The word we must focus on now is relief. You see, if one were to be in Heaven, without the knowledge of Good and evil, then one would be of flawless virtue and bliss. One would not know the extent of Goodness in which they are experiencing. It is the relief of escaping from the emptiness (that calls itself evil). We must recognize that there is nothing but Good. There is no such duality as Good vs evil, for evil is just a word that those godless creatures use to substantiate themselves. Evil is truly nonexistent. As Albert Einstein stated, "Evil is the absence of God", just as shadow is the absence of Light. The godless creatures try to claim that evil is of substance just as Good is of substance as to claim some sort of duality between the two.
II
Men have always asked the question, "Why did God give us the option to eat the fruit?" You see, in the beginning, Adam and Eve were unaware of emptiness. They had everything given to them by God, and had no knowledge of what we call "evil". When the serpent asked Eve a most simple question, he brought a notion into Eve's mind. That notion was that there was a will separate from God's; her own. It was the recognition of her will separate from God's will that was the knowledge between Good and evil.
III
To experience Heaven, one is required to endure a life of pain and trials. Just as the success of any obstacle relies on previous practices, so does the experience one might have in Heaven. God gives us many practices in life for this. Because we have gained the knowledge of Good and evil, and now recognized everything as either Good or evil instead of what He intended (Good and empty), God has created a system for us to battle this knowledge. He has separated Good and what we call evil into two categories: Virtue and vice.
IV
Because evil is simply the absence of Good, we must realize that Virtue is fulfillment, and vice is simply the absence of that virtue. As Love and fear are virtue and vice, they are opposites. God gives us relationships to practice this virtue. As a person ignores their fear by emptying their Love into another person, that person must rely on the Hope that the other person will return that Love. Hope is a practice of Faith. Of course, these practices sometimes fail, and sometimes succeed. It is necessary for them to fail at times that we might feel pain. Pain is necessary for when the process does not fail, we feel relief. To feel the relief of fulfillment (virtue); the relief from the emptiness (vice), is to experience Heaven. To feel the regret of sin (vice), the regret from leaving grace (virtue) is to experience Hell. As C.S. Lewis says, we can experience a bit of Heaven and a bit of Hell on Earth.
Great spin on Good and Evil.. as Heaven and Hell do exist on earth.. we are given the roads of choice.. some will know more hell than heaven or heaven than hell.. sometimes it is not a choice.. this was very good for your age and gives great food for thought.. keep it up!
I disagree with your denial of duality. I think any adjective such as "good", even "good" used in the moral sense, has to be measured in degrees, and the English language provides us with words to measure the degrees directly above and below the degree described by that adjective. Thus, "good" is nothing without an "evil" to compare it to, and to say that the concept of evil never existed until Eve chose to eat the Forbidden Fruit is like saying that the concept of heat (relative to cold) never existed until we discovered fire.
Your other persistent theme was that of relief, and it's one that I've thought a lot about and basically agree with you on. The fact that we are condemned to measure the extent of our bliss by the difficulty of our trials has always depressed me a little, and I personally think humanity would be a lot better off, at least in times of trial, if we approached things the other way around (with our level of voluntary bliss determining the extent of our pain). However, as I'm sure you'd agree, human nature is incorrigible.
This isn't a BAD start, but it's often meandering, and redundant. You have thoughtful ideas, and I can commend any writer for taking a philosophical approach to fiction, but it would behoove you to smooth this preface before going any further.
Again another AMAZING piece! It really explains that the Lord is willing to give us a piece of heaven, and that is to have an everlasting relationship with him.
Hence the gift of freewill. Without the freedom of choice we would be in what we learn as Lucifer's plan. This being the "vice" to that of God's plan. Freewill is the gift of choice and reason, which we take upon ourselves to judge what is good for us or bad. If we had no freewill we would not have the true essence of thought. Adam and Eve had this all along, they just did not possess the knowledge of the "vice." Hence there was no temptation to stray. Now that man learned there were other choices this expressed the need for a test, and set forth with Gods plan. All be it, God knew this all along, Him being all knowing. Now we are back to, do we truly have a choice if what is going to happen is already known? Why must we have this test if He already knows if we will pass. Complex question I will not even try to answer. I enjoyed this write.
I agree with your ideals that good and evil do not truly exist.( I believe that is what you meant, if not then I am sorry for taking it wrong. (I am Taoist.)) But, virtue is still considered the within the realm of being good. And if vice is it's opposite then vice would be inherit-ably evil.
Also, while it is entirely your decision what to write and include. I do wonder what you mean in line 8 when you say godless 'creatures.' If men are the only one's capable of thought on a non-divine level. Why would those who were godless be lowered to the standard of creatures, while in line 13 the word 'men' was used when it was implied with the belief of a god.
Otherwise, very well written piece, I enjoyed it. The only thing I'm taking points off for is the similarities of virtue,good, vice, and evil.
Very intruiging...It makes me think about my faith and also wonder about my life. If there is only a little hell on earth, how bad can the real, main Hell be? I like the name of the story, most people just assume that we have two choices, Heaven or Hell, but really we endure Hell to get to Heaven. Very interesting write...
Great message man. But even a man of virtue who knows nothing but virtue his entire life won't find his way into the Kingdom of God but through embracing Jesus Christ into his heart. And like you said, sometimes that means painful trials.
Nonetheless great job
Great spin on Good and Evil.. as Heaven and Hell do exist on earth.. we are given the roads of choice.. some will know more hell than heaven or heaven than hell.. sometimes it is not a choice.. this was very good for your age and gives great food for thought.. keep it up!
This is really good, the wrote it was really good.
I like how you've set it all out, easy to understand what you were trying to get across.
The words you chose were helpful, too, especially near the ending as you rounded everything up.
(I'm sorry, I'm not a good crtique, so I'm trying my best ^^)
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