Heaven by Professor Peter Kreeft From a lecture series given in 2006, transcribed 2020 In our last lecture, we explored some of the materialist's arguments against the existence of life after death. Two lectures from now, we'll explore some of the arguments for the existence of life after death. In this lecture, we'll investigate the nature of life after death by exploring the religious concept of heaven with the critical tools of philosophical reason. And in doing that, we'll also continue to explore the case against life after death by examining objections against this religious notion of heaven, and in our next lecture, the notion of hell. At the same time we will also by looking at the religious believer's answers to these objections, explore different concepts of the nature of heaven and hell, or what we might find after we die. But first we probably need to justify spending some time on this topic. The nature of heaven is obviously a very speculative question and one which most philosophers would say is not appropriate for philosophy at all because we can have no real knowledge about it. Well, if they mean by real knowledge certain knowledge, I would agree, but probable knowledge or what Plato called right opinion ought to count for something at least. And even if we can't find certainty we could give good reasons for prefering a more probable or likely opinion over a less likely one. So that is a proper question unless the only proper question for philosophy are questions we can get certain answers to. But in that case you cut away most of philosophy's questions and almost all of the interesting ones. The more important the question the less certainty we have about it, and that's a real problem, and there seems to be simply no solution to it. We can't get the most perfect knowledge — certainty — about the most perfect things, things like God and heaven, so we have to choose between less perfect knowledge of more perfect things, or more perfect knowledge of less perfect things. Mathematics and physical sciences give us more perfect knowledge of less perfect things, things less than ourselves, things like planets and numbers. Philosophy, especially philosophy of religion, gives us less perfect knowledge of more perfect things, things above us and beyond us, and those are the most interest questions, and the most important ones, that is, the ones that make the biggest difference to our lives. So if we want to explore those most interesting and important questions, we're just going to have to get over our prejudice that the only knowledge that's worth anything is clear and certain knowledge. I call that a prejudice — it's a very good prejudice in the exact sciences but I don't think it is in ordinary life, and philosophy in the sense Socrates meant it is the search for answers to the great questions of ordinary life — the questions ordinary people ask, not just specialists. I don't think we can argue about the nature of life after death in the same way we can argue about whether it exists, or whether God exists. That is, we can't focus on one single question which has only two possible answers, yes or no, and then find ten or twenty clear arguments for each side and put them in logical form of syllogisms and then see whether there are logical weaknesses in each argument. Yet the question of heaven and hell is obviously an important question, and an interesting one; in fact I challenge you to imagine a more interesting one. And it's not just subjectively interesting but also objectively and truly important because it makes such a big difference for so many people. Most people do believe in some kind of heaven and hope that they will go there forever after they die. So this is a reasonable question for the philosophy of religion to think about. Here are ten objections to heaven, that is to the idea of heaven that's taught by the orthodox versions of the three major Western religions. They are in ten words, that heaven is unscientific, anthropomorphic, logically meaningless, wishful thinking, escapist, selfish, inhuman, unjust, unfree, and boring. The first objection is that the idea of heaven is unscientific superstition. But if that's the objection, the believer's reply could easily be that the objection is unscientific. The scientific way to refute an idea is by evidence and not labels and name-calling. Well then the objector could say here is some evidence. Statistically belief in heaven is directly proportionate to lack of scientific education. The believer could reply that to argue that an idea is false because those who believe it are uneducated is the logical fallacy called ad hominem, attacking the person instead of the idea.1 That does not disprove the idea. You need argument. Well, here's an argument. Historically, belief in heaven has been regressing in direct proportion to science progressing. Fewer and fewer people believe it today. But this is still a fallacy and not an argument. This one is called ad populum, trying to find truth by counting noses.2 What is the logical argument that shows that science has refuted the idea of heaven? The objector could say that the logical argument is this, that the idea cannot in principle be verified or falsified by any of the sciences. This is true, but it doesn't seem to prove that the idea is therefore false. Let's back up and make some basic logical distinctions here. I think you have to distinguish five questions about any idea whatsoever. First, is