A war in heaven

[kedo1981]

A war in heaven

The B I B L E states that there was a war in heaven, I’ve assumed that this is where the “fall of Satan” took place blah blah blah.
So when all gods people are called back yonder, say the first 10 million years everyone gets along fine and dandy, but what about after a billion years or a trillion, will there not be some nastiness creeping in. How many billions of years will it be before another war happens. Eternity is a very long time.

 

[St_Hereticus]

I think that's an excellent question, kedo! I wish I'd thought of it.

It seems that this Heaven that the Christians rave so much about, and claim will consist of eternal bliss, isn't so blissful after all! If there can be war there, then presumably there can be other forms of unpleasantness as well. In an actual eternity of time, anything that can happen, will eventually happen. So I wonder, just how often do these wars occur?

 

[ceo_esq]

Taking a few theological premises as true (without which the question makes no sense anyway):

I suppose that an omniscient God, having simultaneous knowledge of the past, present and future of heaven, could tell whether a second war (or, indeed, any sort of sin) in heaven would henceforward occur. Presumably Christians construe the biblical assurance that heaven will be a state of eternal bliss as based on divine foreknowledge.

I think this is why Christians believe that both the unfallen angels and blessed people in heaven are somehow forever fixed in their sinless state (though not in a causal sense, as they are presumed to retain free agency).

The premise that anything that can happen will happen (given enough time) strikes me as flawed.

 

[Yahweh]

A war in heaven

The B I B L E states that there was a war in heaven, I’ve assumed that this is where the “fall of Satan” took place blah blah blah.
So when all gods people are called back yonder, say the first 10 million years everyone gets along fine and dandy, but what about after a billion years or a trillion, will there not be some nastiness creeping in. How many billions of years will it be before another war happens. Eternity is a very long time.

... remember the movie Evil Dead: Army of Darkness... its alot like that.

 

[ImpyTimpy]

But then one must ask, if God was in fact able to see present, past and future why did the said God allow the first war to occurr?

Also the idea that something must occur if given eternity to do so, is sound - after all, you're giving it eternity to happen

Taking a few theological premises as true (without which the question makes no sense anyway):

I suppose that an omniscient God, having simultaneous knowledge of the past, present and future of heaven, could tell whether a second war (or, indeed, any sort of sin) in heaven would henceforward occur. Presumably Christians construe the biblical assurance that heaven will be a state of eternal bliss as based on divine foreknowledge.

I think this is why Christians believe that both the unfallen angels and blessed people in heaven are somehow forever fixed in their sinless state (though not in a causal sense, as they are presumed to retain free agency).

The premise that anything that can happen will happen (given enough time) strikes me as flawed.

 

[ceo_esq]

But then one must ask, if God was in fact able to see present, past and future why did the said God allow the first war to occurr?

Also the idea that something must occur if given eternity to do so, is sound - after all, you're giving it eternity to happen

I've no idea why the said God would allow any war in heaven to begin with, but the fact that he knew about it isn't formally inconsistent with letting it happen. Angelic free will would presumably figure in the Christian response.

Now I'm more intrigued by that eternity premise, especially if one presupposes the existence of God. Do all theoretically possible scenarios become necessary ones when you factor in an eternal timescale?

 

[ImpyTimpy]

Hence the christians are screwed, since sooner or later a war in heaven will occurr.

I would also say yes, all things are possible given the timeline is eternity, since the time limit for it's occurrence is infinite, furthermore, at some point things will begin to repeat (there is only a finite number of ways you can lay out all the atoms and their positions/etc).

I've no idea why the said God would allow any war in heaven to begin with, but the fact that he knew about it isn't formally inconsistent with letting it happen. Angelic free will would presumably figure in the Christian response.

Now I'm more intrigued by that eternity premise, especially if one presupposes the existence of God. Do all theoretically possible scenarios become necessary ones when you factor in an eternal timescale?

 

[Yahweh]

But then one must ask, if God was in fact able to see present, past and future why did the said God allow the first war to occurr?

Also the idea that something must occur if given eternity to do so, is sound - after all, you're giving it eternity to happen

Ask enough Christians and they'll tell you all sorts of things. An example might be "God is testing our faith to see who really has Jesus Christ in their hearts". But of course that kind of logic and is completely irrationalized. War happens because of a number of reasons: Human ignorance, human differences, etc. There is nothing supernatural about war.

By the way I think holy wars rank among the most ignorant notions a human could have ever conceived. What ever happened to tolerance... oh, I forgot, tolerance isnt an option is it?

 

[TexasBEAST]

Of course whether or not there was ever a war in the sky ("heaven"; shâmê; ouranos) depends on exactly where in the Bible you choose to look. Ha Sâtân ("the Attacker") was still a good-guy m'lâk (divine messenger; "angel") in the book of JYob ("Job")--long after the Creation and the Flood and the Sh'fâtîm ("Judges") and M'lekîm ("Kings"). But once wave after wave of foreign invaders come through and make a few cultural alterations here and there, by the time we get to the New Testament, we hear of the fall of Satanas from the sky. (The doctrine of "the Fall" and all the duality of divinity and the afterlife stuff is just a rip-off of Parsi Zarethustrianism, after all...)

