There is no one in heaven who prefers his own self-interest to the will of God. Everyone in heaven wants God’s will to be done, whatever that may be. Therefore, for us to share God’s life means He must give us a way to become sinless, that is, for our personal sins to be forgiven, and also for us to be purified of the desire to sin. We need to be, in a way, rewired, so that we naturally prefer God’s goodness to our own self-interest.

What is not possible, is a kind of agnostic way, whereby for all eternity, we might exist without God, but satisfied and happy. The reason for this is that whatever is Good, True, or Beautiful is God Himself. There is no Good, True or Beautiful thing that exists without God. As a matter of pure logic, then, if we do not have God in eternity, we have nothing Good, nothing True, and nothing Beautiful.

The mystery of our life here on Earth is that God hides Himself, to an extent. Thus it is possible in our lifetime to experience things that are Good, True, and Beautiful, apparently without God. We can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are able to create things that are Good, True, and Beautiful by ourselves: by our own power, by our own intellect. But even that creative instinct, is itself God’s gift.

God hides Himself in order to be found. If the existence and activity of God were so blatantly obvious that no one in his right mind could deny it, two catastrophic consequences would ensue: (1.) we would no longer be free to choose God, and (2.) we would no longer be able to be redeemed. The hiddenness of God is the precondition for freely choosing Him. It goes without saying that you cannot force anyone to love you; it has to be a choice.  But for it to be a real choice, we must be free. That means we must also be free to reject God, and reject God forever.

The hiddenness of God is also our one defense: because God is not overwhelmingly self- evident, we can be excused for failing to see Him for as long as we are alive. The angels who rebelled against God have no such defense. They know full well that God is the source of all that is True, Good, and Beautiful. To deny it has eternal consequences, and the very possibility of redemption is a contradiction in terms. There is simply no time in eternity for a change of heart.

For some, then, life on earth is the closest they will ever get to eternal happiness. By God’s mercy, they are able to experience Truth, Goodness, and Beauty every day. For others, life on earth is the furthest they ever get away from God. That is a curious paradox: the very thing that causes distress to the saints is the closest that those who are not in God’s friendship ever get to Paradise.