Talking about self and Heaven outside of time is a house of cards

[Neoplatonist]

I deny that we can grasp any meaningful idea behind the words when we talk about eternal bliss and timeless being and so on. If one thought no longer comes before or after another, our thinking would be so radically different that it seems like an empty placeholder to say that would still be “you” or “me” in any meaningful way.

What is more, how could we “remember” our life on earth as having come before our (then present) state in Heaven? So no meaningful conception of “memory” being “ours” from our earthly life - again suggesting that it would no longer be “us.”

If we are not moving through linear time, how can we say we are experiencing justice for things we have already done rather than saying we are being rewarded or punished for things we have not even done yet?

Given the exponential changes to our minds, hearts, and ways of “thinking”, how can we even make sense of saying it is the same person who experiences the afterlife as lived the earthly life? So how can we say we are being rewarded or punished for things WE did or didn’t do?

Please don’t reply by offering other houses of cards from you or from famous authors. I know there are plenty of sentences that could be dug up or strung together. What I am after is a way we can imagine something concrete or meaningfully analogous to the claims.

 

[Bahman]

I deny that we can grasp any meaningful idea behind the words when we talk about eternal bliss and timeless being and so on. If one thought no longer comes before or after another, our thinking would be so radically different that it seems like an empty placeholder to say that would still be “you” or “me” in any meaningful way.

What is more, how could we “remember” our life on earth as having come before our (then present) state in Heaven? So no meaningful conception of “memory” being “ours” from our earthly life - again suggesting that it would no longer be “us.”

If we are not moving through linear time, how can we say we are experiencing justice for things we have already done rather than saying we are being rewarded or punished for things we have not even done yet?

Given the exponential changes to our minds, hearts, and ways of “thinking”, how can we even make sense of saying it is the same person who experiences the afterlife as lived the earthly life? So how can we say we are being rewarded or punished for things WE did or didn’t do?

Please don’t reply by offering other houses of cards from you or from famous authors. I know there are plenty of sentences that could be dug up or strung together. What I am after is a way we can imagine something concrete or meaningfully analogous to the claims.

Those who invented the concept of timeless state didn’t pay any attention that it is meaningless state. Meaning is a sense related to that we are heading into somewhere, once an end is reached everything become meaningless. The end with no intellectual activity is the prison of thoughts.

 

[hazcompat]

Poppycock

 

[sw85]

I deny that we can grasp any meaningful idea behind the words when we talk about eternal bliss and timeless being and so on. If one thought no longer comes before or after another, our thinking would be so radically different that it seems like an empty placeholder to say that would still be “you” or “me” in any meaningful way.

What is more, how could we “remember” our life on earth as having come before our (then present) state in Heaven? So no meaningful conception of “memory” being “ours” from our earthly life - again suggesting that it would no longer be “us.”

If we are not moving through linear time, how can we say we are experiencing justice for things we have already done rather than saying we are being rewarded or punished for things we have not even done yet?

Given the exponential changes to our minds, hearts, and ways of “thinking”, how can we even make sense of saying it is the same person who experiences the afterlife as lived the earthly life? So how can we say we are being rewarded or punished for things WE did or didn’t do?

Please don’t reply by offering other houses of cards from you or from famous authors. I know there are plenty of sentences that could be dug up or strung together. What I am after is a way we can imagine something concrete or meaningfully analogous to the claims.

God alone exists outside of time because God alone is not bound by time. He is equally present to all moments in time as well as all moments in space as part of his omnipresence. Since we are not omnipresent, we will not be timeless.

 

[Valiente88]

“Time” is an entirely human construct used to organize ourselves, an entirely artificial divide.

When one speaks of timelessness, one can be referring to something that doesn’t partake in change. Catholics believe that God and ones ultimate fate after death is irrevocable and impossible to change (Temporary pit stops in purgatory notwithstanding), hence timeless since there is no need to create an organizational divide.

