This is why I think Heaven cannot possibly exist. Can anyone explain?

Question

or at least why it would be impossible for any of us to experience or enjoy it.....

Ok stick with me on this. God created us as human beings. But he didn't want us to be his robots so he gave us free-will, and because of this free-will we have the option to sin.

If we repent our sins and accept God whilst we are on Earth, we will be rewarded with an eternity in Heaven when our body dies. Now this is what I don't get...

Wouldn't we still have the ability to choose sin in Heaven? If yes, then doens't this mean that Heaven by definition cannot possibly exist?

Or does it mean that we have no free-will in Heaven, making us robots so we would not experience anything?

77loyal - I see you are exhibiting 'blind faith'. You have ignored my heavenly paradox and just simply said it exists

One under god - Didn't Adam and Eve sin but get sent to Earth not Hell?

Capital - why wouldnt there be any temptation? you see, lust is a sin and I lust on earth when I see an attractive lady. are there no attractive ladies in Heaven? According to Christianity, free-will gives the option to sin. I don't believe that is limited to Earth. Or is that just changing the interpretation to suit your needs?

comer - "Once we get to heaven there will be no sin. I will be like the garden of eden before sin entered the world." Study your Bible my friend, sin was created in the garden of eden.

flyingvic - it doesnt mean that we havent sinned though. I think Christians will tell you that most people sin, but it is the repentence and acceptance of God that gets them into Heaven. So people would still sin in Heaven, even if they later repented

River Kid - temptation originated in the garden of eden in Gods presence. Its in the Bible. why wouldnt temptation be around? I would be tempted to fornicate to Heaven

Phantom - "You won't be able to choose sin in heaven because that choice will not be availible to you." Ok, so why didn't God do that in the first place? I was told it was because he gave us free will because he WANTED us to have free will. Why would God change his mind? If God changes his mind he is not all-knowing because he got it wrong originally

Matt A - so God will take our free-will? as long as we have free-will we will have the option to sin.

Free to be me - very nice speech, bravo! but you basically have said that we have free-will in Heaven. This means that we have the option to sin, so Heaven would be no different from Earth.

Comer - yes you did, my apologies. But once there were people in the garden they 'chose' to sin. So we could easily sin in Heaven thus making Heaven not Heavenly.

Phantom - ok you have now explained *why* god gave us free will. so do we have it in Heaven? free-will gives the option to sin, whether on Heaven or on Earth

Answer 1

Are you too man centred that you miss the point?

God is absolutely perfect. Therefore He cannot tolerate sin in His presence without compromising His perfection.

All sin must therefore be judged.

That judgement is banishment from His presence, called Hell.

If you retain your sins then you will be judged for your sin and suffer that banishment.

It is surely obvious that it is not right for us to presume to impose our sin upon a Holy God forever.

God in His amazing love and mercy has provided a way for the taking away of your sin without offending perfect justice or having to tolerate it in His presence.

He sent the only One qualified for this staggering remedy. Jesus Christ being fully human was able to suffer the judgement of a sinful human, and being fully God was able to bear the infinite judgement in His infinite nature.

That Christ was sinless enabled God to raise Him up having suffered the judgement due on our behalf.

To be united to Christ enables us to appear sinless in God's presence forever and ensures our immutable state of sinlessness by our unity with Christ Who keeps us forever.

This we call Heaven.

Those united to Christ have asked Him to both save them and keep them forever. Christ alone is able to do this and undertakes for His people. He is able to accomplish and seal the freewill choice you speak of without compromising that freewill.

In Heaven we freely ally our wills with Christ's will and indeed even on earth those who are His seek even now to do that, yet our imperfect state and the remainders of sin that God in His wisdom presently allows for His own purposes, serve to prevent prefect alignment.

You rightly infer that we are not able to keep ourselves as witnessed by the Fall.

No one in their right minds would refuse the glorious all good and all loving God, sin presently turns man completely out of his right mind.



The instrumentality of being united to Christ is faith. Faith is a gift of God, along with repentance which enables this uniting by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is thus spiritually accomplished. That is, Christ indwells.




In any event, the question of whether or not we can exercise freewill in Heaven, in logic has no casual connection with Heavens's existence, that is, these postulations are not dependent upon each other, so your argument logically fails.

