What is Heaven?

There are a lot of concepts of Heaven. The rainbow bridge, the golden city of Heaven (pictured), are examples of the conceptions of what heaven may look like.  However, there is no clear conception of what heaven is.  There is both good and bad reason for this.  The good reason is that there is no physical conception of heaven. The bad reason is that a metaphysical conception of Heaven is still as foreign as a life without sin.

Heaven isn't a physical world. It isn't a mental state. It isn't a figment of our imagination.  The question is: What is it?  The answer is simple and at the same time hard to grasp.  Heaven is a communion with God. This seems very simple, but it also raises quite a few questions.  Heaven isn't like having an eternal conversations with the buddies. It doesn't seem like it would be an eternal hug.  The reason we cannot grasp what it means to be in God's presence is because our minds are wired to evaluate experience. God isn't of this Earth, and it is impossible for us to feel true happiness in our Earthly lives. We can get close, through love of each other and God.  But we can't quite get to true happiness. This is a pretty huge mental block. The mind is hardwired to evaluate experience first. This means God stands out of our solid, tangible experience.  So when we say we are in communion with God, we mean we are in a state of total happiness and perfection we have not yet experienced. True happiness is being in communion with God himself, meaning it's just awesome.

Figure 1

Of course, this raises the question of "why can't it be physical" from your typical skeptic. First, God is metaphysical. Looking up "God" in the Yellow Pages won't turn up any entries. You haven't seen a picture of God. God doesn't do door to door sales for his son's magazine sales. God doesn't physically exist. However, we must deconstruct my previous sentence. Physically is not a word used for empty emphasis. It is used to describe the existence God does not partake in. He is not merely invisible, but he embodies existence. This means that existence is a part of God. [Refer to Figure One]. Existence is God, but God isn't just existence. This means God cannot be confined to existence.  Now that we know god isn't a physical entity, lets discuss heaven. Communion with God cannot be physical. Why? God isn't physical.  Thus, communion with him cannot be physical. Further, an experience of human happiness is purely metaphysical. You can't look at an emotion. You can't smell, taste, or hear an emotion. An emotion, like happiness, is metaphysical, meaning it cannot be confined to physical things. Since communion with God is really just a really awesome emotion, it can't be physical. No matter how many times we see that kid in Grown Ups try to find Heaven with the GPS, it'll never happen.