THEOLOGICAL INTERACTION PAPER

Theological Interaction Paper



Theological Interaction Paper

Introduction

I have never been able to see how heaven looks like and what is the experience of going in there, what I could do is tell what has been written and told in Bible about heaven. The information available over this is very limited, in terms of detailing. That is the reason I have been very intrigued by the tales and stories of people who have been claiming that they have an experience of heaven and they came back from there. In today's world, there is no lacking existing for the book being published by the writers who claim that they were able to heaven. I remember I saw Heaven, this is a book that was published in some early 90s. It served as my first exposure to such genre of books. Recently, there have been other books of this genre that have been making it quite big: 23 minutes in Hell, The Boy Who came back from Heaven and 90 minutes in Heaven. The mentioned books have been topping the lists of best sellers, everywhere.

The most recent book that has been found topping the best seller's lists is Heaven is for Real: A little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to heaven and Back by Todd Burpo. Thomas Nelson has published this book in 2010. The book is almost over 150 pages.

Evaluation of the Book

I have frequently said that experience, left unchecked, is the most compelling and powerful source of theology. Once is able to have arguments over evidences, facts, logics, and the like, but it is considered near to impossible for having an argument over subjective experiences (Burpo, 2010). Even though, if our experiences are coming in direct opposition and disagreement with the scriptures that have been interpreted correctly, the scriptures would always be winning. This is what is meant by sola Scriptures. The scriptures are considered as the only and final source of authority that is infallible. It is supposed to be the norm that has not be normed ever. However, it is not believed to be a discounting experience. Nor it is saying that God has not been using the experience for confirming his truth to the people who are worshiping him. We are required to tread with such types of thing very keenly and opt neither for complete dismissal nor outright acceptance.

The Events

Keeping into view my theological concepts for a few moments, there are a few words that I would like to say. As there has been nothing in the book that has been described as impossible or that is contradicting out rightly with the scriptures, there are a lot of things that must be kept into view which are not able to square with what is supposed to be a real heaven. Firstly, one must be able to distinguish clearly between the existence of new earth and intermediate state (both of which are usually termed and called as “heaven”) (Burpo, ...