After all, in the scheme of your reasoning why would anyone who sinned in Heaven not be banished, as has happened with Satan? Thus Heaven would still exist.

I understand therefore that your objection is more to the apparent irreconcilability of freewill and immutability rather than the actual existence of Heaven.

But God has provided a more excellent way for sinful humans who put their trust in such a loving and good, such a righteous and faithful and perfect God.

Answer 2

Actually the problem with your question is not that of free will or sin, it is that of confusing heaven with paradise. You see, we don't go to 'heaven'. The word translated heaven correctly in the bible is a plural meaning heavens. The Greek word most commonly used being cosmos (which many of you might recognise as we use it to mean the same thing today).
The other word often mistranslated or misinterpreted as 'heaven' actually means paradise, which is a place on earth. I believe it was the apostle Paul or Peter who spoke of seeing the third heaven and earth. The first was destroyed between verse 1 and 2 of Genesis 1. Hence the word was in verse two 'was without form and void' is a mistranslation of the word 'became'. This is the second, and there is a third yet to come after the return of Christ and the apocalypse etc, there will be a third heaven and earth on which there is no sin and tempter. Man will still have free will choice but there will be no desire to sin because the cause of that desire will be gone. So heaven exists, it is any place above the ground. Jump and you are in heaven. But it is paradise, a new eden, a place on the earth that we will go to in the end (that is, those born of god and those who pass the judgement). These people will eventually be 'resurrected' in a sense, on the new earth.

Answer 3

I think that there is such a place as heaven. However, one can only speculate what that experience could actually be. I am sure that it will be the biggest surprise anyone will ever get. My believe is that we will continue to experience some kind of life and we still journey on making choices until we reach what the mystics describe as the Beatific Vision - which is a state were we get the closest encounter with God Almighty. I expect that the rules will be somewhat different
in an other dimension other than what we experience now.

From our position in this life we can only envision constructs and we apply crude approximations. However, the analogies of metamorphoses we draw from what we see around us -such a seed which dies in the ground to produce something quite radically different, a flowing plant for instance, do suggest the possibility of an altered state of living. Because, we can be a little distant from the experience of death and what follows we often feel we can afford to play with all sorts of scepticism and downplaying of what appear to be absurd possibilities. There can be nothing more absurd than being alive in the here and now for no apparent logic, rhyme or reason -yet we exist. What makes you think that the absurdity of " heaven " ( for a better word ) is not a distinct possibility also as real as is now?

Peace

Answer 4

That's actually a very good point, I had never thought of it in that regard. that is an excellent point. Too bad you're gonna get a lot of "blind faith answers" in this one. My wife also asks this question, as well as:

Do animals get to go to heaven?

Think about it, they have no "true" knowledge of God as far as anyone can tell, they do not comprehend the understanding of "sin", so therefore would they go to hell for never praying or heaven for the sake of it? would they stay on earth?

I guess the idea in heaven is paradise, so therefore you could have what you want and do what you want, so therefore sin doesn't really exist. Though I imagine "he" wouldn't be too happy if you slagged him off, but I can't see why he would resist people fornicating...

Toodles

Answer 5

The bible doesn't answer your question and God isn't telling (at least not as far as I know) so I guess all any honest person can say is we don't know for sure how it will work, but we trust in the one who promises that there will be no pain or tears in heaven, guess we will have to wait and see. My best understanding of it are in the word, 'new', as in new heaven and new earth and new creation, we will not be creatures as we are now but new ones in a new dimension. Maybe it's only the old way that has the capacity for sin.

Answer 6

The concept of heaven is not as simple as that (or is it?). being in the presence of God is one concept of heaven. But heaven is also considered to be a more purposive place. It is supposed to be a place so filled with positivity that you do not (or should not) get the urge to sin.
If you read books like Life after life by Raymond Moody and other related books many people experience such a sea change after the 'coming back' experience that they do not want to leave the presence of the 'light', or the place they experience to be the 'eternal summer lands', etc.
Apart from that since I too am a mortal being I cannot explain more.......one has to experience to know it for sure......... and that is only after passing away. Till then let us be positive in our approach.

