Is it possible to go to heaven

John Vianney, the famous parish priest of Ars, France, once encountered a woman who was very troubled. Her irreligious husband had died after jumping from a bridge. She worried he was in hell. When he encountered her near his church, Fr. Vianney had no way of knowing about this unfortunate situation, except by a special grace from God.

He is in purgatory, and you must pray for him. Between the parapet of the bridge and the water he had time to make an act of contrition. We can find comfort in it, as well. It depends upon the individual, and only God knows the answer. But, one thing is certain: there is always hope that the answer is yes.

So, we pray for them. Should they be in purgatory, may their journey to heaven be swift. Ann in Berthhold.

Eat the rich the poor are tough n stringy. Im afraid this isnt the truth. There is life after death seeing ive had a real NDE. Ive always believed and as I matured I found God for myself and he is very real. You just have to believe ask him to prove himself to you. Trust that he will.

Have faith. Walk with him and do your best for him by sharing with others the truth you found. Research christian nde on youtube amazing stories. What do you have to lose? You dont believe anyway right? Its not to spook but if good and evil exist then where does it come from. Where does everything come from it wasnt always here. Ask God to prove hes real. And so is satan who doesnt want you to believe. I beg you find jesus b4 its too late for yo u Anonymous. God bless you.

For an all powerful God ascending above any possible knowledge or conventions we may have, this seems like a very human requirement. Having faith in God seems to me like swearing fealty to a king. If God only cared about faith, why did he give us the commandments? Why did his son preach of loving your neighbor and treating others as you would want them to treat you if, in the end, you only needed to believe? It appears as though early Christians used this faith rhetoric as a means of just keeping people in their religion.

They used the fear of Hell to confine them into believing in God. Everyone at that time was familiar with monarchical ruling systems, so they naturally felt God functioned in the same way. Because it will never end. These people will be annihilated forever. And so, Jesus stood in a very long line of serious thinkers who have refused to believe that a good God would torture his creatures for eternity.

But the torments of hell were not preached by either Jesus or his original Jewish followers; they emerged among later gentile converts who did not hold to the Jewish notion of a future resurrection of the dead. These later Christians came out of Greek culture and its belief that souls were immortal and would survive death. From at least the time of Socrates, many Greek thinkers had subscribed to the idea of the immortality of the soul.

Even though the human body dies, the human soul both will not and cannot. Later Christians who came out of gentile circles adopted this view for themselves, and reasoned that if souls are built to last forever, their ultimate fates will do so as well.

It will be either eternal bliss or eternal torment. It was a strange hybrid, a view held neither by the original Christians nor by ancient Greek intelligentsia before them. Socrates himself expressed the idea most memorably when on trial before an Athenian jury on capital charges. Socrates openly declares that he sees no reason to fear the death sentence. On the contrary, he is rather energized by the idea of passing on from this life. For Socrates, death will be one of two things.

On one hand, it may entail the longest, most untroubled, deep sleep that could be imagined. On the other hand, it may involve a conscious existence.

That too would be good, even better. It would mean carrying on with life and all its pleasures but none of its pain. And so the afterlife presents no bad choices, only good ones.

Death was not a source of terror or even dread. Twenty-four centuries later, with all our advances in understanding our world and human life within it, surely we can think that that both Jesus and Socrates had a lot of things right. Jesus taught that in this short life we have, we should devote ourselves to the welfare of others, the poor, the needy, the sick, the oppressed, the outcast, the alien. We should listen to him.

But Socrates was almost certainly right as well. None of us, of course, knows what will happen when we pass from this world of transience. But his two options are still the most viable.

On one hand, we may lose our consciousness with no longer a worry in this world. Jesus saw this as permanent annihilation; Socrates as a pleasant deep sleep.

In either scenario, there will be no more pain. On the other hand, there may be more yet to come, a happier place, a good place. And so, in this, the greatest teacher of the Greeks and the founder of Christianity agreed to this extent: when, in the end, we pass from this earthly realm, we may indeed have something to hope for, but we have absolutely nothing to fear. Contact us at letters time. Service is live streamed from the Berlin Cathedral on March 15 as gatherings of more than 50 people were banned.

By Bart D. Ehrman is a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, and the author or editor of more than thirty books, including the just published Heaven and Hell. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.