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This view of God posits God not as a supernatural being; in fact, God is not a being at all, but an ideal whose proper proportion is uncovered and ever-evolving. Adler's idea of God is far from that of the more conventional notion and some might argue that it isn't God at all. Yet Adler insisted upon his theism, even to the point of not admitting into the ranks of professional leadership those who professed atheism. While in no way possessing human characteristics, Adler's God was also something more than metaphor. However, generally speaking, theism within the Ethical Movement died with Adler. For if God and the ideal were the same it no longer became necessary to speak of God at all but only of the ideal. Adler pointed in this direction when in response to the question, Do you believe in God? he answered yes but that he spelled it with two o's. For Adler not only was God good but God and Good were synonyms. God was Goodness, righteousness purified. The process of purification was a constant task of cultivation, a cultivation of ethics. To live a life of ethical culture was to live the religious life. Even at the end of his life, Adler was referring to an unknown God. Ethics, on the other hand, can be known. Therefore, many conclude, silence regarding the nature of God is the only course to take.

Adler's theology may no longer be held by many today, but the idea that God has a history is a useful and, I think accurate, notion. God has never been just one idea. Rather it has changed over time. In the two bibles we find differing conceptions of God, beginning as a sky god and ending as love. So too heaven has a history.

Just as God and mind cannot be separated, it is my contention that heaven and heart cannot be separated. Heaven resides in the heart's desires, in the depths of human emotion, in the reaches of hope and despair, fears and dreams.

When we ponder God, we often find ourselves asking the question, 'What is God?' This is an intellectual question, as is revealed by the word 'theology' which is the study or knowledge of God. But the idea of heaven doesn't arise from a desire for intellectual answers. It proceeds not out of wonder but instead out of observing the fact that all that lives must someday die. 'What is death?' is not an emotionally neutral question in the way asking about God may be. Perhaps we ask about God because we want to know how life began. We want to know about death because we cannot contemplate our own end and the end of the lives of all those whom we love. While answers regarding the origins of life are speculative, death admits for no such rumination. Death is inexorable and therefore its effects immediate, tangible and unavoidable.

It may well be impossible to imagine our own extinction and therefore we can not image that death is a permanent affair for anyone. Humankind, therefore, has imagined a realm for the dead. However, what that realm is is no more fixed than is God. It too is subject to the flux and flow of forces which shape human life, the successes and failures of cooperative living.

There is great difference in response and desire between the eastern and the western world in this regard. In the east the objective is to extinguish the self as it is known and eliminate the endless cycle of birth-death-reincarnation. Hinduism offers the hope of the soul being absorbed into the All of the universe, while Buddhism holds out hope that the self will cease to exist all together. In either case one hopes that consciousness as it is known on earth will disappear and that the soul will be absorbed into the stuff of the universe. In the west, on the other hand, despite the wide differences in expectations regarding life after death, whatever else one may mean it at least includes the continuation of self-awareness. What we want most of all is that our self continues and that it knows that it is itself.

The Greeks and Muslims

The Greeks held essentially two ideas about life after death. Perhaps the more common of the two was that after death one could enter into the Elysian Fields. This was a place of frolic and play, where the dead are like the living only filled with joy, a place without sorrow or travail, an expanse in which the dead have bodies and enjoy them. This paradise was the abode of the good and the heroes. Homer envisioned this as a plain at the end of the earth "where life is easiest to man. No snow is there, nor yet great storm nor any rain." Plato's conception differed from this more popular one. For him paradise could be found on the Isles of the Blest which existed beyond the furthest stars. Here the soul finds its home in the celestial realm of ideas, since it is the contemplation of ideas which constitutes the highest good for the great philosopher. It is understandable why the Elysian Fields held greater appeal than did Plato's Isles.

The Hellenic idea of paradise is carried into the present day to a large extent by Islam. The Koran explains that there are seven heavens and paradise. In order to enter into paradise, one must pass over hell on a bridge finer than a hair and sharper than a sword. The worthy transverse this obstacle, while the unworthy are tossed into hell. But what a place awaits the successful! It is a paradise of earthly delights where all is pleasure and joy. The Koran is explicit in stating that as the righteous enter heaven they are invited to feasting, music, fine clothing, perfume and beautiful women.

