Bob from the United States asks William Lane Craig a question at his reasonablefaith.org website. #547 How Will We Be different in Heaven? (October 8, 2017)
I have been asking questions about my next life in heaven with the Lord and have yet to find a pastor or sunday school teacher willing to discuss the issues I want to talk about. Take for instance the question of “will heaven be an extension of our earthly life?”
Will we have interactions with our family members and earthly friends? Do you belive we will be walking on “streets of gold”? If so why is this such a big deal? Will we be living in luxurious mansions? If we like playing Gin Rummy on earth will we play Gin in Heaven? You get the idea. In other words will the heavenly Bob be the same earthly Bob?
Unsurprisingly and understandably, Craig like his pastors and others refuses to answer his questions as to the nature of heaven and his life in heaven by saying anyting concrete and specific and pleads ignorance and evades such inquiries by evoking the unknown and unknowable, the mysterious and incomprehensible. He writes:
It may be that the reason your Sunday school teachers and pastor have been reluctant to discuss your questions with you, Bob, is because we know so little about the afterlife that such speculation is fruitless. Better to just wait and see!
That being said, I do think we can say with confidence that the “heavenly Bob” will most certainly not be “the same earthly Bob”! Oh, to be sure, you’ll be the same person, but that and failing in his best efforts to live his life for the glory of God. But the heavenly Bob will be set free from sin, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and fully pleasing to God in all that he desires and does. The fact that evil will be banished from the new heavens and the new earth requires a transformation in our character that we can scarsely imagine!
Your assumptions that we’ll be able, at least, to do things like play cards or inhabit buildings shows that you have correctly grasped that the afterlife is not a disembodied existence, such as Plato envisioned, but an embodied life.
So Craig is certain that Plato is wrong and he’s right and that the souls of Christians -those who believe that Jesus was and is the “son of God” who was born of a virgin and resurrected after his death by crucifixion- will leave their corpses and ascend to heaven where, magically and miraculously, their bodies are restored. But as to what this entails, concretely and specifically, “speculation is fruitless” and the nature of and what occurs in this life after death “we can scarsely imagine.”
And, of course, Craig is also certain that the lost and damned “souls” of those who don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God who was born of virgin and so forth will descend to and “burn in hell for eternity.”
Obviously, Craig and hundreds of millions of other people believe that the Chistian God not only exists but is the “one true God -just as over a billion Muslims believe that Allah is the “one true God. And if one assumes, purely for the sake of argument, that this God exists, is the “one true God,” and is omniscient, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing, the belief that the bodies of the dead, but only dead Christians, are restored after their souls leave their corpses and ascend to heaven induces many questions.
As with all the other fantasies -e.g., the soul and afterlife, an eternity in heaven or hell, the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc.- the stupefying and dizzying nonsense and absurdity of this belief and wish is exposed by asking simple questions, concrete and specific.
In regard to death, the answer is obvious. Since the bodies of those in heaven are immortal and indestructable, they can’t die of old age, or of cancer and all the other diseases and illneses of which myriads of humans have perished for millenia and many from which they still perish today and will so perish in the future if there are no cures.
They can’t starve to death or die in sundry accidents. They can’t and won’t be killed by tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods, etc., which suggests that such deadly acts of nature don’t occur in heaven and that is what Craig and other believe since such calamities would be hellish rather than heavenly.
They can’t and won’t be killed by humans in wars and riots and revolutions, or by acts of terrorism such as 9/11 and lesser atrocities. They can’t and won’t be killed and murdered, accientally or intentionally, by humans, or exterminated en-masse or executed by governments. A elysiam with such horrors would be exactly the same as life for humans on earth and the afterlife would be hellish in this respect rather than heavenly and the restored bodies of believers in Christ would not be immortal and indescructable. And Craig knows that all such “evil will be banished.”
And exactly how and when are the bodies of those who died restored after their souls ascend to heaven and how does God perform this miracle?
At what age are their bodies restored? At the age they die? If one dies as an infant of 6-month or a year or a toddler of 2 or 4 or a prepubescent child of 7 or 9, is one’s body restored at that age for eternity or does God, magically and miraculously, inexplicably and incomprehensibly, raise one’s body to the age of 18 or 20 for eternity?
