N
Neoplatonist
Guest
I’m holding no one in this conversation. Good luck on your journey.
Talking about self and Heaven outside of time is a house of cards
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B
Ben_Quincy
Guest
Reminder:
Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of personal attacks
Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of personal attacks
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
OK. Let’s try this:
There are twenty people sitting in a circle in a room with a beautiful garden in the middle. Each of them is paralyzed looking up at a large monitor screen above them, so they can see the garden and all of the others looking at their own monitors showing the same screen with pictures of the garden and all the others.
Now, since they are paralyzed in an eternal instant with no before and after (hence no movement), and their mind is completely filled with the image of the monitor screen full of beautiful garden and all the beautiful people - how are they still separate minds? Separate selves? There are different (resurrected) bodies but they aren’t doing anything-they have no way of knowing which body is theirs. They can’t look down (paralyzed, right?). Just grokking out on the beautiful images on the monitor and feeling love for all the awesomeness.
How would they know which body was theirs? How would they know which beautiful people were friends or strangers? Remember from earlier, their memories from life before they came here are gone.
No one is unhappy, their hearts are full of warm fuzzies and their brains are dazzled by the spectacular garden in the center and they see that all the other viewers are happy and dazzled.
I know we could use more superlatives, I’m after a workable model we can actually envision with our limited earth brain (reflecting back to the original post). Does this seem like a close enough analogy to what the traditional view of Heaven seems to be offering.
There are twenty people sitting in a circle in a room with a beautiful garden in the middle. Each of them is paralyzed looking up at a large monitor screen above them, so they can see the garden and all of the others looking at their own monitors showing the same screen with pictures of the garden and all the others.
Now, since they are paralyzed in an eternal instant with no before and after (hence no movement), and their mind is completely filled with the image of the monitor screen full of beautiful garden and all the beautiful people - how are they still separate minds? Separate selves? There are different (resurrected) bodies but they aren’t doing anything-they have no way of knowing which body is theirs. They can’t look down (paralyzed, right?). Just grokking out on the beautiful images on the monitor and feeling love for all the awesomeness.
How would they know which body was theirs? How would they know which beautiful people were friends or strangers? Remember from earlier, their memories from life before they came here are gone.
No one is unhappy, their hearts are full of warm fuzzies and their brains are dazzled by the spectacular garden in the center and they see that all the other viewers are happy and dazzled.
I know we could use more superlatives, I’m after a workable model we can actually envision with our limited earth brain (reflecting back to the original post). Does this seem like a close enough analogy to what the traditional view of Heaven seems to be offering.
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Nihilist
Guest
That’s all true. But is being ‘you’ or ‘me’ in a ‘meaningful’ way really desirable? I think not. The human ‘personality’ is just a bunch of memories, preferences, hopes, desires, fears. Of course, in the next world, nothing like our personality survives. The ‘soul’ is what survives. But the soul is not the personality. The soul is outside of time and space, and therefore devoid of all temporal and spatial predicates.
In the world without time and space, there is also no plurality. Thefore the soul (which is nothing to do with the personality) is all one- ONE with God. Just plain ONE, no time, no space, no distinction, no volition, no action, no memory, no thought. Perfect being, unpolluted by attributes and action. Some people might call it non-being. It’s an abitrary choice of words…
The closest we can get to bliss in this life is being in a state of dreamless sleep. That is what the next world is like.
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glendab
Guest
Hello Neoplatonist.
Glenda
Your model is not exactly a good one. The persons “paralyzed” and only viewing a monitor aren’t really in Heaven. They are given a mind filled with a garden that seems dazzling but it is only an image not a reality. Heaven on the other hand, is the great reality that all those who get there will live. It isn’t an imaginary image given them by others. I suggest you get familiar with the Allegory of the Cave from Plato a little more. I cannot give you an understanding of life outside the cave. You’ll have to think outside that box on this one.
Glenda
J
jimmy
Guest
Humans aren’t eternal and never will be eternal. They will never cease to be bound by time. In fact many eastern Christians speak of change as an endless process, even after you die. Theosis continues into the afterlife and doesn’t end.
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
Is there a discernible difference in your model between “dreamless sleep” and “blinking out of existence once and for all”?
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Nihilist
Guest
They’re pretty much the same. That would be an OK version of Heaven, I feel. We’re all at peace in a state of utter dreamless sleep- the Bible doesn’t promise any ‘activities’ in Heaven, just cessation of tears, sorrow and death. Non-existence fills those criteria.
Better than watching some TV on pause for all eternity, IMHO. In fact, the only tolerable thing for all eternity would be non-existence.
In this way, also there is total agreement between the promises of Faith (if Heaven is taken as non-existence), and science (also promises non-existence.)
If we look forward to non-existence, it is our Heaven. But if we still love this world, then non-existence seems like Hell. Both are timeless.
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jimmy
Guest
And hell consists of continuing to exist forever?
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Nihilist
Guest
No- I would say Hell is also a kind of non-existence. The difference is, if the person is attached to the things of the world, or attached to themselves- then you are afraid of non-existence, and see it as loss.
It is like the old image of death as a mirror of the soul- the good person looks at it, and sees beauty and peace- but the bad person looks at it and sees fear and loss.
