Occasionally, I have heard Systematic theologians caricature analytic colleagues as staid conservatives, who lack the creativity to grasp the liberating truths which Christian doctrines symbolise.
In my view, one merely needs to bother reading recent analytic work to see that this charge is false. It would be difficult, for instance, to level this accusation of imaginative sterility at Eleonore Stump’s account of atonement, or James Arcadi’s work to model the real presence. Precisely because analytic theologians are more likely than their Systematic counterparts (or as Alvin Plantinga prefers, “supersophisticates”) to interpret certain doctrines in a “literal” sense, their interpretations often prove extremely innovative at the metaphysical level.
By way of illustration – and since it is an appropriate subject for the month of November – I wish to consider an excellent recent paper by my friend Dr Ben Page, on “Inaugurated Hyperspace”.[1] In addition to providing an innovative interpretation of Christian eschatology, Ben’s article shows how one might fault some analytic theologians more for a lack of regard for the claims of traditional doctrine, than for theological conservatism.[2]
In nuce, Ben’s paper provides a way for Christians to interpret literally the claims of “inaugurated” New Testament eschatology that believers in Christ are a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), and that God has already “seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). Ben draws on recent work on hyperspace to propose several models according to which regenerate Christians are already in heaven. Omitting the precise details of the models in his detailed discussion, Ben supposes that heaven is to be conceived of as a place located in another dimension or dimensions. The bodies of Christian believers – like the Temple, when God chose to “make His name dwell” therein – are unique amongst material objects which occupy our dimensions, because they are also located in the “heavenly” dimension. But since all of creation is in someway renewed in “inaugurated eschatology”, Ben claims that after Christ’s resurrection, all creatures bear some new (causal?) relationship to this heavenly dimension.
Before briefly discussing the theological merits of this proposal, I take it that the reader will be struck by its sheer audacity. If Ben’s model is correct, Christian believers, through everyday actions, already participate bodily in Christ’s final eschatological reign. Perhaps, according to Ben’s model, we might remain literally in the presence of – or even, in physical interaction with – our loved ones in heaven, and even Christ Himself!
Yet despite its ingenuity, Ben’s proposal sits uneasily with conventional Christian theology. Clearly, there are numerous awkward questions which one might pose to a proponent of inaugurated hyperspace. If we inhabit the heavenly dimension, why do we lack all awareness of our new location, or of God’s intimate presence? Can our mundane bodily actions, such as filling in job applications or composing blog posts, really be employed in heavenly activities which are appropriate for denizens of the New Jerusalem? Ben’s answers – that knowledge of our heavenly location might distract from earthly pursuits, and that believers enjoy “incredible blindsight” which allows them to navigate heaven – do not seem entirely convincing, though I will not contest them here.
More importantly, Ben’s apparent underlying assumption that the “heaven” which Christians occupy prior to the Parousia is a physical space, which Christians inhabit bodily, may prove further problematic to many orthodox Christians. Whilst theologians have allowed that Christ (perhaps with a small coterie of companions including Elijah, Enoch, and Mary) was bodily assumed into a physical heaven, New Testament authors seem to assume that the bodily resurrection of God’s people will take place at the Parousia, on earth. But on Ben’s account, Christians already exist bodily in heaven, in this life.
Accordingly, the proponent of inaugurated hyperspace faces a dilemma concerning the nature of the general resurrection. One possibility is that the general resurrection at the Parousia is really a translation of one’s body from heaven to earth, or a resurrection in which one again gains a (separate) body on earth. At the Parousia, the bodies which Christians already possess in heaven now begin to exist again on earth; or else the redeemed are given new earthly bodies in addition to their heavenly bodies. Presumably, on this account, one would become separated from one’s earthly body at death; or else one has two bodies, one of which lives in heaven whilst the other rots on earth! But this scenario – which resembles accounts of resurrection given by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman[3] – is rendered implausible by (inter alia) the lack of any explicit Scriptural warrant. Rather, the New Testament places a clear emphasis on the “last day” as the time of the resurrection (e.g. John 6:40; 1 Cor 15:51 ; 1 Thess 4:16) which is characterised as the transformation of (even, decaying) earthly bodies rather than the translation of bodies from a heavenly dimension to earth (e.g. 1 Cor 15:53; Matthew 27:52; John 11:38-44).
