All we have, and have surely, are the signs of better worlds, the intimations of immortality as Words worth puts it awe, hope, trust, humility, mindfulness, openness, holy fear, the desire to become what we are meant to be, resurrection, re creation, new birth all leading beyond to a reality that is more real than the material reality that we see around us, and infinitely more real than the ironic, postmodern world in which most intellectuals choose to make their dwelling. Demons are there to block the way, some with strange antique names, others with the common names of cynicism and arrogance, where a word such as heaven is a social blunder unless hedged by quotation marks. The contemporary mindset whether in its materialist reductionist or postmodern cynical varieties rejects such intimations, but this book might open minds and unfortify hearts. The usual objections will be raised by persons who do not grasp the inner meaning of the subject and choose not to learn about the varieties of human experience. The Book of Heaven begins with a short, sensitive general introduction that briefly presents the historical, religious, and mythic contexts, Eastern and Western, including immortality, resurrection, and rebirth.
Short introductions preface each section and there is a brief identification of each exhibit.
Although this is a florilegium, not a historical or theological treatise, a few ideas might have been developed a bit. There is a strange tension, in Christianity especially, between the concept of an immortal soul and the concept of the resurrection of the body. This can be read as either complete denial or complete affirmation of the Bodily Resurrection, but it allows no room for the pointless resurrection experience of unbelieving believers. Another perennial problem is which metaphors for heavenly time and space are the most likely, or least unlikely, to be apt. Also needing some discussion, though distasteful to the democratic worldview, is whether a hierarchy exists in heaven.