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the infantile, the adult-like and the eternal

Back to the accusation that it's infantile to long for eternal happiness...

First question: What does an infant enjoy that adults don't?

One can imagine that infants enjoy a conflict free unconditional love of the other who takes care of all of their needs. It is worth pointing out, however, that life as an infant is in no way conflict-free or pure bliss. Not at all: not even from day one. But infants typically enjoy least periods of carefree union and bliss. If one grants that humans can remember their infancy, or it least what it felt like during their infancy, then there is room for the objection that the desire to unending bliss is nothing other than the desire to return to one's infancy. But that is not the only possible source of the desire for bliss. For adults have a much better memory of their adulthood than their infancy (in fact, the latter is non-existent). And a good part of the adult population are able to enjoy or at least imagine what it's like to enjoy mutual love. This occurs in the context of factors found only in the mature: freedom, commitment, justice, truthfulness, friendship, community, a sense of narrative, generosity, acceptance, sacrifice..

Second question: What does an adult enjoy or at least long for that an infant in no way enjoys?

Answer: (on a good day): health, friendship, truth, and much more while infants don't long for these as such, although they may long for an inchoate version of some of them.

So, while there may be an immature adult who does in fact desire heaven as a kind of return to infantile bliss, a mature adult may desire it as the fulfillment a properly adult desires . In fact, that is the way heaven is depicted in the New Testament. The wedding feast of the Lamb. A wedding: mutual self-giving, freely entered into, unconditional love, mutual acceptance, friendship, celebration, bliss. Adult fulfillment, not kiddie stuff.

Also worth discussing: how adult/mature desires lead one to actively pursue a goal, to sacrifice, while there is nothing like this in infantile desire: the latter is the desire to be taken care of by another without having to take care of the other. The adult longing for eternal life does not move one to act childishly, but to act more like an adult.

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