Alternatively, Ben might claim that when Christians die (or just prior to death), their bodies cease to exist in heaven, and are then raised on earth at the Parousia in the manner traditionally envisaged by theologians (i.e. reassembly of their material parts, or the like). But since heaven is typically regarded as a place where God’s life and reign excludes death or loss -- and Scripture explicitly affirms this of the “heavenly” New Jerusalem (see e.g. Rev 21:4) -- this seems problematic. Can death separate Christians from the love of God, removing them from His presence? Many influential Christian theologians – with the exception of those who believe in “soul sleep” -- have claimed precisely the opposite: that prior to the general resurrection the souls of departed Christians do enter “heaven” in some sense, but without their bodies (see e.g. Aquinas, ST III Suppl. 69; Calvin, Institutes III.25.6-8). Of course, Ben might maintain that the souls of those who lose their bodies in earth and heaven at their death do indeed exist "in heaven" as much Christian tradition has maintained; in that respect, they may be even closer to God than they were during their lives, despite disembodiment. But it nevertheless seems -- at best -- strange to hold a view on which the malign effects of death reach even into heaven.
However, the most fundamental objection which I wish to press a problem with sin and its effects. On Ben’s account, Christians who are capable of sin in their earthly lives also inhabit heaven. But according to Scripture, heaven is a place where sin is wholly absent, or even impossible (again, at least in the New Jerusalem of Rev 21:27), and much Christian tradition confirms this view (see e.g. CCC, 1023). If sin necessarily affects our present lives and bodies, Christians cannot exist simultaneously (or more generally, with the same internal states) on earth and in heaven. To repurpose a (Counter) Reformation slogan, one cannot be “simul beatus et viator”: at once a saint and a pilgrim to the New Jerusalem. Ben briefly notes this difficulty, conceding that this is an area in which his models might be further refined. Perhaps, he suggests, Christians cease to inhabit the heavenly hyperspace whenever they sin.
But Ben’s initial response to this problem underestimates the extent to which, according to broad Christian consensus, heaven is a place of perfection into which “nothing impure” can enter. In recent discussion of the doctrine of Purgatory, for example, it is widely acknowledged that moral perfection is a precondition of entry to heaven. That is, those in heaven are not merely incapable of sinning, but they are so incapable in virtue of their perfect moral psychology, in virtue of which they have no (all things considered) desire to sin. As Jerry Walls summarises:
“There is still broad agreement among all Christian traditions that heaven is a place of perfect holiness and nothing sinful or impure can enter there. Fully to experience the presence of God in heaven we must be completely transformed after his moral image.” [4]
But sadly, few – if any – living Christians have experienced wholescale moral repair. Even when many of us are not engaged in sinful acts, our broader mental attitudes remain unsanctified: we lack the virtues by which we are disposed to live in right relationships with God and neighbour. So, it seems that hardly any Christians are in a fit moral state to enter heaven.
Moreover, even Christians who might have attained an appropriate level of sanctity for entry into heaven remain vulnerable to the broader effects of sin or evil. Even morally exemplary Christians suffer physical and mental pain before enduring death; indeed, pain and death may occasion growth in sanctity. So again, there is a dilemma for someone who believes in Inaugurated Hyperspace. Either Christians who are suffering bodily pain cease to dwell in the heavenly hyperspace – which would severely limit the population of Christians already inhabiting heaven in this life – or else, against much Christian tradition, one can really experience pain in heaven (a possibility which the Bible explicitly rules out -- at least in the eschatological paradise described in Rev 21:4).