The Ancient World and Judaism

Throughout much of the ancient world people believed that the dead continue on in some form but the world which they inhabit was not always better nor was it always idealized. Frequently, it was depicted as a place without light, a land of perpetual gloom or grayness. While there may no longer be sorrows in such a land, neither was there happiness. The deads+ abode was most often placed somewhere underground. The sky was left to the higher gods.

The dead were transported to a nether world populated with spirits and various types of revenants. Since it is not possible to imagine what it would be like to function but not have bodily function, the ancient belief was that the dead lacked desire but not need. Death also did not put an end to communication. Therefore, the dead needed the assistance of those alive. This was met through the leaving of offerings, ritual slaughters, prayers and supplication. The unappeased ancestor could cause small or great calamities to befall a family. An appeased ancestor, one well tended to, can bring much benefit. The performance of rituals, therefore was critical

. The ancients directed their appeals in two directions: towards the sky gods and towards the underground realm of the dead. The road from heaven above and from the netherworld below was lubricated by food left at the table or by fires lit or thousands of other means all designed as methods of communication.

Judaism arose in the context of the ancient world. In the beginning, it did not substantially differ from the countless other tribal practices of those who occupied the same part of the world. It too had its sacrifices, rituals and prayers directed both upward and downward. But slowly one sky god supplanted all others. Yahweh insisted that he alone was God. All others were false gods in the sense that they were not true, non-existent. As a result, all worship was directed toward him. There was no room for competing sacrifices and there could be no room for a realm of the dead, for if there were it would require its own attention. During this period in Judaism's development all communication with the dead was rejected, all speculation regarding the dead was discouraged and all ancestor worship was condemned. Where before there had been private family ritual practices, all such functions were moved into the temple. The single God demanded a single focus of worship. The populist nature of ancient beliefs was supplanted by the centralized requirement of the temple. Here, at the temple, were found the guardians of the worship of the true god, the only god-the priests. Avoidance of the dead was of such critical importance that the priests had to avoid all contact with cadavers to such an extent that they were even forbidden to attend their own parents' funerals. This practice is still found amongst many contemporary Jews. The descendants of the priestly class (the Cohens and the many variants of that name) to this day are not permitted to attend funeral services. They must wait elsewhere while the mourners weep and honor the dead.

It is during this period that the book of Job is transcribed. This story is revealing for it shows that as a result of all the suffering Job endured without doubting God, he is not promised a heavenly reward but is told that now he will receive "twice as much as he had before" on earth.

The ascendance of Yahweh coincides with the establishment of a successful Jewish kingdom. But as with every other kingdom through history, this one waned. It was ultimately conquered and then subsumed into the Roman Empire. The once proud kingdom of the Jews was reduced to a vassal state. Israel and Judea become colonized and the Jews became a people with a history of past glory. The changing secular climate altered the stance of the religion towards the dead. As the hold of the priests faded and the temple lost its potency, speculation regarding life after death resurfaces. It took the form of Messianic thinking in which there was the promise of the resurrection of the dead at the time of the reestablishment of the new kingdom of the Jews. When Israel is restored, the righteous will be brought back to life so that they may experience for themselves what they did not experience in life, namely, the sovereignty of the Jewish people.

The Messiah arrived for a handful of Jews. They were the Jews who followed Jesus. But for the rest, the Messianic Age did not yet arrive. The Jews were unsuccessful in throwing off the imperial yoke. The revolt of the Maccabees was a short-lived victory. The outcome was, in fact, the tightening of controls by Rome. What hope, then, was there for the expectant righteous? A new answer was forthcoming: although Jews may suffer under the heel of oppression and suffer the injustice of living under imperial domination, the good can look forward to sitting with God after death. Now for the first time Judaism found a heaven fit for people. This idea was outlined not by the nationalists-who continued to maneuver for political independence-but by those who were content to be granted the freedom to practice their own religion without interference. For them heaven substituted for the Jewish state.

With the priesthood in decline and the temple losing its central place in Jewish life, the return from the dead shifted from a communal to an individual post-mortem. No longer did one have to wait for the Messiah, no longer will all Jews return to earth together. Instead, one soul becomes bound up in heaven. However, even at this point there was no description of heaven, only the continuing fellowship with God. The proscription against speculation regarding the dead continued to play a major part in Judaism. In today's world, Jews continue to hold a variety of ideas about life after death, from the belief in the resurrection of the holy in a heavenly abode to an abstract notion of a spiritualized existence. As a religion without dogma, there is no official position.

