Do you really believe in Heaven? Really?

[Leela]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances, how should we expect someone to behave who believes with the sort of professed certainty that so many believers express in being united with God and loved ones in Heaven?

Best,
Leela

 

[JohnDamian]

Some people; particularily when they are at their weakest (physically, emotionally) do not have the strength or confidence in themselves to give one hundred percent to their belief. They come to doubt them selves.

This doubt in no way impugns the truth or falsehood of their beliefs; after all many thousands have willingly gone to their deaths for the faith.

I believe in Heaven; but I do not wish to die at my age. I may have full certainty of my beliefs; but I do not have full certainty in myself. Dying does not seem to be an easy thing.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances, how should we expect someone to behave who believes with the sort of professed certainty that so many believers express in being united with God and loved ones in Heaven?

Best,
Leela

These are my thoughts exactly. Yes, I want to die, God willing. Many of the great saints thought along similar lines. This is a miserable, corruptible world we live in.

 

[Robert_Sock]

The Golden Key to Heaven
by Saint Anthony Mary Claret

“The death of the just: Death will reach everyone, the good and the bad; but the destiny of each one is quite different. The just man sees himself in this valley of tears as a prisoner, serving a very hard term. He considers himself a slave in this world, suffering an extremely distressing servitude. He regards himself a sailor caught in a horrible storm. And as death means an end of his confinement, an end of his slavery, and is the port of his salvation, he ceases not to cry with David, “Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged!. . .” (Ps. 119:5). He ceases not to ask with the Apostle, “. . . Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24)”

 

[SedesDomi]

All-merciful love can thus descend to everyone. We believe that it does so. And now, can we assume that there are souls that remain perpetually closed to such love? As a possibility in principle, this cannot be rejected. In reality, it can become infinitely improbable–precisely through what preparatory grace is capable of effecting in the soul. It can no no more than knock at the door, and there are souls that already open themselves to it upon hearing this unobtrusive call. Others allow it to go unheeded. Then it can steal its way into souls and begin to spread itself out there more and more. The greater the area becomes that grace thus occupies in an illegitimate way, the more improbable it becomes that the soul will remain closed to it. For now the soul already sees the world in the light of grace. …

The more that grace wins ground from the things that had filled the soul before it, the more it repels the effects of the acts directed against it. And to this process of displacement there are, in principle, no limits. If all the impulses opposed to the spirit of light have been expelled from the soul, then any free decision against this has become infinitely improbable. Then faith in the unboundedness of divine love and grace also justifies hope for the universality of redemption, although, through the possibility of resistance to grace that remains open in principle, the possibility of eternal damnation also persists. …

Human freedom can be neither broken nor neutralized by divine freedom, but it may well be, so to speak, outwitted. The descent of grace to the human soul is a free act of divine love. And there are no limits to how far it may extend.

[St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, cited by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That all Men be Saved”?, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 219-221, citing St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, World and Person, ed. by L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D. (Freiburg, 1962), pp. 158ff.)]

 

[tonyrey]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

1. Death entails separation from those we love. Even if we believe in heaven it is still hard to bear because we don’t know how long it will be before we’ll be reunited.
2. We are creatures of habit and the habits of a lifetime die hard! Hippocrates believed change is one of the main causes of illness. Even change for the better - like getting married (hopefully!) - causes stress on the nervous system. We become so attached to earthly joys and pleasures we are averse to losing them.
3. The prospect of going into the “bourne from which no traveller returns” must fill any normal person with anxiety. Most people dread the unknown in spite of their faith.
4. In many people’s minds there looms the thought that they may not reach heaven…
5. Often we have a lot of unfinished “business” here on earth: incomplete projects, unfulfilled ambitions, unrectified wrongs…
6. No matter how deep our faith we all have to endure the dark night of the soul - of which death is the culmination. Even Jesus was tempted to despair…
7. We simply don’t feel ready to die because we know we are not worthy to be in the presence of God.

 

[ricmat]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven?

I’ll try to answer the first part of your post, from my perspective at least.

Some smart person once said that the minute we are born we are starting to die. None of us knows the time of our own death. Even the guy with one month to live may get run over by a bus on his way from the Doctor’s “one month” diagnosis.