Answer 7

Once we get to heaven there will be no sin. I will be like the garden of eden before sin entered the world. God allowed sin to enter the world to allow people a choice. Free will leads to absolute love by choosing God on your own. But once we get to heaven, we are no longer being tested. Our reward for loving God and choosing him over all others is heaven. We will no longer have to struggle with sin because that weight will be off our shoulders. We will have free-will in heaven but there will be no such thing as sin in heaven so we won't even want to choose sin.
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I said it will be like the garden of eden BEFORE sin entered it. The garden started without sin.

Answer 8

There is never a time when God takes away our right to choose. Not in this life or the next.

However, we are not free to choose the consequences of our choices. For example, a teenager who uses a car to get thrills is eventually going to have an accident. The only variable is how bad the crash will be.

God is the perfect parent. Any good parent will set up consequences for their children. A caring parent on earth would ground their son or daughter from the car until they were willing to use it in a way that did not risk their life, and the lives of those around them. In the same way, God tries to wake us up by withdrawing blessings, and sometimes by giving consequences.

In this world where we try very hard to set up artificial barriers to consequences, too many people do not understand that God gives consequences for our actions because He LOVES us. But He never wants to control us. He is an amazing being, full of love that we are incapable of. He also knows everything, and especially has a perfect view of the suffering, in this life and the next, that naturally follow sin. He wants us to live happily, and we seem determined to crawl on this earth, acting as though there is no tomorrow!

There are always some who are determined to sin anyway. And that desire follows them into the next life too. But there are no barriers to consequences there. The good news is that the opportunity to repent does not end at death. We are still free to choose to be free from sin there.

God wants us to live happily! Every one of us is loved by Him more than we are capable of understanding. He wants us to live a full, rich life here and forever. His commandments are His way of sharing what He knows about living happily. His consequences are His way of helping to wake up and make better choices...Free will was given to us by God, and He never takes back that precious gift.

I know that there is heaven! And we want to be there...it is HOME.

Answer 9

Sura Al-Kahf (18:47) This doesn't imply the world is flat, only that if you removed the mountains you would have plains and grasslands. That isn't the same thing. Sura Taha (20:53) This doesn't imply the world is flat, only that it is very expansive from horizon to horizon. Sura Az-Zukhruf (43:10) Same as above, it doesn't say the world is flat, only comparing it to a bed, warm and inviting. That's a metaphor, not a literalism. Sura An-Naba (78:6) Seriously, beds aren't even flat, stop pulling passages about them. Metaphorical isn't literal. Sura An-Naziat (79:30) A box of lego spills on the floor and you have lego "spread" out before you. It isn't flat, in fact it is quite pointy and would hurt to walk on. I've never read the Quran, but this seems fairly straight forward to me. Read it like a poem. Even if it were literally true, it is still a narrative, and thus contains hyperbole, metaphor, and simile by necessity of style.

Answer 10

I would say that is why God wants us to learn and practice here on earth how to live in heaven. Anyway, in number of answers it has been already mentioned that in the environment of heaven there will not be any element of sin. Satan, who tempts us to commit sins, will also not be there.

Resources will not be scarce in heaven. There will be unlimited things those we have seen here and also those we have not seen here. Our choices will not be in constraint. Our free-will will be unconstrained. So are the resources or subjects of our desires. God will remove any remaining impurity in us. So we will be pure, free and not robotic.

Therefore we can see Satan is not there, impurity is not there, impurity is not in us. There are only purity and limitless resources to choose from. Whatever we will want, we will get in pure from. As such even though we will have our free-will, it will not infringe anyone’s right. Here on this planet resources are scarce so there are sins. For example, in this life if I have 'n' quantity or amount of anything it may infringe the right of ‘n’ number of others if that thing rightfully belongs to ‘n’ of them. But in heaven if ‘n’ number persons want 'n' amount or quantity of same thing they will still be able to have because neither the quantity nor the amount will be in constraint.

Answer 11

One Could get around this by asserting that only those who won't ever want to sin will be allowed in, thereby granting an un-dictated free will and sinlessness at the same time. Of course, that doesn't match the Christian teaching that anyone can get as long as they have faith, but then, it can also be argued that what Christians say is not necessarily what the Son of God had to say...