In the comments of the first post about sex in heaven, someone left a comment that, in part, said this:
I guess the problem I have accepting your logic is that I don’t think we will still be human in heaven. I don’t think we’ll have human bodies (or human appetites)…we will be changed. It’s possible that we won’t have bodies, as we know them, at all…it really is interesting to think about though.
Well, I believe we will absolutely be human. I see no indication in scripture that we will be anything else. Christ’s own resurrected body, which could be touched, was touched, which could eat, shows us, I think, that there’s a basic parallel between the body that dies and the body that rises again. Jesus’ resurrection gives us a foretaste of what our own glorified bodies — yes, bodies — might be like. I’m not saying we’re going to be gods. We’re not. There’s just one of those. (An aside: I’ve never understood the polytheistic belief systems. I mean, just how many gods do you need? If your gods are all-powerful, you only need one, right? And if they’re not, then they’re not gods, right? I mean, wouldn’t that contradict the meaning of a “god”? Eh. Sorry. Just a thought that rattles around my brain from time to time.)
I am saying that we will have bodies, though. Glorified bodies. Sweet, hot, lovely bodies. Again, God created them, in all their glory, and as Peter Kreeft says in his essay I referred to in that previous post, “God may unmake what we make, but He does not unmake what He makes.” By that thinking, God made our bodies and will not unmake our bodies. That our bodies will be glorified, incorruptible, yes, that’s a biblical notion. That we will forever be little floaty things, no, that’s not.
Honestly, does heaven sound heavenly to you if you’re just a little floaty thing? Does heaven sound heavenly to you if you’re forever neutered?
I don’t think so. If I’m just floating around as a spirit for all eternity, then I lose something essential in the transition from earth to this “alleged” heaven: I lose the ability to touch and to feel the touch of another. Think about it. Think about never being touched again. That’s a horror to me, not heaven. I don’t just mean sexually. Think how innate that is to us, that sense of touch. Touching a child’s cheek, running your fingers through your hair, holding a hand. These are so simple, so natural to us that we barely think of them when we do them. But take that away, that touch, render us eternal vapors, and this “heaven” is a place of loss, which, by definition, heaven cannot be. We were created with corporeal bodies — male and female — BEFORE the Fall ever happened, so we must conclude this design we have is part of God’s original plan, and that we will be tangible, touchable, as Jesus is forever tangible and touchable.
We may be improved, but we won’t be changed. In our natures. I will be a woman with big glorified boobs. (And woo-hoo on that.) You will be who you are. With your deep dimples or your grey eyes or your perfect butt. We will be able to see each other and touch each other and know this one as a man and that one as a woman. Would you WANT it to be another way? If you’re someone who wants to be a floaty thing (I borrow that phrase from the long-since-eaten Timothy Treadwell, mad at the “little Hindu floaty thing” that made it storm all around his tent one night), perhaps God will accommodate you, but I imagine people would miss you. The palpability of you. They would miss seeing you and touching you and holding you. Your face, your eyes, your smile, unlike all the other faces and eyes and smiles in heaven. People would miss that. Think of the people you love, then think of all of you in heaven floating around, amorphous, forever unable to see or touch each other. That’s not heaven. That’s loss. That’s grief. And even if you, as a newly minted floaty thing, could see the other floaty things, who cares? You’re a floaty thing. You can’t touch. You can’t feel touch. You can’t eat. You fly and float and can fit through keyholes. Wow. Neat.
And, you know, if MB wants to be a floaty thing in heaven, I am going to be royally pissed. I need the feel of his arms available for me forever.
But, really, I don’t think that choice will be open to us, The Floaty Thing Option, because I think the resurrected body of Jesus should be our model. His body, not his deity.
As to our human appetites, well, again, we will still be human, so I don’t see those disappearing. Being transformed, yes; disappearing, no. I’m distressed at how many people I’ve talked to about heaven think we will be something entirely alien in heaven. That you will not recognize yourself. That you will not recognize others. That you won’t want to eat. That we will all suddenly be monks and nuns. Christians believe that heaven is “home”; that once there, we will sigh and say, “Yesss” because we’re finally where we belong. That some primal unplayed chord in us will finally finally be struck and we will feel a sense of release. We will be in that place that only flickers at us now, in the tiniest glimpses, for the fleetest of seconds. Sometimes, here on earth, heaven peeks through. In a child’s smile. In the sound of a cello. In an evening of laughter with friends. In the feel of flesh on flesh. It will be the ultimate deja vu, but it won’t be a fleeting moment; it will be forever. We will say, “Ohhh. I know this place. I know this place.” Feeling a sense of familiarity and belonging, I think, includes feeling a sense of familiarity and belonging in our own forms and appetites. I will be in a glorified body, but I don’t think I’ll flip out at what that looks like and how it functions. I think it will be better, not different. My appetites may be purified, but I don’t think they’ll be different, either. I think it’s the difference between being improved and being altered.
And human appetites for, say, food and sex are not sinful. They can be corrupted and perverted and abused, but they’re hardwired into us, are they not? We were created with them, right? Did we learn to want orgasm, for instance? To be blunt, do we usually think when we see a toddler playing with his penis it’s because he saw it on TV? Nope. Unless Sesame Street is a LOT freakier than I remember.
We will be as we were created to be — before the Fall. That includes bodies. That includes male and female. And that includes desiring sex. All of these will be glorified, so, no, I don’t know HOW they manifest, just that they will.
The God who created our amazing bodies turns them into vapors? I don’t think so. The God who created male and female clays over our fancy bits? I don’t think so. The God who created eros love denies us that forever? I just don’t think so.
Not in the heaven I’m hoping for, anyway.
