HEAVEN IS the answer to life’s deepest longing. One of the proofs of the existence of God and heaven using logic or reason is “The Argument from Desire” authored by C.S. Lewis.
The argument basically demonstrates that for every natural desire here in this world there is a corresponding satisfaction to it. There is no natural desire that is left hanging so to speak. With hunger there is food, with thirst there is water, with loneliness there is friendship, with hunger for truth there is knowledge. But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy. Therefore, there must exist something beyond time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire. That something is what we call “God” or “life with God forever” or “heaven”.Obviously, we don’t know what heaven will be like, any
more than an unborn baby knows what the world is like outside the womb.
Earth is like a gigantic mother’s womb. Thus, when we die, we are born
into the next world. St. Paul’s description of heaven when he was given a
vision by God was: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no
human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those
who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9) We can only imagine something in our mind if
we have seen it or we have previous knowledge of it beforehand. If
we know what a horse and bird is, we can imagine combining the two animals and
come up with a winged horse named Pegasus. When St. Paul saw heaven, he
could not compare it with something here on earth, so he made that literally
indescribable description. It is unknown but precisely it is the essence
of heaven: it is something exciting. The greatest joys in life are the pleasant
surprises.
In one retreat I attended, the priest asked, “What is heaven
like?” He then answered his own question, “Think of the things you love most
here on earth. Do you like playing basketball? Heaven is playing
basketball forever. Do you like eating ice cream? Heaven is eating
ice cream forever with all of your favorite flavors.” Make a list of all
the things you really love and heaven is everything in that list and even much
more in a new, surprising, and perfected form. But heaven is more than
these things, because things do not make us deeply happy, or the happiness they
offer is limited. And what makes us deeply happy? Truth and
love. The most important thing about heaven is not “what” will be in
heaven but “who”; not things but the people.
Even here on earth, relationships make us happier than
things. The two things that will never make us bored is knowing and
loving. Heaven is knowing and loving all the saints and angels there and
most importantly knowing and loving an infinite God. Those who search for
the truth and do the most acts of love here on earth are the ones destined for
heaven. We call them saints. All those who are in heaven are saints
and that is why we are all invited to become saints because we are all invited
to enter heaven our true home. No one enters heaven unless he or she is a
holy person or a saint. “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves
and be holy, because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44)
Heaven is the ultimate reason why God created us, so as to
be with Him forever in that place. Thus, we were designed to be unable to
find perfect, total happiness in this world, even if we possess the whole
world. “For what purpose does it profit to gain the whole world and lose
his soul?” (Mk 8:36) Each single human heart is bigger than the whole
world. We long for the infinite: infinite truth, infinite goodness
(love), and infinite beauty, and we are not totally satisfied with anything
less. And only God is infinite truth, infinite goodness and infinite
beauty. As Dr. Peter Kreeft would say, “What makes heaven heavenly is not
heaven, but God.”
No comments:
Post a Comment