Perfect happiness in Heaven. Really?

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Cadellin

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Many people look forward to being reunited with their departed loved ones in Heaven. Suppose they get there only to find their loved ones aren’t there? I mean, how we be perfectly happy in Heaven if our loved ones are not there too?

One answer is to say that our happiness depends lies in God and God alone, not in our loved ones. You could say that if our loved ones are not there it is through their own choosing, but it would upset me knowing they didn’t choose God, just as it upsets me on Earth to see my children turn away from the faith.

Perhaps we will be so wrapped in God in Heaven we won’t care, but that means we will have to become uncaring people to be happy. Perhaps God will give us a shot of spiritual morphine to kill the pain. Really? Would you prefer to be in pain and have morphine or not be in pain at all?

I believe their will be perfect happiness in Heaven, I just don’t see how? (I can hear you all crying in unison, “Welcome to the club.”)
 
Cadellin said:
Many people look forward to being reunited with their departed loved ones in Heaven. Suppose they get there only to find their loved ones aren’t there? I mean, how we be perfectly happy in Heaven if our loved ones are not there too?

One answer is to say that our happiness depends lies in God and God alone, not in our loved ones. You could say that if our loved ones are not there it is through their own choosing, but it would upset me knowing they didn’t choose God, just as it upsets me on Earth to see my children turn away from the faith.

Perhaps we will be so wrapped in God in Heaven we won’t care, but that means we will have to become uncaring people to be happy. Perhaps God will give us a shot of spiritual morphine to kill the pain. Really? Would you prefer to be in pain and have morphine or not be in pain at all?

I believe their will be perfect happiness in Heaven, I just don’t see how? (I can hear you all crying in unison, “Welcome to the club.”)
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Some excellent points, Cadellin, and I wonder if they could ever been satisfactorily addressed this side of heaven. I think C.S. Lewis helped make an impression on me in this regard when he suggested that those who are lost are, in a sense, no longer the people we know. The father or friend or relative we loved and continue to love just doesn’t exist anymore; yes, the person may have an ontological reality in hell but his or her identity is lost with his or her soul. It’s highly speculative and imaginative (as one would expect from someone like Lewis) but it makes some kind of sense. Even Tolkien, when he portrayed the Mouth of Sauron in Lord Of The Rings, a kind of archetype of a lost soul, has him without an identity - he so identifies with the evil he has embraced that he forgets who he was.
 
I’ve been wondering about heaven, too! I have been thinking that in Heaven we will look at all things with different eyes. The reason there will be happiness is because we will see the truth. That means we will see “things” through good. God is good and HE sees the big picture.

A terrible accident that happens here on earth that takes the life of a young member of our family, say, to us would be devastating. And we would in our misery ask, “WHY, GOD?” Perhaps God is ready for our young family member. Perhaps through his/her death many other people will get in touch with goodness. Perhaps God saw that this young person was as good as he/she was EVER going to be and at this point deserves a high place with HIM in Heaven. If his life was longer he might have turned from God and caused many other people to fall away. I’m just saying God sees the big picture and His plan is GOOD.

When we get to heaven we will see the GOOD in all of God’s plan.
 
I find it hard to believe that a soul would turn away from God during or after death. I have relatives that I pray for because they are away from their faith. I can’t imagine them stupid enough to deny God when they are actually faced with His presence. I think they might be spending time in Purgatory. I’ll be spending time there too but when I get to Heaven, I think I’ll be happy because I know that eventually they’ll be coming too.
 
Cadellin said:
Many people look forward to being reunited with their departed loved ones in Heaven. Suppose they get there only to find their loved ones aren’t there? I mean, how we be perfectly happy in Heaven if our loved ones are not there too?

One answer is to say that our happiness depends lies in God and God alone, not in our loved ones. You could say that if our loved ones are not there it is through their own choosing, but it would upset me knowing they didn’t choose God, just as it upsets me on Earth to see my children turn away from the faith.

Perhaps we will be so wrapped in God in Heaven we won’t care, but that means we will have to become uncaring people to be happy. Perhaps God will give us a shot of spiritual morphine to kill the pain. Really? Would you prefer to be in pain and have morphine or not be in pain at all?

