A Rough Guide to Heaven, Paula Gooder - St Paul's Forum

Dr Paula Gooder discusses her latest book 'Heaven' and takes a close examination of what the term means and how we should approach the concept. Part of the St Paul's Forum series of programmes held at St Paul's Cathedral, London.

[@suziparkes9938]

I continue to enjoy your insights into the Bible now even after your trip to Darwin Australia. Still enlightning and easy to understatnd. Well done Paula and God bless. Suzi Parkes

[@sergeauclair9175]

I thank God for what you do. Very helpful to find out what the Bible really says. I totally love and agree with the mention of silence as this is, I believe, the ministry our immense Lord wants to achieve through me. Bring people to get that prayer is not a monologue but rather a dialogue where we mostly listen to his silence. That's, based on my experience, THE major game changer in our "spiritual" life. I also discovered Mr. N.T. Wright who is highly relevant in my training as an evangelist. Suggestions about other reliable sources are welcome. Keep-up your great work! I have a Facebook page if this can be useful. SA

[@johnanyaogu5654]

God bless you Paula

[@mil.gan4mil.gan431]

Good and clever girl. Enjoyed it, thank you.

[@StPaulsLondon]

@meknight77 Thank you for your comment, and we're glad that you enjoyed this very thought-provoking talk. The reason the audience were cut out of the recording is because we did not record adequate sound from the audience, so they would not have been audible if we did leave the footage in. The best efforts were made to condense what was said into meaningful questions (if not verbatim, as some of them are).

[@turbopro10]

@38:27 "we should begin with the theological ideas that lie behind the words..." 'Ay, there's the rub...' leave alone that to engage this call by the noble theologian, one must admit the premise that there are theological ideas, i ask: how do we come to a common understanding of those theological ideas? as i see it, we arrive not at a common understanding, but rather we arrive at understandings severally--many, many sundry understandings. so, which understanding shall i admit is the understanding that the Christian God intends to communicate to me?

[@thestudyofchristianity]

6:30 Very Interesting

[@isaiahbunya5205]

Nobody can argue with the bible no matter what disagreements or thoughts or feelings they might have about it!

[@Sportliveonline]

round and round and going No where

[@IRBDATF]

Dr. Gooder, I am part of a tradition that teaches death as sleep and that we will be part of a New Heavens and New Earth, the home of the righteous. From my understanding of scripture (and ever learning!), our future hope is not about what happens when we die, but what happens to us when we rise. As Christians, we are resurrection people. Particularly in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul basis everything on the resurrection, not death. He does so to the point of mentioning that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then those who sleep have perished. If the dead are conscious somewhere else already at death then he never would have had to say that and in my opinion, there is no need for a resurrection of our bodies. Christ returning for the living makes sense, but if we have already gone to our reward I see no sense of a resurrection of the dead. I am also aware of my own fallibility and could be wrong. If I am then we simply will begin eternity sooner than later. I will be part of it either way because I have put life in Christ's hand and am appreciative of him being the atoning sacrifice for my sins. By the way, one more point, if scripture is the final authority of what we believe there is one other thing that I have observed. There is not one instance that I am aware of in the Bible of anyone who was ever raised from the dead ever talked about what it was like. Not one. You would have thought that they would have said something like -- It's great! Better than you can ever imagine! Not one.

[@calebsanchez4429]

11:00 13:42 - Science fiction

[@renateschober7579]

Rev. Paula, this is an animated presentation. A few points: 1) Yes, understandings of cosmology and our world have changed. It would be helpful for you to consider not only changes in cosmology but innovation in other areas of science. Surprisingly, the stories of people with near death experiences are not included in this analysis; nor is the question of "what is consciousness"; there are interesting publications on this topic relevant to your work that you may want research and think about. Reducing the concept of heaven to our understandings of cosmology and the bible seems insufficient. 2) You suggest we "think of a heaven that fits into our cosmology and world". You conclude that heaven is spatial, created right next to earth so God can be close to us. It is unclear how this view fits in, for example, with the expanding universe, the "God" particle, or views that we live in more than a 3, 4 or 5-dimensional world. 3) Good point to say that heaven is about engaging with God who wants to be close to us and the world. A God who engages with us is a "relational" God - God is in relationship and connects with us both spiritually and socially. Just to point out, your theological research would have identified some of these views. 4) Overall, the analysis of heaven is logically argued but based on a small and select number of tenets. The work would benefit from improved analysis of "modern knowledge" and contemporary scientific understandings of the world in which we live. NO FURTHER POINTS ARE NOTED HERE (BUT COULD BE NOTED). All the best on this fascinating area of study.

[@LuvBorderCollies]

I would take the testimony of people who've experienced heaven and/or hell, rather than any theologian. All of these folks have multiple videos on KZbin. Dean Braxton, Ian McCormack, Bryan Melvin, Howard Storm to name a few that I trust.

