The Moral Landscape of Heaven
January 16, 2010
In the wake of the tragedy in Haiti, I’ve been sent to the books to wonder about the unfortunate reality of evil. Without getting into the whole reasoning of evil here, I do want to express some curiosities about the moral landscape of Heaven.
One of the things I read about in many popular level Christian apologetic books is the necessity of the possibility of evil in order to reach the greatest good: the true reality of love, which needs to be free, which necessitates the potential of evil (the absence of good).
Scripture attests (I’ll let you use your own concordance) to the future reality of the defeat of evil. I noted in the read of the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Geisler) that there’s a differentiation between “overcoming” evil and “annihilating” evil. Annihilation of evil prevents the potential of a moral (real, free) good. While, on the other hand, an overcoming of evil enables love and goodness to happen in an environment where evil is also a potential.
So, here’s my oddball of a question: in Heaven, what will it be like to have the potential of evil but not the presence of it? Take that again, would there even be a potential for it? I take it that we’d see it as not an annihilation of evil but an overcoming of it. Which means that while we would still be free for good or evil, we would then and always somehow always live into the freedom of the good.
…does this oddball thinking make any sense? I’m assuming that because human freedom is the “it was good” from Genesis, that God will restore that “it is good”-ness to all creation. And, that for humanity, brings the reality of freedom.
…another dimension is the reality of the renovation a person enters into by the power of the Holy Spirit and the means of God’s holy renovation – both for justification and our sanctification.
[At this point, I think the question is open enough for dialog.]
January 20, 2010 at 1:57 pm
This is really an interesting thought. How do we speak of the problem of evil, ESPECIALLY in terms of the final coming of the Kingdom. I’ll have to chew on this, but my first thought deals with the nature of evil. Do we side with many eastern religions and say that evil is necessary for good, or can good stand on its own apart from evil? In other words, would God be good without evil (of which I say “duh!”), and if that’s the case, can man be “made” (for lack of better word) good without the possibility of evil? I think there’s a slippery slope in either direction. Just food for thought.
January 20, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for the comment Peter.
When I was writing this little thought out, I was immersed in a couple of books about “evil,” and all that. One is C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain.
As I was writing, I was trying to wonder out loud about the way God made us in the beginning as free creatures with the ability to decide good or evil. Then, I was wondering about the restored creation… In that restored state, what would it be like to be free but not really choose evil?
…an even stranger question: why didn’t God start with that plan and not this one? …but, I’ll leave the Omniscient one to have the answer to that.
Thanks for the chat.
On another note, I’d love to call or chat sometime about how ministry and being a daddy is going these days. I’d really love to hear your mind on youth ministry today.
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Ben.
January 20, 2010 at 3:13 pm
As for the chat about ministry and family and discipleship, I’d love it! I miss those conversations we had, and wish often that we’d been able to go further.
Leaving the Omniscient one to do His thing, I love conversations about these types of matters. You know that I’m a big self-proclaimed fantasy geek (and I know you’ve got some of that in there somewhere), and pretty much all of fantasy literature/film/video games deals with this issue of good and evil (and often more in depth than pop culture gives it credit for). We Christians have the greatest epic at our fingertips, and one which we believe is actually true! All too often we dismiss these epic questions in favor of flighty Oprah-style life application and miss the grandeur of our faith. Thanks for posting these thoughts and stirring this up in my head once more.