I believe their will be perfect happiness in Heaven, I just don’t see how? (I can hear you all crying in unison, “Welcome to the club.”)
Click to expand...
Read where the Pharisees questioned Jesus about a widow who married 7 brothers after each of her husbands died. In heaven which would be her husband? There will be no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven. We will be united with all souls in heaven in perfect love with God. I know it’s hard for you to think about life after death in this way but cling to human ideas, instead. Trust in the Lord and look forward to eternity with God face to face. Everything else pales in comparison to this joy.
 
I think it’s hard for us to fathom. I heard an apt analogy once. Suppose you were trying to describe “sex” to a person who had never experienced that loving, ecstatic union with someone else. You could try, but your words would probably fall short of the actual experience. Suppose the person’s strongest experience of pleasure up until that point had been eating some chocolate. He might ask, “Does sex taste like chocolate? Does it involve chocolate? How can it be wonderful and pleasurable if there is no chocolate?” It is like that with heaven. “How can heaven be pleasurable, happy, joyful if x, y, and z are not involved, when these things have been our greatest source of pleasure so far?” Our minds can’t always grasp what we have not yet experienced.
 
As I see It: God sustains the existence of Hell, and those who by their free choice are committed there. God gave everything He had in His Son, Jesus Christ for their salvation. God, in justice, granted them their choice, and they did not choose Him. Those in Heaven will be infused with knowledge from God, and they will come to understand and accept and agree with His just judgements Those in Hell will also agree with His just judgements, for in the light of Truth, they will condemn themselves. Those in Heaven will be absorbed in union with God, and will experience eternal ecstasy in the Beatific Vision. No sorrow or pain or trouble will enter in.
 
Cadellin said:
… I believe their will be perfect happiness in Heaven, I just don’t see how? (I can hear you all crying in unison, “Welcome to the club.”)
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What perfect happiness ever means? You know the sense of happiness. Why do you wish to stay in such a state of mind for ever? Don’t you think that you might get bored after a while?
 
Bahman said:
What perfect happiness ever means? You know the sense of happiness. Why do you wish to stay in such a state of mind for ever? Don’t you think that you might get bored after a while?
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How could one become bored, forever immersed in the eternal love and presence of God?
🤷
 
JRS_88 said:
How could one become bored, forever immersed in the eternal love and presence of God?
🤷
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There are two states of affair for any mental states, longing (need for love for example) and satisfaction (state of peace within). There is a chain of longing and satisfaction which one follows another always so we always ask for more unless we reach to a point and ask ourselves honestly that what is the point? That is the point which any intellectual being soon or late will arrive at. A point without return in which you are faced with a big question about your state of affair where you need to answer this very key question: What is the point? That is exactly when you get bored with what you used to get. Things will get even worst if you are supposed to live in such a state forever, that is the true meaning of eternal HELL.
 
Cadellin said:
Many people look forward to being reunited with their departed loved ones in Heaven. Suppose they get there only to find their loved ones aren’t there? I mean, how we be perfectly happy in Heaven if our loved ones are not there too?

One answer is to say that our happiness depends lies in God and God alone, not in our loved ones. You could say that if our loved ones are not there it is through their own choosing, but it would upset me knowing they didn’t choose God, just as it upsets me on Earth to see my children turn away from the faith.

Perhaps we will be so wrapped in God in Heaven we won’t care, but that means we will have to become uncaring people to be happy. Perhaps God will give us a shot of spiritual morphine to kill the pain. Really? Would you prefer to be in pain and have morphine or not be in pain at all?

I believe their will be perfect happiness in Heaven, I just don’t see how? (I can hear you all crying in unison, “Welcome to the club.”)
Click to expand...
It is actually a sin to love your children more than God; it’s a form of idol worship.

I imagine that if and when we get to heaven we will realize a fundamental truth; what we love in people is God

Everything that we are is God Given. You will not stop loving your loved ones in hell. Instead you will love them perfectly as God loves them. You will simply worship the good because it is the good that caused you to.love in the first place. Without the good of God you cannot love anyone.
 
