Peace like a River

@G – Thanks for the attention!

The trouble with a river analogy is that we don’t think of the river as living entity – we generally regard a river as ‘physics’ (and we regard physics as not-alive). Therefore the river analogy breaks down pretty quickly.

But if we consider a living being, then the analogy holds-up because it is literally true (as well as symbolic). In other words, it is just common sense that a being (e.g. a man) stays himself through whatever changes, yet these changes are open-ended.

If we accept that that is as far as we can go with explanation, and don’t assume that we can further explain ‘how’ this is possible (i.e. if we assume that ‘being’ is an ultimate and unanalysable metaphysical category) then we have our explanation!

This is very good, and rings true. I’ll have to think about it.

You can’t step in the same river twice.

Pshaw! You can’t even step in the same river once.

Whateves. There’s no river to step in, since nothing exists anyway.

Interesting book with an explanation of space-time for laymen, that may be germaine to the eternity-glory duscussion.

Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, by Carlo Rovelli.

Currently $1.99 in Kindle format at the ‘zon. I picked it up, seems a worthy read at first skim-through.

I think it will help me get an understanding of space-time outside of Euclidian/Newtonian thinking.

timeo Danae. The rest of you, good comments.

Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos
perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno,
clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit:
qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.

Good post on justice and glory and related themes.
I liked the hunter-gatherer idea of alternating periods of rest and activity.
On the idea of glory is where stillness and action meet, I think being still and being ready to act is part of the firstly spiritual, secondly temporal activity that becomes glorious.

@G – With all due repect to their contributions to intellectual history; the ancient philosophers (who contributed to the comments above) were alive before Joseph Smith and William James; who were first to develop a dynamic, pluralist, evolutionary metaphysics of Creation and Heaven.

In other words, they were not (in their mortal lives) in a position to evaluate the relative merits of these two world views.

Presumably these chaps would now – with their increased post-mortal knowledge of reality – want to modify what they once wrote.

I don’t know where Bruce gets his idea of a “static” heaven, by which he apparently means one in which people do nothing for eternity.

I agree with G. that heaven is a combination of rest and activity. The question is what the activity consists of. We say it consists of contemplation. It’s not just rest, it’s rest *in God*. It’s not the rest of inactivity. God we say is totally at rest because he’s immaterial. But we won’t be immaterial, therefore we will do things.

When we say we’ll be at rest, what we mean is that there will be no more struggle and strife, nothing to worry about or be afraid of, nothing to suffer.

The bliss of heaven will lie primarily in the contemplation of God. While some may think of contemplation as the opposite of action, it is really an action in itself. We say it’s an action that will never get old, because God is infinite, therefore we will never stop discovering and learning from him, and becoming more and more enlightened. I agree that we would get bored if this were not the case.

We will not only contemplate God but also actively worship him, as portrayed in the book of Revelation. Worship again is not a static state but an active one.

I don’t doubt that we will also do physical activities along the lines of some physical activities on earth. Why have bodies if we can’t enjoy them? But I think we will see such activities as secondary to our main activity of contemplation. We will enjoy them for what they are, but will always know that there are higher activities available to us; which, actually, is pretty much how it is now. I love doing physical things like running, eating, building and repairing things, acts of physical affection, but I never think of them as the most important things that I do.

Just to show that the Catholic conception of heaven is not the static one, as some may suppose, here is a good summary of the Catholic doctrine of heaven:

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-is-heaven-really-like

@Agellius, if that works for you, bully for you.

But for me, contemplation doesn’t seem like activity. Nor does it seem to involve progress and growth/change, which is what Bruce C. was getting at when he talked about rest vs. activity.

I see you more as coming down on the side of rest, except pointing out that rest isn’t the same as doing nothing and could be quite absorbing.

I absolutely come down on the side of rest, just not on the side of being static, which means “lacking in movement, action, or change.”

I believe we would progress via contemplation. God contains inexhaustible knowledge and wisdom and we would never tire of exploring it, and that exploration couldn’t help but result in growth in knowledge, wisdom and understanding in ourselves. And there would also be physical activity and active worship.

Rest, again, boils down to the fact that we won’t have to work to survive, nor to defend ourselves, nor to resist sin, and therefore will be free of all fear and worry.

I think the idea of a static heaven comes from the notion that God is immaterial and therefore unmoving and unchanging. But that doesn’t apply to us, who will not be immaterial, and therefore neither unmoving nor unchanging.