The resurrection of Imagination in Heaven

Resurrection is not just a matter of bodies! - because life everlasting is about more than bodies.

The created world is made of Beings (and parts of Beings) in relationships - Heaven is characterised by that relationship being Love (such that the creativity of Beings in Heaven is harmonious because of love - as the love within an ideal family coordinates the disparate activities of that family).

The resurrection of Jesus implies that to be resurrected is a superior state to being a spirit. This fits with a view of the world that sees the beginning in Beings all as spirits, and (with incarnation) spirits becoming more concentrated and bounded by bodies (by solidity); so that they may become more separate hence free, and potentially agents of independent creation.

But spirit and body are on a continuum; a difference of degree not kind. This means that Thinking is potentially a material, as well as spiritual, process. Such is clear from the fact that this (including material) create world of ourselves, other persons, the earth; is permeated by the Thinking of God.

Resurrection is possible because we are eternal and indestructible Beings - we transform throughout time while remaining the same Being; we are linked by our lineage, 'the same self' by the continuity of our descent from our former selves, back forever.

So, through time, our eternal self will always remain. At biological death the body drops away but the self is eternal; and that of the self which remains after 'death' includes everything that is eternal - includes, therefore, whatever is Heaven-compatible that we have created through our mortal lives. 

As far as the body goes, resurrection is about making that body eternal - self-renewing, indestructible etc. But our Being potentially goes beyond our body; and includes imaginations, memories, creations and the like. These are a part of our lineage, aspects of our Being - therefore may be resurrected insofar as they are compatible with Heaven (and its harmony of Love).

The process of resurrection would therefore be supposed to reconstitute, in an eternal form, whatever of our earthly, mortal lives (whatever is characterised by loving creation) that will be compatible with - will enhance - the world of Heaven. 

I presume that Thinking in Heaven is greatly enhanced; and encompasses the full spectrum between spirit and matter. Like God, we will be able to create by thought - by extension of our Being; shared with others by Love; these creations may be eternal - and they may be solid and material, as well as abstract and spiritual.

What can only be subjectively Imagined on earth, may become objectively, even solidly, real after Resurrection.   


NOTE: JRR Tolkien's allegorical short story about the afterlife, Leaf by Niggle (first published in 1945 - text available here) is a vision of how this might be. Niggle is a painter who (after a period in Catholic Purgatory) finds himself living in the reality of the paintings that he could only imagine in mortal life. Furthermore, this paradise also includes aspects of Niggle's neighbour's practical abilities as a gardener - and the two men become great friends and collaborate on further creating their imagination, in a solid objective and permanent form; which others can share, and from which they can benefit.