Peter Kreeft wrong about heaven?

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In Peter Kreeft’s book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven, he writes this:

Question:
Will We Know Everything in Heaven?
Answer:
“Of course not. Why would someone think that? There are two reasons, and the first one is simply a confusion between Heaven and divinity. We will remain human in Heaven, therefore finite, therefore our knowledge will remain finite. True, we will share in divine life, but this is just a share. In fact, we share in divine life now, if we are reborn in Christ; our souls nurture a fetal Christ. But I have not observed that fact generating omniscience in myself or any other.
When you come to think of it, knowing everything would be more like Hell than Heaven for us. For one thing, we need progress and hope: we need to look forward to knowing something new tomorrow. Mystery is our mind’s food. If we truly said, “I have seen everything” (Ecc 1:14), we would conclude, as did the author of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity.” (Ecc 12:8). For another thing, the more knowledge, the more responsibility. (James 3:1, Luke 12:48) Only omnipotence can bear the burden of omniscience; only God’s shoulders are strong enough to carry the burden of infinite knowledge without losing the joy.”​

I am inclined to think that he is saying that we can still learn in heaven? Isn’t he making heaven out to be a lot like our earthly life where I eat, sleep, and learn?

I am interested in your thoughts, impressions, ideas. :confused:
 
StAlph said:
…I am inclined to think that he is saying that we can still learn in heaven?..
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Perhaps, but I think he is saying that in heaven we will have reached our full potential where we will know everything it is possible for us to know, but that this will still not be equal to God’s omniscience.
 
I have read that the “learning” we do in heaven that Kreeft refers to is learning more about God - we have an eternity to learn more and more about God, like in a relationship getting even closer. That would be pure joy - something you love tremendously in heaven, and you are constantly learning more and more about Him!

Where I have a slight conflict with this thought though, and I just chalk it up to not being able to comprehend this on earth, is “learning more” seems to imply a component of time, which does not exist in heaven. Learning more means at some point I knew less, so the difference is time. God is in the present all the time, past present and future. So how we could learn more outside of time escapes me at the moment. 👍
 
St. Faustina said in heaven we will wonder at the mystery of the Trinity for a million years, yet only scratch the surface. Seems to be a learning curve there. Tim
 
i was reading somewhere that in heaven because there is no evil, we still have our free will, to choose not to do a good deed.
 
Who knows the details in heaven? I think much of our speculation will be far from reality. Maybe we will learn over time, maybe not. I believe it is a sure bet that we will not be omniscient, though. But I bet God will reveal many mysteries, like why he favors the the Patriots. :confused:
 
Sounds right. It won’t be boring. There is only love and goodness in heaven. No free will either. When we die our will is fixed for eternity on either good or evil. Hope I make it.
 
John_Russell_Jr said:
Sounds right. It won’t be boring. There is only love and goodness in heaven. No free will either. When we die our will is fixed for eternity on either good or evil. Hope I make it.
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:hmmm:
I think we are going too fast on this issue. We do in fact have free will in Heaven, and not because “there is no evil there”. Nor do we lack free will in Heaven because “our will is fixed for eternity on either good or evil”.

We have free will in Heaven because union with God, the Beatific Vision, perfects the intellect and will. I will forgo any detailed explanation and just say that in Heaven the will is confirmed in that which it desires innately, the Good. In Heaven, the intellect sees the Divine Essence directly, (we no longer see through a glass darkly). We cannot see the Divine Essence and turn away by willing something less, which would be an evil choice. In Heaven, the will is confirmed in the Good and is therefore incapable of turning away. At first, this may sound like a loss of free choice, but it is rather, the highest freedom possible. It is that blessed freedom for which the will was created.

So, we have free will in Heaven, but we are absolutely unable to will evil for no other reason than that the will is confirmed in the Good. This is the will’s perfect freedom.

The Book of Revelations says, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.”

We see here that Satan and a third of the angels fell from heaven (“the third part of the stars of heaven”). This passage does not refer to the angels as being in the “highest heaven”, the abode of God, and seeing God directly. If the angels had originally enjoyed the Beatific Vision, none could have turned away from God. However, like human beings, the angels had their test period apart from the direct vision of God, and were able to sin, just as we are able to sin in our present condition.
 
itinerant1 said:
:hmmm:
I think we are going too fast on this issue. We do in fact have free will in Heaven, and not because “there is no evil there”. Nor do we lack free will in Heaven because “our will is fixed for eternity on either good or evil”.

We have free will in Heaven because union with God, the Beatific Vision, perfects the intellect and will. I will forgo any detailed explanation and just say that in Heaven the will is confirmed in that which it desires innately, the Good. In Heaven, the intellect sees the Divine Essence directly, (we no longer see through a glass darkly). We cannot see the Divine Essence and turn away by willing something less, which would be an evil choice. In Heaven, the will is confirmed in the Good and is therefore incapable of turning away. At first, this may sound like a loss of free choice, but it is rather, the highest freedom possible. It is that blessed freedom for which the will was created.

