Why go to Heaven?

[Notixar]

I’ve looked all over and I haven’t found a answer to my question so I decided to ask here.

We know that God is perfect and that he doesn’t need us in Heaven. I understand that he wants us in Heaven but the fact is since God is perfect our salvation is of no importance toward him. The only thing I’ve found so far is that we, as individuals, need to get into Heaven. But the question is why? What does getting to Heaven fulfill? In the larger sense of things God would still be perfect, just, merciful, good, etc. Nothing would change if one went to Heaven. Everything would still be perfect as one’s free choice to not go to Heaven is in itself a good thing showing God’s goodness. The only reason that I can think of is that when one goes to Heaven it doesn’t give satan/evil any victory. But even if one does give evil satisfaction in knowing that it ensnared some soul it still does not affect good/God in any way. No matter if all of humanity went to hell God would still be perfect and fulfilled. So why should we bother getting into Heaven?

Thanks in advance and sorry to be so pessimistic.

 

[Brendan]

You forgot that God is Love. Love is not something that God does, but it is essential to His Nature.

Thus, it cannot be said that our salvation is of no importance to Him. In fact, due to the the Nature of Love ( and thus the Nature of God), the salvation of the one who is loved is of great importance. Since God is infinite Love, the concern is of infinite importance.

God desires us to be with Him in Heaven because of Divine Love. He desires to draw all to Him, and for all to be with Him in everlasting Life.

Also, since love cannot be compelled, it must be freely chosen (or else it is not love), each of us can choose to love God in return, or not. The place for those who chose to love God is Heaven, the place for those who choose not to love God is Hell

 

[Notixar]

Does God need to love though? I understand that God wants to love us and to be loved in return but the fact that he has no needs is what I’m getting at. So far, at least from what I can understand, you’re speaking of what God wants to happen. He wants us to have salvation. But since he is perfect we don’t need to be in Heaven. It is simply his divine goodness that allows us such a chance.

So are you saying that our choice matters? Or that it doesn’t matter and that God just wants us to choose Heaven?

 

[ynotzap]

To be united to the One who created us and desires to share His existence and love. God is the fulfillment of all our desires for love, security, everlasting life of joy and happiness, of beauty and goodness. He indeed needs nothing, and by sharing with us loses nothing. By participating in His divine life, it does not diminish Him in any way. If we are not united to Him we are left desolate, abandoned, and empty, completely unhappy, and unfulfilled. His love for us is like the rays of the sun, binging life to the earth, He bring the fullness of life to all who respond to His love and goodness for all eternity

 

[Brendan]

Does God need to love though? I understand that God wants to love us and to be loved in return but the fact that he has no needs is what I’m getting at. So far, at least from what I can understand, you’re speaking of what God wants to happen. He wants us to have salvation. But since he is perfect we don’t need to be in Heaven. It is simply his divine goodness that allows us such a chance.

It isn’t God needs to love ( you are looking at it as a verb) God IS Love (noun). It is not something that God does, it is who God IS.

It is His Divine goodness that give us existence, it is His Divine Love that desires us to be with Him. It is a desire, not a need. Our being in Heaven does not make God greater, nor does our presence in Hell diminish Him. But Love, by it’s Nature, desires good for the object of the love.

Heaven completes US not God, Heaven itself is a creation, made for our benefit. It was created because God loves us, as a place to have OUR desires fulfilled in Divine completeness.

So are you saying that our choice matters? Or that it doesn’t matter and that God just wants us to choose Heaven?

Yes, our choice matters, we are free to choose to love God, or not to love Him. And yes, God desires us to love Him.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Without God we can’t attain the fullness of our own humanity. We lack joy, love, and freedom. In short, we lack communion with the Triune God.

Why not desire any of that? In fact, deep down that’s what every human desires.

 

[Notixar]

I’m sorry people. I’m really trying to understand but from what I’m getting is that our choice really doesn’t matter. But this can’t be true as God did put us here for a reason. If the answer is truly that we are to be loved as that fulfills us and makes us joyous then fine. But why did God create us then? Simply so that he could have something to love upon? But then that means he has to love, but since God is needless that cannot be true.

