When he was a young man, St Augustine asked God to give him chastity and continence ‘but not yet.’ Most of us would say the same about heaven. It seems a desirable objective but we’re in no hurry to achieve it. The eternal perspective is a bit too much, we may well say when we think about the Christian faith.
Heaven is not always under-rated. Some have given their imagination free rein. John Donne, ground-breaking poet and Dean of St Paul’s, suggested that it is always autumn in heaven. Sydney Smith, a later canon of St Paul’s, thought heaven was eating pȃté-de-foie-gras to the sound of trumpets. Richard Baxter, eminent puritan theologian, suggested that in heaven it is always bed-time. He wrote a book about it. It is called ‘The Saints’ Everlasting Rest’.
Speculation about eternal bliss is not without its dangers. What, for example, are we to make of the suggestion in ‘Revelation’ that heaven is 2,400 kilometres long, 2,400 kilometres wide and 2,400 kilometres high? On a literal interpretation that means that the city stretches from London to Istanbul and from Newcastle to Malta, and reaches well out into space. Of course, nobody accepts a literal interpretation, any more than they accept Smith’s conceits as deadpan descriptions of the way things are. We are more likely to see the dimensions and the gold and precious metals as suggesting bling on a prodigious scale. Surpassing Aladdin’s Cave and the treasure found by the Count of Monte Cristo, this stupefying splendour is best understood, perhaps, as suggesting our heart’s desire.
What, then, are we to make of Baxter’s more modest view of heaven? Any conception of eternal life is perplexing. ‘To die, to sleep, no more’ is one answer with the sinister qualification ‘perchance to dream’. And while putting one’s feet up after a lifetime of drudgery may sound inviting, an eternal rest sounds like rather too much of a good thing. When we are tired, there is nothing we desire more than rest. Interrogators know this. So do those who regulate drivers’ schedules. But then nobody wants to rest for ever. Perhaps we can say that we shall find our deepest wishes satisfied. We don’t all want the same thing. Our Creator knows that.
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