It is striking how often the expressed Christian understanding of Heaven is extremely "minimalist". In other words; the idea is that very little happens in Heaven.
Furthermore, in such a Heaven we ourselves are simplified (by subtraction of all sin).
Heavenly life is thus described very simply; including discarding almost everything most people might most value in this mortal life; such as family and marriage; and our most cherished creative and other activities.
Sometimes, indeed, Heavenly life is reduced to the single activity of communion with the divine.
This sounds, on the face of it, pretty un-appealing - except as a relief and escape from suffering.
The usual answer to such objections is that we shall ourselves by-then have-been transformed...
Such that what seems now to be an aetiolated existence; will, when we are actually in that situation, be wholly satisfying; indeed joyful beyond our current possibility of understanding.
It is probably clear from the above that I - by contrast - regard Heaven in a "maximalist" kind of way; as greatly enriched by more, and continuousness, of broadly the same kind of positive things that are best in this mortal life.
Thus I regard Heaven as a place of more, and more loving, and everlasting relationships - including family, marriage, friendship; and ultimately loving relationships of other forms with other kinds of ("non-human") resurrected Beings such as animals, plants, and natural elemental Beings.
And I regard Heaven as a place of "work" - the best kind of work; that work which derives from creative love.
Which is to say creative work, fulfilling work; work that adds-to, enhances, enriches divine creation.
But to return to the minimalist view of Heaven - assuming (as I do) that it is indeed mistaken, and apparently rather ineffective as a positive inducement; it is interesting to speculate why it arose? Why might people have decided that Heaven must be minimalist?
I think it is partly hinted above, by the idea that after sin has been stripped-away; not much would remain.
Maybe also that it is easier to imagine perfection (which is how some people regard Heaven, although I think this is a mistaken emphasis - because implicitly static) if that perfection is simple?
I think there is also a residue of "historical Gnosticism"; by which I mean the pre-existing (among pagan Romans and Greeks) Neo-Platonism that captured mainstream and traditional Christianity (and not just the recognized Gnostic sects).
This philosophical ideology (permanently) embedded within-itself what might be termed the religion of "Gospel Christianity" by its metaphysical insistence on philosophical concepts as a mandatory framework for Christianity.
(Such as an infinite gulf between creator and created, strict monotheism (leading to the abstractions of Trinitarianism in order to encompass the divinity of Jesus); creation being from nothing (rather than an organizing of pre-existent chaotic "stuff"), and God and the divine world being "outside of Time". There are more.)
Other aspects of this pre-Christian philosophy included a belief that the material was innately evil, and the the purely spiritual was therefore the proper aim; and this led to an ascetic ideal that strove to achieve the greatest possible independence from the material body during mortal life; essentially by subtractive disciplines.
From this perspective, it is natural to regard Heaven minimalistically, and the denizens of Heaven likewise.
And the assumption that the divine world - in order to be wholly good - must not change; probably led to the deletion of sequential Time from Heaven - such that there was neither need nor possibility of resurrected Men doing anything in Heaven. They would simple "be".
(Even the doctrine of resurrection after death, which could hardly be ignored; was transformed into an abstracted, spiritualized, "resurrection body" - which body ended by being hardly regarded as material at all - but instead something more like light than everlasting flesh.)
Of course the minimalist Heaven may include elements of reaction against pagan (and other) understandings of the post-mortal life as simply a continuation and enhancement of this mortal life - with more of our desires fulfilled, and less of the sufferings.
These are seen as wish-fulfilment merely - and wish-fulfilment is not (by such an analysis) distinguished from selfish day-dreaming fantasies (e.g. imagining post-mortal luxuries of sex, feasting and/or fighting - according to taste).
It was probably not until the advent of Mormonism from 1830 that an explicitly maximalist understanding of Heaven (more consistent with the Gospels, common-sensically understood - especially the Fourth gospel) was rediscovered and linked with a metaphysical theology.
This included a focus on marriage and procreation, family life, and co-creative activities in loving cooperation with God the Father - and a "evolutionary" emphasis on divine creation as eternally "ongoing", continuous, eternally being added-to.
Ultimately, as always, this question of minimalist versus maximalist understanding of Heaven, reduces to a question of personal discernment based on the deepest intuition that we can arrive-at. Having consciously clarified our awareness of the alternatives, we each need to decide which are true possibilities, and which we most desire for our-selves.
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Note: This post was stimulated by a comment from NLR at the NCP Blog.