Basically if God is needless why is anything existent? Why not just God? Merely a way to show love?

Or did God in his goodness just decide to create beings which could experience joy?

 

[Miguelmdza]

God does not need us. We need Him. Why did He create us? He created us to love and serve Him and bring creation back to Him, to show His Goodness, and to share His everlasting happiness in Heaven. So why go to Heaven? To share in the everlasting happiness of God. Is that of benefit to God? He wants to share His everlasting happiness with mankind. Would we share thay happiness in hell? No.

 

[oldcelt]

Why indeed?

 

[fhansen]

I’ve looked all over and I haven’t found a answer to my question so I decided to ask here.

We know that God is perfect and that he doesn’t need us in Heaven. I understand that he wants us in Heaven but the fact is since God is perfect our salvation is of no importance toward him. The only thing I’ve found so far is that we, as individuals, need to get into Heaven. But the question is why? What does getting to Heaven fulfill? In the larger sense of things God would still be perfect, just, merciful, good, etc. Nothing would change if one went to Heaven. Everything would still be perfect as one’s free choice to not go to Heaven is in itself a good thing showing God’s goodness. The only reason that I can think of is that when one goes to Heaven it doesn’t give satan/evil any victory. But even if one does give evil satisfaction in knowing that it ensnared some soul it still does not affect good/God in any way. No matter if all of humanity went to hell God would still be perfect and fulfilled. So why should we bother getting into Heaven?

Thanks in advance and sorry to be so pessimistic.

Heaven is the complete, uncompromised fulfillment of the innate human desire for happiness.

 

[jesus4ever]

The only thing I can come up with at the moment is one word FAMILY.

GOD wants us to be with him and with all of his children to be ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY.

To be in heaven with a loving Father and brothers and sisters who love and are happy with each other one. Now that heaven

 

[Beryllos]

Good questions. It’s a mystery (to me) why God created the world and us, since he has no need of us. Another respondent wrote that God is love. I have also heard that God is existence. Does that mean it is in his nature to cause things to come into existence? Who knows? Who can know the mind of God?

Let me finish with some quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

excerpt from 293: … “The world was made for the glory of God.” St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it,” for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness…

excerpt from 295: … We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom, and goodness…

That doesn’t explain everything, but I suppose it’s a start.

God bless you, and may the Holy Spirit assist and guide you always in your quest for truth, virtue, and love.

 

[Brendan]

I’m sorry people. I’m really trying to understand but from what I’m getting is that our choice really doesn’t matter. But this can’t be true as God did put us here for a reason. If the answer is truly that we are to be loved as that fulfills us and makes us joyous then fine. But why did God create us then? Simply so that he could have something to love upon?** But then that means he has to love**, but since God is needless that cannot be true.

You are still confusing a verb with a noun. And a desire with a need.

 

[fhansen]

Does God need to love though? I understand that God wants to love us and to be loved in return but the fact that he has no needs is what I’m getting at. So far, at least from what I can understand, you’re speaking of what God wants to happen. He wants us to have salvation. But since he is perfect we don’t need to be in Heaven. It is simply his divine goodness that allows us such a chance.

So are you saying that our choice matters? Or that it doesn’t matter and that God just wants us to choose Heaven?

It’s the nature of love to want to share its happiness.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Merely a way to show love?

Or did God in his goodness just decide to create beings which could experience joy?

Both.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Here are a couple of considerations, and I don’t see how to fit them into the model being proposed:

1.God can be present in a piece of unleavened bread, but not in us unless we somehow live a good life and are resurrected into Heaven? How is he ever NOT with us?

2.I just don’t see how “love” fits as a description in any way we can make actual sense out of. If I created some simple flatworms in my laboratory (for fairness, look at the traditional language in which we are infinitely below God and “as” worms in the dust), to say that I “love” them, or desire them to live good lives or to somehow manifest my goodness all seem (close to completely) non-sensical.

