God in heaven.

 

Let's imagine heaven.  God is in heaven, as he chooses to be, or perhaps more accurately, heaven is that which surrounds God.

 

That's kind of abstract.  Let's get concrete.  Let us suppose heaven is much like earth, (except nicer) in the sense of being a place, with distances, 3 dimensions, etc.  If a person goes to heaven, he will be in God's presence. (If heaven is something really bizarre to our senses and imagination, then this world wouldn't be a very good preparation for it.) Supposing there is only one manifestation of God in heaven.   Sort of like in the US, there is only one President. And many people going to heaven, then many people will be crowded around this one manifestation of God.  Since to be close to God is a reward for ‘goodness,'  those who were most good in this life will get to be closest.  Not all will be able to bask in His glory. Indeed, only a relatively few will be able to get really close to Him.  The rest will be blocked from view by those who are closer to God, who were more ‘good' in this life.  :Unless of course those most ‘good' are also transparent, in which case the glory these rest do perceive will be distorted. They would still be further away, and because we have a space with distances, such glory they do perceive will be fainter.

 

Clearly, there is a problem here.  Unless we reorganize the world, so that it has many dimensions, not everybody who is saved can get close to God.  If there is only one manifestation of Him.

 

 But that is if there is only one manifestation.   What if there were many. God is all powerful.  Clearly He can make many copies of Himself.   Indeed, He could make one copy of Himself for each of the blessed, so that she would have her own personal manifestation of God to talk to. And other things, if she should so prefer.  Now, not all the manifestations of God need look the same.  Indeed, each manifestation could have a different appearance, that which most satisfied the blessed individual her desires.  Each manifestation of  God could have differences in other characteristics.  Differences in behavior, in language. Even differences in conscious thought, which after all, is just the appearance that thought presents to the person thinking. 

 

Now these copies would not be mere copies, they would be Himself.  With just differences in appearance. They would be projections of His essence, into different places in the world of heaven.

 

Let's get mathematical:  Suppose God only existed as a point in one dimensional space.  A point on a line. The line was the entire universe.  Then only 2 beings on the line could get next to Him.  Every other being would be farther away.

 

Suppose God only existed as a point in a two dimensional space, a square grid of lines on a plane. And this square grid was the universe, and beings only existed at the intersection of two perpendicular lines. Then only 4 beings could get next to Him, and every other being would be farther away.

 

Suppose God only existed as a point in a three dimensional space, a cubic grid of lines in space, and beings only existed at the intersection of three perpendicular lines.  Then 6 beings could get next to Him, and every other being would be farther away.

 

With 4 dimensions, it would be 8 beings, etc.  But, the point is, with enough dimensions, we can have as many beings next to Him as we desire.  But with one dimensional nearness, we require a lot of dimensions.  3.5 Billion dimensions or so for God to be next to everyone now alive.

 

Of course, each dimension would have to be a little bit different, have to look a little different, from all the others. That is, the images of God would have to be a little bit different from each other. Otherwise you couldn't tell them apart.  And if you couldn't tell them apart, they would to all effects and purposes be the same.

 

Now we can weaken the requirement for next to, let's call it near to, so God doesn't need to have so many dimensions. (Indeed, all degrees of ‘next to' come into play.)  But the point is if we can only see 3 dimensions, then all these other dimensions of God would be hidden. (If you can, imagine a two dimensional surface which curves and twists through the many large number of dimensions.  If you are in the surface, you can't directly see the many different dimensions you are curving and twisting through. They would all look much the same. Pretty flat. The same thing if you are in 3-space.  All the curves and twists of 3-space seem, to a three dimensional being, pretty flat.  But all this curving around in a higher dimensional space makes distance, and distance between the images of God.) So what we would see would all be God, faces of God, but the images we would see would seem detached and separate, even though they were all connected.  And not just connected, but of the same being. That is the images would be different, but the object the images were projections of, would just be one object.  God.   All God.  They would just look different, but just because we were seeing God from different directions.  And they would seem to move around on their own, with their own will.  Which of course would be true, because they would each be God, and each move around with God's will.

 

And that's the way it is in heaven.  Everybody gets to be next to God, or just near to God, if that's what they want.  Or, to put it the other way, everyone has a personal, customized image, or rather a face, of God, that is, God Himself, to be near to.   

 

Or be.