To get the most out of this thought experiment we’re pretending that a) God is for sure real and b) Heaven is for sure real and c) the whole Christian story is more or less real. Let’s begin.
Will there be free will in Heaven? You may have never entertained this question before. You might just think the answer is ‘of course’ and leave it at that. To me, it’s a fascinating one that causes a paradox of faith, in some regard. Let’s explore some of the ramifications of this question.
Okay. So why does it matter?
Why didn’t God just take away our free will on earth so that we’d all praise him the appropriate amount and make it into Heaven? From my standpoint I’d prefer to have free will compared to not having free will but I’d really super prefer to not spend eternity writhing in agony. If the whole biblical narrative is correct I think I’d be like, “Hey, God. Go ahead and force me to praise you for these few decades on earth if it will help me avoid endless torment later. That’s fine with me.” But God doesn’t want this because he wants us to “CHOOSE” to praise and love him, not be forced.
I’ve heard it argued that free will is an important part of the way God set everything up because he doesn’t want a bunch of zombie ants praising him because they’re forced to.
He wants real humans praising him of their own volition (lest he cast them into eternal damnation, but that’s getting sidetracked).
Irony. Stop. No. moving on.
So it’s important that free will exists because otherwise, God couldn’t be sure that we really love him. Fine. So for argument’s sake, we’ll say free will is indeed a thing that exists on Earth at the present.
Also, Heaven is a thing that exists.
In Heaven, there is no sin, no suffering, no sickness, etc. It’s just a really great time. This also poses no problem. Moving on, nothing to see here.
Except! No sin in Heaven would mean there’s no free will. Disagree? How can we have free will in Heaven but NOT have the ability to sin? If we cannot sin then we don’t have free will. At least that’s how it works on earth…and also logically. If we don’t have free will then we’re back to being a bunch of zombie ants mindlessly praising God. But he doesn’t want that, which is the whole reason we have free will on earth.
It’s a paradox.
One solution to this is that you CAN sin in heaven, but you’ll quickly be kicked out.
Similar to how Satan and his angels got kicked out of Heaven.
If we go down this line of thought then we quickly realize it won’t take very long before everyone messes up and subsequently gets kicked out of heaven. If heaven really is as tough to get into as the Bible seems to indicate then there will already be far more souls in Hell than Heaven and if Hell is a one-way pit that you can’t escape and Heaven has a constant trap door under your feet then on a long enough timeline we’ll all wind up in Hell anyway.
I imagine almost no Christian is comfortable with the idea that Heaven is a trap door that we’re almost immediately going to get kicked out of.
If with free will each and every person messes up and sins pretty much immediately—which is the whole reason we need Jesus to come as a sacrifice for our sins—then it would make sense that we’d all mess up and sin in Heaven. But Heaven is supposed to be a sinless place. I’m having trouble rationalizing how we can both have free will in Heaven and have it remain a sinless place.
Another option is that Heaven is indeed a sinless place and once you’re in you don’t get kicked out and we just simply don’t have free will once we’re in heaven.
I think almost every Christian would agree with the first two points a) Heaven is a sinless place and b) once you’re in you can’t get kicked out. I’m guessing most Christians would recoil slightly at the idea that there’s no free will in Heaven.
We like the idea of free will because nobody wants to feel like we’re being forced in praising God. The idea that there is no free will in Heaven is problematic because ostensibly it was very important for God to give us free will so that we could choose whether or not to follow him. So, wouldn’t free will also be important to have in Heaven?
We’re only alive for at most 100 years so it seems odd that it’s super important for free will to be within our cognitive ability for those years but then it to not be important for the next 17,000,324,211,543,125,768,343,002 years. I mean, right?
Option Three: We have free will in Heaven… and we’re allowed to finally sin, guilt-free!! WEEE
The only way to get around the whole conundrum is if God finally just lets us be wild filthy monkeys and sin willy-nilly once we make it inside the Pearly Gates. I mean, sin is kind of just this made-up thing anyway so I suppose God could just decide sin itself no longer exists. Finally, we can do whatever we want and it’s no longer considered a sin. Kind of like how God can just do whatever he wants and it’s not a sin because God did it and God doesn’t sin.
Feel like wiping out the entire human race with a flood because they’re doing this thing you made up called ‘sinning’ too much? No problem. Genocide on a global level is not a problem because you’re God and God is without sin.
This does open a new can of worms. Why would God make such a big deal about sinning on earth only to let the whole thing slide once we get into Heaven?
Free Will on Earth
I’m personally more on the Sam Harris train that we don’t actually have free will at all. It seems like we do. It feels like we have it, but we really don’t. Assuming I’m wrong and we do have free will I don’t see a way for the biblical Heaven and Hell narrative to factor it in unless God is a lot looser with who gets in and he’s more okay with people sinning once inside the gates of Heaven.
My personal belief is that if God is real and Heaven is a thing that exists then he is either letting all of us go to Heaven—because Jesus died to cover all of our sins—or he’s kind of a major dick and created a whole planet of people knowing that a good percentage of them were going to writhe in agony for eternity.
If it is the case that God created a bunch of us knowing that a good percentage would writhe in agony for eternity then I’m comfortable in my belief that he’s not a good God. I think if it’s theoretically possible for God to exist in our universe (or outside of it…however you want to picture it is fine) then I think there is no guarantee that the God of our universe is good.
If he’s sending people to Hell, he’s not good. He’s a dick. That being said, I don’t think God is a dick. So, I don’t lose sleep over the idea of free will in Heaven because I think if God is real at all then he’s probably a good guy and a good guy wouldn’t send everyone who doesn’t praise him to hell.
Then again, a good guy wouldn’t care if people praised him. What kind of a narcissist would even want that? I’m really hoping people completely obliterated the intended word of God because if God is anything like we’ve been taught he’s got some serious little man syndrome and could probably have used a brother or sister to play with so he didn’t grow up thinking he was the only thing that mattered.
So what do you think? Is there going to be free will in heaven? If so, can you get kicked out? Is there something about this paradox that I’m missing?
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