Heaven

• The kingdom of God

  • an actual place
  • a spiritual space
  • a symbol of the moral life
• Tillich

  heaven and hell as metaphors, a state of mind
• Heaven

  • ‘see God face to face‘ - (1 Corinthians)
  • ‘state of supreme, definitive happiness’ - (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
• Dante - Heaven as an actual state

  • heaven is a paradise of reward
  • Bible: “there will be no more crying or mourning or pain”
• Aquinas - Heaven as a spiritual state

  • beatific vision: eternal happiness in the spiritual presence of God
  • total unity of self and God
• Beatific Vision

  “the immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven”
• Motlmann - Heaven as symbolic

  • so of Jesus’ teachings imply heaven is a transformation of the present
  • links to Parousia and the new transformation of this earth into a new heaven (revelation)