What are we looking forward to most about Heaven?

It goes without saying that we're all excited for Heaven. But what if you were asked why you’re excited for Heaven?

I recently read a book in which the author’s primary goal was to prompt the reader to become more eager for Heaven. One suggestion he made is to think of whatever it is that brings us the greatest happiness in this life, then try to imagine that thing as being exponentially greater. The example given was that ice cream lovers might imagine Heaven as being like diving into a giant bowl of ice cream. Of course, the author urged each of us to choose our own metaphor.

There are few things I enjoy more than reading, so if I were to try this, I would probably imagine Heaven as an enormous library containing every book ever written. But there are so many other possibilities: riding a motorcycle down a highway with no speed limit (based on the laws of the country or the laws of physics); an endless jam session in which your instruments never go out of tune and your fingers never get tired; the ability to swim with whales in the ocean and never have to come up for air; flying through outer space and visiting other planets, stars, and solar systems; or maybe just a very long uninterrupted nap (you can tell I have a one-year-old child!).

I understand the reasoning behind this method of trying to imagine Heaven and increase our longing to be there. Since Heaven is beyond our comprehension, we have little choice but to relate it to things with which we are familiar. It’s hard to be excited about something that we’re merely told is exciting, but to which we can’t relate.

            Nevertheless, I feel that we need to be cautious when using this method. I certainly don’t intend to pour cold water on anyone’s eagerness for Heaven, but I think it’s important to consider exactly what is the primary reason for that eagerness.

What exactly is it that makes Heaven, Heaven? It isn’t the glorious environment, the absence of evil, or any of the “things” that are there, as wonderful as all of it will be. Rather, Heaven is Heaven simply because God is there, in the same way that Hell is Hell simply because God is not there. It’s not necessary to add anything to either of these in order for them to be what they are.

If I use metaphors like those above to increase my anticipation for Heaven, am I looking forward to being with God? Or am I primarily thinking about books, whales, and galaxies? We should ask this question even about being reunited with our loved ones who have passed away. Let me be clear: there is certainly nothing wrong with looking forward to these things, and it would be very odd not to. But we all should ask ourselves whether our anticipation for these things is greater than it is for being with God Himself.

I admit it may be difficult to relate to direct interaction with God. But I think it’s important to remind ourselves sometimes that in Heaven, there will be nothing greater than God. Everything else will be secondary, to put it mildly. This is something we all acknowledge in an intellectual sense, but do we really know it?

How do we determine whether our primary desire is for something other than God? We should ask ourselves whether we would be any less excited about Heaven if we found out that the object in our metaphor will not be there. Like I said above, I love books. I would love for there to be books in Heaven. But if there were no books in heaven, would my excitement for Heaven be diminished?

The truth is, if I'm in God's presence, I doubt I would be bothered by or even notice the absence of books. 

Discrepancies in the Gospels?

If you have been a Christian for any length of time, likely you’ve read all four Gospels. But you probably read one all the way through before moving on to the next. What would happen if you read the account of the same story from each Gospel?

If you do, you’ll quickly notice that there are a number of discrepancies between the accounts. This may be startling for those of us who have heard skeptics declare that the Bible is full of contradictions, but assumed they were wrong. As an example, let’s look at the record of Jesus’ death and resurrection in each Gospel. Here are some of the discrepancies:

• Matthew says both robbers reviled Jesus while on the cross (27:44), while Luke says one reviled Him but the other believed (23:39-40).

• Matthew says there was one angel at the tomb (28:2), but John says there were two (20:11-12).

• Mark says Mary went to the tomb after sunrise (16:2), but John says she went early while it was still dark (20:1).

• Mark says the women were afraid and said nothing after discovering the empty tomb (16:8); Matthew says they were afraid but also filled with joy and ran to tell the disciples (28:8); and John says Mary Magdalene ran to Peter the other disciple and exclaimed frantically that Jesus’ body had been removed (20:2).

• Matthew says the stone was rolled away after the women arrived at the tomb (28:2), but Mark says the stone had already been rolled away when they got there (16:4).

• Who were the women who went to the tomb?

• According to Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
• According to Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
• According to Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and others with them (24:10)
• According to John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

There are more, but these are sufficient to make my point. We can’t ignore these discrepancies or pretend they’re not there. How should we respond, especially when challenged by skeptics? Does this mean that the Gospels cannot be trusted? Or worse, does this cast doubt on our belief that Jesus rose from the dead?

            What if I said that these discrepancies not only do not discredit the Gospels, but that they actually increase their credibility?

