theology i

I give little credence to the notion that heaven promises the stalwart soul pleasance of any species. Scripture impresses us with entering "εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ" hereafter (Μάρκος θʹυεʹ). Paul sees a paradisaical heaven as necessarily uncertain, hardly the paradise one would expect (κορίνθιους β ιβ'δ'). Typology compels the many to believe a world such as that of paradise to greet us having forsaken the blood of Eve. A traveler once told me that he had been navigating the undersides of a massive cavern, the dark underworld populated by boneless creatures whose bodies must then melt into the underfoot. He emerged days later, but having emerged he continued to wander, to treat even the benign miasmas outside as those within, speechless, cautious. He had left the cavern to find but his own blindness; he departed the solitary cavern to encounter the solitude of the village. Just as we cannot know whether we shall enter heaven or not, knowing whether or not we are even in heaven is likewise impossible.