Does heaven exist?

Fra Angelico, Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven

Last Sunday I watched for the first time the excellent programme The Big Questions (BBC1, 10.00 am), presented with admirable professionalism and geniality by Nicky Campbell. The third topic of this hour–long programme was Does heaven exist?
The discussion that followed was lively,    and did not become in any way acrimonious. However, it tended to drift from the stated question — Does heaven exist? — to statements about the nature of ‘life’ in heaven / paradise. This seemed to be rather curious: much as if one were to describe an exotic flower which no one had ever seen. Indeed, it was even ‘curiouser’ given that we do at least know that exotic flowers exist, and could confidently expect to find such in their known habitats.   

The most interesting description of heaven — paradise, in his words — came from Sheik Suliman Gani, Imam, Tooting Mosque. There will apparently be rivers of wine and rivers of milk and honey (suggestive incidentally of the ways in which religions unconsciously borrow from one another: the Jewish ‘Wine of eternal promise’ and ‘The land flowing with milk and honey’). Additional features of paradise will be a complete absence of jealousy, animosity, hatred, and all other destructive emotions; it has been ordained that everyone will be 33 years of age, will remain young and healthy and never get sick; men will be beardless and the hair of the women will be free of any headwear; each man will have two wives.

The main Christian spokesperson on this topic — Pastor Clement Okusi, Potter’s House Christian Church — had no such definite ideas, but rather spoke of the transcendent joy that Jesus had prepared for believers. However, he did not expect to meet all of his friends and family members there: ‘Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’ The fate of those who failed to find the ‘narrow way’ was not mentioned. Nor did anyone mention the existence of hell.

Well, so much for these intriguing and imaginative descriptions for which there is no evidence or basis whatsoever. I find myself asking three additional questions, to which we may at least apply reason — and make an appeal to common sense and experience.

1/ Where, precisely, in the universe is heaven / paradise located?

Here is a quotation from Lee Smolin, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

...by definition the universe is all there is, and there can be nothing outside it. And, by definition, neither can there been anything before the universe that caused it, for if anything existed it must have been part of the universe. So the first principle of cosmology must be “There is nothing outside the universe”.

Well, this is heady stuff, and I confess that I have to take it on faith, given that I am neither a cosmologist nor a physicist. Moreover I have no choice but to follow Popper in agreeing that all scientific theories are defeasible: that is, open to being overturned by new evidence. There is after all no other way. We cannot stop with Newton or Einstein, no matter how great their genius. However, the view that we live in an ‘outsideless’ universe does, I think, seem to be a truth along the lines that a given amount of cyanide will kill you. And this is decidedly not defeasible! If, therefore, we accept the truth of this, then there would seem to be no place in the universe for heaven or paradise. Unless, that is, there exists somewhere a kind of ‘super bubble’, within the confines of which the normal laws of the universe are suspended or different. This would indeed require omnipotence, but I doubt that any such thing exists (and if it did then a good start would be the eradication of disease). I think that we can safely dispense with all the ‘Omni–s’.  

2/ How do we get from earth to heaven?

There is a far bigger problem here than most people suppose. ‘Beam be up, Scotty’, is good fun for Star Trek fans, but consider this from Lawrence Krauss, The Physics of Star Trek

...anyone with access to the internet knows how easy it is to transport a data stream containing, say, the detailed plans for a new car, along with photographs. Nevertheless ... rather formidable problems arise ... in transporting the bits [the atoms of the car]. If you want to zap 10²⁸ atoms, you have quite a challenge on your hands. Say, for example, that you simply want to turn all this material into pure energy. How much energy would result? Well, Einstein’s formula E = mc² tells us. If one suddenly transformed 50 kilograms of energy (a light adult) of material into energy, one would release the equivalent of somewhere in excess of a thousand 1–meagaton hydrogen bombs. It is hard to imagine how to do this in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Of course, you could argue that only the soul or spirit of the person makes the journey from earth to heaven. But of what could this possibly consist? And what here are the means of transmission? It all seems impossibly ethereal. And who’s worth all this trouble? Not me, assuredly!

3/ What are we supposed to do once we get there?

I perfectly well understand why people like the idea of life after death — or life after life, as it could equally well be called. However, I think that few make a thought–out connection between ‘life after death’ and ‘eternal life’. As Freud says, ‘We are so constituted that we can only intensely enjoy contrasts, much less states in themselves.’ In consideration of this I would have to wonder if we were not in for ‘eternal boredom’. After all, we would be faced not just [sic] with millions, billions, and trillions of years, but eternity. Nothing could be more absurd, pointless, or meaningless. (Roger Bolton, speaking to a guest on Radio 4’s religious programme, Sunday, said that, ‘of course you and I expect to be walking with the Lord [after death]’. Well, he’d have plenty of time!) If you still have difficulty imagining eternity, here is a passage from Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

Imagine, says Dennis the Carthusian, a mountain of sand as large as the universe; that every hundred years a grain of sand be taken from it. The mountain will disappear at last. But after such an inconceivable space of time the sufferings of hell will not have diminished, and will not be nearer to the end than when the first grain was removed. And yet, if the damned knew that they would be set free when the mountain had disappeared, it would be a great consolation to them.

Well! This is of course not a description of heaven — and yet, to me, that is somehow exactly what it is.