 

[glendab]

Okay. I’ve got the funny feeling that I’ve walked into the room with the show half over and am being asked a question about the plot. Can you clue me in on some of the prior conversations that lead you to the conclusion you seem to be drawing?

Glenda

 

[Neoplatonist]

As Pope Benedict XVI said in Spe Salvi: eternal life “would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time – the before and after – no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy” (Enc. Spe Salvi, 12).

So my challenge is: how can we make sense out of my initial post questions in a realm where there is “no before or after”?

In what way can we understand that experience as being discernibly different from being in a coma with an electrical implant permanently triggering our neural pleasure centers? (No awareness of self, only bliss, etc., etc.)

 

[Kurisu35712]

The way I’ve always understood it is to mean that, since God and Heaven are “above” or “outside of” time, that time in the sense of memories and the past (for our own perception at least) would still exist, since it did, but that the “future” is more akin to a permanent state of bliss rather than a state of bliss for the rest of eternity, if that makes sense. We aren’t timeless in the sense that we’ve always existed, so there IS a starting point where our own souls are concerned. Just in the afterlife, there is no change to the state of our souls, as time is not a factor.

It is an interesting point about the whole sense of self thing. I’ve read accounts by a few Saints describing visions of Heaven, and mentioning sensing things, like seeing, hearing, etc. St. John Bosco specifically. I’m not sure if that fits in with what you’re looking for though.

 

[catholicscot]

In the Incarnation Jesus was living out His life here on earth while never, as the Logos, being separated from the Godhead. In the resurrection we will have physical bodies which will necessarily have to be physically located with all that that implies. We shall also be present to the beatific vision at all times or, more properly, outside of time. In that sense the Incarnation not only provides the model for our glorified state but also provides the key piece to solve the puzzle of retaining individuality and being fully merged at the same time.

 

[Neoplatonist]

In the Incarnation Jesus was living out His life here on earth while never, as the Logos, being separated from the Godhead. In the resurrection we will have physical bodies which will necessarily have to be physically located with all that that implies. We shall also be present to the beatific vision at all times or, more properly, outside of time. In that sense the Incarnation not only provides the model for our glorified state but also provides the key piece to solve the puzzle of retaining individuality and being fully merged at the same time.

I think your position here would hold if we say Christ was never metaphysically separate from the Godhead, but unless we allow that he was mentally (or consciously) separated from the Godhead, we will open up more new problems than we solve.

In which case, we still can’t make any sense out of the claims that we will be separate selves able to remember our life on earth AND have our awareness completely filled up with the beatific vision.

Good point about our resurrected bodies, though I think that makes things messier instead of neater.

 

[glendab]

Hello Neoplatonist.

As Pope Benedict XVI said in Spe Salvi: eternal life “would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time – the before and after – no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy” (Enc. Spe Salvi, 12).

So my challenge is: how can we make sense out of my initial post questions in a realm where there is “no before or after”?

In what way can we understand that experience as being discernibly different from being in a coma with an electrical implant permanently triggering our neural pleasure centers? (No awareness of self, only bliss, etc., etc.)

Thank you. Now I have a reference point.

I read a description of Heaven by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI where the before and after no longer exist. Keep in mind we are born sinners with the effects of Original sin and all the personal sins of our lives pilled up behind us and God is in the Eternal NOW as has been described elsewhere. There is no sin in His Presence and when we are in Heaven there will be no sins in us which are recorded on our souls as bits and pieces of time in which we failed. They cannot accompany us there for if that were possible, sin would taint Heaven and remain there for eternity for whatever is in Heaven is there for eternity. so, taking our sins there cannot be. When we enter Heaven there will be no remembrance of our sins nor will their potential be either. We cannot grasp this this side of the daisies because we are using sin tainted minds to grasp it. It is as if we are given a moment in time here to think as the Blessed Virgin herself would’ve thought. Her mind was never tainted by sin so her thoughts were free to go exactly and everywhere God willed them to. She was the freest human being to have ever lived and if you could somehow ask her the answer to this question you’d get an answer that would be very simple. We will see Him as He is. Time will no longer matter because time is limited and not endless. So, in the passage you quote, I read a longing for Heaven in the heart of a man who, like the rest of us have, only experienced Heaven a few tastes at a time in the Eucharist and all those collective spiritual moments with God in this life that we have. They are a dew drop in a desert when compared to the reality that awaits and how many of us after longing to be with Jesus all this life long wouldn’t welcome the idea of being able to take the plunge?

