No sentences in heaven

Stanley Fish thinks that, if there is an eternity, it has no sentences.

It is the inevitability and shadow of death that provides life with a narrative arc, and provides moments in that narrative with a meaning; for the meaning of a moment - its distinctiveness - is a function of the place prepared for it by a past and the place waiting for it in a future that has (again, like a sentence) a terminal point. We say to ourselves, "Yes, this is where it was all leading" or "This is the beginning of something that will, I hope, flower." Without the specter and period of death, there would be no urgency of accomplishment, no expectations to be realised or disappointed, no anxieties to be allayed. Each moment would bear an equal weight or equal weightlessness . . . Significance would not be in the process of emerging, sometimes clear, sometimes not; rather, it would be evenly distributed and therefore not be significance - a concept that requires that some moments stand out - at all. In short, there would be no sentences*

I do not share his certainty, and, though I was at first beguiled by the romantic notion of life's narrative arc, it is frail comfort for those who mourn. One thing I am sure of is that eternal life will be good. And perhaps our experience of time will not be so wholly different to what we encounter now, for it will be this earth and heaven recreated, not something other. I like to think that there will be sentences in heaven, but if there are not, then in their place a jewel of greater seriousness and pleasure will be given.


*How to Write a Sentence, 2011, page 154.