One Foot in Heaven
What does it take to get into Heaven? That’s one of the big questions for the Christians. As a matter of fact, if you look at it a little more expansively it’s their biggest question. The more expansive look would be to assume that what it takes to get into Heaven is to please God, and therefore, asking what it takes to get into Heaven is asking what it takes to please God. What question could be bigger to one of the faithful?
I was thinking about that, but somehow I got my thinking all turned around and started wondering instead, what is Heaven? See, I was wondering what made it worth it. If someone is not naturally inclined to do those things that would get them into Heaven, what would make it worth going against their nature? And, conversely, might there be aspects of Heaven that would make someone that does, by their innate nature, do the right things, prefer not to get in?
Take Hitler’s mother. What if she had been a really good person and wasn’t at all at fault for the way her son turned out? Say she had lived a good life and was a cinch to get into Heaven, but didn’t want to spend eternity without her son. Could God really allow her to go to Hell just to be with her son? Surely it would be cheating to put an imitation of her son into Heaven to be with her, but wouldn’t it be even worse to let him into Heaven just because she needed to be with him? So aren’t these mutually exclusive choices both wrong? And what if you extend that out? Say Hitler’s mother was just a little bit responsible for the way he came out, but her mother (Adolph’s grandmother) needed her in Heaven to feel at home there? Would that make enough difference to get Hitler’s mom in, but not enough to get Hitler in? And then what would the cutoff be? And would grandma be allowed to leave after she got in when it turned out that her daughter was enough to blame for how Hitler turned out that she wasn’t going to get in no matter what?
I tried explaining this all to God, but he just told me that the mortal mind really wasn’t capable of understanding what Heaven really was, let alone where the line was for what would just barely get you in.
I think that boils down something like when Hitler’s mom would say to him, “because I’m the mom and I say so.”
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