Rather than get hung up on the horns of a dilemma...seek truth in the tension of the paradox.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
The Globe and Mail had a series of derisional comments about heaven. Here is my comment about it: Am very disappointed in being unable to cut and paste any more....
Jesus
indicated we all live in the Kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are the poor
in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" While it is a stretch to
suggest there is "heaven on earth", for Christians and Islam, God is
king of the whole earth. Heaven is His province.
Yet the scriptures also refer to heaven as some place entirely other
from here. A place of eternal bliss, in the presence of God. Over the
millennia various conjectures have been made about its proximity. Few
have estimated that it starts where we are. Science has been good at
measuring natural phenomena. But because there was a big bang, then 14
billion years of stellar evolution, billions of years of sediment, the
rise of modern science to the point where we put satellites in the sky,
does not preclude something entirely other that science can never
comment on: The realm that begins with the human spirit and ends with
ultimate Spirit. I wish Christians, Muslims and Jews and others would
quite trying to strain at a gnat; try to locate spiritual things within a
naturalist framework; and swallow the camel by buying into the debate
in the first place.
Faith has always been something existential. It was never meant to be defined by only 5 senses.
Yet the scriptures also refer to heaven as some place entirely other from here. A place of eternal bliss, in the presence of God. Over the millennia various conjectures have been made about its proximity. Few have estimated that it starts where we are. Science has been good at measuring natural phenomena. But because there was a big bang, then 14 billion years of stellar evolution, billions of years of sediment, the rise of modern science to the point where we put satellites in the sky, does not preclude something entirely other that science can never comment on: The realm that begins with the human spirit and ends with ultimate Spirit. I wish Christians, Muslims and Jews and others would quite trying to strain at a gnat; try to locate spiritual things within a naturalist framework; and swallow the camel by buying into the debate in the first place.
Faith has always been something existential. It was never meant to be defined by only 5 senses.