Transcript:
Welcome my fellow truthseekers to the Murano Minute. Let’s go beneath the surface.
Why is it that people point up when referring to heaven? It’s an interesting phenomenon. Are they pointing to the sky, to outer space, or Perhaps past the created universe?
It’s fascinating that most languages use the same word for sky as they do for heaven. It seems to be embedded in the human psyche that God is ‘high’ and his dwelling place is ‘up.’ But what does this mean? Isn’t God everywhere?
This kind of language is also found in the Bible: God is called “the most High,” Jacob’s latter reaches up to heaven, the second Person of God came down from Heaven in the Incarnation, and ‘ascends’ into heaven at the ascension. The gospel is explicit in its imagery: Jesus was taken up to a cloud before vanishing from sight.
But is this physical imagery meant to be metaphorical? Does the cloud symbolize the Holy Spirit, as is the case in the Old Testament; and is God ‘up’ in a sense that is not spatial?
At this point I lean toward believing that upness and highness as are ways of communicating God’s Greaterness in Being.
To understand this we need a basic knowledge of Thomistic philosophy which, unfortunately, has been abandoned by the western world for some time. My take is upness and highness are ways to communicate ontological greatness. God is “Most High” because He is Pure Act. In short, this means God is not ‘a’ being, but rather eternal and infinite Being Itself. It’s no coincidence in the book of Exodus He named Himself ‘I AM’.
Therefore, God is infinite highness or the most high; and the more God-like creatures are, the higher they become. Heaven is the realm of created beings fully actualized and transformed by His divine life.
Go to my facebook page, which is on the screen, to see a longer, Socratic discussion on this phenomenon of upness, and join the discussion. It’s dated January 28th, 2022, which, coincidentally, is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas.
That’s your Murano-Minute. May God’s peace be with you.