it true? Second, if it is true, can we know it? Something may be true but unknowable. Third, if we can know it, can we give reasons for it? Can we prove it? Not all that we know, we can prove. Fourth, if we can give reasons for it, do these reasons make it certain? Can we prove it with certainty or only with probability? Not all arguments claim certainty; many good reasons are only probable. And finally, the fifth question, if we can prove it with certainty, is that proof a scientific proof? There may be other methods of proof, for instance philosophy uses proofs but not by the scientific method. A more concrete and specific objection then would be that the idea of heaven with its golden streets and jeweled gates and thrones and crystal seas and angels and robes and harps and halos, or the Koranic version of paradise with palaces, oases, and a harem of virgins certainly looks man-made, mythical, and anthropomorphic, a projection of earthly things valued by past cultures. The intelligent believer will probably reply that all those details are symbolic not literal. Taking them literally does indeed result in scientific and logical absurdities. But that's like mistaking the "man on the moon" for a biological man, or expecting a "catty woman" to have kittens. But then the objector can argue that if all the language about heaven is symbolic, we should be able to say what it symbolizes as we can with the man on the moon or a catty woman. But we can't. We can't translate the symbolic language into non-symbolic language except maybe vague platitudes like goodness and happiness. So it seems that we simply don't know anything at all about heaven and that it's foolish and arrogant to think we do. The believer is mistaking symbols for knowledge. The reply might be that symbolic knowledge can be knowledge even though it's not literal, and even if it's not translateable into something literal. That would seem to be the difference between symbolism and allegory. An allegory is a symbol that is translateable into something literal, like a code. But symbols give us a different kind of knowledge by analogies or likeness. Knowing that God is more like a good father than a bad father or like a tyrant would seem to be meaningful even though God is not literally either because he's not a human being.3 So to say that heaven is more like a castle than like a dog house or more like gold than like mud is only an analogy but it can be a meaningful analogy. Analogies and symbols, even if they can't be translated into literal non-symbolic language, can still point in the right direction, towards the truth rather than away from it. A third objection is a psychological one. The idea of heaven is so easily explanable by wishful thinking. Voltaire said, "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The same could be said about heaven. It's a necessary dream. The match between our wishes and the idea of heaven is too perfect not to suspect that the idea is a projection of our wishes. The believer might reply that there is indeed a match but it could be explained the other way around by our desires being designed to fit the real heaven. Is the hand made to fit the glove, or the glove the hand? Is the key made for the lock, or the lock for the key? Is God made in our image or are we made in his? Both hypotheses explain the facts. And if the argument is that, if there were no heaven we would have to believe in one, in fact exactly the one we do believe in, therefore there is no heaven — if that's the argument, that's also logically fallacious. Technically that's "affirming the consequent," it's like arguing if there were no meaning at all, we would have to invent one, therefore there's no meaning at all.4 Or, if two and two did not equal four, we would still believe it did, so therefore it doesn't. The believer might also claim that heaven doesn't correspond to our wishful thinking, because our wishful thinking is egotistic, but heaven isn't. It's the place for self-forgetful saints not self-indulgent dreamers, the death of egotism rather than its gratification. A fourth argument is that the idea of heaven seems escapist, something like treason to our home — this world. It devalues this world by comparing it unfavorably with the next. How could you seriously take the things of this world if you believe there's a next world that's infinitely better? There's a very simple answer to that: if the idea is true, it would be escapist not to think about it. Is it escapist for a baby in the womb to think about life in the world after birth? Yes, but only if it's not true, if that world is not there. So it is indeed escapist to think about heaven if it's not there, but that's what the argument is supposed to prove, so the argument begs the question — it assumes what it's supposed to prove. And even if the idea were escapist that wouldn't prove it's not true. The idea that there is a tunnel under the prison is an escapist idea but it may be true. The only honest reason for disbelieving any idea is that it's not true. And the only honest reason for believing any idea is that it is true. But if we don't know whether an idea is true or false, isn't it honest to evaluate it by looking at its effects in the lives of those who believe it? That's data too, and it's not honest to ignore any data. So what about the bad effects of the belief in heaven — this devaluation of this world? The believer would have to make the case that the idea does