[@StephenHolland]

LuvBorderCollies Sorry but then you're a fool. if u think sum1s so called experience of heaven or hell is real ur thoroughly gullible. just as the best selling author(the boys parents) admitted wen he grew up, it was all lies. he made it up. the Bible (God's Word) is all i need to know wat heaven is.

[@chloepresley2000]

I think it's interesting to hear real life stories and the words of theologians. Considering that no one actually knows all we can do is ponder and wait til we get there!

[@chessgeek10707]

Gooder is calling for a new set of vocabulary to describe heaven, kingdom, or eternal life. She is calling for something on the order of what Tertullian has done in describing God in light of the New Testament revelations; he developed words like "Trinity" and "Persons" in order to be able to talk about the relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yeah, a vocabulary set to describe His kingdom would be helpful, wouldn't it? The Church doesn't pretend to know what the eternal life with God looks like, but this void is leaving many to imagine for themselves what that eternal life is like. Jesus himself was aware that the kingdom is something beyond man's ability to comprehend. Thomas Aquinas had a vision shortly before his death and how his work, the treasured "Summa Theologica", was "straw" in comparison. I like how Gooder picked up on the shallowness of the word "spiritual"; many theologians note how it is used as a way to describe one's privatized, watered down religion. To describe heaven or the life eternal is like trying to describe God himself. Gooder also dwelt on the idea that the spirit is not divorced from the body. We know that the end game is that we as members of the Mystical Church join in a life grafted onto the Trinity (i.e. "community of persons"), preserving our individualities/personhoods yet united with Christ Incarnate in one body called the Church. We are spiritual and corporeal (bodily). Gooder picked up on how we should think about our bodies, and it reminds me of the teachings of St. Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body". Thank you, Dr. Gooder!

[@paulbrinker6143]

,,

[@lindaschwartz5719]

Jay Kay n. S

[@mansonandsatanrock]

so if heaven is supposed to be right above the earth, and we have already gone into space, therefore it doesn't exist.

[@mansonandsatanrock]

if it is not visible than it cannot officially qualify as existent unless any frequencies can be captured from it, or so.

[@chimichangacharles]

+Tyler Jaclyn by "visible" I think you mean "observable." Obviously we cannot see frequencies, but we can observe them with the right instruments. Before we had these instruments, did frequencies not exist? If we never had these instruments, would frequencies not exist? If a tree fell in a forest and nobody was there to hear it... you see where I am going with this.

[@chimichangacharles]

+Tyler Jaclyn Did you listen to the lecture?

[@mansonandsatanrock]

chimichangacharles I see what you are trying to say, but that's flawed logic. By the same logic you could say that anything exists. I am religious but not Christian, in fact mine is one of the few atheistic religions that exist. Although I am interested in learning about mythologies and other religions.

[@chimichangacharles]

Yes, by that logic you can hypothesize anything! Exactly! That does not make the logic flawed. That is why scientists can posit new theories, because they realize not everything is observable at the present moment. In fact, if there is a transcendent creator (which I believe there is) it would not be observable within the system it created. That is a contradiction in itself. The Creator would have to reveal Itself to the system. If you are interested in studying religions, then I really suggest you do not discount them out of the gate before actually understanding the tenets of their belief. You did not seem to understand what Gooder was trying to say. She does not believe in a firmament outside which God lives. She is saying that that is what ancient cosmology looked like. Christians do not have to adopt ancient cosmology to in order to believe in a Creator. I highly suggest looking into John H. Walton's theories on Genesis if you really are interested in studying ancient mythologies and religions.

[@Irunwithscissors63]

Sorry but when you take the biblical flat earth out of the equation, then you aren't looking at the subject of heaven from a biblical perspective. And the heaven (singular - not plural) is the sky above us. The second and third heaven are in a different dimension. How dare you say that our world and the biblical world are different. 'Let God be true and every man a liar'

[@StephenHolland]

Romans 8:11 it is plural in Hebrew. Genesis 1:1

[@sebolddaniel]

What about the passage in John where Jesus takes his apostles out into the desert, points to the Andromeda Nebula up there to the left Casseopeia, and says: "There are a half a trillion suns in that nebula over there, ten percent of which are just like our sun and which have planets just like Earth with sentient beings living on them.". Ok. Well,. Giordano Bruno said that in 1600 and the Church put him to death for it.

[@frankfeldman6657]

Isn't it absurd to think that HUMAN writers-the ones who wrote Genesis, and the guy who wrote Revelations cause he was mad at Nero centuries and centuries later are saying anything uniformly coherent/consistent about heaven? It seems an absurd assertion, an immediately dismissible assertion.

[@sebolddaniel]

Funny Jesus never said anything about the Hubble Constant: sixty-eight kilometers per second per megaparsec. The Son of God surely knows about this.