore the whole of the new creation, not just be limited to Earth, and so I’ve wondered if God would maybe give someone a planet to create on. Not in the sense of the JW’s, who think they get to be gods of their own planets, but more like Minecraft. Here’s this amazing blank slate for you to enjoy, go create something cool.

I know this is probably wishful thinking, but I was wondering what other people thought. Will we be able to create in heaven. (Again, create in the sense of construction, not in the sense of an act of pure creation.)

 

[Lee1]

I may be wrong but I thought after the resurrection we’d have perfect bodies again and be living on say…earth? If so, I’m sure with perfect souls we’ll be busy being full of joy and living highly spiritual earthly lives without suffering.

If I’m wrong then we’ll be spirits co creating and co existing with God, subsumed in His magnificence. Who knows where and what marvels we’ll be part of.

That still leaves me pining a little for power tools, but perhaps we’ll have a different kind of power tool altogether!

 

[Mary888]

I wonder if God will allow us to do things because we enjoy them.

He said “I will wipe the tears from their eyes” (to those in Heaven). Tears also come from having desires in conflict with God. So from this I assume all our desire to enjoy ourselves displeasing God or what He does not want will no longer exist. So when He says “go amuse yourselves” we will do nothing against His will. Some of the fun displeasing Him we already know what they are. Others we probably don’t know.
Without a doubt His Saints will do more than us but this will not trouble us as it does now when we think about it, in wordly terms “why do they do more and we not” for example.

 

[Dlee]

Will heaven be the perfect new creation? “Earth” and dwelling with man as in the beginning? I know there is a New Creation Theology (I’ve not heard it taught in the Catholic Church) that includes man living and working - remember, work itself is not the same as toil. Work was pleasurable until Adam and Eve sinned. I suppose anything is possible - but our focus will be on singing Holy, Holy, Holy!

 

[JamalChristophr]

Hmmm…I doubt there is Minecraft.

Mother Angelica did a very nice mini-series on Heaven “back in the day”. It’s pretty cool. Available on EWTN’s religious catalog, just fyi.

It’s hard to answer these questions, master builder. Even St. Paul would ikely skirt the question.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”

 

[stephenSTOSS1]

It was either Aquinas or Augustine who said you cannot love what you do not know. In Heaven, we will have an intense desire to love God more and more. Therefore, we will occupy ourselves seeking to know more about God. Reading some of the mystics, I learned that the angels never get tired of learning about God. Their thirst for this knowledge will never slacken. Furthermore, because of our complete union with Jesus through our one flesh relationship, we will actually be partakers in the Trinitarian dialogue of God. Now there is something to ponder.

As for the world, there is reason to believe that the world will not end, but will be different. I read somewhere that the planets would cease their rotation. In other words, there would be no passage of created time … not to be confused with the eternal now of God. Even now there are quantum states where time ceases to tic, so to speak. This could be what the Garden of Eden was in Genesis. Think of the Glory Be. The last line is world without end. It was either St. Hildegard or St. Catherine who said that man is so entwined with physical creation that he can never be separated from it. Think about it. You are made from the dust of the earth. Your resurrected body will be glorified, but it will still be physical. That dust of the earth will never cease to be a part of you, just as Jesus’ glorified but physical body will never cease to be hypostatically united to his Divinity. Furthermore, Jesus will continue to be eternally begotten of the Father … glorified physical body included.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that whatever our deepest desires are in Heaven, that will be given us.