This image of heaven, appealing though it may be, is in essence no different to the images that portray heaven as an eternal reunion party, an angelic choir service, or a lush green meadow complete with babbling brook. Each of these visions of heaven is egocentric; they are all reflections of the hopes and desires of their authors. Indeed, one person's heaven may be another's hell.
Even the less graphic notions of heaven are tainted by egocentricity. For some, heaven is a state of rest; for others, it is a new journey. Those who want answers declare, 'all truth will be revealed in heaven', but for those whose pleasure is in the quest, a final all-encompassing revelation is a horror beyond contemplation.
Historically, heaven has been perhaps the one of the most troublesome symbols within the Christian tradition. From an early worldview that perceived heaven as a realm physically located above the earth, to a more contemporary understanding of heaven as some supernatural world, the concept has not only been interpreted inappropriately, it has also been subject to gross misuse.
Heaven and hell have long been paired together as 'the carrot and the stick', to 'encourage' obedience to the church. Virtuous behaviour [in the name of Christ] has been exhorted as the means to win one's way into heaven, with the threat of eternal damnation pending upon those who lagged in their duty. Theologies which undergird such notions envisage God as a penal judge. This picture is an anathema; thus we must question the integrity of any theology that flaunts heaven as a reward, or even recompense, for earthly sacrifice. Instead we need to see heaven as gifted by God's Grace to all who choose to accept. The corollary is that God does not cast anyone into hell; hell is a self-choice not to accept God's grace.
The manipulative abuse of heaven as a symbol has extended beyond the church into the political arena. Karl Marx saw heaven as an end of revolution without a fight. But, he argued, it was an end that was always to come; a promise never fulfilled. Thus Marx saw the promise of heaven as an illusory and dangerous answer to the very real predicament of humanity; Christianity, he believed, served as a panacea that changed nothing, and it was in this context that he declared religion to be "the opium of the people". The unfortunate aspect of Marx' criticism is that rather than denouncing the abuse of religious symbols, he denounced the symbols themselves and denied any underlying reality they might refer to.
It is evident from the difficulties of the past, that we must be cautious in any endeavour to posit a reformulation of heaven. In his search of a contemporary understanding of heaven, Hans Kung offers three propositions:
1. The heaven of faith is not a supramundane 'above', not heaven in the physical sense.
2. Nor is the heaven of faith an extramundane 'beyond', not a heaven in the metaphysical sense.
3. The heaven of faith is not a place, but a mode of being; the infinite God cannot be localised in space, cannot be limited by time.
In keeping with the need for caution, Kung's propositions are predominantly negative. He refutes the perceptions of heaven that carry from obsolete worldviews but offers no substantial alternatives other than as a vague and undefined 'mode of being'. By formulating his propositions this way, Kung avoids the trap of describing his personal utopia, but leaves us with no clear path to a new understanding of the concept of heaven.
Heaven is the goal of Christian life. It is the fulfilment of Christian hope to be in union with God. As Christians we have already entered eternal life in this life, and it is through understanding the way in which our eschatological hopes are realised now that we can begin to grasp some concept of how our eschatological hopes may be realised in our eternal future. Our union with God, experienced in this life, is largely experienced in community. We come together as a community for prayer and worship, and we encounter God in our encounters with others. It is in community - the church - that we are the body of Christ. This suggests that whatever heaven holds for us, it holds for us in community.
Eternal life is the present reality that connects this life with the life to come. Heaven then, is not a compensation for earthly life; rather it is an affirmation of that life. As Kung suggests, it is "precisely because we affirm life here, we do not permit ourselves to be deprived of hope of an eternal life; in fact, we defend ourselves against the powers of death, where the negatives of this life threaten to gain the upper hand: resignation, despair, cynicism."
Heaven is the symbol of eternal life that expresses the continuity of life after physical death. The finality experienced in temporality dissolves outside of time and heaven symbolises this dissolution of finality by presenting us with a vision of our Christian goal. As John Shea contends,
For Shea, "heaven and hell is 'language' about the future consequences of present decisions." He proposes that our experiences of grace and sin in the present may be projected onto the future, thus heaven is the consequence of a creative life, and conversely, hell the consequence of a destructive life.
It is important in such projection, that we continue to understand heaven as a symbol rather than a literal reality. Seen in this way, heaven is not to be understood in terms of place or time; rather it is a symbol borne out of the deep riches of the human-divine relationship, that directs us to a new perspective on life. Under its direction, our experience of God in life is seen to be continuous with our experience of God after physical death. Heaven is not the isolated existence of a future destiny,; it is the vision of a new reality in which "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
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