My wife and I had an interesting discussion last night. We had just finished reading "The Last Battle," the last of a series of children's books by C.S. Lewis. In the finale, everyone ends up in Aslan's country (heaven), and lives happily ever after. Lewis describes the weather, and one can imagine a perfect spring day: 70 degrees, sunny, clouds but not too many, the air is warm but the lake water is cool, etc. He mentions that the mountains, being larger than any on earth, and therefore higher, have no snow on them. This led us to several thoughts.
I can imagine being from England Lewis knew how tired of cold and rainy weather the children were. Their perception of heaven no doubt included lots and lots of sunny days. Heaven is without sadness or dissappointment of any kind, which would for most people exclude muggy weather.
Not only sunny weather is beautiful, however. Thunderstorms are incredible to watch from the safety of the front porch, even though we know they can be deadly. Snow skiing would not be much fun without snow, while the thousands of broken limbs and several deaths every year attest to its danger.
Part of the beauty of creation is the scope of power demonstrated. Every natural entity, be it desert, mountain, storm, calm, universe, planet, or whatever, is in some form or fashion beautiful. OK, so all of God's creation has beauty, even the destructive forces of weather. But...is the destruction evidence of God's wrath and therefore separate from the beauty, which is evidence of God's power? Will tornadoes in heaven not be destructive at all, just beautiful?
Is bad weather on earth just evidence, or a reminder, or even perhaps an action of God's wrath? In heaven will we be able to ride tornadoes and appreciate only the beauty, without fear? An answer of no implies that there will be things in heaven we can't do. (To that I say, if you're going to spend eternity some place, there better not be a finite number of things to do. It would eventually cease to be heaven, and become hell.)
I believe it was Lewis who came up with the illustration about descibing heaven being like describing a color to someone who has always been blind. You can't, and maybe one will receive new senses in heaven that, like a blind man, we can't understand. If this happens, will we keep the senses we have now?
If we do, how far does each spectrum go? Extreme cold can kill you instantly, but obviously the same won't be true in heaven. Will we "feel" it without the pain? Will we be able to experience absolute zero or "hotter than heck" in peace? Or will there even be a thing that we would call "temperature"?
I can imagine being from England Lewis knew how tired of cold and rainy weather the children were. Their perception of heaven no doubt included lots and lots of sunny days. Heaven is without sadness or dissappointment of any kind, which would for most people exclude muggy weather.
Not only sunny weather is beautiful, however. Thunderstorms are incredible to watch from the safety of the front porch, even though we know they can be deadly. Snow skiing would not be much fun without snow, while the thousands of broken limbs and several deaths every year attest to its danger.
Part of the beauty of creation is the scope of power demonstrated. Every natural entity, be it desert, mountain, storm, calm, universe, planet, or whatever, is in some form or fashion beautiful. OK, so all of God's creation has beauty, even the destructive forces of weather. But...is the destruction evidence of God's wrath and therefore separate from the beauty, which is evidence of God's power? Will tornadoes in heaven not be destructive at all, just beautiful?
Is bad weather on earth just evidence, or a reminder, or even perhaps an action of God's wrath? In heaven will we be able to ride tornadoes and appreciate only the beauty, without fear? An answer of no implies that there will be things in heaven we can't do. (To that I say, if you're going to spend eternity some place, there better not be a finite number of things to do. It would eventually cease to be heaven, and become hell.)
I believe it was Lewis who came up with the illustration about descibing heaven being like describing a color to someone who has always been blind. You can't, and maybe one will receive new senses in heaven that, like a blind man, we can't understand. If this happens, will we keep the senses we have now?
If we do, how far does each spectrum go? Extreme cold can kill you instantly, but obviously the same won't be true in heaven. Will we "feel" it without the pain? Will we be able to experience absolute zero or "hotter than heck" in peace? Or will there even be a thing that we would call "temperature"?
