© 1998 Meredith Sprunger
© 1998 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
The March 24, 1997 Time article “Does Heaven Exist?” broached a subject about which ministers and theologians have very little to say. David Wells, a theological professor at Grodon-Conwell Theological Seminary, observes, “I don’t think heaven is even a blip on the Christian screen, from one end of the denominational spectrum to the other. The more perplexing question is, What explains this?” (p. 73)
The basic answer is that very little specific information about heaven is given in the Bible. The Book of Revelation has some episodic descriptions that make little rational sense to the contemporary mind. Many in the early church did not accept the Book of Revelation as part of the canon, and the Reformation theologians had a low opinion of the book. As a result theologians, in the main, avoid talking about heaven. Nevertheless, the question of life after death is a major concern of humankind. Is there a spiritual reality after death, and if so, what is its nature?
As we have repeatedly observed in these columns, The Urantia Book confirms, enhances, and enlarges the basic spiritual realities of the Christian faith. But perhaps its greatest contribution to Christianity and all other religions of the world is its revelation of universe spiritual cosmology, its eschatology — “heaven.” The picture presented of the spiritual cosmos, including life after death, parallels and even surpasses the gigantic material cosmology modern astronomy is discovering. Our progressive spiritual growth through the universe to Paradise is the most inspiring description of “heaven” in religious literature. It is a view that makes rational sense and rings with spiritual authenticity. The people of the world are hungering for the expanded “Good News” of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. It is destined to transform our confused and stumbling planet into a world that understands and rejoices in the clear vision of our spiritual destiny.
"Reason, wisdom, and faith are man’s highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into a world of divinity, spiritual experience.
Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of truth." (UB 103:9.6-7)