Since the earliest times in human history, there have been continuous efforts at improving this life on Earth in a range of different aspects. Human rights, Sustainability, Health care – the list goes on and on. While these efforts are indeed valiant and respected, one must be careful not to fall into the false promise that can arise from these earthy missions, namely, the idea that we can build a paradise or utopia on Earth.
But let us first define what exactly paradise is – Paradise can best be summarized as something that brings us everlasting joy, that does not diminish. Saint Augustine writes, “That is the authentic life, the set one’s joy upon you [God], grounded in you and caused by you. Those who think that the happy life is found elsewhere, pursue another joy and not the true one. Nevertheless, their will remains drawn towards some image of the true joy.” (Confessions Saint Augustine, Oxford 2008). Often, we get lost in thinking that our joy is caused by material things of this world. But these feelings pass away, but the desire for something more does not.
So let us consider this desire, this quenching thirst for something. C.S. Lewis remarks, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” (Mere Christianity, Harper Collins 2001) When we submit this desire onto worldly things, it often leaves a feeling of hollowness and disappointment. But when we set this desire on the truth, that is God, we find ourselves closer to this feeling of Joy. This problem is something that we all experience as human beings, trying to uncover our inner nature and the mystery of the visible and invisible world. Rev. Antonio Lopez writes in the Introduction of St. John Paul II’s (Karol Wojityla) Person and Act, “The question of our times, as St. John Paul II himself accurately identified and deeply felt, concerns the mystery of the human person. The modern world simultaneously exalts and banalizes the human person. Today, there is, for example, a naïve and exhilarating trust in man’s capacity to master the cosmos and, more importantly, to master his very person through biotechnological means. Such means render him increasingly capable of enhancing whatever he wishes to improve or amending whatever causes him to suffer. Society, work, and man’s relation to other persons – as well as his own sexually differentiated body – are all subjected to a freedom that no longer knows any intrinsic relation to what is truly good.” In other words, because we have become so progressive and advanced as human beings, creating things for our benefit and growth, we lose sense with what endowed us with these gifts in the first place, and spend our time reflecting more on how we can make the world and our people better due to our original thinking, but our ideas and creations are only possible because of God. And when we reflect more on holy things, we always stay centered on our identity and true vocation – namely, giving Glory and praise to God. This then carries over to our worldly thoughts and tasks, forming them in even more constructive and fruitful ways than before.
Saint Ignatius recorded his feelings about this when he compared his worldly and Holy thoughts. When he was thinking about the things of the world, he took much delight in them but after some time aside, he felt dry and discontented. But when he thought about the Saints and pilgrimages, not only was he consoled while thinking these thoughts, but he felt content and happy after setting them aside. (The Discernment of Spirits, Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V. Crossroad 2005)
This desire then, this need to fulfill, is at the heart of man’s inner most drive. When used properly, it can propel one closer to God and his Kingdom in paradise. Saint John Paul II wrote that happiness springs from the knowledge of the truth, from the vision of God face to face, from sharing in His life. (Crossing the Threshold of Hope John Paul II, Alfred A. Knopf 1994)
We cannot make ourselves happy by relying on the short-lived temporary experiences of this world. By doing, this, we only endanger our virtues, our bodies, and our souls. Saint John Paul II brilliantly drives this point home when he writes, “Christ instead says to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish {Jn 3:16}. In this way Jesus makes us understand that the world is not the source of man’s ultimate happiness. Rather it can become the source of his ruin.” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope John Paul II, Alfred A. Knopf 1994)
Almost the entire history of mankind details this continuing failure of man to come to happiness despite the civilization and ‘utopias’ he tries to build and enforce. C.S. Lewis again writes, “Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors that they could be like Gods and invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history – money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery…” (Mere Christianity, Harper Collins 2001)
This is going against the grain and will of God. Yes, it is important and honorable to try to make this world better, but only with the right vision and hope, can we do that. When we focus on getting to Heaven, the improvement of Earth will come as a side effect. When we only focus on creating a paradise here, we get nothing. (Mere Christianity, Harper Collins 2001)
God designed us to run off him, his spirit inside us. Saint Augustine famously proclaims, “…to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” (Confessions Saint Augustine, Oxford 2008) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) dictates, “…by man recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, joy and confidence.” (CCC second edition 2016, ¶301)
God created many things in this world when he made it out of nothingness but nothing more important than man. Man was made in God’s image. The CCC states, “Of all visible creatures only man is ‘able to know and love his creator.’ He is ‘the only creature on Earth that God has willed for its own sake,’ and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is fundamental reason for his dignity.” (CCC second edition 2016, ¶356) This means that man’s final fate is meant to be with God, in paradise so to speak. Heaven is where we are made to eventually go if we inherit eternal life through our faith in Christ Jesus. The CCC goes on, “From the beginning of Christian history the assertion of Christ’s Lordship over the world and over history has implicitly recognized that man should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthy power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (CCC second edition 2016, ¶450)
Adam and Eve lived in this realm of original justice in harmony with God before the fall that led to the stain of original sin of man. It is here that death fell upon man, and with it, a deathly perspective in the world. This perspective does not just take the form of those blinded by selfishness idolatry and cutthroat competitiveness in order to get ahead in the world, but also in the easement and contentedness of the comforts of the World. These comforts are tempting but separate us from God and our chance for everlasting joy in his Kingdom. C.S. Lewis again writes, “If you look for truth you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth.” (Mere Christianity, Harper Collins 2001)
The paradise is not here but in Heaven, where man is with God completely. The CCC fully declares this idea when it discusses the Antichrist’s deception saying, “The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment.” (CCC second edition 2016, ¶ 676).
By Faith, we as persons of God’s creation, respond to God’s revelation and divine will of love and glorification. Faith offers us eternal life. (CCC second edition 2016, ¶ 168). When we have faith on Earth, we further prepare our souls to participate in Jesus Christ’s invitation to also be Sons of God, but in an adopted way, so that we too, may have eternal life. This Eternal life in Heaven with God is the only paradise, as it was always intended to be. The evils of this world will continue to tempt us and attack our faith, but ultimately, we can rest on the fact that God has opened the Gates of Heaven for all humanity who follow his will and Jesus has already won the final battle over Evil, namely by conquering and overcoming death. (CCC second edition 2016, ¶ 671).
We have covered various reasons supporting the argument that there is no paradise on Earth, and that the only paradise is with God in Heaven, and we are on Earth to prepare our souls for eternal life through our faith and glorification of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But how will all this happen? When will the kingdom come upon us that are faithful? The CCC speaks to this when it writes, “The Church will enter the glory of the Kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his Death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from Heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.” (CCC second edition 2016, ¶ 677).
Thus, we as humans united through Faith in his Church, must continue our glorification of God as we live out our lives with the intentions of imitating Christ as best we can, all while the evils of the world surround and tempt us, of which our only defense is the knowledge of the truth that the Kingdom of Paradise has been promised to us if we only follow the narrow road towards Holiness and Purification. Although this road engenders many persecutions here on Earth, if followed intently with our hearts, the rewards in Heaven will be surely more than worth our earthy sufferings and sacrifices.
Bibliography
Augustine. 2008. The Confessions. London, England: Oxford University Press.
Crossing the Threshold of Hope. 2013. Knopf Publishing Group.
Gallagher, Timothy M. 2014. The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living. New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing.
Lewis, C. S. 2012. Mere Christianity. London, England: William Collins.
Vaticana, Libreria Editrice. 2000. Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. USCCB. Wojtyla, Karol. 2021. Person and Act and Related Essays. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Washington, D.C., DC: Catholic University of America Press