not devalue this world, because if it did that would certainly be a very heavy count against it. And he can point to the fact that throughout history it has often been those who have believed most strongly in heaven who have made some of the greatest improvements to this world. The picture of the wild-eyed religious fanatic, obsessed and pessimistic, preaching doom and gloom and predestination and curses and waiting for the world to end — that's not the ordinary religious believer, that's the Red Sox fan. Seriously, it seems reasonable that belief in heaven should not devalue this world, but make it more valuable. Any road gets its value from its destination. The roads that led to gold mines in California were cared for and paved over and made into superhighways, while the roads that led to ghost towns were not. So neither the objector nor the believer can prove that heaven does or does not exist by psychological arguments like these. They're more suspicions than arguments and suspicions simply cancel each other out. But a fifth objection is a more serious one, it's a moral one — that heaven's a bribe, it appeals to selfishness, [it] motivates us to be good not for goodness' sake but for the sake of those nice heavenly rewards that we'll get. It says, be a giver in this world so you can be a taker in the next. Well, that's mercenary. I think that this is a serious objection and it probably describes many believers' motives with embarrassing accuracy, but of course impugning the motives for believing an idea doesn't prove the idea is false. But it does show not just the psychologically bad effect of believing it but the morally bad effect. So the believer would have to make out the case that the motive for believing in heaven doesn't have to be mercenary and isn't supposed to be. But heaven is a reward, and isn't working for a reward necessarily mercenary? Well, not necessarily. Romeo would be a mercenary lover if he courted Juliet for her money, but he's not a mercenary lover to court Juliet for herself. I'd be a mercenary teacher if I taught mainly for money, I'd also be stupid — the money's not that good. But I'm not mercenary if I teach for the reward of seeing students' minds light up. Some rewards are proper and natural. The popular version of heaven certainly seems mercenary but those jeweled gates and golden cities — these can be interpreted not as a reward for honesty and justice and mercy and love, but as symbolizing those very things themselves, perfected, as the non-mercenary, unselfish, un-self-conscious love of God and neighbor. The saints and mystics say heaven is ecstacy but what ecstacy literally means is almost the same as unselfishness. "Ek-stasis" means standing outside yourself, identifying so much with the other, being so much in love with the other that you forget yourself. And perhaps there is some heavenly wisdom even if there is no heaven, because that's the secret of joy in any possible world, heaven or earth. At this point, the objector may protest that we're going now to the other extreme. Now heaven sounds too unselfish to turn anybody on except a saint. And the believer could answer that that's what we're all destined to be in heaven — saints. And if you protest that you won't like heaven because it's too unselfish, that only proves that you haven't tried it, that you haven't tried honestly unselfish love because if you try it, you'll like it. In other words, the claim is that this idea can be verified or falsified in this world by experiment in the laboratory that is your life, whether or not there is a next world. A sixth argument is that heaven is for angels, not humans. It's too spiritual. What makes us happy is sex and beer and rock 'n' roll, or art and wine and symphonies. Or kids. No more kids in heaven. That certainly sounds like heaven isn't fit for human habitation, but only for angels. Let's focus the objection on one thing, and ask this question: is there sex in heaven, or not? Let's ask it in the form of a dilemma. If there is, heaven seems ridiculously earthly; if there isn't, Americans won't want to go there. The believer could answer simply that the objector's imagination is too limited. How do you know what will turn you on in the next life? Why set limits to your spiritual growth? A more positive answer might be the idea of transformation. We can ask thousands of questions in the form, "will there be X in heaven or not?" and the answer to most of them probably has to be neither a simple yes nor a simple no, but yes in a transformed form. For instance, take emotions. Will we have emotions in heaven or not? Emotions are part of human nature, so if human nature is perfected in heaven, it would logically follow that we will have emotions there. But emotions can blind us and control us, so in heaven they would have to be transformed into things freely chosen, as we now freely choose to move our limbs. We can conceive a state in which emotions are there, and powerful, and even passionate, but they don't drive us — we drive them, like sports cars. Emotions would be less passive but not less passionate. Now that conception, whether it's literally true or not, whether it's an accurate picture of the next world or not, is certainly relevant to this world. It's a way of avoiding both extremes of puritanical stoical suppression of emotions, and addictive slavery to them, without settling for compromise of half-suppression and half-addiction. So again, whether