Still, one may object to Hell’s eternity by proposing that someone who is saved, but has dear family members who are damned can never be happy. From our perspectives in time and creation, perhaps this is the case. But not so in eternity. In eternity, God will be all in all – He will be in all and all will be in Him. Therefore, He who beholds God face to face can never sorrow. He does not rely on anyone else for His happiness. This is not to say that the blessed in Heaven do not rejoice with loved ones. They do. But if none of those loved ones were in Heaven, their infinite happiness would not become less than infinite. St. Paul said of Heaven: “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9). It is not possible for anyone to even conceive of Heaven (nor of Hell). Therefore, we ought not to worry about whether Heaven will be boring. It certainly will not be because God promises so. “Wishful thinking,” one might rebut. Yes, perhaps. Or perhaps we have faith that eternity with Him Whom we cannot comprehend is intrinsically incomprehensible. It takes love to be saved. It takes love to have faith and hope in God.
The Church says that the saved will, upon being saved, receive the Beatific Vision, which is “the immediate knowledge of God, which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven;… since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed “beatific” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Beatific Vision). “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). For in the wisest explanation of the human intellect attaining to the vision of God in His essence, see the Summa Theologiae, supplement, Question 92, Article 1.
From the beginning to the end of the spiritual life, we will be faced with the question of whether or not Heaven will be boring. While thinking that Heaven can get boring may seem a bit comical on the surface, pondering it thoroughly often leads to fear, even dread – despair that everything is nothing. When we try to understand Heaven, in the context of our perception of reality, it indeed becomes a Hell.
If everything remains the same forever, there will be no change, no transformation, and there exists no alternative. There is no endless happiness or endless suffering. There is just endlessness. But God, Who is Truth, Who is Existence, lasts forever, and He is eternally happy because He is Happiness. Heaven is an eternal, unmediated participation in this Divine Life, and therefore, cannot be boring.
Understandably, when we think of Heaven, we cannot comprehend it, and so we can begin to despair. But again, if we could fully understand Heaven, it would not be eternal happiness because we cannot comprehend eternity.
Even though many Christians accept Hell’s eternity, and that it is almost certainly not empty, it is common to hear someone launch an attack against the Church by criticizing her belief in Purgatory is rooted in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.