p. 96 It is a good point about the ascension. I volunteer with Lifechurch as part of the church online team. We have a user come in often who is an atheist and uses this as an arguing point. Since satellites have never shown us where heaven is, it must not exist. This may give me some material to talk to him about however I doubt that he will change much.
p. 98
"Heaven could exist in a way that transcends our three-dimensional view of the world—though we might still need to develop language that communicates this and doesn’t just fall back on old three-dimensional ways of describing things."
Thank you for this thought.
P. 105-106
I have never thought of Jesus not being able to be my representative as I have always thought of him as being tempted like us. However, this gives me insight in talking to people who are struggling with the fact that God cannot forgive them. They cannot see Him as being equal to them and do not see Him as representing them.
- Hi Robert, I like your story about the atheist. I think his frequent visits indicate an interest that shows he may not be so convinced of his "atheist" stance. I think it is certainly worth investing time in him, who knows what the Holy Spirit may do in his life? Regarding his questions, you might want to direct him to Hugh Ross' book, "Beyond the Cosmos" which gives accessible, scientifically-based answers to his questions. Ross' ministry, Reasons to Believe, has many resources for those who want solid answers for why we should believe in the God of the Bible. https://shop.reasons.org/Beyond-the-Cosmos-p/rb1001.htm
- I'm a novice on theology but my take is we believe in and walk by faith, so therefore I must also believe in a place called heaven by faith. God says there is a heaven, Jesus went to prepare a place for me (us). So it may not be a literal place in our feable minds; not a building, not a star out there that hasn't been discovered, or some other as you say three dimensional view. God says there is a heaven and I believe it.
- That's true, Ron, even when our minds can't grasp all of what God tells us, we can trust and believe him, because he is always faithful. I do find the question regarding heaven's location, which Robert's friend asked, to be an interesting one, and a logical one for people to wonder about. For me, it helps to think about heaven, God and angels as part of the spiritual or angelic realm. Michael Heiser calls it the "Unseen Realm". We know that angels and other spirit beings, such as God and the preincarnate Christ, are not always visible to us, even though we know they exist. After his resurrection, it seems that Christ could appear suddenly inside of a locked room. So, to me it seems that heaven would not be visible to us. I also found the book "Flatland" to be helpful in this regard. Flatland is an imaginary place of only 2 dimensions where all of life takes place on the surface of a plane. For creatures in that world, the idea of a third dimension, one in the "up" direction is doubtful and non-intuitive. It is in fact, alien to their entire universe. When we think about the angelic realm, we are a little like flatlanders trying to imagine a world of 3 dimensions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8oiwnNlyE4