Why is our dream to just jump to the end of the story?

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Why is our dream to live this life so well that we suddenly hit the hyperspace button and leap to Heaven and the beatific vision of God and all? That seems no different than beginning the Lord of the Rings and then skipping over the journey, the gradual unfolding of the characters, the triumphs, and going straight to the ending.

It seems to me all the greater to have, instead, an infinite GRADUAL pilgrimmage of growth toward Heaven. Who would want a date to go so well that they suddenly fast forward to mid-life with a house and 3 kids at prestigious colleges and a comfortable nest egg in the 401k (or whatever your version would look like). It is in the nature of human experience of the good and the beautiful that we want to live through the journey.

Who wants to take one bite of cake and skip to full? Or go from the grueling strain of practice straight to the gold medal without experiencing the victories and defeats along the way?

Thanks for sharing a few thoughts.
 
Neoplatonist said:
Why is our dream to live this life so well that we suddenly hit the hyperspace button and leap to Heaven and the beatific vision of God and all? That seems no different than beginning the Lord of the Rings and then skipping over the journey, the gradual unfolding of the characters, the triumphs, and going straight to the ending.

It seems to me all the greater to have, instead, an infinite GRADUAL pilgrimmage of growth toward Heaven. Who would want a date to go so well that they suddenly fast forward to mid-life with a house and 3 kids at prestigious colleges and a comfortable nest egg in the 401k (or whatever your version would look like). It is in the nature of human experience of the good and the beautiful that we want to live through the journey.

Who wants to take one bite of cake and skip to full? Or go from the grueling strain of practice straight to the gold medal without experiencing the victories and defeats along the way?

Thanks for sharing a few thoughts.
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We don’t want to die now; most people love being embodiedly alive.

But given that our human life comes to an end, when the pilgrimage ends, we want to find ourselves at home.

ICXC NIKA.
 
But in one little lifespan we will have barely begun the grand journey that stretches out ahead of us. What you are saying sounds like the equivalent of saying we only ever want to read short stories, never a whole novel, and certainly not a trilogy. Why would we be happy to find ourselves home so quickly?
 
Neoplatonist said:
But in one little lifespan we will have barely begun the grand journey that stretches out ahead of us. What you are saying sounds like the equivalent of saying we only ever want to read short stories, never a whole novel, and certainly not a trilogy. Why would we be happy to find ourselves home so quickly?
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Well, any time will be a short time compared to eternity. Would you prefer that we lived two lifetimes before going to Heaven? Why would one not ask then for a third life?

I have seen similar questions about whether it might be better to have something other than the Beatific Vision. (In some cases, cessation of existence. In this case, another life or a longer life.) I think the answer is simply no; we might think abstractly of the Beatific Vision as a choice among others because we cannot imagine its absolute goodness. It is simply beyond us.

Living out our life in a way characteristic of humans is a good and moral activity. We certainly wouldn’t end it sooner than it should end. But a lengthier “chase” or “journey” only superficially seems like a preferable alternative to Heaven.

(An interesting point, though not directly related. I’ve heard of an argument for purgatory from virtue ethics. The idea is that one cannot be made virtuous automatically, even by God. I could be made to have a disposition to virtue, but to be virtuous is to behave in a virtuous way; one can’t become virtuous apart from acting well. So people who are not perfectly virtuous cannot, upon dying, be made perfect and ready for the Beatific Vision. They would have to become virtuous in purgatory.)
 
👍 Neoplatonist, I agree with you 100%!

Heaven is not the climax of the Journey; it is the award for completing the journey.

The climax of the journey is the journey itself.

Getting to Heaven is the end goal; the final award: the lesser awards, the appetizers, are picked up among the way.

The more we enjoy the beauty of this Earth, the more we will appreciate God himself. The more we appreciate God, the more we appreciate his company.

We appreciate God’s company under a veil on Earth, but in Heaven we will experience his company in full detail.

Therefore, we cannot *possibly *value the ultimate award for completing the journey if we don’t value the journey itself.

:bowdown2:

Excellent reasoning, good sir!
 