Conversely, if one dies at age 87 or 94 or 102, is one’s body restored at that age for eternity or does God, magically and miraculously, inexplicably and incomprehensibly, lower one’s body to the age of 20 or 25 for eternity, not aging a year or a month or a week or a day or an hour for millions and billions and trillions of years and far beyond, forever.
Unlike souls, intangible spirits and disembodied minds, restored bodies can’t exist and float in empty space. So heaven must be physical. There must be land to support the bodies of hundreds of millions or billions of Christians who are in heaven and wil be so in the future because they believe and will believe that Jesus was and is the son of God who was born of a virgin and resurrected after his death by crucifixion.
If so, what kind of landscapes will these hundreds of millons or billions of restored bodies live on for eternity? Are there forests, trees, lakes, rivers, oceans, mountains, etc. What of the weather? Is it hot, cold, or both, as is the weather on plaent earth, hot and warm all year as on or near the equator or cold and frigid as in or near the arctic regions, north and south, or are their seasons, summer, winter, fall, spring?
To repeat: these bodies live forever, they are eternal, they don’t age -so, theoretically, they can’t die of old age or of diseases or illnesses or of strokes and heart attacks, nor in accidents, or freeze to death. Nor can they be killed or murdered, accidentally or intentionally, by other people. Nor can they be killed, and often eaten, by other animals: lions, tigars, bears, crocodiles, sharks, poisonous snakes, etc. assuming any or all of such and many other creatures, insects, birds, fish, mammals, primates, share and live in heaven with the resored bodies of humans. So I assuem that Craig believes that animals that kill humans don’t exist in heaven. Is there any life apart from humans?
And since they can’t starve to death, since their bodies are immortal and indestructable. there’s no need for them to eat in order to survive. But do they eat and drink for pleasure? And if so, what and how? If they live in rural areas, remote and primitive, they’d have to hunt and fish and grow fruits and vegetables.
If they live in cities and town and hamlets, large to small, they’d have to buy food at grocery stores or supermarkets, combined for many or some with hunting and fishing and growing fruits and vegeables, to prepare and eat in houses, or dine in restaurants.
Or does God, magically and miraculous, provide them with food and drink, delicious and heavenly meals, if they enjoy such plesures? And I assume there is no alcohol -no liquor, beer, wine, not even to enjoy “moderately.” And surely no drunkenness, or drugs, for that would be “sinful.”
Do they sleep? Must they sleep? Apparently not, since their bodies are imoratal and indestructable.
And how do they pass the time, especially if they don’t sleep and are awake for eternity, for milions and billions and trillions of years and beyond and forever in earth time without the blessing and solace and escape of hours of sleep to alleviate the monotony of life. Without sleep, the ephemeral loss of consciousness when one sleeps at night for hours with no dreams or naps during the afternoon, death from which one awakes, the boredom and ennui of life would be ceaseless and intolerable, indeed hellish.
Can they have sex? Obviously, restored bodies would be able to engage in coitus and other sex-acts. But Craig would decry such acts as sinful and immoral, obiousyly, in heaven as on earth, if performed and enjoyed outside of “holy matrimony.” And there is no “sin” in heaven.
But can the sexes marry and procreate? Are the bodies of husbands and wives reunited in heaven -and, if so, will they remain married, forever, since they can’t die, and at what age, forever, since they won’t age: 20 or 25?
I’m sure that Craig would say yes to husbands and wives being reunited in heavan forever. But what of men and women who were single, either divorced or having never married, when they died? Would they be free to marry in heaven. I assume that Craig would say no to that question. And if yes, I’m sure he’d say no to procreation, both for the singles who married in heaven and those who were reunited with wives and husbands, for two reasons, the implications of which are beyond ridiculous.
Firsst, what would happen to the children after they’re born? Would they remain in heaven with their parents, and at what age, as infants who’d never age, or would God raise their ages to 20 or 25, never to age for eternity. Or would God send them to earth to age and die and then be reunited with their parents -but only if they’re Christians. And who would nuture and raise and support them until they became adults?
And pregnancy entails aging, which doesn’t occur in heaven. If a woman was impregnated at age 22 and 6-months, for example, she would give birth at age 23 and 3-months. She and all pregnant women would have aged or will age 9-months.
Heaven, if it existed, would be stygian, a “celestial North Korea,” as the late Christopher Hitchens often repined. And unlike the hell that is North Korea, one can’t escape by dying, whether by execution, murder, accidents, illness and disease, old age, or suicide.
Atheism Simplified 