Memories in Heaven

[leonhardprintz]

I would suspect that in Heaven not only will we have full memories, our memories will actually be fuller and completely accurate. We will remember everything, even the things that we currently feel disturbs us. This is reasonable to suppose because in Heaven God will make everyone perfect, and since it is greater to know ones past than to forget it, God will remake your body with a perfect sense of memories.

Some people are afraid of this, because they have suffered trauma. And we can sympathise with this. However, I don’t think we will experience our memories in the same way. We won’t be darkened by sin, and we’ll be experiencing God, and that experience will transform us and will overshadow everything.

In fact I think we will only have joy in seeing our memories, because we’ll be able to see how God’s plan unfolded in our life, and how we participated in it.

 

[Magnanimity]

If Amanda lost all her memories, she would retain her soul and personality.

Edgar, the point of the Amanda illustration was simply to encourage you to think deeply about the question I posed within that post: “Who would you say that you are, outside of your memories?” I suppose the answer you want to give is that you are really your soul (whatever you mean by that) and your personality. I haven’t studied these sorts of cases closely, so I don’t know how much of former-personality is retained after catastrophic memory loss. Perhaps personalities are maintained, even after long-term memory wipe. So that would be something, I grant you.

But I’m not sure how appreciative you are of the role memory plays in your daily life, even from moment to moment. It is constantly in the background and interfacing with whatever the “present” brings before you. Memory is constantly informing your decisions, judgments, beliefs, actions. Again, constantly. Memory is ever as much a part of self-identity as reason itself (or introspection). To lose memory would be as catastrophic to a person as losing the ability to reason.

When I was born I didn’t who “I” was. It didn’t seem to bother me.

I appreciate what you’re trying to do here Edgar, but this is an incoherent thought. When you were born you, then were not much of anything! Sure, you were a human bearing the image and likeness of God (as all do) but you had not perceived anything, had no memories, never introspected, never reasoned and never received and assimilated anyone’s testimony. Iow, at the time of your birth, you had done none of the normal epistemological functions of humans. However, through the course of your life, you do all of these epistemological functions and they count toward your self-identity. There really aren’t any philosophers who disagree with this.

Take Christ himself as an example. He is, as St Paul says, the firstfruits of the life to come (1 Cor 15). He is the first to be re-created as a resurrected person. Has he not retained memories? The act of resurrection is to make you whole again—to recreate you, not merely to make some new human who looks and sounds and acts very much like you.

Why would being born again in Heaven

Where did you get this language? Who speaks of being “born again in heaven?” I don’t recall this language from either the scriptures or church tradition. Can you help me out with a quote to see what you’re talking about?

When you were born you had no memories.

As I asked you before, what would you have had memories of at birth? Having experiences is a necessary condition of forming memories. No experiences=no memories.

 

[Magnanimity]

If, like Amanda, you lost all your memories as an adult, would you (or Amanda) become a “progammable android”?

Edgar, this is the question for you to answer. I think it’s crystal-clear that memory is part of human self-identity, and I’m far from being alone in this belief. It is you who is suggesting that memory is not necessary in order to be you, in Heaven. So the question is for you to answer. Would you be like a programmable bot? So, in Heaven, with no memories whatsoever, who are you? And what distinguishes you from any other memory-less person in Heaven? Capabilities? Personality?

Also, and this is a theological point, but part of the glory of heaven is the realization of the victory of God over sin and death and suffering—that the new heavens and the new earth takes all that away. How would this realization occur outside of remembering the sin and death and suffering that were present in the first created order?

 

[o_mlly]

Aquinas argued persuasively that not only will I remember all my memories but all of yours as well.

But afterwards it [knowledge] will increase no more, because then will be the final state of things, and in that state it is possible that all will know everything that God knows by the knowledge of vision.

Hopefully, for some – and you know who you are – we will able to “opt-out.”

 

[Edgar]

Some people are afraid of this, because they have suffered trauma … However, I don’t think we will experience our memories in the same way.

I certainly hope not!

In fact I think we will only have joy in seeing our memories, because we’ll be able to see how God’s plan unfolded in our life, and how we participated in it.

Fair point. I’m 59 now and since I was nineteen I’ve suffered serious health problems - but that is not what bothers me so much - what I really want to forget are the my sins and the awful mistakes and bad choices I’ve made in this life.

 

[Edgar]

Aquinas argued persuasively that not only will I remember all my memories but all of yours as well. But afterwards it [knowledge] will increase no more, because then will be the final state of things, and in that state it is possible that all will know everything that God knows by the knowledge of vision.

Sounds horrifying - I don’t want to be forever cursed by my own memories, let alone the memories of others!