I bought Minecraft for Paul, and he loves it, but being a
Sim fan myself I have discovered that I love it, too. There is a lot of
potential for an entertaining game, whether you are playing in Survival Mode or
Creative Mode. It was in the Creative Mode, however, that I started to
philosophize about the afterlife—the real one, after life on this earth. Many
people wonder what we will do in a world where we don’t have to worry about
death and suffering, where we won’t get sick or hurt or have survival needs. Actually,
I think the answer of what we won’t do is shorter than what we will do. We won’t
die. We won’t get sick. We won’t do wrong or hurtful things to others. We won’t
hurt ourselves. We won’t be jealous or mean or sad. But what will we do?
Back to Minecraft for a minute. In the Survival Mode, you
have to make sure you stay healthy and alive. You need to eat food, such as
delicious raw mutton. You fight off monsters that attack you. You have to look
for resources and figure out how to craft them into the items you need. You
have to watch out so you don’t fall from high places or fall into lava.
However, if you die, you can just come right back to life (unlike in the real
world.) In Creative Mode, however, you have all the resources you need, and you
don’t die. Monsters can’t hurt you. You never get hungry. What’s more, you can
fly!
It would seem that in a video game where you can’t die,
things would get boring. But they don’t have to be that way. As the name
suggests, in Creative Mode you can use your own creativity to craft amazing
architectural designs. You can plot gardens and waterfalls and landscaping, and
fill your houses with beautiful things. Without worrying about death or running
out of resources, you can let your imagination soar. If you’re not convinced
that Creative Mode can be amazing, check out the link I am putting in below to
a video where someone did some spectacular work on his Minecraft game.
Maybe it’s just me and my geeky mind, but I can see some
comparisons between the Creative Mode on Minecraft and the afterlife that God
prophesies in the Bible. I would like to take a moment and talk about the
Millennial Kingdom, the Thousand Year Reign of Christ on this earth which is
prophesied to start sometime in the future, but will take place before the new
earth that God creates. However, I don’t want things to get too complicated, so
I’ll try to simplify things and just say “afterlife,” when we get our new
bodies that won’t die or get sick or feel pain or do hurtful things. What will
we do in the afterlife, when we don’t have to focus on survival anymore or
worry about dying? Here are a few thoughts.
--When we eat, we’ll eat for pleasure and communal friendship
instead of for health reasons. We’ll eat because food tastes good! We won’t
have to worry about getting fat or eating unhealthy food, or about running out
of resources. We won’t eat because we have to keep from starving; we’ll eat
because we want to. We won’t have to worry about pesticides or cancer or cavities
or eating so many cookies that we feel sick. I think we’ll enjoy food a lot
more in the afterlife. We can use our imaginations to make food delicious instead of focusing on nutrition and calories and toxic chemicals.
--Our interactions with animals will be based on enjoyment
and nurturing, rather than competing or using animals for our own needs. Animals
can roam freely, without fear of us, and we can enjoy them freely, without fear
of them. Even lions and snakes can be like pets, while still maintaining their
freedom. We won’t destroy them or their habitats, and they won’t destroy us. I
am really looking forward to riding a bear.
--We can build things for beauty instead of functionality.
With more resources, and a Creative God who will remain with us, the possibilities
for creativity are endless. We can craft things with gold and pearls and
precious stones, not because they are rare and we are rich, but simply because
they are beautiful and we have as much of them as we need. We can focus on art
in a thousand different ways. Whenever a society experiences peace and
prosperity, people can stop focusing so much on survival and focus more on art,
music, literature, and science. I believe all of these things will be present
in the afterlife. We’ll be wiser than we are now, but I don’t believe we will
become all-knowing as God is. There will always be more to discover, to
explore, to try. We can finally get out there and really experience outer
space, and explore the deepest parts of the ocean. Maybe God will even create
new worlds for us to explore, and new problems to solve. We can figure out the
mysteries of the electron, and explore quantum mechanics and the fabric of
time. We can build houses for the sake of beauty, not because we need them. We
can make music because it makes our contented souls even happier, not because
we need it to alleviate suffering. We can go rock climbing and scuba diving and
skydiving without worrying about becoming injured or dead.
--Our relationships with other people can be less about
self-preservation and more about love. We can love without restraint, love
vulnerably without fear. We can do kind things for each other. We can explore
the world together. We can talk without worrying about being misunderstood or
hated. We won’t pair up in little cliques all the time, shutting others out,
but will welcome anyone who would like to join us in our adventures. We won’t
hurt each other, judging or shaming or wounding others with words or actions.
We won’t all be the same—we’ll still have individual traits—but those traits
will all be good qualities without being tarnished by selfishness, pride, or
fear.
What can we do when our lives are no longer governed by
survival? We can create, enjoy, love, experience, taste, see, feel. We can
think, talk, work, and play. We can live lives free of guilt, fear, pain, or
suffering. In short, we can live. We can really, truly, LIVE—the way God
intended life to be when he created it in the first place. That’s what the
story of the Bible is all about. It’s about restoring the world to the way it’s
meant to be. Everything in this life that we enjoy comes directly from God, but
the way we experience it is mixed with evil. When the evil is removed, all of
the good will still be there, only better.
Minecraft is not a perfect analogy for the afterlife. Even
in Creative Mode, there are still monsters, and there is still night. Although
there are a lot of things to create with, there is still a limitation to what
you can do. It’s only a game. But I take any opportunity I can to think about
how wonderful the world is going to be when God fixes it. It doesn’t mean I don’t
want to help the world I live in right now to be a better place; I do want to
see suffering alleviated and joy and love thrive. I want people to understand
the God who made the world beautiful, the God of love and Prince of Peace. I
want to experience the good things that are here on earth that will be brought
to perfection in the afterlife. But even so, I long for heaven. As C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself a
desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable
explanation is that I was made for another world.”
At the end, I’m going to try to link a video that shows what
one person was able to do in Minecraft Creative Mode. Enjoy!
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