The key is the fact that the Gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts, and therefore, we should apply the same principles used by law enforcement to solve crimes. The various eyewitness accounts of a crime are expected to differ on minor details. People see things from different perspectives, and their memories are not always entirely clear when it comes to irrelevant or small observations. The most important consideration is whether the various testimonies agree on the major facts. If so, the accounts are considered more likely to be true, regardless of the minor differences. The reason is that if multiple accounts are too similar, this raises the suspicion that the witnesses conspired to match up their stories completely in order to hide something. Accounts that are genuinely what the eyewitnesses saw will usually agree on the important details but disagree on minor ones.

This, by the way, is one reason there are four Gospels rather than a single one containing all the information from each. If there were only a single account proclaiming Jesus’ death and resurrection, skeptics may consider the story to have less credibility because it wouldn’t be corroborated by other sources. Since there are four sources, it is harder to dismiss them as fabrications.

The discrepancies provide further evidence that the writers were indeed eyewitnesses and were writing honestly about what they observed. If the story had been a fabrication, certainly the writers would have done a better job matching up their stories before they were read by the public. The minor differences provide evidence that there were multiple eyewitnesses, and that they were reporting truthfully on what they observed.

Further, the discrepancies do not cast doubt on any major fact. Whether the empty tomb was first observed before or after dawn does not cast doubt on the fact that Jesus wasn’t in it! Indeed, if I had been there and realized the Son had risen, I doubt I would have been paying much attention to whether the sun had risen.

There are other arguments that could be made to defend the accuracy of the Gospels, such as the important difference between a discrepancy and a contradiction. There would be a contradiction if multiple accounts are entirely irreconcilable. For example, if Matthew said Jesus rose from the dead and Mark said Jesus remained dead, these would be impossible to reconcile. However, if Matthew says there was one angel at the tomb and John says there were two, we must keep in mind two points:

1. One angel doesn’t necessarily mean only one angel, and

2. There is agreement on the majority of the facts: there was at least one angel, the stone was rolled away, and the tomb was empty. No objective jury would observe this much consistency between the accounts of two witnesses and declare them untrustworthy because they differed on the number of angels.

            All of this means that we have no reason to be concerned or embarrassed by the discrepancies in the Gospels, nor do we need to pretend they’re not there. Rather, we can embrace them as one more confirmation that there is strong historical evidence for the truth of Christianity.

Note: the angle used here, that of comparing the evaluation of the credibility of the Gospels to examining witnesses to a crime, was inspired by the book Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace, which I highly recommend!

Why Does God Hide Himself?

Atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell once was asked what he would say if he were to die and find himself standing before God. His answer was ”I would say ‘Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?’”

I suspect many of us have wondered this at some point. It would be effortless for God to provide far more obvious signs of His existence than He does. Why won’t He?

Some may feel that this question is unreasonable. They may believe that God’s existence is clearly evident and wonder how anyone could doubt it. To support this they may cite, the fine-tuning of the universe, the complexity of life, or perhaps their own personal experience. But even if the strength of these points are granted (and they certainly are not granted by skeptics), it still isn’t difficult to think of many additional, clearer ways God could make His existence known.

For example, suppose someone were to say “God, If you’re real, cause this object in front of me to levitate, and I’ll believe in you.” A person who otherwise wouldn’t have believed in God would probably be much more likely to if He were to do something like this. And it would be very easy for Him to do it. Why doesn’t He? Wouldn’t there be many more believers as a result? The few remaining nonbelievers would be those who stubbornly cover their eyes because they so strongly want there not to be a God. And for those who already believe but are perhaps struggling with doubt, this type of sign could be a tremendous encouragement.

So why does God seem to “take such great pains to hide” Himself? I don’t claim to have a definite answer, but I’ll offer a few possibilities.

I think the first reason is that if God were to always perform a sign on demand, it would quickly become little more than a magic trick. God wants to be related to as a person, not as merely an empirical fact. And let’s be honest: how many people would become so mesmerized with the sign that they wouldn’t bother going beyond it and getting to know the God who performed it?

The second reason is this: if God provided evidence of His existence on demand, why not answer other questions in the same way? Surely God’s existence is not the only question we feel ought to be answered plainly. But where do we draw the line? For any question, we might ask Him to give one physical sign to mean “yes” and another to mean “no.” We could then avoid ever having to search for answers, develop experience and wisdom, or exercise common sense. There would be no debate, no development or sharing of ideas, no disagreement among people. We would develop the worst kind of intellectual laziness.