heaven is real or not, it could be a relevant and useful model for earth. But what about the question about sex? Well, if heaven transforms and perfects our human nature, and sex is an important part of our human nature, part of our identity, not just something we do but something we are, then it logically follows that heaven would perfect and transform sex too. But how? Obviously we don't know. But we may have analogies, not for the knowledge that we don't have, but for our ignorance. Heaven might perfect earthly sex in ways that we can no more understand now than an unborn baby can understand the pleasures of sex outside the womb. "Will we have sex in heaven?" is probably like the question of the five-year-old boy whose father is trying to explain the pleasures of sexual intercourse and the boy asks, "can I play with my model airplanes while I do it?" If the questions are similar, the answers probably are too. You didn't think a course in the philosophy of religion would talk about sex in heaven, did you? Much less that it would try to be logical about it. You see, philosophy can be more interesting than you think. Obviously these opinions are speculation, but they can be reasoned speculation. And much of philosophy is like that: somewhere between mathematically certain proofs and sheer arbitrary feelings. A seventh argument against heaven is that it would be boring. This is not as shallow an objection as it sounds. Boredom is a very serious problem. Children usually behave themselves if they're not bored and misbehave if they are. And if you ask what that has to do with grown-ups, I'll answer, "grown-ups? who are they? I've never met one; have you?" There are three parts to this objection: Heaven is boring because there's no time there, no contrast between good and evil, and no work. Heaven is supposed to be eternal. Well, eternity sounds much more boring than time. And, all pleasure and no pain sounds boring too. We appreciate things only by contrast. And what in the world will we do in heaven? Much of pleasure in this life is meaningful work, but you can't imagine most earthly works being continued into heaven. Before looking at possible answers to these questions, I want to explain once again why it's worthwhile taking our time to do that. These are unusual questions. It's to see how strong each side can be in the debate between the believer and the unbeliever of course — about whether this is a credible notion — but it's not mainly to explore the nature of life in heaven, it's mainly to look for some wisdom for life on earth. Putting many of these topics in the context of heaven can shed new light on those topics right here. For instance, time. Suppose you said eternity includes all time rather than excluding it, somewhat as a three-dimensional solid includes two-dimensional shapes. That would explain a fairly common phenomenon in this life, that when you're about to die, your whole life often passes before you in an instant, in perfect order and clarity. Or those timeless moments or peak experiences during your lifetime when you lose all sense of time. They don't seem timeless because they are thinner than time, they seem thicker than time so to speak — there's more in them, not less. As for the second part of the question — how we appreciate pleasure without contrast to pain, I think experience in this world answers that question fairly well. The wiser you are, the less you need that contrast. The wiser you are, the less bored you are with goodness and truth and beauty, and the less you need evil and falsehood and ugliness to appreciate them. It would follow that if there is a God who is totally wise, he would never be bored, and that the more godlike you get, the less bored you'd be, the less you'd need any kind of evil to appreciate good, and that is what heaven is for according to the religious idea — to become more like God. The idea of heaven is relative to the idea of God, not vice versa. So the religious idea [of heaven] is consistent even though it's not provable, and it's relevant even if it's not true. What about the third question? What work could we possibly do in heaven, and why wouldn't it bore us? The question could be put in the form of a dilemma: either it's earthly work, or unearthly work. If it's earthly work, that presupposes some need; for instance, police work means that people need protection, medical work means that people need medical care, and that means heaven would not be perfect. But if it's unearthly work, such as perpetual adoration of God, well that seems fit for angels but not for human beings. And an endless church service seems more like hell than like heaven. So the dilemma is, is it imperfect and interesting, or perfect and boring? The only good answer I've come across in this regard is from Richard Fertil's book Thinking about Religion. He suggests we'll do in heaven the six things that never get boring on earth, the six things we never do adequately on earth, the six things that are the reason we exist on earth in the first place — the meaning of our lives. They are: understanding yourself, loving yourself, understanding others, loving others, understanding God, and loving God. Understanding and loving, the acts of the rational intellect and the free will, are the two things that seem to distinguish us from all other animals, the two unique powers of the human soul. They go together. You can't really understand anyone unless you love them, and you can't