Practical Problems with Hell and Heaven

Since my mother died in January 2006, I have been really hoping to meet her one-day. In flesh and blood. Although I saw her going up in smoke. (See previous hopes here and here)

However, I have always wondered about practical problems with hell and heaven.

Paul Johnson has put them across really well.

“…Death is inextricably linked to time, because if time continues after death, and the disembodied spirit lives in time, then insoluble problems arise. Heaven (or Hell for that matter) becomes a bedlam, in which husbands are confronted with wives married at different times, each with claims, and many with multiple husbands too, hovering moodily in the background. And the children! At what stage in their lives are they fixed, as it was, for all eternity? And what is eternity if it is time-governed? How could anyone conceivably bear it, however blissful? On the other hand, if when we die time loses its grip and we step into an existence where time and change, permanence and impermanence, past, present and future all cease to have any meaning, and we exist in an infinite instant without location or material dimension of any kind, leaving all to the imagination, then there is comfort in the prospect of leaving this world.”

(The Spectator, Wednesday, 27th August 2008)


The New Yorker