As It Is in Heaven
Some Christian Questions on the Nature of Paradise
- Theology
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
The loss of a real and heartfelt belief in God--and by "real" I mean an experience that is both steady and moving, ethereal though down-to-earth, sentimental but never trite--comes from an earlier more foundational loss, namely that of an ardent and directed desire for heaven, and more specifically, that paradisal longing for the resurrected life. This book seeks to recover the neglected nature of heaven, degraded into something "out-there" and unknown, degraded further into a vague wish for immortality and the often empty words of consolation. Or even worse, the almost comic book reduction of heaven to an earthly social(ist) paradise, the immanentization of the Christian eschaton. The vague "better place," which is meant well, often means nothing at all, or worse than that can hamper us when approaching and engaging the mystery of grief. This book will address and interrogate various questions about the nature of the afterlife--on the status of guilt, forgiveness, friendship, love, embodiment, sexuality--and propose various paths to answers. We are talking about that sacred innermost promise: the hope of paradisal reunion most secret and yet most universal, never abstract and shapeless, but embodied and individual. We must wonder whether our casual forgetting of this estuary of human hope, the resurrected life, has caused us to lose ourselves in such a way that we do not even know what we have lost.
Endorsements (3)
“Smith Gilson’s book provides a treasure trove of philosophical reflections on human life, death, and life after death. . . . The philosopher, the theologian, and indeed the serious-minded believer will all benefit from sustained engagement with Smith Gilson’s work. I highly recommend this book for anybody who thinks seriously about human life and its persistence after death.”
“This remarkable book offers consolation without saccharine shortcuts. It explores how our failures in love anticipate hell and how the richest experiences of earthly life . . . anticipate the life of the world to come. Rigorous and poetic, speculative and practical, this is a book not only for philosophers and theologians but also for clergy, spiritual directors, and counselors. Indeed, it is a book for all those . . . living in the shadow of death.”
“Do not be fooled by Caitlin Smith Gilson’s self-admonition as a ‘novice in grief.’ Her approach in As It Is in Heaven fulfills the task of a philosophical Virgil, adeptly guiding us through the wounded non-experience of the death of the other. Gilson argues that not only does the loss of heaven reflect the diminished status of the powerful hylomorphic body-soul union but it nullifies our embodied hope in the resurrected state, as well as culturally dislodging Christianity.”
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