So, we have free will in Heaven, but we are absolutely unable to will evil for no other reason than that the will is confirmed in the Good. This is the will’s perfect freedom.

The Book of Revelations says, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.”

We see here that Satan and a third of the angels fell from heaven (“the third part of the stars of heaven”). This passage does not refer to the angels as being in the “highest heaven”, the abode of God, and seeing God directly. If the angels had originally enjoyed the Beatific Vision, none could have turned away from God. However, like human beings, the angels had their test period apart from the direct vision of God, and were able to sin, just as we are able to sin in our present condition.
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Hi
Maybe your right about your definition of free will in Heaven. I will check it out. I came to my defintion of the will being fixed at death via an old priests sermon. But he never gave a precise explaination. But your will is fixed on good or evil at death by either explaination. And you can’t change after that. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I’ll look into it. It’s a very interesting question.
 
itinerant1 said:
:hmmm:
I think we are going too fast on this issue. We do in fact have free will in Heaven, and not because “there is no evil there”. Nor do we lack free will in Heaven because “our will is fixed for eternity on either good or evil”.

We have free will in Heaven because union with God, the Beatific Vision, perfects the intellect and will. I will forgo any detailed explanation and just say that in Heaven the will is confirmed in that which it desires innately, the Good. In Heaven, the intellect sees the Divine Essence directly, (we no longer see through a glass darkly). We cannot see the Divine Essence and turn away by willing something less, which would be an evil choice. In Heaven, the will is confirmed in the Good and is therefore incapable of turning away. At first, this may sound like a loss of free choice, but it is rather, the highest freedom possible. It is that blessed freedom for which the will was created.

So, we have free will in Heaven, but we are absolutely unable to will evil for no other reason than that the will is confirmed in the Good. This is the will’s perfect freedom.

The Book of Revelations says, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.”

We see here that Satan and a third of the angels fell from heaven (“the third part of the stars of heaven”). This passage does not refer to the angels as being in the “highest heaven”, the abode of God, and seeing God directly. If the angels had originally enjoyed the Beatific Vision, none could have turned away from God. However, like human beings, the angels had their test period apart from the direct vision of God, and were able to sin, just as we are able to sin in our present condition.
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Hi
i found this quote from St Thomas Aquinas. It seems to support my argument. Can you supply more clarifaction and sources for what you say? I am keen to know more.

Article 6. Whether Christ delivered any of the lost from hell?

Reply to Objection 3. It was not due to any lack of power on Christ’s part that some were not delivered from every state in hell, as out of every state among men in this world; but it was owing to the very different condition of each state. For, so long as men live here below, they can be converted to faith and charity, because in this life men are not confirmed either in good or in evil, as they are after quitting this life.
 
John_Russell_Jr said:
Hi
i found this quote from St Thomas Aquinas. It seems to support my argument. Can you supply more clarifaction and sources for what you say? I am keen to know more.

Article 6. Whether Christ delivered any of the lost from hell?

Reply to Objection 3. It was not due to any lack of power on Christ’s part that some were not delivered from every state in hell, as out of every state among men in this world; but it was owing to the very different condition of each state. For, so long as men live here below, they can be converted to faith and charity, because in this life men are not confirmed either in good or in evil, as they are after quitting this life.
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I’ve done a bit of study and your explaination seems good. Our will is in complete union with God’s in heaven and remains in perfect union for eternity. We become like God. So like God we can’t sin once there.👍
 
Thank you for all of the very insightful responses so far. I was especially interested in anyone’s thoughts on whether we continue to learn in heaven. One of the first replies brought out my question, too: If we continue to learn in heaven (gain knowledge over time), does that mean there is time as there is here on earth? Could that be what Kreeft is saying?
 
In Heaven, our minds are still finite, so we do not know everything all at once, the way that God knows everything. However, since we have the Beatific Vision, we can immediately discover the answer to any question that we have and we can learn any particular truth, so far as our finite minds can understand it. Nor do the Blessed in Heaven ever inordinately desire to know any useless fact or any information merely out of curiosity. All in Heaven are very happy and entirely satisfied.
 
StAlph said:
Thank you for all of the very insightful responses so far. I was especially interested in anyone’s thoughts on whether we continue to learn in heaven. One of the first replies brought out my question, too: If we continue to learn in heaven (gain knowledge over time), does that mean there is time as there is here on earth? Could that be what Kreeft is saying?
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There’s no time in heaven. It’s a created thing in our world. No one can fully understand what it’ll be like. But it won’t be boring.
 
