HEAVEN, NON-CHRISTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF
104The prospect of enjoying such a relation-
ship with God, as God intended all along,
is what grounds the hope of heaven. The
quality and degree of happiness and ful-
fillment one may aspire to experience is
infinitely greater than anything one may
dream of if the most basic constituents of
reality are matter and ever dissipating
energy.
The hope of heaven has been an ani-
mating force in Western culture for the
better part of two millennia. It has been a
moral source of enormous significance,
not only providing grounds to make
rational sense of ethics, but also endow-
ing people’s lives with ultimate meaning.
Moreover, it has inspired some of the
greatest artistic achievements, both liter-
ary and visual. Two biblical images have
been predominant in artistic depictions
of heaven, a garden and a city. Cities
embody the highest forms of culture and
society, and heaven as the New Jerusalem
would represent the apex of such achieve-
ment. The image of a garden captures the
human longing to return to Eden and the
primordial fellowship with both nature
and God that it represents.
A central component of heaven as
traditionally understood by Christians is
the beatific vision, the ultimate delight
of seeing God that is the epitome of
joy and satisfaction. This has sometimes
been understood in a highly intellectual-
ist sense, as an experience of contemplat-
ing God in timeless bliss. This picture of
heaven has little place for relationships
with other persons or other aspects of the
created order as contributing to the high-
est human fulfillment.
By contrast, recent New Testament
scholarship emphasizes that final redemp-
tion includes the entire created order. The
book of Revelation pictures this in terms
of the New Jerusalem coming down to a
renewed earth. God’s final purpose is
achieved when God’s will is done on earth
as it is in heaven. The beatific vision is not
less important on this view, but here it is
anticipated that the glory of God will be
perceived throughout the new creation
with all its delights and radiant beauty.
In view of this picture, the common
claim that one goes to heaven when one
dies may need to be qualified. Although
the New Testament clearly teaches that
those who die are with Christ, they still
await the final resurrection when all will
be raised in their bodies. It is then that
heaven in its fullness will be a reality. As
the book of Revelation famously describes
this scene, God will dwell with humanity
and wipe every tear from our eyes as
death, pain, and mourning forever pass
away. Those so blessed will look to the
future with ever increasing joy as they
continue to explore the infinite beauty of
God and grow in God’s boundless love.HEAVEN, NON-CHRISTIAN CON-
CEPTIONS OF. Islam believes that the
body and soul of everyone are resurrected
but only those who have worshiped
Allah alone will go to heaven for eternity.
In Judaism, the existence of an afterlife