The third reason, I believe, is that God wants to be available to be found by those who search, but possible to ignore for those who don’t want to find Him. It’s not hard to believe that this world exhibits the perfect balance between these two. For those who truly want to find God, there is an abundance of evidence: for example, the beginning of the universe (and the consequent necessity of a Creator); the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and the resurrection; the personal testimonies of so many who have been touched by God; and much more. But none of this is so overwhelmingly apparent that it wouldn’t be possible to disregard if one so desires. I believe our world is set up in such a way that we get a glimpse of what things are like with and without God, to give us an idea of both possibilities and giving us a chance to choose where we would like to spend eternity. If the balance were tipped in either direction, this purpose would not be accomplished as effectively.

            A fourth reason is this: how do we know for sure that people would be more likely to believe in God even if many additional signs were provided to them? For those who are not open to the idea, there is always the possibility that they would simply dismiss anything unusual as hallucinations, illusions created by the power of suggestion, or maybe even extraterrestrials.

Finally, we should keep in mind that mere belief in God isn’t the most important issue. God could easily perform tricks to compel people to believe He exists, but it’s quite possible to believe in a supernatural being who created the universe without ever pursuing a relationship with Him.

These are ultimately only possible reasons why God doesn’t reveal Himself more than He does. I may be on the right track, or I may not. But I believe it’s important to at least try to understand, particularly so we will be ready to give an answer to those who have the same question. Ultimately, it does seem to come down to whether we truly desire to seek God and find Him. After all, as A.W. Tozer once said, “The more difficult the journey, the more satisfying the destination.” If God could be found too easily, it might cheapen the experience of finding Him. Our search for and pursuit of God greatly benefits us by developing our character and perseverance, as well as providing an opportunity for us to long for Him. It would be a great loss if this entire pursuit were eliminated and replaced by an immediate conclusion to our search.

Can God Create a Stone Too Heavy for Him to Lift?

Can God create a stone too heavy for Him to lift? This is a classic dilemma intended to prove that it is impossible for an entity to be all-powerful. If God can create the stone, then His ability to lift is limited. If He can’t create the stone, His creating ability is limited. On the surface, this does seem to show that the concept of being all-powerful is self-contradictory. But is it?

First, we must ask what exactly it means to be all-powerful. It does not mean the ability to do anything we can imagine or put into words, for the simple reason that not everything we can imagine and put into words has a real, coherent meaning. Another way to state this is that to be all-powerful means to be able to do anything that is not self-contradictory. For example, God can’t create a round square, a colorless rainbow, an ocean that isn’t wet, or a room that is both light and dark at the same time. These are not limits on His power because they are not actual things that exist. They are simply a collection of words that have no meaning. We could just as easily say that God isn’t all-powerful because He can’t vegetable translucent vocalize, or because He can’t lfkjsorifkle.

Putting aside the fact that God doesn’t “lift” things in the way we normally think of it anyway, the simple fact is that there is no such thing as a stone that would be too heavy for God to lift. Therefore, we haven’t found any real limit on God’s power.

Furthermore, assuming that the term “God” is taken to mean an all-powerful being, the argument is circular. An all-powerful being and a stone too heavy for that being to lift cannot both exist. As soon as we assume the existence of a stone too heavy to be lifted, we’re assuming there cannot be an all-powerful being, and therefore God must not exist. Essentially we’re saying that the stone exists because God doesn’t exist, therefore God doesn’t exist because the stone exists!

Technically there is a way out of this circularity: we could exclude “all-powerfulness” from our definition of the term “God.” But this would not be the generally agreed upon meaning of the word “God; if He were not all-powerful, why would we call Him God in the first place? It seems to me it would be similar to referring to a “piano” that has no keys, hammers, or strings. But this brings up an entirely different discussion that is beyond the scope of my current focus.

What exactly, though, does it mean to say that God is all-powerful? This is a concept that is easy to put into words, but not quite as easy to grasp (especially for finite minds like our own). I believe it means that God is in no way limited by the material world (which we would expect if He is the creator of that world). He does not operate under any of the constraints that we do, such as time, space, or a finite amount of energy. It is also important to remember that while God is capable of intervening in any logically consistent way in the world, for the majority of the time He simply permits matter to interact with other matter according to the laws of nature. If He didn’t, there would not be sufficient regularity in the universe, rendering things like science impossible.

So, to conclude, God can create any (real) thing, and lift any (real) thing. It’s just that certain concepts we imagine may not be real things (real meaning that they can be conceived of logically and have actual meaning). The limitation is not on God, but on a finite world. The error is in the original question. A better question would be “Can a stone exist that can be both created by God and too big for Him to lift?” The answer, of course, would be no.