Well, I’ve said too much. I hope this helps.

Glenda

 

[glendab]

P.S. I think part of the answer to the state of “bliss” of Heaven you are seeking to understand is in finally being with the Beloved, Jesus Christ. your souls deepest desire. If all your thinking is directed to Him and all your actions are done for Him and you spend your days seeking Him, the whole world seems different than the casual Christian. If He isn’t your sole object in this life, then, you won’t be longing to be with Him for Eternity and subsequently will not be looking forward to spending an eternity with Someone you barely know but Who you’ve been told it is better to spend eternity with then the alternative.

BTW Heaven isn’t some obscenity of a place where our pleasures centers in the brain are continually stroked. I think that is a closer description of a Heaven on earth to the stoned bliss of an opiate addict actually.

Glenda

 

[glendab]

P.P.S. It might add some flavor to the discussion to realize in Heaven all potentials are non-existent. They are incompatible with eternity. All potentials have met their terminus, even those of the subatomic type. Oh dear, did I say that? Ignore that last. It is too deep for a Glenda.

Glenda

 

[Neoplatonist]

Hello Neoplatonist.

Thank you. Now I have a reference point.

I read a description of Heaven by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI where the before and after no longer exist. Keep in mind we are born sinners with the effects of Original sin and all the personal sins of our lives pilled up behind us and God is in the Eternal NOW as has been described elsewhere. There is no sin in His Presence and when we are in Heaven there will be no sins in us which are recorded on our souls as bits and pieces of time in which we failed. They cannot accompany us there for if that were possible, sin would taint Heaven and remain there for eternity for whatever is in Heaven is there for eternity. so, taking our sins there cannot be. When we enter Heaven there will be no remembrance of our sins nor will their potential be either. We cannot grasp this this side of the daisies because we are using sin tainted minds to grasp it. It is as if we are given a moment in time here to think as the Blessed Virgin herself would’ve thought. Her mind was never tainted by sin so her thoughts were free to go exactly and everywhere God willed them to. She was the freest human being to have ever lived and if you could somehow ask her the answer to this question you’d get an answer that would be very simple. We will see Him as He is. Time will no longer matter because time is limited and not endless. So, in the passage you quote, I read a longing for Heaven in the heart of a man who, like the rest of us have, only experienced Heaven a few tastes at a time in the Eucharist and all those collective spiritual moments with God in this life that we have. They are a dew drop in a desert when compared to the reality that awaits and how many of us after longing to be with Jesus all this life long wouldn’t welcome the idea of being able to take the plunge?

Well, I’ve said too much. I hope this helps.

Glenda

Why would having our sins absolved and our wills aimed correctly necessitate removing any memory of sin? Can you connect me to a source that spells that out a little?

What would a dew drop even mean to a fish who lived in the ocean?

The reason I ask that is that while you have offered some different words for saying what it would be like, you have mainly focused in on one set of memories that will be erased: yes, among the things gone when we lose any awareness of “before and after” would be included the memories of my sins. If you take away all of those memories of my mistakes, this begs the question of what it would mean to say that was still “you” or “me.” This is all the more true given our tainted nature through which most of our lives are riddled with mistakes. So, yes, you have erased most of my formative memories.

Our mind has been half-erased. Our body has been taken away and replaced with a different one. Our wills can no longer consider any alternatives or turn in any direction except facing God. How are any of us still recognizably continuous selves? How are we discernibly separate/different from the others?

 

[Neoplatonist]

BTW Heaven isn’t some obscenity of a place where our pleasures centers in the brain are continually stroked. I think that is a closer description of a Heaven on earth to the stoned bliss of an opiate addict actually.

