Objectivity is the Language of Heaven

NDErs (i. e. people who have claimed to have had a Near Death Experience) often report that when they go to Heaven, they frequently see and recognize people such as friends and family members. It is often also reported that when they were communicating with friends and relatives, they realized that they weren’t speaking English, but that they were telepathically speaking to one another.

It seems it would be impossible to have communication with others without learning every language that has ever existed under the sun, but since heaven is a perfect place,[1] then communication should be perfect as well. In other words, it seems unlikely that there are barriers to communication. So, I should be able to communicate with the Apostles, upon my arrival for instance, but how? I personally only really know how to speak English fluently. My Spanish, Japanese, German, Russian, Chinese, and Latin is like that of a child, and my Greek is only in reading and writing.

If communication is merely physical, then without physical parts as disembodied spirits, we would have no ability for such, yet we see that communication is necessary in a perfect world with inhabitants other than oneself. Therefore, communication must ultimately be something spiritual. So how could we understand this communication?

What is interesting is that all languages point to specific objects. This is why it is possible that we can communicate. For instance, when we say the phrase, “Excuse me” in English, a native English speaker knows exactly what that means. If the same phrase were subjective in nature, then there would be no communication. For, if “excuse me” meant say, “I eat oranges,” then there may be communication, but inaccurate communication, and in that sense, there may as well be no communication.

On top of this, “excuse me” translates to many other languages. When I travel to different countries, I find that learning this phrase is one of the most helpful things to learn. The reason I know that it communicates what I want it to mean is because the objective nature of the phrase “excuse me” means the same thing in every part of the world. Granted, there might be some cultural nuances, but essentially it is the same. This is because of the objective nature of language. I can know what someone else is saying in both my language, and in another language that is translated because of this objective nature of language. An orange is an orange in every language, no matter what sound is used by the human mouth to describe it, and no matter when in history it is described.

This also means that the Quran in Arabic translates well enough to other languages including English, because of the objective nature of language, despite what those who say that the Quran must be read in Arabic to be truly understood. So, the Quran in English that one reads is essentially the same message as it is in Arabic. The objective nature of language destroys the idea that the Quran can only be truly understood in Arabic.

From all this, it seems that earthly languages are just a reflection of the objective nature of language, or what one might describe as heavenly language. In other words, it seems to me that objective truth is the language of God. As in, looking at all languages metaphysically speaking. I think that being able to wrap our human minds around this as much as possible, helps us better understand who God is, and what He is like.

What is most fascinating here is that God meets us where we are, in that He used human language to communicate His Word to us. He used human language to tell us about Himself. He used human language to tell us that He loves us. When my wife and I adopted our son from India, he didn’t know a single word of English, being a native Punjabi speaker. Through cognitive disequilibrium, I had an idea… On my phone, I had installed an app where I could type something or dictate something into my phone in English, and it would translate it into Hindi and speak it in such. The second night that we had this amazing little 5-year-old boy in our custody, I spoke, “I love you” into my phone and made my phone say it to him in Hindi several times (audible Punjabi was not available). Knowing Punjabi, he also knew how to understand Hindi. Through about 4 layers of language then, I was able to communicate to my little boy for the first time that I loved him. He looked up into my eyes, grew the biggest smile, and gave me a huge hug. I am so thankful that God speaks to us in human language. We too can know from His powerful, and beautiful Word, the Bible, that He loves us. This is what He is communicating to you. Read His Word and understand.

Knowing His love will unquestionably help you discover your true worth and your true identity as a human being.

Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus

[1] See Revelation 21:27.

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Apologetics and Evidence

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