Is Eternal Life Boring?
Todd May, a philosophy professor at Clemson, thinks life would get ‘boring’ if we lived forever, doing the same things again and again. The very finitude of life guarantees its preciousness.
I prefer to think that the paradox of death is the source not of despair but instead of the limited hope that is allotted to us as human beings. We cannot live forever, to be sure, but neither would we want to. We ought not to mind the fact that we will die, although we really would rather that it not be today. Probably not tomorrow either. But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us.
I agree the fact of death adds weight and value to the preciousness of life now. But I disagree with Dr. May that living forever needs to be boring. In Christian theology, exemplified in Gregory of Nyssa, eternal life is not a static thing — it involves movement, progression and continued growth in love.
The triune God is an ever-pulsing movement of love flowing back and forth. How then could a vision of God ever be boring? Whatever else participation in Divine Love is, it isn’t boring.
Have you read Mary Shelley’s story, The Mortal Immortal?
It deals with this question.
And Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return deals with a similar question. He suggests that we should live as if we were destined to relive our lives in every detail over and over and over.
Shelley and Nietzsche were, of course, writing about how to live this life.
I am with you and the sage who that death is the final enemy. I would be glad to suffer eternal life with God.
Ken
November 5, 2009 at 11:49 am
I have not read Mary Shelley’s story, but now I’ll have to.
’suffer eternal life’ is a striking combination of words.
Peace to you today.
Chris
November 5, 2009 at 10:09 pm
One of the many problems in our understanding of eternality is our belief that somehow God will answer all our questions on the “other side.” We often tend to think of it as “nice” place filled will lots of “good things.”
First, I do not think God will answer our questions on the other side. I think we will have a more clear understanding of who God is, but our search for meaning and for God will not end in the life of the world to come. Rather, we will constantly and continually disc0vering anew the grace, peace, and love of God so deeply. It will be a constant exploration that will encompass all parts of our life. Indeed, this was the way it was always meant to be.
Second, heaven is not just a ‘nice’ place. I think we need to get rid of this kind of language. The idea of heaven also as ‘perfect’ place seems to me lacking. I am not even sure I have words to describe the idea I have of heaven. I think the rejection of ‘perfect’ or ‘better’ also helps us to reject any kind of platonic notions of heaven as a ‘more perfect earth.’ Heaven is none other than the kingdom of heaven where the will of God is always done. Because God is king, he reigns in such a place without the force that political leaders in our contemporary world must use to elicit subjugation of its citizens (whether the subjugation seems forced or not is not the question, but the fact that it exists in all places).
With the coming of the Kingdom of God, we will see the end of such forceful political force and the beginning of what Hauerwas calls The Peaceable Kingdom.
Danny Kam
November 6, 2009 at 5:55 pm