But anyway. As spurning of school, fondness of superstition, and suspension of disbelief (as well as dignity) are clearly the prerequisites for salvation in the first place, obviously there will never be any pesky upstarts in the Afterlife. They will all be either too stupid or too cow-tailed for that! If they had had any balls, they would've never agreed to become a doulos wo KHristos ("slave for Christ") the first time around.

 

[ceo_esq]

I would also say yes, all things are possible given the timeline is eternity, since the time limit for it's occurrence is infinite, furthermore, at some point things will begin to repeat (there is only a finite number of ways you can lay out all the atoms and their positions/etc).

1. Many physicists think that the mass of all the matter in the universe is not enough to halt the expansion of the universe, which (according to that theory) will expand literally forever. If that's true, then all manner of theoretically possible things will never happen even though the time limit for their occurrence is infinite. In particular, the configuration of the physical universe will never repeat itself.

2. For the sake of argument, wouldn't an omnipotent God be able to eternally prevent certain things from happening (for example, if he desired, could he eternally prevent another conflict from breaking out in heaven)? If not, why not?

 

[Dub]

This is a bit off-topic perhaps, but it's just something i first thought of when I saw the post. If soliders go to heaven, would they still want to fight eachother? Perhaps that's whats started the war in heaven

 

[ImpyTimpy]

1. Many physicists think that the mass of all the matter in the universe is not enough to halt the expansion of the universe, which (according to that theory) will expand literally forever. If that's true, then all manner of theoretically possible things will never happen even though the time limit for their occurrence is infinite. In particular, the configuration of the physical universe will never repeat itself.

That's pretty much what I thought of as well.

2. For the sake of argument, wouldn't an omnipotent God be able to eternally prevent certain things from happening (for example, if he desired, could he eternally prevent another conflict from breaking out in heaven)? If not, why not?

But then as you pointed out, it might violate the free will or some other clap trap

Face it, Christians in heaven are screwed.

 

[Beleth]

But then one must ask, if God was in fact able to see present, past and future why did the said God allow the first war to occurr?

That's the difference between omniscience and omnipotence - just because you know what's going to happen (omniscience) doesn't mean you can do anything to change it (omnipotence).

 

[Dancing David]

As a long time player of D&D, the first thing I thought about was a war I refereed between the Greek and the Norse dieties. They both were equal in power but the Greeks had a plan and so they kicked butt.

Back to your regularly scheduled program...

 

[jj]

Once again.

I think the best place to speculate about this question is 'To Reign in Hell' by Steven Brust.

I liked it, almost as much as I liked "The nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch"

 

[ntech]

JJ's signature
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Interesting Ian --
You complete idiot. You really must be as thick as anything if you think I'm irrational. What about the scum of the earth such as BillHoyt, jj, Diamond etc??? What sort of idiot could call them rational?
___________________________________

Oh man! You made II's hate list. Well, congrats! Great sig.

 

[gnome]

I would also say yes, all things are possible given the timeline is eternity, since the time limit for it's occurrence is infinite, furthermore, at some point things will begin to repeat (there is only a finite number of ways you can lay out all the atoms and their positions/etc).

I just wanted to point out that it is true given infinite time and finite configurations, that some repetition must occur. However, it does not lead from that that everything must repeat. I can demonstrate it with a mathematical example if you are interested.

 

[triadboy]

Of course whether or not there was ever a war in the sky ("heaven"; shâmê; ouranos) depends on exactly where in the Bible you choose to look. Ha Sâtân ("the Attacker") was still a good-guy m'lâk (divine messenger; "angel") in the book of JYob ("Job")--long after the Creation and the Flood and the Sh'fâtîm ("Judges") and M'lekîm ("Kings"). But once wave after wave of foreign invaders come through and make a few cultural alterations here and there, by the time we get to the New Testament, we hear of the fall of Satanas from the sky. (The doctrine of "the Fall" and all the duality of divinity and the afterlife stuff is just a rip-off of Parsi Zarethustrianism, after all...)

Wonderful thoughts. I agree. I believe the change came in Babylonian captivity. And the entire bible (OT) came into fruition at the time of King Josiah. (I believe his priest was Ezra "Oh look, I found a new word of god!")

 

[CapelDodger]

From triadboy:

Wonderful thoughts. I agree. I believe the change came in Babylonian captivity. And the entire bible (OT) came into fruition at the time of King Josiah. (I believe his priest was Ezra "Oh look, I found a new word of god!")

It seems unarguable to me that a whole new religion was formed during the captivity and taken back to Palestine as "True Judaism". Not only does that fit the Biblical story but it would be odd if it didn't happen. Judaism only became monotheistic at this time. So the source of the War in Heaven is surely Babelonian or Persian. Is it also present in Islamic mythology?

 

[TexasBEAST]

So the source of the War in Heaven is surely Babelonian or Persian.

I'm pretty sure it was the Persians. Zarethustra. I had never heard of any major transition away from polytheism in Babylonia. But I could be wrong.

(Bâb Il: "Gate of Deity")
Bâb Ilani: "Gate of Deities"

What would a war in Heaven be fought with? Do angels shoot lightning bolts at each other? Or do they resort to fisticuffs? Can you, like, rip out a piece of crystal from the sapphire walls of the New Jerusalem Temple and, like, stab somebody in the heart with it? If you're immortal and everything's perfect, then you can't die--so, can you feel any pain in such a war?

If not, then why didn't the angels just ignore that pesky Satan the first time around?