When were the Gospels Written? The External and Internal Evidence.

[Angrboda]

Xavier:

I don't have a lot to say that is more on the matter, but I do have one thing. You suggest that desires operate as I have suggested in the manner I have outlined only with respect to worldly desires. However, it appears to be just speculation that there is or can be some other kind of desire. It's possible that there can be another kind of desire, but it's possible that there cannot be any other kind and the 'worldly' tag is an empty qualifier that adds nothing, that distinguishes nothing. It seems little more than inventing a fictional hypothetical because one is backed into a corner. And there doesn't appear to be any way you could have any evidence that there even could be any other kind of desire. That's not necessarily to dispute it other than to suggest it is unknowable. If heaven is so foreign to us that it is unknowable, what does it mean to say we will be happy? I know what happy in the now is, but that's not what happy in the then is. Why should I want something that I have no inkling of what it would be. Regardless, I believe it was Plato in the appendix to the Phaedrus who argued that what is in the thinking of gods is not knowable to the thinking of men, and vice versa, what is in the thinking of men is unknowable to the gods. Your speculation is similar and so it's impossible to say whether this "happiness" which you refer to in heaven is even desirable, as it is no longer happiness as such, but just something analogous to happiness to which you are attaching the word for lack of a better name. For all you know, this "happiness" is more akin to horror, or fear, or shame, or nothingness. It's simply unknowable. So on what basis should I desire it?