Christianity

During Jesus' time, Jews held a variety of views of heaven. Christianity takes one of them and intensifies it beyond anything found within Judaism. The early Christians held that upon death there was no waiting for earthly resurrection with one's kin but that the dead were "carried by angels to Abraham's bosom" to a place filled with religious heroes. Heaven was a place for reward for those who follow scripture; hell was a place for the punishment of the wicked.

Heaven was a place for souls. One entered its gates not with a body but with one's spirit. Therefore, in heaven there was no marriage, no sex or any other worldly pleasures. In heaven one experienced the completeness of the divinity. The flesh was defeated and there was the total acceptance of God. Suffering and sorrow were left behind, all the frustration of worldly living were no more. No pain, no misery, no infirmities or illness.

When heaven was visualized, it was portrayed as an idealized Jerusalem. It was a magnificent city in the center of which was a great temple. There were wide avenues so radiant that there was no need for either windows or sun or moon. All who resided there worshipped God completely, basking in his glory, unencumbered by worldly concerns. The redeemed gathered around God's golden throne and sat with Christ in everlasting adoration.

Not long after Jesus' death and the establishment of a new religion, Christians met with the disapproval of many. Perceived as a threat to the stability of state, followers were asked to renounce their faith. Many chose death instead. In compensation for their lost lives in this world, a completely spiritualized heaven was replaced by a material one. Heaven became a place for both the soul and the body. Martyrs did not die after all; they were reborn in heaven. Dying for the faith may cause short-term pain but the eternal rewards were great.

When Christianity was accepted by the state and martyrdom faded into history, the church developed a monastic tradition in which this world is renounced in favor of isolation and total devotion to God. Indeed, the ascetic life was often held up as the ideal, a religious life without compromise with secular concerns. Heaven, at this point, reflected this new ideal. Heaven became, once again, a place of divine light where bliss was understood as seeing God's presence. Since the spiritual life was the highest life one could aspire to, heaven was an abode of spirits, beings without flesh.

The Medieval period slowly supplanted the monastic ideal with that of the state ruled by a Christian monarch and supported by a rigid system of ranks and orders. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that heaven changed again in order to reflect the worldly reality. Here heaven was im agined as a city-state with a court organized around God. In this heaven people possessed various ranks and hierarchy was manifested not only in this way but also by understanding that the love of God was also graded. The ultimate was to experience love purified of all its base elements and bask in God's luminous presence.

For the first time, women began to influence the history of heaven. It was women mystics, often women separated from secular society and living together in communes run by women, who eroticized heaven, giving it a sexual cast that was clear from the diaries and notebooks which some kept. The female heaven of the ecstatic was a place where virgins took Jesus' hand and held his feet. He takes them into his arms, cups their breasts in his loving hands, looks into their eyes with great compassion and kisses them so that they are "elevated above the angelic choirs." Love was now complete in every sense.

The humanistic thrust of the Renaissance brought to heaven a sense of earthly pleasure. No longer was it a place of contemplation because God was no longer the exclusive source of eternal bliss. In fact, this heaven was in reality two distinct places. One was a heaven of God and angels. The other was a heaven for family and friends. The Renaissance reintroduced the Elysian Fields, a place full of conversation where all the senses were intact. It did away with feudal hierarchy. Instead, it was much like the ideal republic state of the Greeks. Heaven was a land of ultimate happiness and that happiness was understood so as to encompass corporeal pleasure.

The Protestant revolt against the excesses of the Church also meant a more spiritualized notion of religion. Reflecting this attitude, the Protestant heaven did not make room for eating or drinking. There was only the contemplation of God. However, unlike the Medieval heaven, there was no rank, for it was a place purified with God's presence. Yet this sanitized heaven retained a few elements of the Renaissance picture. This heaven, while devoid of appetite, was filled with beautiful, natural things. There were plants and animals and wonderful fragrances. The body did not smell. But there was no family, as the objective was the contemplation of God. The Protestants also maintained a radical separation between this world and the next. There was no communication. The deceased went up but could not come down.