really love them unless you understand them. And the three objects of self, others, and God are the three objects we can do this to. They're also the only three objects that don't get boring, that you don't come to an end of. So that would make the picture consistent. It would fit. How might we do these six things in heaven? Well, how do we do them here? In many different ways. How do we do them there? Probably in ways that will make earthly marriage, romance, family, politics, art, science, philosophy, theology, poetry, and music look like watermelon seeds compared to a watermelon. An eighth objection to heaven is that it would stifle individuality. If we're all perfect in heaven, we'd all be conformist clones of God. But would we have to be clones of God? Good parents don't want their children to be clones of them, and even if we were clones of God that could be the secret of individuality rather than the death of it. Clones that are copies of each other would of course be dull and stifle individuality, but if God were like a diamond with infinitely different facets then each of his human clones so to speak could reflect an infinitely unique facet. If God invented human individuality then getting closer to God wouldn't lessen individuality but would increase it. Somewhat as light could increase the individuality of every color, or salt could increase the individuality of each flavor, making fish fishier, and eggs eggier and steaks steakier. And there even seems to be some empirical evidence on earth for this answer, because even now, the saints are the real individuals. They're all characters. No one who knows them could ever confuse Doubting Thomas, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, and Thomas of Becket; or Theresa of Avila, Theresa of Lisieux and Mother Theresa. It's the great sinners who are so drearily alike. Hitler is just Stalin with a smaller beard and a bigger mouth. A problem closely connected with individuality is freedom. Let's put the question about freedom in the form of a logical dilemma. Would we be free to sin in heaven, or not? If so, heaven is a dangerous place, like earth; once the first person chooses to sin it's the apple and the snake all over again. But if not, then it's tyranny: we're robots or puppets and God doesn't get our free love but only our forced love, which is cheap, tyrannical, and even impossible: forced love is an oxymoron. That's another good objection which demands a good reply — that's how philosophical dialogue and debate works of course — whichever side is right, each side draws out the best objections and replies in the other. That's why a dialogue is the best way to do philosophy — Socrates was right. As for "freedom to sin in heaven," the believer could say there's a logical contradiction inherent in that term. "Freedom to sin" is like "free slavery" or "free addiction." That's what St. Augustine says. He distinguishes two meanings of freedom — free will or free choice, and liberty. Free choice is the opposite of compulsion from without; liberty is the opposite of compulsion from within, a kind of inner slavery. Free choice is freedom from; liberty is freedom to. That is, free choice is freedom from causal determinism. Liberty is freedom to become your true self, freedom from any obstacle to becoming who you really are, like addictions to physical things like drugs or non-physical things like pride. Augustine says we all have free will, the lower freedom, but we don't all have liberty, the higher freedom. We can use our free will to choice liberty or to choose slavery. For instance we can choose justice or injustice, love or hate, honesty or dishonesty. That difference for him [Augustine] is not just the difference between obeying or disobeying a set of rules, but between attaining or failing to attain our identity, our full humanity, and therefore our full joy. The evil choice is a kind of slavery, a kind of addiction, like Golem in the Lord of the Rings, or Gyges in Plato's Republic. That's the same ring by the way from the same theme. Augustine says we forge the chains of our bondage with the strength of our freedom. But we can also forge the sword of our liberty with the strength of our freedom, and cut those bonds. So in heaven we could have free will, because not to have free will is not to be human, but if we're going to be perfect in heaven we would also want to have such perfect liberty that no one will do evil because no one will want to. Why would no one want to? Probably because everyone would see how ugly and joyless evil is; they'd see that very clearly, and how joyful and beautiful the good is. We don't see that clearly now. That's why we do evil — it looks like fun. Plato believed that all evil-doing came from ignorance. That seems to make sense because we always choose what appears good, what looks attractive, what looks "happifying" to us. We always seek happiness, and we don't seek the good, only because we don't identify the good with our happiness. Evil has to appear as somehow good for something, or we wouldn't choose it. Well, what is it that fails to distinguish the apparent good from the real good? Ignorance. Therefore all evil comes from ignorance. The argument seems to be accurate, but if we're honest with ourselves I think we have to admit that our ignorance in turn often comes from ignoring, from not looking at the truth. So it's an ignorance we're responsible for. For instance when we listen to the voice