Neoplatonist said:
But in one little lifespan we will have barely begun the grand journey that stretches out ahead of us. What you are saying sounds like the equivalent of saying we only ever want to read short stories, never a whole novel, and certainly not a trilogy. Why would we be happy to find ourselves home so quickly?
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Are you arguing for reincarnation?

If so, that is intolerable because your human mind – what makes you “you” and is really the point of this life – would be erased by it.

There is no point in reading a trilogy if prior to picking up volume 2, you had to fully and finally forget volume 1; and then again before volume 3!

In any case, Heaven is not the period at the end of a final sentence, it is more a “never ending story.”

It will require eternity, and our new heads and bodies, to fully explore our LORD’s mind!

ICXC NIKA.
 
Neoplatonist said:
an infinite GRADUAL pilgrimmage of growth toward Heaven.
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Do you really mean infinite? If so, we would never see God, in which case it would be a hell, perhaps worse than the hell of the damned, since we would love him, but our love would never be consummated. It would be like Romeo climbing higher on the balcony by millimeters, but never reaching Juliet. What lover wants to take his time in getting to his beloved? What lover wants never to reach the object of his love?
 
Also think we cannot make sense out of what it would mean to still be “us” if we are outside of time - as seems to be the case from different discussions I’ve had and read. How do we make sense out of “change” or “growing” or “adventure” if we are in some eternal instant, as phrased by Benedict XVI?
 
Ad_Orientem said:
Do you really mean infinite? If so, we would never see God, in which case it would be a hell, perhaps worse than the hell of the damned, since we would love him, but our love would never be consummated. It would be like Romeo climbing higher on the balcony by millimeters, but never reaching Juliet. What lover wants to take his time in getting to his beloved? What lover wants never to reach the object of his love?
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Don’t saints feel the presence of God even while on earth? Certainly they claim to in blissful and almost-erotic terms sometimes.
 
Pax Christi!

It has never occured to me to “skip to the ending” and miss out on the story.

Do others want to do this? Do most want this? I’ve heard of some saints who wanted to be martyrs - I’ll pass, thank you! - but it must be rare to want to miss out on life, mustn’t it?

Or suicidal.

Just my fraction of a euro.

God bless.
 
Neoplatonist said:
Don’t saints feel the presence of God even while on earth? Certainly they claim to in blissful and almost-erotic terms sometimes.
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Yes, you’re quite right. My analogy breaks down because we do have union with God while on earth. But this union is nonetheless imperfect. As the saints grow closer to God, they talk about how they long more and more to see him face to face. It becomes painful and tiresome for them, to have any kind of separation from him, even if they are more perfectly united to him now, than the rest of us.
 
svid2 said:
Pax Christi!

It has never occured to me to “skip to the ending” and miss out on the story.

Do others want to do this? Do most want this? I’ve heard of some saints who wanted to be martyrs - I’ll pass, thank you! - but it must be rare to want to miss out on life, mustn’t it?

Or suicidal.

Just my fraction of a euro.

God bless.
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Oh, no. I’m not talking about shortening this mortal lifespan as skipping to the end. I’m talking about skipping over all the stages of growth between our condition at the end of this life and our perfected state in Heaven.
 
Neoplatonist said:
Oh, no. I’m not talking about shortening this mortal lifespan as skipping to the end. I’m talking about skipping over all the stages of growth between our condition at the end of this life and our perfected state in Heaven.
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Pax Christi!

So, you’re talking about skipping Purgatory? Why would anyone not want to skip such slow, unpleasant suffering?

Trying to put everything in Catholic terms here.

God bless.
 
Life is difficult for many people. They don’t relish the idea of a do over, they would rather have it over and be…any number of things that people believe happens after death.

the promise of home, heaven, a mansion, rest, no pain, hunger etc is a very attractive idea. No longer having to worry about sinning, displeasing God, if one is doing things right or are they leaving check marks on their permanent record is a constant worry to many.

And some faiths teach that this life is basically an illusion, or just a test or hurdle for the real deal…the afterlife. So they work assiduously at not getting attached, of living in but not of the world, of taming the flesh and drives of the body,etc. Some actively try to hate the world or grow oblivious or unfeeling towards it. For them, the idea of another life here, in a body is repugnant.
 
