Saturday, June 19, 2021

A New Eden

Pleasure is more than just a trivial, pointless distraction from pain in life on Earth within Christian theology; it is quite literally a significant part of what life in Eden and life in the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 are intended to contain.  Never does God condemn humans for simply desiring and seeking out what gives them a sense of deep pleasure unless there is some immoral component to that pursuit.  On the contrary, it is clear that God intended for people to live as they wish as long as they do not specifically violate the obligations rooted in his nature (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Unfortunately, many Christians have a very incomplete grasp of New Jerusalem that either does not incorporate certain nonsinful pleasures or goes so far as to be hostile towards them.

A restored relationship with God and a lack of subjective boredom or discomfort with that relationship is pleasurable enough on its own, but there is far more to pleasure than simply the awareness of and delight in God.  If this was not the case, God would not specifically have created humans to experience other pleasures or ensured that a rational analysis of the Bible is one that vehemently rejects legalistic opposition to things which are not immoral no matter how exciting or stimulating they are.  Every day humans have the ability to realize the true scope of pleasure across all aspects of existence and how pleasure itself is never antithetical to Christian morality.  The very fact that humans have the capacity for physical pleasure at all shows that God, whether humans reached their current species status by immediate creation or theistic evolution, is not against bodily pleasure, and the psychological pleasures that can be found in knowing truth, exercising autonomy, introspecting, prayer, and human relationships are likewise not contrary to God's wishes.

Pleasures of every nonsinful kind would have no reason to not be pursued in heaven in both the sense of there being no logical contradiction involved in them existing in heaven and the sense that something that does not violate moral obligations would not be out of place in a state of moral perfection.  In Eden, any nonsinful thing would be permissible by default before human sin, or else it would be sinful rather than nonsinful.  Heaven (or New Jerusalem) is Eden restored.  Revelation 22:1-3 mentions the tree of life and the removal of the curse of sin from Genesis 3.  This is a place of freedom to live without the presence of the wicked, for no one vile will enter the city (Revelation 21:27), and this means that it is injustice and other evils which are not encountered, not pleasure itself.

Now, it would still be logically clear that any nonsinful thing cannot be morally wrong in heaven just because heaven is not Earth.  The nature of sin and righteousness could only have to do with acts and motives themselves instead of locations.  Something would be nonsinful on Earth for the same reason it is not sinful in heaven--it does not conflict with God's moral nature.  This is why a Christian who truly understands which activities do not fall under God's condemnation in the Bible should have no difficulty in affirming that eternal life in New Jerusalem is not incompatible with the enjoyment of whatever amoral or nonsinful deeds a Christian may desire.

The true Biblical conception of heaven is not a realm of constant physical worship of God and nothing else, leaving the redeemed human imhabitants bored and restless.  It is Paradise: it is all that Eden could have been, only on the opposite side of theological human history.  In other words, every nonsinful pleasure derived from truth, individuality, the senses, spiritual fulfillment, and sexuality would have no reason to be excluded and might even be all the more delightful having followed the darkness of human sin.  It is not that pleasures that God morally permits cannot be understood and appreciated in this life, but that undergoing redemption from sin could grant a deeper affection for what human sin forfeits--life and the ability to do what one pleases where there is no sin.

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