Heaven
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of heaven and the afterlife. The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote ‘that in the end language can only be related to what is experienced here, and given that the hereafter is not here, we can only infer’. Aquinas encapsulated a great human conundrum that has preoccupied writers and thinkers since ancient times: what might heaven be like. And although human language is constrained by experience, this has not stopped an outpouring of artistic, theological and literary representations of heaven. In the early Middle Ages men ascended up a ladder to heaven. In his Divine Comedy, Dante divided heaven into ten layers encompassing the planets and the stars. And the 17th century writer John Bunyan saw the journey of the soul to heaven as a spiritual struggle in his autobiography, The Pilgrim’s Progress. But what exactly is heaven and where is it? How does the Protestant conception of the afterlife differ from the Catholic conception? How does one achieve salvation and what do the saved do when they get there? And, if heaven is so interesting, why has western culture been so spellbound by hell?
Guests
- Valery Rees
4 episodes
Renaissance scholar and senior member of the Language Department at the School of Economic Science - Martin Palmer
22 episodes
Theologian and Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture - John Carey
7 episodes
Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University
Related episodes
-
Purgatory
25 May, 2017 230 Christianity -
Hell
21 Dec, 2006 230 Christianity -
Dante’s Inferno
23 Oct, 2008 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
Space in Religion and Science
18 Feb, 1999 500 Science -
The Soul
6 Jun, 2002 120 Epistemology -
Deism
8 Oct, 2020 210 Philosophy and theory of religion -
St Thomas Aquinas
17 Sep, 2009 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy -
Averroes
5 Oct, 2006 100 Philosophy -
The Sublime
12 Feb, 2004 110 Metaphysics -
The Trinity
13 Mar, 2014 230 Christianity -
Angels
24 Mar, 2005 200 Religion -
The Rapture
26 Sep, 2019 230 Christianity -
The Holy Grail
15 May, 2003 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
The Universe’s Origins
20 May, 1999 520 Astronomy -
Imagination and Consciousness
29 Jun, 2000 120 Epistemology -
Medieval Pilgrimage
18 Feb, 2021 200 Religion -
Piers Plowman
29 Oct, 2020 820 English and Old English literatures -
Wittgenstein
4 Dec, 2003 190 Modern Western Philosophy -
Death
4 May, 2000 120 Epistemology -
Pastoral Literature
6 Jul, 2006 820 English and Old English literatures
Programme ID: p003k9lf
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9lf
Auto-category: 236 (Eschatology, heaven, and hell)