Glenda

But how would the two experiences differ from inside? Characterizing it is not the same as explaining how we could tell the two apart, or why one would be more rewarding than the other. Is the Heaven one just exponentially more pleasurable/joyful? If it blots out our awareness of anything else, what does it mean to claim we are still conscious beings?

 

[hazcompat]

Time began

 

[Neoplatonist]

Time began

I’m guessing that this is meant in connection with your signature line saying there was a plan since before time began. Easy to say, my point is: can you offer anything concrete and unpacked about what it would mean to form a plan for later if there is no concept of later?

What would it even mean to “plan”?

How is “before time began” anything less worthless than “a cornerless square”?

 

[fred_conty]

I deny that we can grasp any meaningful idea behind the words when we talk about eternal bliss and timeless being and so on. If one thought no longer comes before or after another, our thinking would be so radically different that it seems like an empty placeholder to say that would still be “you” or “me” in any meaningful way.

What is more, how could we “remember” our life on earth as having come before our (then present) state in Heaven? So no meaningful conception of “memory” being “ours” from our earthly life - again suggesting that it would no longer be “us.”

If we are not moving through linear time, how can we say we are experiencing justice for things we have already done rather than saying we are being rewarded or punished for things we have not even done yet?

Given the exponential changes to our minds, hearts, and ways of “thinking”, how can we even make sense of saying it is the same person who experiences the afterlife as lived the earthly life? So how can we say we are being rewarded or punished for things WE did or didn’t do?

Please don’t reply by offering other houses of cards from you or from famous authors. I know there are plenty of sentences that could be dug up or strung together. What I am after is a way we can imagine something concrete or meaningfully analogous to the claims.

From what Frank Sheed has said in Theology For Beginners, the human intellect in heaven does not have concepts or ideas of its own in heaven.

On earth, our intellect first forms ideas and then looks at these concepts as different from ourselves. It is the process we have in knowing something: intellect, idea, consideration. The idea is separate from the intellect.

But in heaven we don’t have any concepts of our own, but see God as our concept directly. There is nothing, not ideas, between God and ourselves…no thoughts. This is a different knowledge than we have ever experienced before.

When we “see” God, we will know everything in so far as we can, having a limited intellect in grace.

To me this would seem to answer your question.

May God our Father give you grace and peace.

 

[Neoplatonist]

From what Frank Sheed has said in Theology For Beginners, the human intellect in heaven does not have concepts or ideas of its own in heaven.

On earth, our intellect first forms ideas and then looks at these concepts as different from ourselves. It is the process we have in knowing something: intellect, idea, consideration. The idea is separate from the intellect.

But in heaven we don’t have any concepts of our own, but see God as our concept directly. There is nothing, not ideas, between God and ourselves…no thoughts. This is a different knowledge than we have ever experienced before.

When we “see” God, we will know everything in so far as we can, having a limited intellect in grace.

To me this would seem to answer your question.

May God our Father give you grace and peace.

That sounds very Eastern in which the self ceases to be separate but is, instead, absorbed back into God. Puzzling how to reconcile that with more orthodox treatments.

It seems to solve the puzzle by saying “we” cease to exist. Why bother having separate resurrected bodies, then?

Why would that be any more desirable than an eternal sleep, as considered by Socrates in the Apology?

 

[glendab]

Hello Neo.

That sounds very Eastern in which the self ceases to be separate but is, instead, absorbed back into God. Puzzling how to reconcile that with more orthodox treatments.

It seems to solve the puzzle by saying “we” cease to exist. Why bother having separate resurrected bodies, then?

Why would that be any more desirable than an eternal sleep, as considered by Socrates in the Apology?

Look, if Heaven seems a disappointment to you, don’t even bother to work for it okay? Don’t worry be happy! Have a fun life and quite bothering folks who are trying to get there with such nonsensical statements. You know we take this stuff seriously. Are you really simply trying to be contrary? Stick with Socrates then.

Glenda