Why Heaven Could be like Star Trek

God Didn’t Make the Stars Just to Tease You

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen! (Luke 24:5).

When I taught high school theology, I often heard students say they thought heaven would be boring, just clouds and harps, maybe some endless strumming, or sitting in a lotus position vibing with God. No adventure. No questions. Nothing to do. Just… static stillness.

And if I’m honest, I understood where they were coming from. For much of my life, the idea of heaven left me a little uneasy too, a promise that, deep down, didn’t quite satisfy the imagination or the longings I’ve believed the Father had placed in my heart.

But I’ve come to realize I was wrong. Not just about the details, about the whole story.
Because the Resurrection of Jesus isn’t only about what happened to Him.
It’s about what’s promised to us.

Easter is not the conclusion of the Gospel.
It’s the beginning of our destiny.

Jesus didn’t just return from the dead, He passed through death and into glory.

This was not resuscitation. It was not a ghost story. It was a new creation, the likes of which had never been seen before. And it didn’t happen only because Jesus was God…

It happened because He was human, the new human.

St. Paul is clear:

Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:20, 22).

We often think Jesus rose because He was God. But in truth, His resurrection is the sign that humanity itself has been re-made. He is the firstfruits. The prototype. The preview of what awaits us.

Resurrection is not God’s consolation prize for the pious.
It’s not a fairy-tale ending.
It’s the destiny of the human person.

What happens after Easter? Jesus doesn’t fly away. He walks among His friends. He eats breakfast. He shows them His wounds. And yet, He’s different. Transfigured. Glorified.

The resurrection is not about escape from the body, it’s the glorification of the body. Not abandonment of creation, but its consummation.

And what will that heavenly life be like?

To imagine that, we need to listen to the mystics. One of the most profound to me is St. Gregory of Nyssa, a 4th-century bishop and spiritual master. In his mystical work The Life of Moses, he writes:

The true sight of God consists in this: that the soul that has been lifted up out of the world’s slime and has washed off the filth that comes from matter looks up to what is always more sublime and never stops in its ascent (Life of Moses, II.239).

Gregory describes heaven not as a flat paradise, but as epektasis, an eternal ascent. Because God is infinite, there will always be more of Him to know, more of Him to love, more of Him to enter into.

And if God is inexhaustible, then eternity will not be boring. It will be a symphony…a symphony of discovery. We will not be standing still. We will be rising forever.

This vision echoes through the centuries. In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI warns that many people reject the idea of eternal life because they think it means “an unending succession of days,” like a cosmic waiting room.

But Benedict corrects that misconception:

It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time, the before and after, no longer exists.

Eternity isn’t static. It’s alive!
It’s a moment that never stops deepening.
It is delving ever anew into the vastness of being, overwhelmed by joy.

(I wish my words could adequately express the excitement in my heart as I write those words.)

Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the 20th century (in my opinion of course), once speculated that even in heaven, there may be “dramatic tension.” Not suffering, but movement. Not boredom, but a divine unfolding. A sacred drama that keeps revealing more of God and more of each other.

Even C.S. Lewis, though Anglican, intuited this truth in The Great Divorce and The Last Battle. Heaven, he said, is always calling us:

Further up and further in.

Heaven is not a finish line. It is a doorway to the real beginning.

The Sci-Fi nerd in me just can’t help himself. Let me offer a metaphor:
What if heaven feels a little like Star Trek? Not Star Wars, but Star Trek. Why? Well, because Star Trek is far superior.

Yes, I feel the waves of judgement coming from my fellow sci-fi nerds right now.

It feels this way not in the sense of spaceships and alien diplomacy. But in the longing it evokes in those of us who vibe with Gene, the hunger to explore, to discover, to seek out new life and new civilizations, not to conquer them, but to learn and be changed.

There is something deeply human in the idea of glorified exploration.

What if, in the resurrection, our glorified bodies are not only radiant but capable, capable of seeing more, knowing more, loving more, moving more?
What if, in the new heavens and the new earth, we are given space, not just to rest, but to become?

Imagine traveling through the resurrected universe not to escape suffering (because there is no more), but to deepen love.

Every planet, every life form, every glorified brother or sister encountered would reveal some new facet of God. Not because God is hidden, but because He is infinite.

You could spend a thousand years in one valley, with one friend, contemplating one mystery and still not exhaust it.

Then you’d go further up and further in.

This isn’t science fiction. This is resurrected realism.

The Church does not teach that we float around forever. We are not disembodied souls. We are embodied spirits, and our bodies will be raised.

The Catechism says it clearly:

We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess (CCC 1017).

That means your face, your hands, your laugh, your gait, it will all be there. Transfigured, yes. But recognizable. Yours.

No more pain.
No more shame.
No more hiding.
No more masks.
Your body will no longer be something to protect or resent. It will be something that glorifies God, like the wounds in Christ’s hands.

And we will eat.
And we will walk.
And we will hug, and build, and explore.
And we will be alive, not just spiritually, but wholly.

Sometimes we forget: Adam and Eve were given a garden to till. Work, before the Fall, was good. It gave purpose and connection.

In the resurrection, we will not float in passivity. We will create. We will build without ego. We will learn without exhaustion. We will play, feast, and dance, like David before the Ark, but without inhibition.

We may have tasks, joyful ones. We may have missions, not out of necessity, but from love. We may help one another in the eternal ascent, just as saints and angels help us now.

Somewhere along the way, we started to believe that holiness meant the extinction of desire. But in truth, holiness is the purification of desire.

Sometimes at night, I step outside and look up.
The stars are so quiet, so far, and yet they whisper something to my heart. Not just that God is real—but that He’s inviting me.

To be in heaven.
To be in communion with God, and thus, in communion with truth, beauty, others, and self. And if your heart is like mine and made to wonder, to explore, to seek, not to escape, but to know…then I trust that heaven will fulfill that hunger, not deny it.

God doesn’t flatten our desires in heaven. He purifies and amplifies them. He sets them free to finally run the race without fear. So, if your heaven looks like the joy of exploration… the thrill of new worlds… the quiet humility of encountering other creatures and learning together under the gaze of God… I think we’re imagining something very true.

Not Star Trek exactly.

But maybe the transfigured version of the longing that Star Trek touches. Heaven is not less than our longings. It’s more. And longing for the infinite is sacred. God gave us the stars not to tease us…but to whisper: “You were made for more.”

So dream.
Ask.
Imagine.

Because the saints and angels are not bored. They are not static. They are alive. And one day, so will you be.

And your story will never stop unfolding.