God gives us temporary earthly life (and eternal souls). All life is undeserved, but God often gives us much life, and then even adds more and more to it. Why is that? The short answer is that our life is the time in which we learn to love God. To go to heaven, we need to love God. It’s hard enough to love our spouse, our children, our neighbors, Democrats (or Republicans, if you prefer), sociopaths, etc. much less God. Loving God is a hard business, takes much work, and usually takes much time. God often gives us much time, and then more, and more. Not so we can relish the thought of all those additional birthday gifts but rather so we can “get it” and see what’s really important.

Whenever I hear that someone dies, I ask myself “Did that person learn to love God, or did he/she need more time?” I can’t be joyful or offer congratulations when I think that the answer to that question might be that more time was needed.

I know for myself that I pretty much ignored God for almost 50 years. I certainly didn’t love God. I didn’t try hard even. A few years ago I made the choice to love God (BTW - love is a choice, not some kind of emotion that somehow overcomes you.) I’m trying hard, but I have a long way to go.

Do I fear death? Yes. I fear the awesomeness of God. I fear his justice - and know that my misdeeds (of which “ignoring God” is the worst) must be paid for eventually. I fear the prospect of Purgatory, and Hell.

Once we are dead, we can no longer “change our minds.” When we die, our “treasures” define our souls, and that can’t be changed at that point either. I want time on this earth to make God my treasure, and to atone as much as I can for all those sins of commission and omission.

And I hope that when anyone dies, that they had enough time too.

 

[dostoyevskyfan]

I think it may be difficult to find a satisfactory answer to your question if you are asking in charity, not in vain or patronizingly, because it is very difficult for believers sometimes to understand the consciousness of “honest disbelief”, if that is indeed your state. There are so many reasons either dormant, or active in the heart of “atheism”: “not enough evidence”, appeals to emotions “God is cruel”, theological quibbles “the Bible says this and yet…”, the argument from hypocrisy “Christians don’t obey God, therefore Christianity is false”…"or… "Christians don’t really believe (there is no evidence that they do and no evidence will ever be forthcoming because it is impossible to prove, philosophically, what someone actually believes or doesn’t believe) therefore Christianity is false, perceived logical contradictions “Can an omnipotent being do that which He cannot? ie lift a rock”, the most common unconscious reason “I don’t want to believe because it goes against a vested interest that I have”, etc…that it can become almost impossible for even the atheist to really know why they don’t believe, let alone the apologist whose job it is to address a specific, yet elusive, objection.

Not to spin my own wheels or toot my own horn, but I believe I may be better able to understand your consciousness than most because I was an atheist at one point, and I have had every single one of the above objections, including more that I didn’t feel like listing, and yet somehow came to believe in Catholicism. Of course I could just be lying to convert you, but if I really am Catholic then this would be grave enough matter (lying) to send me to hell and go against the doctrine that I claim to profess, and if I’m not really Catholic, then I am one twisted individual with nothing better to do but to post on a Catholic message board. I’ll let you pick the most logical scenario.

I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get?

I can’t speak for other Catholics; only myself, but this would be the most joyful news I have ever received by anyone, especially because of the specific circumstances you mentioned. Why? Well it would give me ample time to receive the sacraments of “confession” and “last rites”; which would almost guarantee that I would die in a state of grace, completely bypass purgatory, and go straight to eternal paradise. All the sins committed in my life time would be completely irrelevant. I envy such a person whose situation resembles that of the “good thief” in the gospel of Luke. Most people, including most Catholics, die unexpectedly, not in a state of grace, and are immediately thrust into hell.

Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven?

I don’t know. I think for many grieving human beings making a request to a dying person to “tell grandma I said ‘what’s up’” is really trivial and the last thing on their mind. Even if the dying person was about to go to heaven, this still wouldn’t mitigate the fact that his or her loved ones will be left behind in an unjust world ruled by the Evil One and suffer a period of separation from the cherished deceased individual. This is the answer to the common and intriguingly naive question, “Why do Christians cry at funerals?”. Some also may cry because their loved one could be in hell. Not all family members make it there.

 

[dostoyevskyfan]

The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven.

That’s a great and well founded suspicion. Many people just follow the religion they were born into without ever actively questioning their family traditions or developing critical thinking skills. Most people end up in hell. Some people who have been given critical thinking skills, questions their family traditions, make use of the fact that we live in the information age, come to places like libraries or CAF, end up converting to Catholicism, and will eventually see the lion lay down with the lamb.