Is there a way round these difficulties? Two suggestions come to mind, but both are problematic for similar reasons. One might think that one’s heavenly body (and perhaps one's mind and soul!) can have radically different properties to one’s earthly body, mind and soul, so that even if the latter are tarnished by pain or sin, the former can evince physical, psychological, and spiritual perfection. Alternatively, one might hold that heaven itself will undergo eschatological development, such that its inhabitants will only be completely perfected in body and soul at the Parousia. After all, the pristine “New Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 is pictured as descending from a “new heaven” (Rev 21:1; cf. 2 Pet 3:13).[5]
But in either case, the central original motivation for “Inaugurated Hyperspace” – that it can explain how even now, in their present bodies, the redeemed “already” experience final eschatological blessings – will be importantly undermined. If our bodies do not exist in heaven with the internal states which they possess on earth, or if heaven awaits re-creation, the theory of Inaugurated Hyperspace does little to explain how God’s eschatological reign is “already” realised on earth. Ben might insist that even so, his theory explains how Christians even now enter the eschaton in a limited fashion and allows us to interpret texts like Ephesians 2:6 literally. But these theoretical gains seem a meagre basis on which to construct such a baroque eschatological theory.
Perhaps the underlying problem here is that Ben is primarily thinking of heaven as a place which is somehow sanctified as “God’s dwelling”, so that anyone dwelling in heaven is thereby “close” to God. But I take it that – at least, in the Catholic tradition to which I belong -- this is not the best way to think about (valuable) proximity to God. Rather, we can think about heaven being “God’s place” in two connected ways. Firstly, those who are in heaven experience the beatific vision: they have the most intimate knowledge of and relationship with God available to creatures. So the saints are “with” God not because they share some dimension with Him (which is, sensu stricto, impossible for many theists unless one is speaking of proximity to Christ), but because they are “with” Him in a relationship of mutual attention.[6] Secondly, following the Scholastic thought that God is “present” to creation through His power and providential action, heaven is God’s place because it is the place where God’s plans – which are principally for the renovation of His relationship with creation in Christ -- are definitively realised.[7] Thus, in the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for the arrival of God’s Kingdom “on earth, as it is in heaven”.
If heaven is valuable primarily as a place where the saints come to know God intimately, accomplishing God’s plan for humanity – in other words, sharing in Christ’s reign at the Father’s right hand – the extent to which we can (properly) inhabit heaven is limited by our present degree of participation in Christ. Benedict XVI captures the point with typical lucidity:
“ ‘Heaven’ means participation in this new mode of Christ’s existence and thus fulfilment of what baptism began in us. This is why heaven escapes spatial determination. It lies neither inside nor outside the space of our world, even though it must not be detached from the cosmos as some mere ‘state’. Heaven means much more, that power over the world which characterises the new ‘space’ of the body of Christ, the communion of saints. Heaven is not, then, ‘above’ in a spatial but in an essential way.” [8]
This is not to claim that there is currently no “heavenly” dimension, or that physical locations are unimportant for beatitude. Indeed, as Benedict continues to explain, the whole of creation will eventually be drawn into blessedness in the “new heaven and new earth”.
Pace Ben’s paper, if “being in heaven” primarily means participating in Christ’s reign, there are crucial senses in which Christians liable to sin, pain, and death are not yet “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5). But I take it that this is not just “bad news”; whatever the truth about Inaugurated Hyperspace, for God's people the best is yet to come!
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[1] Ben Page, “Inaugurated Hyperspace”, TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, 4.3, (2020) [https://ojs.uclouvain.be/index.php/theologica/article/view/54843]. [2] Of course, this criticism itself does not apply to all analytic theologians: many profess respect for historical or contemporary theology, and some succeed in writing theology which is faithful to the commitments of their preferred tradition. [3] See Peter Van Inwagen, “The possibility of resurrection”, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 9.2 (1978); Dean A. Zimmerman, “The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” Faith and Philosophy 16:2 (1999) and “Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited,” in G. Gasser (ed.), Personal Identity and Resurrection (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010). [4] Jerry Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 37. [5] Although one might interpret such passages as referring to the destruction of the heavens qua skies, rather than the destruction of God’s court, or the transformation of its inhabitants. But note that in Revelation, those in heaven prior to the arrival of the New Jerusalem are already depicted as wearing white garments and enjoying life without pain (see Rev 7). [6] On this sense of “being with”, see Eleonore Stump, Atonement (Oxford: OUP, 2018), 115-142. [7] See e.g. Aquinas, ST Ia.8.3. [8] Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life 2nd edn (Washington DC: CUA Press, 2008), 236-7.
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