The Modern View

The emergence of modern times also meant the creation of a new heaven. Now life after death begins immediately. There is no waiting period, no purgatory. It is not a place of contemplation, ecstatic or otherwise. Rather it is this world without its flaws and problems. In it people keep their bodies, have families and enjoy themselves in the most benign but pleasurable way. The Mormon visitors center in New York City illustrates this nicely in a display case showing a wife, husband and child blissfully walking hand-in-hand in heavenly paradise. It is aglow with peace, tranquillity, good feelings and uplift.

The latest development in heaven appears to be the blending together of western and eastern ideas regarding the hereafter. New Age religions seem to take the idea of an all-embracing consciousness of which each person is a part, along with the idea that this consciousness is reincarnated. The reward for conquering the ills of the body and society by the exercise of the mind over the body appears to be a blissful existence at least on this earth and perhaps in heaven after death. This is combined with the belief in the wisdom of the earth, so that nature is elevated while artifice is denigrated. Paradise is then imagined much as it is in Quaker paintings-a place of lush vegetation where no animal is a carnivore.

My View and the Ethical Movement's

Personally, I do not accept the duality of the mind and spirit, body and soul. I believe in the singularity of existence. Therefore, when we die we are dead for all time. There is no returning, there is no going on in any form which resembles the consciousness which is me. Death is the end of self-awareness. I had none before I was born and I will have none after I die. My material self will be transformed and I will enter into the elements of the universe.

Consciousness begins with the body. It develops because we have both brains and a nervous system. The mind is to the body what the light is to the bulb, i.e. it is of the bulb but it is not the same as the bulb. When the switch is turned off, the light goes out. It doesn't hide somewhere else, it doesn't become something else.

When I think about what heaven might be like, I am thrown into imponderable problems. If heaven does not allow me to know that I am me, then even if there is a heaven it makes no difference, just as if I had a former life but can't remember it, it is irrelevant to me. So heaven, to be meaningful, must contain awareness. But awareness of what? Is this the awareness that I presently have, will have at some future point a complete and total awareness of everything that is, was and will be? Do I have a body or not? If I do not, how can I think without a brain? And if I do, do I still have desires, urges and itches? If I do not, what good is the body? If I do, then there must also be desires, urges and itches that go unsatisfied? Will I find happiness alone or with others? Which others? Will it include even those I can't stand? To whom will I relate? At what age will I be? Will I be a child to my parents and at the same time a parent to my children? If I am widowed, and remarried with which wife will I be? What about those people whom I love but have no interest in me?

Each of us can probably create a long list of such questions. Obviously, the answers can never be satisfactory. This leaves me believing that heaven is a metaphor and sometimes even a useful one. It points to an idealized resolution to the desires, dreams, fears and follies which plague us all. It shows us how we envision ourselves to be if only it were possible to achieve. But I do understand it to be a sort of psychic screen upon which we project our most profound wishes. Heaven is not, therefore, something found and independent of the human condition. We make it for ourselves; it is not given to us upon death.

I can no more prove my position than others can prove the existence of life after death or the nature of heaven. I adopt it because it seems to me to be more consistent and coherent with all that we know about the world we inhabit. This is not to say that we presently know all that can be known. But it is to say that I cannot believe something simply because I wish it were true no matter how strong my yearning. I come to know the world by accepting some things as real and dismissing others as wrong or flights of fancy. I am content to live this way for I think it is useful and correct.

The Ethical Movement is agnostic on life after death in the same way that it is agnostic regarding the existence of God. We choose to leave it aside and concentrate instead upon what good we can do here with our fellow beings. Confucius summarized our point of view when he said, "We don't know yet about life, how can we know about death?"

The point of view of the Ethical Movement is also captured in this story about Abraham Lincoln during his first campaign for Congress. One Sunday he attended a preaching service. He sat with the congregants who were enthralled by the evangelist. Then the preacher called up all those who wished to go to heaven to stand up. Everyone rose but Lincoln. The preacher looked over the congregation and said, "All those who do not wish to go the hell stand up now!"

Still Lincoln sat. The minister peered over the lectern, "I am grieved to see Mr. Lincoln sitting back there unmoved by these appeals. If he doesn't want to go to heaven and he doesn't want to go to hell, will he tell us where he does want to go?"

Lincoln rose slowly and answered, "I'm going to Congress."

Most of the historical material in this article taken from Heaven - A History by Collen McDannell and Bernhard Land, Yale University Press. 1988.