of temptation that tells us how happy we'd be if we got away with embezzling a few million dollars then padding our pitiful bank account and when we ignore the other voice, the voice of conscience that tells us we'd be happier deep down in the long run if we had a good honest soul rather than a good bank account, our ignorance then is something we create in ourselves, something we are responsible for. So I think Plato's right, that all evil does come from ignorance, but he forgets also that ignorance comes from evil, from the will to ignore the truth. Well, how does that help us to sort out our question about heaven? In heaven there would not be any ignorance. If we would all be in the presence of God, the beatific vision, that would dispel ignorance as the sun dispels fog. That's why we would never choose evil in heaven, even though we had free will. That seems like a consistent answer. Of course it doesn't prove anything; it assumes God and heaven and free will and good and evil. But it is consistent. A ninth objection is almost exactly the opposite of the one before: the one before worried we'd all be the same in heaven, this objection worries that we won't. It objects to the traditional notion that heaven is hierarchical rather than egalitarian, that we will not all be equal in heaven. Doesn't that make God a snob, an elitist and an aristocrat? Well, I think some of the other objections were very strong but I think this one is rather weak, even though it's quite common. It basically amounts to accusing God of not being an American. The British answer to that would probably be simply, "Quite." But seriously, even though we want to reject hierarchy and inequality in politics, to judge heaven by our political categories seems a bit like judging Einstein by how well he matched his socks. And are inequality and hierarchy such bad things in themselves? They certainly describe the way nature works, and if God created nature it would seem to follow that God likes these things — he invented them. Now my point is not that that proves you ought to like it, but simply that the believer's picture still holds together as logically consistent. And it also seems to follow from the essential nature of justice. Justice implies hierarchy. Justice doesn't only imply equality. It means equal treatment of equals, but also unequal treatment of unequals. It's not justice to treat those who deserve an "A" and those who deserve an "F" by giving them both the same grade. Here's another, deeper reason for hierarchy in heaven. One of the greatest joys in this life is finding someone you can admire and look up to. Why should heaven deprive us of that joy? And, if you don't like that, if you want to say to everybody else, "I'm just as good as you are," if you say that, I think you don't really believe what you say because you wouldn't have to say that if you believed it — the only reason you say it is because you don't. A tenth and final objection to heaven is that there would be no privacy there. Certainly there would be no privacy from God; God knows everything. And if, as we supposed a little while ago, everyone in heaven knows and understands each other perfectly, there would be no privacy from other people either and that would be intolerable. That would be Sartre's hell; hell is other people. This fear may be real but the objection seems fairly easy to answer. The only reason we want privacy now, the only reason we want to hide from other people, is because we feel shame, and because we fear other people will misunderstand us and look down on us or reject us or despise us. But in heaven there would be no shame, if all evil is gone, and there would be no fear that anyone would misunderstand you or reject you. And perhaps those are our deepest fears. Well, what have we accomplished in this very speculative lecture? Four things, I think. We've looked at the unbeliever's objections to heaven and hopefully understood them. We've looked at the believer's answers to these objections and hopefully understood them. We've assessed the logical force of the answers over against the force of the objections and come to the conclusion that the objector has not proved his case, although the believer has not proved his case either, but just maintains logical consistency: heaven may still be a dream, but at least it's a consistent dream. And finally we've looked at the religious picture of heaven and tried to find some earthly analogies which might give us some double illumination. Not only did the earthly analogies help us to understand the concept of heaven, but the concepts of heaven, whether real or not, sometimes cast new light on our present lives. 1 The fallacy of ad hominem occurs when, instead of responding to argument, the objector attacks the person, or some aspect of the person, making the argument. 2 In other lectures in this series Professor Kreeft states that ad populum is a weak argument but it is still an argument. Perhaps its strongest form is to state that in order to disbelieve an idea which has been believed by the vast majority of people down through the ages, one has to engage in intellectual snobbery: he has to believe that he and his fellow disbelievers got it right, but everyone else got it wrong. 3 However, the Christian claim is that Jesus Christ is a human being, and therefore God now partakes in human nature in the Second Person of the Trinity. 4 Also known as the fallacy of the converse. Home

Peter Kreeft