April, thanks for stopping by. Love to hear more about your thoughts on learning in heaven. I haven’t really heard too much about that.

Love your thought about Mother Teresa. I can’t even imagine how many would want to speak with her

Thomas, interesting thoughts. I think you bring up great questions about mind/body relationships. I suppose capacity is primarily referencing the mind in this case. I’m not too sure of what kind of new body we would receive. Have you reached any conclusions?

If the levels of enjoyment don’t correspond to our physical enjoyment of Heaven, but relate to an appreciation of God, then wouldn’t a differentiation in the experience of God be a limiter on the self-revelatory capabilities of a divine being? If Paul is truthful in I Corinthians 13 he looks forward to a time where knowledge is replaced with perfection, could we then therefore say that the experience of God will change over time in Heaven?

Nevertheless, scripture does seem to indicate that there is greater honor (for lack of a better term) afforded to those who got the best head start on eternal life in their earthly bodies. If N.T. Wright is correct that work is done in Heaven because work existed in Eden, then might this be a more accurate place to understand different levels of enjoyment?

I love that you are talking about heaven. When God tells us to set our sights on things above, I think he wants us to have some sort of understanding (even if it’s not the full knowledge of) what we are setting our sights on. And I grew up, sadly, with a MISunderstanding of heaven. I am grateful God has been gracious enough to show me otherwise.

I definitely agree and believe we enter heaven with different levels of knowing/experiencing Him — based on how we experienced him here on this earth. And it seems to me his command to ’store up treasure for ourselves in heaven’ might further back up your post. Why else would it be important for us to ’store up treasure,’ through obedience, if it didn’t have some sort of impact on eternal life and how we experience it?

I also believe in heaven we will continue to learn and grow. (Which, I am HUGELY excited about.) So my thought is: even though we enter heaven with our different understandings, we could grow in our depth of knowledge and understanding, while living on the new earth, to know God in the same way as, say, Mother Teresa.

You happened to hit on a topic, I LOVE to talk about — albeit, my understanding is still growing and being shaped. Thanks for your post!

And as an aside: I would love to talk to Mother Teresa once in heaven to hear her thoughts. I’m aware she forged through much darkness in her interior life that few were privy to while she was alive. I would love to hear her wax eloquent on the freedom she is experiencing now that it’s gone.