So, this post is for a bit of fun.
It’s been argued by some that eternal life will eventually become unbearably boring and repetitive. The problem lies in the fact that if you literally live for an infinite amount of time, not only will you eventually do absolutely everything that can possibly be done but you will ultimately repeat everything that can possibly be done an infinite amount of times. The boredom would become so severe that every subsequent endlessly repeating experience would amount to a form of eternal torture. The theory goes that eventually heaven would be little better off than hell. So as Christians who believe that we will one day become immortal and spend an eternity in heaven with the Lord, how might get around this problem? Or rather, how might God, since really there’s not much we have to say in the matter.
Possibility 1: Maybe there is no time in heaven.
It’s possible that eternity doesn’t mean an infinite length of time, but rather that in eternity time does not exist. If God created time, then He must exist outside of time. He experiences time differently than we do, or rather, He doesn’t experience it, because He’s not inside it or limited by it. If there is no time in Heaven, then there is no perception of repetition or boredom, one thing doesn’t happen before another, nor does the same thing happen at a later time, because, there is no time to order these things. There would be no difference between having just arrived, or having been there for 9 trillion years, because years are measures of time, and don’t exist without it. It’s nearly impossible for us to comprehend what this would be like, having lived our whole existence within time, but if this is the case maybe God will give us the ability to make sense of this when we arrive. If there is no time in Heaven, then the way that we experience events in eternity may never result in what we think of as boredom. The main challenge I find here is that all descriptions of heaven in the Bible seem to describe a place where time continues to exist. Personally I don’t subscribe to this theory, rather I think that it’s more likely that a combination of the following two will keep us eternally interested.
Possibility 2: Limited memory.
There’s no reason God needs to give us the ability to store an infinite amount of memories in the brains of our new, resurrected bodies. And if it would eventually make things tedious to us, why would He? For example, let’s say God gives us the ability to recall 1,000 years worth of memories, but let’s say there’s 1 billion years worth of possible experiences and things to explore and learn in heaven. In that case even if we did many of the same things over and over again, they’d still seem new because we wouldn’t remember the last time we did them. God need only give us enough memory capacity to remember what we need to and continue to enjoy heaven for eternity. Of course the third option renders even this limitation unnecessary.
Possibility 3: God is infinitely interesting.
This is not so much a possibility but rather a fact. The argument that we’ll get bored assumes that there is a finite amount of things to experience or learn. However we understand God to be completely limitless. Given an infinite amount of time I believe we will still find new, surprising wonderful things about God that we never knew. God’s infinite power and creativity means that He can keep us infinitely interested in Him.
So personally, I think that heaven will never get boring because God is there, and heaven is all about Him, knowing Him, serving Him, worshiping Him, coming to understand Him better and yet never fully comprehending Him. It’s about watching the amazing things He continues to do, and better understanding the incredible works He has already done. It’s about participating in all manner of activities centered around and proceeding from Him. Perhaps He continues to create new worlds full of new experiences in order to display His creativity and help us understand His character. Perhaps He continues to do new and surprising things, or give us new and exciting challenges in our service to Him. I don’t know exactly, but it’s impossible to ever get bored when Heaven is literally an opportunity to know our infinite Lord, something that by definition can never be fully completed, and must therefore be endlessly fascinating.
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
John 17:3