3.Sure, there’s the language of the bride and bridegroom, but that just compounds the weirdness rather than ameliorating it. What would it mean for me to love my flatworms even remotely “as if” they were my beloved spouse??

4.Similarly, could I seriously have created the flatworms in order to serve me and sing my praises? I’ve never been able to get that idea to disconnect from vanity.

5.Perhaps most of all, though, what condition or achievement or state could possibly make the flatworm more than an infinitesimal amount closer to being like a human? Does it being a better crawler than the others of its kind, or caring for its fellow worms really bring it into harmony with my nature or better express my goodness?

Love hearing the way people on here see things differently.

 

[Kurisu35712]

I’ve looked all over and I haven’t found a answer to my question so I decided to ask here.

We know that God is perfect and that he doesn’t need us in Heaven. I understand that he wants us in Heaven but the fact is since God is perfect our salvation is of no importance toward him. The only thing I’ve found so far is that we, as individuals, need to get into Heaven. But the question is why? What does getting to Heaven fulfill? In the larger sense of things God would still be perfect, just, merciful, good, etc. Nothing would change if one went to Heaven. Everything would still be perfect as one’s free choice to not go to Heaven is in itself a good thing showing God’s goodness. The only reason that I can think of is that when one goes to Heaven it doesn’t give satan/evil any victory. But even if one does give evil satisfaction in knowing that it ensnared some soul it still does not affect good/God in any way. No matter if all of humanity went to hell God would still be perfect and fulfilled. So why should we bother getting into Heaven?

Thanks in advance and sorry to be so pessimistic.

As others have mentioned, God is Love. He wants us to be in Heaven because He loves us, because He created us, because He understands us better than anyone, even ourselves. He wants us to be in Heaven because He wants us to be. He wants us to understand Him as best we can so that we, likewise, want to be with Him.

As an analogy, imagine the one person (or people) whom you love and cherish more than anything. Best friend, spouse, parent, sibling, teacher, what have you. Imagine how much you care about that person, despite and including all their flaws, and how you want nothing more than to be able to spend time with them. Why though? Simply because you love them. Whatever the reason is, even if you don’t know it, that person matters to you, and as a result you choose to love them.

The reason we love those people as much as we can and do is because God loves each of us individually infinitely more. God sees each of us the same way we see our best friends, and loves us unconditionally. He created us, not because He needed to, but because He wanted to. He wants us to be able to love Him as He loves us, without limitation. We don’t try to get into Heaven because it’s better than going to Hell. We want to get into Heaven for the same reason I want to go home this weekend and see my family and hang out with my friends. I care about them, and at the end of the day, nothing is more important to me than being able to be with the people I care about.

Likewise, I would at least hope they feel the same way towards me. God feels the same way towards us. He doesn’t need us, in the sense that we are necessary to His existence or sustenance or anything like that. But He does need us in the sense that we need our family and friends. I could exist without my best friend. I could exist without my girlfriend. I could, having already been born, technically exist without my parents, even. But I could very well say that I need them and have it be a perfectly true statement.

In short, we were created by Love, through love, to love and be loved. We go to Heaven because that’s where we were made to be.

 

[Kurisu35712]

Here are a couple of considerations, and I don’t see how to fit them into the model being proposed:

1.God can be present in a piece of unleavened bread, but not in us unless we somehow live a good life and are resurrected into Heaven? How is he ever NOT with us?

He IS always with us, which is why the souls in Hell are tormented for all eternity. They want nothing to do with God or His love, but since He is everywhere, they can’t escape. They can’t stop God from loving them, even though they hate and/or feel nothing towards Him. I can’t find the quote for like the third time I’ve wanted to use it, but to paraphrase, the fires of God’s love that give life to the souls in Heaven are the same as those that torment the souls in Hell.

2.I just don’t see how “love” fits as a description in any way we can make actual sense out of. If I created some simple flatworms in my laboratory (for fairness, look at the traditional language in which we are infinitely below God and “as” worms in the dust), to say that I “love” them, or desire them to live good lives or to somehow manifest my goodness all seem (close to completely) non-sensical.