J
Jvrlns
Guest
That’s true, heaven can’t be grasped by our limited minds, but the bible is full of allegories of heaven: “eternal bliss”, “heavenly mansions”, “wedding banquet”, “The heavenly Jerusalem”, etc. I think the timelessness makes reference to the beatific vision which won’t change because God doesn’t change, when we see God we will be perfectly happy, and that experience will be always new, it will have always the same intensity, it will be a pure never ending act of love. Another thing is our existence as people, we will have bodies and we will use them in the new creation after the resurrection. We will be able do countless things without loosing the beatific vision for an instant. And yes there will be moments in heaven, we won’t be “frozen in time” if you have a resurrected body and you want to go for a walk you’ll have to put one foot in front of the other if you want to get anywhere
God won’t give us resurrected bodies to be floating in limbo.We will remember our life on earth even better than we do now, we will be able to see also how merciful God was with us and how He helped us every step of the way to heaven for which we’ll be eternally thankful. We will also see all the little details that escaped our attention, how others contribute to our salvation with their actions and prayers and all the consequences of our actions good and bad.
P.S. Forgive my English, I’m not a native speaker.
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tdgesq
Guest
Check out the B-theory of time. I don’t subscribe to it, but it does give some insight into how we might analogously view the claims about a timelessly eternal afterlife.
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
Interesting. It seems to me that:
a.) It is hard to discern how the claim that the future is already real, we just know less about it and the claim that unicorns are real we just haven’t met them yet can be different.
b.) This philosophers’ construct is at least as much a house of cards that allows us no way to wrap our minds around concretely as the problem of saying we could be “us” even if we had no experience of time.
Like the new avenue of possibility . . . interesting scenery, just not sure it’s a through street.
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Bahman
Guest
There are two serious issue to timeless state: 1) What is the point of having a body when you cannot move it in changeless state, 2) How could we enter to state of changeless state knowing that our entrance cause a change?
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fred_conty
Guest
The body will be different after the final resurrection. Maybe something like Christ’s on the mount of transfiguration. His body is described as a light shinning from it and in sort of a brilliant transparent state. It was quite different. Our bodies too will not be subject to any unpleasantness or needs since in some way it will be transformed too. But it will share in the happiness and joy of the soul. As an example, at a football game when a touchdown is made, the mind realizes the moment with great delight and then everyone stands and starts shouting to share in the mind’s pleasant moment.
I’m not sure what you mean by your second question.
May God our Father give you grace and peace.
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tdgesq
Guest
Sure. We can’t know this is the case. I think the B-theorists are just looking for logical and metaphysical possibility.
There are quite a few physicists and other applied scientists who believe this theory fits the data better than the A-theory; not that this necessarily means anything to you. A potentially eternal four dimensional block of space-time where there is no tense (no before and after) almost requires a commitment that our perception of the passage of time and change is illusory. I think there are good arguments against that conclusion, but I can’t state for certain it’s wrong.
God could supernaturally elevate our intellect and consciousness to perceive reality in much the same way the Thomists claim God does; to perceive all (or many) events as one timelessness now. Bahman has an interesting comment though that this makes the resurrection of the body, which is a non-negotiable Christian commitment, seem superfluous. Then again, I suppose we could perceive our bodies as immediate and timeless, without change.
Do you think an afterlife of infinite time is more plausible?
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
We are perfectly capable of asserting the truth of any number of theories without necessarily actually being able to wrap our minds around what they would mean in concrete terms.
Would we still be “us” if we saw time that way?
Imagine the joy when a person grasps enough of God’s nature to be filled with joy. Yet how far toward an infinite God could his mind really have travelled? What more joy could be had if their minds again leaped a proportionate amount upward?
Surely no saint in this life nor even soul in Heaven could have anywhere near the infinite joy that God would (presumably) experience.
That being said, no, I don’t think we can concretely wrap our minds around what an “afterlife of infinite time” would mean, either, nor how it could still be recognizably “us” after, say, 10 million years.
Would we still be “us” if we saw time that way?
Imagine the joy when a person grasps enough of God’s nature to be filled with joy. Yet how far toward an infinite God could his mind really have travelled? What more joy could be had if their minds again leaped a proportionate amount upward?
Surely no saint in this life nor even soul in Heaven could have anywhere near the infinite joy that God would (presumably) experience.
That being said, no, I don’t think we can concretely wrap our minds around what an “afterlife of infinite time” would mean, either, nor how it could still be recognizably “us” after, say, 10 million years.
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hazcompat
Guest
It is time you enter and leave. No time always was and always will be. You do not enter or leave. New time will be created for your new body. Ask and He will show you.
Peace
N
Nihilist
Guest
As Kant shows, we can’t actually imagine anything without time or space, as there are a priori conditions of perception, how our brain works- which means that we cannot image the afterlife. Different images may be proposed- but they are only images.We are perfectly capable of asserting the truth of any number of theories without necessarily actually being able to wrap our minds around what they would mean in concrete terms.
Would we still be “us” if we saw time that way?
Imagine the joy when a person grasps enough of God’s nature to be filled with joy. Yet how far toward an infinite God could his mind really have travelled? What more joy could be had if their minds again leaped a proportionate amount upward?
Surely no saint in this life nor even soul in Heaven could have anywhere near the infinite joy that God would (presumably) experience.
That being said, no, I don’t think we can concretely wrap our minds around what an “afterlife of infinite time” would mean, either, nor how it could still be recognizably “us” after, say, 10 million years.
Best just to have faith. We can talk about being frozen in a moment of joy- etc., but it is only an image. The noumenon is totally inaccessible.
To talk about eternal life as infinite time is no more true to talk about it as non-existence, or as watching an endless movie, or eating a neverending hamburger. They are all just images. None of these images satisfies the heart, or even the mind.
It is all totally beyond imagination and cognition. Onwards into the unknownable void…
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