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To: Mad Dawg
So when Zion's Crossroads Baptist Church has a homecoming they kill everyone who attends? Or is it possible that "home" is used equivocally, meaning one thing in one context and another in another?

In most cases but in yours, nope...

In a weekly catechesis, Pope John Paul II wrote:

In the context of Revelation, we know that the "heaven" or "happiness" in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father that takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit. It is always necessary to maintain a certain restraint in describing these "ultimate realities" since their depiction is always unsatisfactory (July 21, 1999).

The fundamental essence of heaven is union with God. The Catechism explains that "perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity . . . is called ‘heaven.’ Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness" (CCC 1024). It also states that "heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ" (CCC 1026).

From this place (http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0509bt.asp)

You guys don't believe in Heaven as we do...For you, it's not a physical place...It's a state of mind....So I can understand why Rome is your home, your heaven...

But for us Bible Believers, Heaven is a physical, real place...And THAT place is OUR home...

76 posted on 02/18/2009 7:14:07 AM PST by Iscool (I don't understand all that I know...)
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To: Iscool
Heaven is a physical, real place

Leaving aside the futility of insisting that I think what I don't think ...

"real" and "physical"— We've been round the houses on these words before.

To me "real" strictly speaking, means 'of or pertaining to a "thing"', so, by extension, existing in some manner comparable to that in which a thing exists. It comes from the Latin word "res" which means thing.

"Physical" comes from the Greek word φυω (phuo, noun cognate φυσις, phusis) to grow, the way plants and animals grow. This implies changing. It is often translated as "nature" which pertains to things that have a nativity, a birth. You have criticized those who take recourse to philosophy, but you use the language of philosophy to make your assertions.

But if you say that heaven is "real" and "physical" does this mean that you think the Holy Spirit in which a union with the Trinity must take place, and the Son through whom such a union is mediated, and the Father to whom we hope to be united are UNreal?

Or, if heaven is a real and physical place, are those words used in the same way of union with God? If not, and if in heaven we are still in the MERELY real and physical do we not "see Him as He is?"

If we see Him with "real and physical" sight in a real and physical place, is He a real and physical object among the other objects in heaven? My current "real and physical" sight is limited so that I can only look at so many things at a time. Will my hoped for vision of God obscure my sight so that looking at Him I can see the real and physical angels, saints, the glassy sea, the white robes, and crowns?

From my point of view your "real and physical" heaven is pretty small beer compared with the more than real and more than physical self-disclosure of God to the Blessed and the "ultimate realities" which are greater than the merely "real and physical".

And if you read the text you cite you will find that it says, ""heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ" (CCC 1026). We do not claim perfect incorporation into Christ for the members of the Church on earth. in our view the Church is rather a sacramental sign, that is it causes what it represents, of heaven, in a manner similar (but not exactly like) the presence of God in the Eucharist is not the same as the presence of God in the beatific vision.

So this quote will not serve to show that we use "home" univocally of Church and Heaven.

77 posted on 02/18/2009 7:54:52 AM PST by Mad Dawg (Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)
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