True, but you didn’t create the flatworms in your image, and you didn’t imbue the flatworms with the conscious ability to love you in return, with the intention that they would choose to do just that. The difference is, to God, we aren’t simply flatworms he made in his laboratory. We’re His children, and His best friends, regardless how far below Him we are. He sees us essentially as we see all of our loved ones combined. Based on how strong of a personal relationship some Saints have had with Him, I would even go so far as to say He sees us as His equals, not necessarily in power or authority, but in our relationship with Him, since He gave us not only the ability to choose to love Him back, but also the ability to choose not to. Likewise, various sources I’ve come across (He and I being one), mention God’s love for us being extravagant and even foolish in a sense, which brings to mind the following passage. I wanted to say He loves us despite us being essentially nothing, but then I felt bad saying it because we’re worth everything to Him.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Corinthians 1:25)

3.Sure, there’s the language of the bride and bridegroom, but that just compounds the weirdness rather than ameliorating it. What would it mean for me to love my flatworms even remotely “as if” they were my beloved spouse??

Kind of addressed this in that last part, but the flatworms can’t love you back. One cares enough for one’s spouse to sacrifice everything, even your life, for them, and vice versa. You sacrifice your own happiness for their sake, and they yours, and so on. Everything you give to them, they give to you and so on and so forth. I’m sure it can get more complex than that, but that’s the kind of statement you have to look at in an almost abstractly spiritual sense I think.

4.Similarly, could I seriously have created the flatworms in order to serve me and sing my praises? I’ve never been able to get that idea to disconnect from vanity.

That depends on whether you also choose to serve the flatworms and desire nothing more than to spend eternity with them and share everything you have with them. If one’s wife bakes you a cake, even if it’s dry you tell her it’s delicious and appreciate the gesture and the love behind it. Similarly if God creates a universe for us and dies for us and then invites us to spend eternity with Him once we leave, it makes sense to say thanks.

5.Perhaps most of all, though, what condition or achievement or state could possibly make the flatworm more than an infinitesimal amount closer to being like a human? Does it being a better crawler than the others of its kind, or caring for its fellow worms really bring it into harmony with my nature or better express my goodness?

Love hearing the way people on here see things differently.

Giving the flatworm the ability to feel emotions and communicate with you and choose whether or not it wants to love you would make it quite human indeed. And thus, what about us makes us “in the image and likeness of God?” I’d argue our emotions, our ability to communicate with Him, and our ability to love Him and each other.

These were really interesting thoughts to respond to!

 

[Neoplatonist]

I think there is a breakdown in the comparative analogy, though, because while having consciousness and so on seems “to us” like a significant similarity to God, that is a function of looking out from within our limited frame of reference. Within the framework of a larger perspective, though, our consciousness would be no more significant to God than, say, segmentation in the flatworms (or the affectionate feelings of a lab rat, if we want to add sentience and rudimentary cognition) would seem significant from our point of view. Would we think of the lab rat as a spouse? Would we sacrifice in any meaningful way to save it’s life?

As for imagining our importance relative to God’s willingness to “die” for us, that is hard to wrap around for different reasons. God didn’t come anywhere close to dying in our terms: he had no doubts about whether he would cease to be, his mind never turned off completely (Christ’s incarnate mind might have, but neither God the Father nor the Holy Spirit’s would have). What is more, God knew perfectly well what his plans were, and that Christ would be resurrected in less than the blink of an eternal eye. As I’ve argued before, this seems more akin to you or I sending our child to the cellar to bring up a bottle of wine. What real sacrifice have I made FROM MY POINT OF VIEW in that case?

Like the clarity of your thoughts. Look forward to seeing where this might go.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I also think the example of us wanting to be with our loved ones falls short in some way, because we are changed and our happiness is affected depending on whether they are with us or not. I don’t see how such psychological/emotional change applies in the case of God. How does his perfect contentment rise or fall one iota? It seems more akin to the child absorbed in playing with matchbox cars who really is perfectly content to play either by himself or with someone else in the room. There is neither longing nor “willingness to sacrifice” in order to change the situation.