Heaven's not so bad, after all

I recently ran across this review of militant atheist and crypto-Buddhist Sam Harris' book, Letter to a Christian Nation. While the review, entitled "The Celestial Teapot," was quite interesting in many respects, it seemed to me that the reviewer, James Wood, was seriously astray on at least one point. This is my response to his review, left in the Comments section:

Dear Mr. Wood:

I read with considerable interest your objections to the "Free Will Defense" of Christianity, as this is precisely the approach I have used in coming to terms with the theodicy: if God intervened whenever there was a problem, we would lose both our free will and our ability to function for ourselves, our ability (however inadequate it can be, at times) to come up with solutions to our own problems. We would end up being either automatons or resentful servitors of God, depending on how much awareness was left to us.

God could easily have created automatons, but chose not to -- so the Christian tradition teaches -- because he wanted humans to come to love him freely, of their own choice, without necessary (intrinsic, "hard-wired") constraint. He may be willing to apply both carrots and sticks to convince us, but ultimately, the choice still is ours. I have been over the arguments and objections so many times on my own that nothing you have raised convinces me to rethink that notion.

But the idea that heaven itself is part of the problem was novel to me, and so I read that section with considerable interest and attention. With all due respect, however, I think you're rather missing the point.

True, heaven is a constraint on freedom, for those living there. And I confess, I have problems with the notion of spending an eternity chanting the praises of the Triune Godhead. That sounds more torturous than beatific, to me. But I think we need to be careful about being too literalistic in our assessments of heaven. Whatever our image of it, we are likely to be surprised, I suspect, if/when we get there.

More to the point is the issue of constraint versus freedom. It is true that, if the Christian conception of heaven is true -- even allegorically -- we will have less freedom than we do here, in that we will no longer have the freedom (some would say, the desire) to do things that are evil, sinful, etc. But since many of us spend our lives, in part, struggling against the urge to do things that we know are wrong, is not that also a type of freedom -- perhaps, a freedom of a higher order? That we are freed from the base impulses of our nature, in order to give the higher ones free reign at last?

Furthermore, the reality is that the Christian faith itself is a constraint on freedom. If we are striving to be good Christians, there are choices we must make, and therefore things that we must decide not to do: give in to our baser appetites, for instance, whether for unrestrained sexuality, greed for money, or the arrogance of power. The point is that we choose not to do these things, we are not constrained -- except by our conscience, and our beliefs -- to prevent us from doing so.

Nor is Christianity alone in this. Being a good citizen is also a constraint on freedom. We do not have, if we are law-abiding citizens, the freedom to drive 95 mph in a 25 mph zone, or konk someone on the head and take something they have that we want. But although we may be constrained in part by fear of the law, for most of us, most of the time, we are constrained largely by our own choice: not to do things which are unbecoming a citizen. We exercise our freedom of will in ways which constrain our freedom of action. Christianity is no different, except that it has (presumably) more cosmic and long-lasting effects.

The point about heaven is that, while our freedom of action may be constrained once we get there -- although the classical tradition would argue more by the purification of our desires than by some sort of rigidly-imposed moral strait-jacket -- our choice to seek heaven is a free one. If we choose to embrace the Christian faith, it is presumably, hopefully, because we have considered both the options and the consequences, and made our choice accordingly. Not everyone has, of course; some do it out of fear, some out of inertia. But that's the ideal.

Therefore, I must respectfully disagree with your assertion that "heaven is the very problem." Not so, my friend, not so.

I have other objections to your objections, but I shan't belabor the point. The above must suffice. At any rate, if I have a problem with Christianity, it is its exclusivity -- claiming to be the only way to union with God -- not with the nature of heaven.

Having said all that, I have to say also that I greatly appreciated and enjoyed your essay, particularly Parts II and III, when you actually addressed the book(s). I have read neither, although I am familiar with the contents and concepts contained therein -- and I agree with Harris that "Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about." Rather odd, that.

Nonetheless, this review, overall, tends to confirm my gut sense that reading either Dawkins or Harris complaining about religion would be a waste of my time. I find it in part amusing, in part simply sad, that men of such great intellect would waste it attempting to disprove what cannot be disproved, and endeavoring to convince people who cannot be convinced. That they are operating far outside the bounds of their own disciplines, and thus are unfamiliar with the finer points and nuances of doctrine and discourse, is also usually painfully evident.

Far better, it seems to me, to devote such intellectual energy to finding ways in which believers (of all faiths) and non-believers alike can work together to better our world. That is what is chiefly needed, in my opinion. Should that be accomplished, we might actually have some tea in our terrestrial teapot.