“God is a masterful creator. His creation—both humanity and the world—was perfect. Yet through sin, we lost that heavenly world. Still, if we listen well and grow in holiness, perhaps we might experience some glimpse of that long-lost perfection.”

While not a direct quote, this sentiment captures the essence of many messages I absorbed growing up in the church. I was raised in a small rural town, where I attended a large church steeped in reformed tradition. I was deeply involved: youth group, Bible studies, church camp, mission trips—if something was happening, I wanted to be there. The community was loving and formative, but the theology I encountered often carried an undercurrent of longing to return to a world that once was.

The Stories We Tell

From the Garden of Eden to the book of Acts, the biblical stories I heard always seemed to point backward—to a time before the Fall, or to the early church’s purity. The unspoken message was that holiness looked like restoration to something lost: a prelapsarian paradise or a heavenly afterlife modeled on Edenic simplicity. When hard questions came up—about sexuality, salvation, or what it meant to live faithfully—the answers often began, “Well, in the beginning…”

As I moved through two years at a reformed Bible college, followed by time at a Christian liberal arts school and eventually an ecumenical divinity school, I began to notice something. The way the church talked about paradise wasn’t all that different from how people in my hometown talked about “the good old days.” Stories from elders painted a picture of a simpler time—safe neighborhoods, clear moral lines, fathers providing, and kids playing in the streets. It was often nostalgic, sometimes naïve, and deeply powerful.

I began to wonder: was our theology of paradise just sanctified nostalgia?

The Future is Bigger Than the Past

That question led me into the work of early and modern theologians who offered a different vision—Gregory of Nyssa, Origen of Alexandria, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, C.S. Lewis, and more recently, Sam Wells. Rather than viewing paradise as a place behind us, they spoke of it as something ahead—a future we are being drawn into by God. Gregory of Nyssa envisioned eternity as an ever-deepening journey into the life of God, while Lewis painted vivid images of a paradise that invited us always further in and further up. In this view, paradise isn’t a perfect past to reclaim, but a divine crescendo still unfolding.

This eschatological imagination challenged me. What if paradise is not about going back, but about growing forward? What if holiness isn’t returning to a fixed state, but entering more deeply into communion with a God who is infinite, mysterious, and always inviting?

Holding the Tension

This shift in thinking raises a spiritual and practical question: How tightly should we hold on to what was, when God might be inviting us into what could be?

I see this tension everywhere—in theological debates, denominational divides, and our political landscape. Having lived in both conservative and progressive spaces, I’ve observed how one often leans toward recovering a lost vision of truth and order, while the other seeks to expand our understanding to include those long left out. Both impulses, I believe, are rooted in a desire for paradise. One looks backward. One reaches forward.

But perhaps the way of Christ doesn’t ask us to choose. Scripture constantly places us in the tension of the “already” and the “not yet”—a present shaped by God’s past faithfulness and God’s future promise. The gospel is not about escaping the world for a paradise long gone, nor about building utopia by our own efforts. It is about participating with God in the restoration and transformation of all things.

Imagining More

If we truly believe paradise is what God is leading us toward, how might that shape our discipleship, our worship, our politics, and our church life? Might we be less anxious about preserving the past and more open to imagining what God is doing next?

To move toward God is to move into mystery, hope, and transformation. It’s not about making the present look like Eden; it’s about becoming the kind of people who, in Christ, embody the future kingdom now—people who welcome the stranger, who seek justice, who love extravagantly, and who believe the Spirit is not done yet.

So yes, let us remember the garden. But let us not try to return to it. Let us walk forward—toward a paradise still unfolding, and a God who makes all things new.