Where is heaven?
Where is "heaven"? It’s hard to talk about "heaven" without giving the impression you believe it is some "place". Some of us tend to think that if you got into a rocket ship and went in the right direction long enough that you’d get there; though I suppose we settle for that only because we don’t know what else to think. Others of us who are pretty sure that it isn’t an address in this material universe are a bit more sophisticated and think that we sort of step out of some "door" into a parallel universe. I suppose there must be something to that as long as it isn’t the same kind of universe as this one.
Wherever heaven is it’s where God is. But it’s that word "is" that generates our difficulties. God certainly "is" in the sense that he "exists" and that requires us to think he "is" somewhere. I mean, he cannot "be" nowhere, can he? If there is absolutely nowhere that God is then he is nowhere—he doesn’t exist. But if he exists "somewhere" then he takes up some space, doesn’t he? Or does he?
It isn’t possible for us to exist in this world without taking up space; that’s the nature of humanity. Each of us takes up space, which implies that there must be space to take up. We as "physical" beings exist in a "physical" universe. If there were no physical universe then we physical beings would have no place to "be".
But God can and does exist as "spirit" (John 4:24, whatever that means exactly). The scriptures suggest that to be a spirit is to be without flesh and bones (Luke 24:39). God can and does exist without needing a physical environment in which to exist because he is not a physical being.
Maybe it would be better to think of spirit as a kind of being that implies a way of existing rather than as a "substance" that needs "space" in which to exist. God then exists in a way completely different from us, in a "spaceless"place. So that it isn’t really a "place" at all but a mode of being. We’re accustomed to calling this world or earth a "place" and since it is not "nowhere" then it certainly is a place. We say of humans that they are "earthly," that is, of the earth, they belong to the earth, they exist on earth. Maybe when the Bible speaks of God dwelling in heaven it is telling us (at least expressing the truth as best it can) that God is "unearthly," that he is heavenly and is not bound to physical space, that he is a different order of being. Maybe it isn’t telling us where he is but what he is.
All this is a bit too much for all of us but we’re not to forget that we have difficulties conceptualising many things—it isn’t just issues about God that are difficult. "Where" are memories? is a difficult question to phrase much less answer. It seems clear that the brain is connected with their existence but what are they "made of" and where do they sit, are they "stored" somewhere. You can poke an area of the brain and generate a memory but what exactly does that mean? Oh well. Some things are true and real without our being able to explain them. For pity’s sake, if David Hume has made it difficult for us to prove "causation" when we virtually live and breathe it why wouldn’t we have difficulties when talking about heaven?
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