Such slow, unpleasant suffering?

You mean the laughter of babies? Snowflakes? First kisses? Chocolate? Novels and movies and sledding hills? Old friends? The Brandenburg Concertos? Discovering new things? Exploring new places? Making new friends?

Yet, given the way the brain works, and how it re-calibrates to its lived experience, if we only experienced good things, their context of value would be lost. Consider the spoiled rich kid who fails to enjoy the good things in her life. Why would the traditional view of Heaven be any different vis-a-vis the human mind?

We can form constructions from words like “pure, unending bliss”, but we can’t actually frame that in any concrete way. We can’t make intelligible sense out of how it could happen without changing what/who we are - like swapping out our brain that is wired to grasp and thrive on challenge and novelty for some different one.

This is all the more true since that state would be outside of time, where we can’t even make sense of change at all.
 
Such slow, unpleasant suffering?
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You mean the laughter of babies? Snowflakes? First kisses? Chocolate? Novels and movies and sledding hills? Old friends? The Brandenburg Concertos? Discovering new things? Exploring new places? Making new friends?
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Yes, we have access to all of that while we are humanly alive, and no-one that I know of wants to give that up.

But that does not matter, as our human life comes to an end, whether we want that or not!

So what are the alternatives, unless you are in fact arguing for the desirability of reincarnation?

ICXC NIKA.
 
I don’t think I’m arguing FOR reincarnation. There are some separate problems and paradoxes that would arise in that case.

I think maybe I’m arguing that we come up against paradox when we try to reconcile our idea of a good God and our idea of a good afterlife. I don’t mean some idea of “mystery” that we can reconcile and be happy about, like it’s some kind of unwrapped Christmas present. I mean the fundamental kind that would suggest people stop pretending they have anything other than a house of cards when they try to make claims about how either one works.

I can SAY “imagine a circular triangle”, or “trust that American politics would look like crystalline logic if we could see the economic trade-off matrix in 27 dimensions.” But we can’t actually imagine either.
 
Neoplatonist said:
Why is our dream to live this life so well that we suddenly hit the hyperspace button and leap to Heaven and the beatific vision of God and all? That seems no different than beginning the Lord of the Rings and then skipping over the journey, the gradual unfolding of the characters, the triumphs, and going straight to the ending.

It seems to me all the greater to have, instead, an infinite GRADUAL pilgrimmage of growth toward Heaven. Who would want a date to go so well that they suddenly fast forward to mid-life with a house and 3 kids at prestigious colleges and a comfortable nest egg in the 401k (or whatever your version would look like). It is in the nature of human experience of the good and the beautiful that we want to live through the journey.

Who wants to take one bite of cake and skip to full? Or go from the grueling strain of practice straight to the gold medal without experiencing the victories and defeats along the way?

Thanks for sharing a few thoughts.
Click to expand...
I agree. You could be like Nietzsche, and say “it’s all about the journey…The journey IS the destination”.

But that’s rubbish, and we all know it in our hearts. The journey is hard, painful, boring and meaningless. If I could hit the fast forward button on life, I say- good. All our journeys end with our bodies in the grave- and our souls freed from this prison of time and space.

Just obey the commandments, and hope you make it to Heaven- call upon the mercy of Christ- and let the ‘journey’- this life which is a lie and a torment, an empty vanity- pass by, and leave it without shedding a tear…
 
Neoplatonist said:
Such slow, unpleasant suffering?

You mean the laughter of babies? Snowflakes? First kisses? Chocolate? Novels and movies and sledding hills? Old friends? The Brandenburg Concertos? Discovering new things? Exploring new places? Making new friends?

.
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Yeah- like toothache, like insomnia, like humiliation, like failure, like unrequited love- like life promised and denied. First kisses lead to broken hearts, true love is suicide- novel are great- yeah… only for killing the pain of ‘real life’. Babies- I pity them, sentenced not to death but to life…“Rather than the living, I salute the dead. Yet happier yet is he who was never born”- as the Holy Bible says.

If our existence has a final cause- BRING IT ON! The journey is deeply unpleasant…Let it all end…Then God willl be all in all, and everything else will be NOTHING…
 
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