It is possible that in Heaven one might see people as they truly are and not as they wished to appear so that a loved relative in Hell would appear as much an abomination in one’s eyes as it might appear to God…alternately the relationship among one’s relatives will cease to have any greater hold than one’s relationships among one’s peers from grade school…given the expanses of eternity it might not be unreasonable to feel a twinge of regret at first, followed by a billion years of never much calling them to mind…further still, the good of each individual might truly and ever reside in Heaven whilst the evil portion be banished to Hell…if one might be more evil than good a much lesser, but still possible, portion of that one’s identity might still be apparent in Heaven…alternately still, no soul may be a single entity at all, but a trinity like God so that in finding one’s true triune family one no longer requires or longs for any other as there is alleged to be no lack in Heaven…alternately…?
 
Cadellin said:
Many people look forward to being reunited with their departed loved ones in Heaven. Suppose they get there only to find their loved ones aren’t there? I mean, how we be perfectly happy in Heaven if our loved ones are not there too?
Click to expand...
If your loved ones ignore and reject your love you will soon realise what a fool you are to hanker after them. Heaven isn’t about living in the past but enjoying the present with those who love God and love you. Yes, that is perfect happiness in heaven - regardless of the sceptics who believe there is no reason why we live and nothing to look forward to when we die. They’re welcome to their negative soul-destroying philosophy based on nothing but faith in the futility of life…
 
Jelrak_TB said:
It is possible that in Heaven one might see people as they truly are and not as they wished to appear so that a loved relative in Hell would appear as much an abomination in one’s eyes as it might appear to God…
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Not only possible but the only rational concept of Heaven!
 
GodMadeMe said:
It is actually a sin to love your children more than God; it’s a form of idol worship.

I imagine that if and when we get to heaven we will realize a fundamental truth; what we love in people is God

Everything that we are is God Given. You will not stop loving your loved ones in hell. Instead you will love them perfectly as God loves them. You will simply worship the good because it is the good that caused you to.love in the first place. Without the good of God you cannot love anyone.
Click to expand...
You will love them as children of God but you certainly won’t be attached to them as you were in this life. You won’t detest them but feel pity for them.
 
Bahman said:
What perfect happiness ever means? You know the sense of happiness. Why do you wish to stay in such a state of mind for ever? Don’t you think that you might get bored after a while?
Click to expand...
Boredom is the result of lack of imagination, appreciation, initiative, creativity and love for others.
 
jonathan_hili said:
Some excellent points, Cadellin, and I wonder if they could ever been satisfactorily addressed this side of heaven. I think C.S. Lewis helped make an impression on me in this regard when he suggested that those who are lost are, in a sense, no longer the people we know. The father or friend or relative we loved and continue to love just doesn’t exist anymore; yes, the person may have an ontological reality in hell but his or her identity is lost with his or her soul. It’s highly speculative and imaginative (as one would expect from someone like Lewis) but it makes some kind of sense. Even Tolkien, when he portrayed the Mouth of Sauron in Lord Of The Rings, a kind of archetype of a lost soul, has him without an identity - he so identifies with the evil he has embraced that he forgets who he was.
Click to expand...
Along this line are some more thoughts.

St. Paul said “I no longer live but Christ lives in me.” He saw himself as no longer belonging to this world but belonging to Christ’s kingdom, Christ’s family. This is the reason for our effort to remember who resides in and thru us during the day in sanctifying grace…Jesus.

Jesus once said that those who were not willing to give up their family membership to follow him is not worthy of him. He is our family now (which is no reason to treat others badly). But when it comes down to a choice between him and our own family, then he unfolds his idea to us.

We in actuallity belong to Jesus totally once we commit to him. Our real family is his family. If our earthly family is part of Jesus family too, then all the better.

And that is what we will see as our family members in heaven…those that belong to him, and noone else.

Now how this all sorts out as to punishment and reward for those not members of Christ, is another story for another time.

How we treat others because of this is for another time and to lengthly to treat here. Although Jesus said we must treat everyone with love even our enemies.

So we will see others as they are in heaven…objectively and as they really are…hating God and his family or loving him and his family. Based on their hate or love will depend our relationship with them in our family of God.

I personally do not think that the details of how everything unfolded will matter at that point because we will see things as a whole and in God’s way. Because we won’t have detailed thoughts as we have now but only one thought…God. God will be our only immediate thought…face to face. Tho this may not appeal to our appetites right now because we are so earthly, it will when we become heavenly.
 
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