It may be useful to bear in mind that Kreeft is, among other things, a C. S. Lewis scholar, and some of what he says (in fact quite a lot of what he says) in Everything you ever wanted to know about heaven (but never dreamed of asking)–to give the book its full title–relies on Lewis’s writings.

In The Four Loves Lewis speaks in the last chapter, that on Caritas, the Love of God, about heaven, in which he speculates about the beatific vision. If anyone hasn’t read this book, I’d highly recommend it. Lewis implies, as Kreeft does in his turn, that there will continue to be a growing, perhaps not so much in knowledge, but in love, for the souls in heaven. Because God is infinite, our contemplation of His love must necessarily also be infinite. We will, each of us, forever be reflecting back God’s love to Him. But not only that, we will also be able to look at each other, and see God’s reflection in our brothers and sisters too, through all eternity, joy upon joy, glory building on glory. Our enjoyment of God will not only be personal, but collective, and endless.

As to the question of time, doesn’t Kreeft make a distinction between chronos and kairos, that is, time as experienced in this life, and God’s time? The former, as the name implies, has to do with objective time as we know it here, in minutes, hours, days and years. The latter, which will be the kind of “time” we will experience in heaven, is one of duration, which may have no correlation with earthly time. Even here, as C. S. Lewis says somewhere, we may experience kairos, as when we lose ourselves in a good book or a moving symphony, where we are not even aware of the ticking of the clock: hours could go by without our even noticing it, we are, for the duration, caught up in eternity. These experiences, available to us even now in this mortal life, may give us an inkling of what awaits us. But one thing is for sure: heaven will certainly not, as many others here have already pointed out, be boring, however dimly we may conceive of it while we remain in our mortal bodies.
 
StAlph said:
In Peter Kreeft’s book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven, he writes this:

Question:
Will We Know Everything in Heaven?
Answer:
“Of course not. Why would someone think that? There are two reasons, and the first one is simply a confusion between Heaven and divinity. We will remain human in Heaven, therefore finite, therefore our knowledge will remain finite. True, we will share in divine life, but this is just a share. In fact, we share in divine life now, if we are reborn in Christ; our souls nurture a fetal Christ. But I have not observed that fact generating omniscience in myself or any other.
When you come to think of it, knowing everything would be more like Hell than Heaven for us. For one thing, we need progress and hope: we need to look forward to knowing something new tomorrow. Mystery is our mind’s food. If we truly said, “I have seen everything” (Ecc 1:14), we would conclude, as did the author of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity.” (Ecc 12:8). For another thing, the more knowledge, the more responsibility. (James 3:1, Luke 12:48) Only omnipotence can bear the burden of omniscience; only God’s shoulders are strong enough to carry the burden of infinite knowledge without losing the joy.”​

I am inclined to think that he is saying that we can still learn in heaven? Isn’t he making heaven out to be a lot like our earthly life where I eat, sleep, and learn?

I am interested in your thoughts, impressions, ideas. :confused:
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“Learn” would not be my choice of word.

“Discover” to my mind is more open to constant wonders for eternity. Infinite wonder at new discoveries of God’s infinite nature seems a better description.
 
awalt said:
I have read that the “learning” we do in heaven that Kreeft refers to is learning more about God - we have an eternity to learn more and more about God, like in a relationship getting even closer. That would be pure joy - something you love tremendously in heaven, and you are constantly learning more and more about Him!

Where I have a slight conflict with this thought though, and I just chalk it up to not being able to comprehend this on earth, is “learning more” seems to imply a component of time, which does not exist in heaven. Learning more means at some point I knew less, so the difference is time. God is in the present all the time, past present and future. So how we could learn more outside of time escapes me at the moment. 👍
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To paraquote Lewis in Letters To Malcolm, who says there is no time in Heaven? As we are finite creatures (as Kreeft points out) we shall surely not be able to hold all infinity in a present. Now, if you’re like me, this causes problems. Who wants the succession of time forever?! But perhaps the best way of looking at it is that we will have a realationship with something infinite and also we might move so quickly through time that it doesn’t cease to be but it does become a ‘point’ rather than endless progression…
 
The concept that Dr. Kreeft is referring to is known as Theosis ( or Divinization).

That is the means by which we learn more and more about God as we experience the Beatific Vision. Likewise, our natures will be more and more conformed to God’s

Since God is infinite, we well never know about all about God as there is to know.

And as our nature is finite, we will never know all that there is to know, nor will our finite natures ever become infinite ones. But our knowledge and nature will continue to grow as we are exposed to the Beautific Vision of God.
 
We have no clue of what it will be like in heaven other than it will be a state of joy and happiness.

Jim
 
1 Corinthians 13:12 “but then shall I know, even as I am known; in the other world and state, … now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”

This is pretty clear: we will be one with God and His Saints and Angels, knowing one another completely.
 
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