At a spiritual retreat about 3 years ago, I heard the speaker say that in heaven someone could get a ‘pixie stick’ size amount of love from God, compared to a pool, and compared to an ocean. So, according to this analogy, our capacity for love will differ but God will love us to the fullness of our capacity. Their reasoning was that God gives everyone in Heaven exactly what they need to be fully happy but not everyone has the same capacity for Love.
In essence, everyone’s vessel will be completely filled; thus, everyone will experience ultimate happiness. Sounds perfect, right?
In this line of reasoning, the Saints experience an entire ocean of God’s Love, while the rest of us are relegated to a ‘pixie stick’ size of love (maybe a pool size, if we’re lucky). For all eternity! To make it worse, we’ll be happily content with a ‘pixie stick’ because we were given a fullness of our capacity to love, “i.e.” we won’t know any better.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I think that analogy is terrible and doesn’t truly do justice to what Heaven will be like.
No, the Beatific Vision will not be like the great saints getting an infinite ocean of God’s love and all of us lowly peons will only manage to scrap by on a pixie stick.
I hate that. There has to be a better analogy.
We are all infinite so we all desire the infinite. It is is what we were made for!
While trying to grapple with this problem,I remembered the Mathematical Infinity Theorem (yes– I’m a science math nerd) which states that there are some infinities great than other infinities.
I realized that this is probably a better analogy for what Heaven will be like.
Since God is always the Alpha and Omega and we will share in His Divine nature then we will also share in His infinite nature.
So, in thinking about this I think that we as saints will belong to different degrees of infinity.
Everyone will have a degree of the endless exhaust of God. In Heaven, one saint will not experience less of God than someone else.
Different, maybe, but not less.
Some infinities are greater than other infinities. So, what does that mean about spirituality? God is infinite, Alpha and Omega, no beginning and no end.
As Christians, we believe that if we believe in Jesus Christ, that He died for us and rose for us that He will raise us up to live eternally with Him in Heaven.
If we’re going to be live with Him eternally then we must experience Him eternally.
The Divine Life is lived in us as we grow closer to Christ, so we get to take part in His infinite majesty. We, as Christians, have every hope that transform more of our lives into more of who He is.
In essence, in heaven I will never be able to exhaust my intellect or grace or creativity or wonder because it will always be increasing and deepening.
It would be against the nature of God if I only progressed to a certain extent and then stopped. God does not stop or move backwards, therefore, we won’t either.
Where does math come in?
So, what does math have to do this with? With this mathematical theorem, that extrapolates upon the nature of numbers to infinity, we can make an analogy about the rate of perfection for Saints in Heaven.
Essentially, if we are going to take counting numbers, (0- infinity) 1, 2, 3 so on and so forth that will be able to reach infinity they progress at a steady pace.
Now, if we were to take all 1/2 numbers 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5… etc. to infinity then that will be infinity too but it will be progressing to infinite at a different rate or pace.
Therefore, the infinity from 0 to infinity using 1/2 will always exceed the infinity using only counting numbers. We can break this down even further if we use negatives then that will more than double the amount of infinities and if we use 1/4 and then 1/5, and then 1/6 so on and so forth with each infinity we are increasing exponentially.
Infinities can be counted in an unending assortment of ways, from odd number, even numbers, prime number, irrational numbers, negative numbers, squared numbers, etc. etc. etc. there are differences in infinities.
This is a fascinating concept that, I believe, mirrors our spiritual growth as well. When we get to heaven and we are in front of the Beatific vision one person will not lack compared to another person. I hate the concept of pixie sticks versus pools or oceans, the idea that we will get only a tiny sliver of Heaven is terrible! We will all reach infinity because that is what we are designed to do.
That is why Christ died on the Cross for us, that all of us experience the wonder of Heaven with The Trinity.
St. Athanasius said that, “God became Man so that Man can become God”, meaning we will experience God’s Goodness, Kindness, Wisdom and yes Eternal Nature with him. We will share all that God is because He shared all of Himself with us, His beloved children.
Short answer, it’s possible that our RATE/Degree/Kind at which we delve into infinity may be different in heaven depending on the spiritual needs of each individual person.
God will share all of Himself with us for all of eternity. What more can we expect from a perfectly loving God. If you loved someone truly you wouldn’t hide a portion of yourself from them. Why would we ever suggest that God will give more of Himself to one person compared to someone else?
If anyone is confused abut the math, here’s a handy dandy video by TedEd!
Talk to me about this! I thought it was such an interesting thought! What do you think? I’m I missing a huge blindspot, let me know!
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J+M+J
Joanna Jewell 