Do we continue spiritual growth in heaven?

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Fr. Rippenger says that “amount” of charity we achieve in this life is what it is and it will not continue to grow in afterlife. Does that mean the strength of Unity with God is what we achieve in this life and that’s it? And if we die there’s no more “progress”??
 
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I don’t know. It’s funny I was thinking this same question the other day. This question is concerning heaven.

Purgatory would have to be some sort of growing since we are being purged of our sins, but I’m not sure.
 
The Orthodox believe we do. God is infinite - you can never get “enough” of Him.
 
We don’t know.

Peter Kreeft’s work on Heaven is very interesting.
 
I’ll admit to not being well read on it, but my belief is that we do. God never tires of giving, and in Heaven we will never tire of receiving. As such, I imagine we will all continue to grow in our understanding of God forever, and the more we know the deeper we will love Him.

If not, then no matter what we’ll all love Him as deeply as we can.
 
All the books I read point that those in Heaven aren’t able to merit or gain anything once they get there.
 
No. Because in Heaven the saints have the Beatific Vision. Faith and hope are no more, but exalted knowledge, joy and love.
 
I hope not, as much as doing things is fun, the sense of temporality, of uncertainty, of never ending proccesses to experiment, is ultimately something which I don’t like of this World.

In Heaven we can experience a sense of completitude, of not having to preocupy for keeping things, that would be impossible in our ever changing world.

So I suscribe more to the theory that Eternal means “outside time” and to attribute linear growth to it like in our realm is incorrect.

Of course, it’s not like we won’t do nothing, we will be in an Eternal Mass with our Lord and intercede for our temporal counterparts. But these things won’t evolve temporarily.
 
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As one poster pointed out, the Orthodox believe that we continue growing in the love of God in heaven. This belief holds true among Eastern Catholics as well. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 is the foundation of our belief in this hope.

But let’s use a little reason too. We can never know God fully, even when we behold Him face-to-face. We can only continue to grow in our knowledge of him throughout all eternity. And with our growth in knowledge will come a corresponding growth in love.

Marriage is a good analogy to this. Ideally, the day a couple gets married is the day they love each other the least. Why? Because throughout the rest of their married lives they should be striving to continue growing in love for one another. Why would we think it would be any different when we enter the Wedding Feast of the Lamb?

The certainty that some claim in the knowledge that we can’t grow in love of God after our death is rooted in one particular school of theology (scholasticism). The Church hasn’t dogmatically defined anything in this regard… at least not that I’m aware of. So feel free to charitably disagree with Fr. Ripperger… or to agree with him. Personally, I’d rather continue growing in the love of God throughout all eternity, just like I’d rather continue growing in love for my wife “until death do us part.”
 
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God is infinite, and one of the delights of heaven is that we will see more and more about God.
However, this does not mean we will spiritually become better in heaven. A traditional Catholic belief is that the reward of people in heaven differs among them based on what they made of ourselves in this life. That is a great saint like Saint Paul, Saint Francis of Assisi or Padre Pio will have more glory than they would have had if they hadn’t achieved such spiritual stature in this life. This presumes that people don’t become greater in heaven. After we die we can’t become a Saint Francis after we go to heaven if we weren’t before.
 
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I don’t know what church teaching is on this one, or even if there is any…But I loved thinking about it!

I remember seeing a talk once by Fr. Mike Schmitz about our capacity to love. In this life we grow our capacity to love God and in Heaven it is completely filled. Like, some of us have the ability to love as much as a thimble, and we will be totally full in Heaven. Some people, like say a saint, had the capacity of a swimming pool. He or she will be totally full. Both will experience the fullness of love, but that fullness is rather different. Neither are left in want, but it’s different.

(Here’s the talk)


Then there’s also the idea of why demons can’t repent. They are spiritual beings and are outside of time. That means there’s no chance to change or “repent” since their decisions are eternal. The same will be true of us when we die - our choices are eternally made since we have left the realm of time. Therefore we will not be able to grow our capacity to love more. But, in Heaven, we won’t be in want of more so it won’t really matter all that much. (Everyone is totally filled and feels that lack of want completely, just as the workers in the vineyard all received the same pay at the end of the day)

But Jesus also talked about storing treasure in Heaven and “great is your reward”. I think he is referring to increasing your capacity to love. Things that are done to grow your ability to love God and love others means your capacity always is growing. The larger you can get it, the better so God can pour his love in!

But, again, it’s just a thought.
 
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