But perhaps more profitably, we can think of God being “in” heaven in the sense that Augustine speaks of. God is in heaven in that heaven is the full and consuming experience of God. Heaven is not a place, nor is God contained or limited by any thing. He is not “in” heaven the way a cat can be in the freezer. Rather, He is in heaven in that it is through the full communion with God for which we are intended that we truly find God.It's paragraphs like these that make my head hurt greatly. Because I 'yam what I yam', when I think of the word 'in', I think of a definite, concrete place. I mean, I feel kinda reminded of that whole Clinton, "it depends on what the definition of 'is' is".
But I can think about being with God. I can think of being in communion with Him, of being in the presence of absolute Love. I can hope that my loved ones, who have gone before me, are in communion with Him also, giving and receiving that absolute Love, to be consumed by that Love. I know I've said it before, that Heaven and Hell are 'in' the same place - it's just that for those in Heaven, God's love is a balm, is joy, is like the heat of a warm fire on a cold day; whereas in Hell, it is a burning, scorching, painful thing to behold. It's all a matter of perspective.
I too love comments. Come over and comment on one of my articles some time. I think that part of the problem begins with the Augustinian metaphor of a "City of God" If we realize that it was an elaborate metaphor and not an urban planning textbook the question of God's love and joy become more pronounced. I also find interesting Dante's Paradisio. Inspite of it's excessive reliances on superlatives of divine light, and it's promoting Bernard of Claurviex above Dominic, Francis and the 12, it's a work on great beauty and insight.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone put a cat in a freezer?
ReplyDeleteYou must not have kids! ;-) kidding. mostly.
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