Correcting Islamic and LDS Views of Heaven

 



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Islam and Mormonism both began by launching from the teachings of the Bible. But they present two very different errors regarding the nature of God. This has translated into two different errors regarding the afterlife. According to Islamic teaching, Allah (Arabic for “God”) is so holy that nothing in creation shares any likeness with him. According to LDS teaching, God’s nature was once just like ours, and God’s current exalted nature is what every human has the opportunity to attain. In short, Islam emphasizes that God is a transcendent spirit, and Mormonism emphasizes that God is a physical human. Essentially, they are saying that God is like us, or God is not at all like us.

Consider how these views of God impact their concept of the afterlife—heaven. In Islam, heaven is blissful, but it does not contain the intimate presence of God. Even if Allah chooses to have mercy on some people and give them his blessings, he is still too holy to have a deep relationship with them. Think of it like a father who is gone all the time, but he makes a ton of money. The kids get to live in the big, beautiful house with all kinds of toys; they just never get to experience those things intimately with their father. 

In Mormonism, God is thought to be so much like humans that humans can become what God is. The goal would be to learn so much from the father that the father is no longer needed. The child becomes the father and instills the father’s values into his own household. In both cases, it is worth noting that a sense of pleasure is maximized, but it is a pleasure that is absent from God—in one sense because God is too incomprehensible, and in one sense because God is fully replaceable. This is why both faiths notoriously speak of continual sexual satisfaction for the most faithful adherents.

If we are going to be fully biblical, fully Christian, in our understanding of the purpose of the afterlife, we must reject both of the extremes that these faiths represent. We will never replace God; we will never be the nature that He alone is. “[He] alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion!” (1 Timothy 6:16). God declares through Isaiah, “…I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me” (43:10). We also must recognize the centrality of a close personal relationship with our God and Savior. This relationship defines the goal and the bliss of the believer’s afterlife, as Jesus intimately declared to the Father: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Paul’s desire was to share Christ on earth but also to “depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23)—not depart and sleep with beautiful virgins, not depart and take on God’s role somewhere else, not depart and eat at a tasty buffet in a mansion with a posh swimming pool.  

The most genuine, biblical, faithful Christian should not misconstrue the priorities of heaven. If our heart for heaven is any less than the bliss of God himself, then we have missed the mark. Our present life will mimic that tragic error, and we will again prioritize the temporary earthly pleasures instead of the author of all life and joy.  

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