First, God is aware of what’s happening on earth, but heaven is not diminished. Also, angels know what’s happening on earth and the torment of hell, but their knowledge does not prevent them from enjoying heaven or negate their joy in God’s presence in heaven (Revelation 14:10). After Abraham and the beggar Lazarus died and went to the intermediate present heaven/paradise, they saw the rich man’s agonies in hell, but their knowledge did not cause paradise to cease to be paradise (Luke 16:23-26). Although Christians will not be able to go to and see hell, these passages establish that Christians’ knowledge of bad things happening on earth and loved ones in hell will not ruin heaven for Christians.
Second, Christians in heaven are not frail beings whose joy can only be protected by shielding them from being aware of bad things happening on earth and loved ones in hell. Their joy and happiness in heaven are not based on ignorance, but on seeing things from God’s perspective. Christians will know for certainty the God has taken every factor into perfect consideration and know that God’s judgments are completely right and true according to God’s perfect love and perfect justice. God will banish people to hell and endorse the choices they made because they spurned the relationship with God that could have been theirs. While people now view reality through the opaque lens of mortality, Christians, will see and understand things as they really are in heaven (1 Corinthians 13:12). Christians in Jesus’ presence in heaven find joy in seeing God and living as righteous beings in perfect fellowship in a sinless environment. The joy of heaven will be so great that their former trials, tribulations, and knowledge of loved ones and friends in hell will be overtaken by heaven’s new order reality in which love, righteousness, and justice forever prevail.
Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Carol Stream, IL; Tyndale House: 2004), 65-73, 72-23; Randy Alcorn, Heaven: Biblical Answers to Common Questions booklet, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 34-36; Hank Hanegraaff, After Life: What You Need to Know About Heaven, the Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2013), Hank Hanegraaff, After Life: What You Need to Know About Heaven, the Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2013), 33-36.
First, humans have free will. If humans are only physical and material beings, free will would not exist. Instead, all our choices and actions would be determined by factors such as brain chemistry and genetics. Also, humans could never be held accountable for their choices and actions. Love would also be meaningless. Rather than love being an act of free will, love would be fatalistically determined by physical processes. In addition, humans recognize that their identity and soul continue as their personal identity over time. Therefore, humans are legally accountable for their actions even if microscopic particles of our body change over time. Finally, the mind is not identical to the physical brain because the mind and the brain have different properties. The brain is objectively physical and takes up space in the skull. The mind and mental states, however, are nonphysical, do not exist in space, and are private and subjective. A neurosurgeon maybe able to observe synapse firing in a person’s brain, but the neurosurgeon could never observe the personal subjective mages in a person’s mind. Therefore, humans are not merely material beings. Instead, the mind and soul are immaterial and separate from and most likely survive physical bodies after death. Gary R. Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), chapter 2; Hank Hanegraaff, After Life: What You Need to Know About Heaven, the Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2013), 74-75.
This objection is a sad objection because not believing in life after death is living without hope and meaning in this life and after death. Christians have hope because they believe that God’s love was fully demonstrated by Jesus’ sacrifice of his life on the cross for the sin of everyone who believes, trusts, and follows Jesus so that they can have an eternal relationship with Jesus and other believers/trusters/followers in heaven. Even though people may suppress or deny the truth of life after death, God has put within everyone a sense that life on earth is not all there is. “He (God) has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). Everyone has this inner conviction that death is not the end because everyone has been made in the image of God. Just as God is eternal (Isaiah 57:15), everyone senses that they must be eternal and live forever after death.
There are many credible reported near death experiences. See the NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES and the DEATHBED & RELATED EXPERIENCES subpages of the “Is heaven for real?” page of this website for a discussion of the scientific studies of credible near death, deathbed, and related experiences that confirm these experiences are clear and convincing evidence of the afterlife.
Some Christians have written books about their subjective near death experiences that are generally conflicting and wildly divergent accounts of the afterlife that appear to be informed by their preconceptions. In addition, they tend to hyper-literalize their reported firsthand accounts and observations of heaven and hell and are often predisposed to interpret the Bible in an overly literal manner. Instead, the imagery of heaven in the book of Revelation and other books of the Bible are not intended to describe what heaven looks like, but rather are intended to describe what heaven is like. Finally, God set the conditions about new revelation. God spoke through the Bible in the New Testament as confirmed by those who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, with the death of Jesus’ apostles, there can be no new revelations, much less new revelations that compromise, confuse or contract the Bible. Accordingly, God urges Christians to “defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people” (Jude 3 NLT). See Hank Hanegraaff, Afterlife, 3-10.
Jesus has not yet returned to this world because God is patient and wants to give everyone an opportunity to know and have a relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, by repenting of their sins, placing their faith and trust in Jesus as their spiritual savior, and following Jesus as their spiritual leader or Lord. Specifically, the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV). Jesus will return to conquer evil and establish his rule over the world, but until then, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Mathew 24:14). God urges Christians to anticipate Jesus’ return, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20 NKJV). Although Christians should not predict the specific date that Jesus will return because only God knows when Jesus will return, Christians should serve God as faithful and wise servants and watch out and be ready for Jesus to return (Matthew 24:36-51; Romans 13:11-12).
Billy Graham, The Heaven Answer Book (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 163.