 It's like a casino; the odds are stacked against you but a few people walk away winners. Some people are born into the correct religion, Roman Catholicism, die in a state of grace, and end up in heaven without ever even having the burden to think.

I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it.

If by “comforting lie” you mean the passion of Christ, then I won’t debate here if I think it is actually a “lie” that has lasted 2,000 years, but I will challenge the assertion that it is comforting. I personally find nothing comforting about the fact that God became fully human and fully divine, was hit by a roman flagrum and beaten beyond recognition, was nailed to a cross, and then promised his followers that a similar fate may be in store for you and that you will have to suffer for the duration of your earthly existence.

and then If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

How can you be so sure? Where’s the evidence? Jesus’ most beloved disciple, Peter, believed and yet initially denied him 3 times, and refused to die with Him.
I think a better question, and one that I hope you don’t mind me asking you since you seem to be very politically inclined, is this: Do you honestly think it at all possible that human beings, who are inherently selfish, who have come to exist by means of the selfish gene, who also, almost undeniably, all possess a “heart of darkness”, can ever actually create a “heaven” on earth?

Best,
DF

 

[OKAstro]

Jesus himself wept because of the Lazarus’ death.

 

[Corki]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances, how should we expect someone to behave who believes with the sort of professed certainty that so many believers express in being united with God and loved ones in Heaven?

Best,
Leela

Who says people don’t act that way? While the desire to protect life, even our own in very strong, many people with terminal illnesses express a peaceful (or sometimes impatient) desire to move to the next life. Most are sad or worried about those they leave behind and that’s natural, especially for parents and spouses… When one of my parents died, virtually everyone who came to visit in those last days was remembering to my relative the names and memories of other family members to be met in heaven. The Last Rites of the Church are all about letting go and being ready for heaven. The final Communion is called Viaticum - food for the journey - a reflection that heaven is soon.

 

[fhansen]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances, how should we expect someone to behave who believes with the sort of professed certainty that so many believers express in being united with God and loved ones in Heaven?

Best,
Leela

Depending on the faith of the people involved, I have been involved with the dying of just such folk. But there’s still the loss for those who survive because it may be years before they see their loved one again. I cried when my fiance left for Europe- I knew I wouldn’t see her for over a year. It’s a mixed blessing. We lose, for now, while the dying one gains everything.

 

[SedesDomi]

Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven?

Some believers do that, I’m pretty sure.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Hi All,

Some responses here have made it clear in the “Expedite Heaven” thread that there are good theological reasons why someone ought not actively or passively seek one’s own death. I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven. I suspect that they often do not, and they are just trying to convince themselves and one another of a comforting lie about being reunited with their loved ones in Heaven though they don’t really believe it. If they really believed it, they would behave differently.

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances, how should we expect someone to behave who believes with the sort of professed certainty that so many believers express in being united with God and loved ones in Heaven?

Best,
Leela

We believe in heaven, but we also believe in judgement. Secondly most terminal illnesses involve a considerable amount of suffering, including pain.

Third we don’t know if all our “loved ones” are in heaven. I’m pretty certain my father is in hell, and I suspect my mother and sister are in various stages of Purgatory. A number of acquaintances have died, and I wouldn’t like to posit where they are either.

Finally we’re not there ourselves yet.

I know this much with absolute personal certainty - hell exists, and so does the devil.

 

[Thursdayhat]

Am I wrong? Since to believe something is to be **prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances

I do not think this statement is true. At any rate, the question of belief and the consequences of those beliefs is more of a question of epistemology, than strictly one of religion. Or, you might say, it is a question of the epistemology of religion.

 

[scottm]

I think a more interesting question is, if someone truly believes that the promise of the next life is infinitely better than this one, why wouldn’t the news of being diagnosed with a terminal illness (say, one month to live) be the best possible news such a person could get? Why wouldn’t other believers come to visit this person not to express their condolences but to offer congratulations and to ask for messages to be conveyed to their deceased loved ones in Heaven? The fact that believers don’t behave in such ways always made me suspicious about whether religious people really believe what they say they believe about Heaven.

My life isn’t about me, or for me. My life is for other people. I’m supposed to be living not for myself, but for the benefit of other people.

That’s why I’m supposed to stick around a little longer.