OK, very quickly...

Many people think of Heaven as just another place within our space-time continuum.

My take on what God is like draws a lot on general relativity. It's a complex theory, particularly once you get into the maths, but the simple verbal version has three parts:

1. Matter and energy are the same thing: that's what E = mc^2 means, that energy can be converted into mass and vice versa.
2. Space and time are part of the same 4-dimensional system - three space dimensions, one time dimension.
3. General relativity has been described as 'space tells matter how to move, matter tells space how to curve'. But with 1 and 2 in mind this is better stated as 'space-time tells matter-energy how to move, matter-energy tells space-time how to curve'.

The implications of this are that space and time are warped near large masses like suns and black holes, so that time actually passes differently depending on the local masses. Gravity, in this understanding of the universe, is not so much a force as the curvature of space, and objects simply move through curved space...

Now, (sorry about the physics lesson, now we get to the point!) - if something or someone is not made out of matter-energy, not made of the substance of this universe at all, then that thing or person is not at all subject to the laws of space and time. Not in some parallel or fractal or stochastic way, just not at all. So if the substance of God and the angels is something different, it explains their ability to be all around and within us but undetectable by our instruments or senses.

Now one of the implications of this view is that Jesus gave up all of this - the omniscience, omnipotence and the ability to experience all of space-time at once - at the incarnation. He took on flesh, took on the matter of this universe, and became time-bound like the rest of us. What a sacrifice?

Given this, heaven would not initially have been a location at all - it would have been where God is, which is everywhere. But since Jesus is material, on his ascension from the earth a material heaven would have to be created - a place where he can live as he is now, and where he is building many mansions for us to live.

So in that sense, Jesus, being human, presumably lives on human time in heaven, and so will we. Our eternal life will be qualitatively different from God's, since he will still have access to all of space-time all the time, and we will be just living forever at one second per second.

The freewill and predestination stuff is less interesting to me, since God knowing the future does not determine the future under the view outlined above. 'Future' and 'past' are meaningless concepts to someone who is outside of time.

I Think of Daniel praying and an angel appearing before him while in prayer. The angel claims to have come directly from the side of God. We also have many instances where it is claimed that time is of no importance to God. So, is there some 4th dimension that the heavenly beings pass back and forth through to this earth, in other words, open the door and you're in an other space and time. Quantum physics describes a process in which a particle is observed at some point, disappears and and is observed at the same moment it disappeared at a different point further along its trajectory. Nothing has been observed in between the disappearance and reappearance. Time and distance seem to have different meanings. Perhaps somewhere in all of this we could find some meaning and heaven is not where we think of it being.

I would vote for God existing inside the boundaries of natural laws.

Okay, Mr. Science, you may now clean up my ramblings!!

Makes sense, but yeah, I think just 'appearing in our universe' rather than 'moving from one place in our universe to another'. If God is everywhere in our universe the angel can be at his side and at Daniel's simultaneously anyway. Angels, of course, are a whole other can of higher-dimensional/non-physical worm(hole exploiter)s.

This is a very interesting thread. I think we have to somehow distinguish between God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Bravus covered the humanity of Christ very well but what distinguishes the Father from the Holy Ghost?

What of the angels? They are ministering Spirits. Why do we need another indescribable Spirit which is called the Spirit OF God? So many things are not at all clear to me. When one is "filled" with THE Spirit what exactly does that mean? How can the "Spirit" be "poured out"? We use these words but do not really know what we are talking about I think....mel

Metaphors, a lot of them.

The distinction between the Father and the Spirit is an interesting one. Maybe a lot of our confusion about it arises because we imagine the Father living in a particular spot in space and time (maybe as a white-bearded old white man), and the Spirit as existing throughout the universe. But if the Father exists throughout the universe, then talking about his Spirit is more talking about some aspect of himself. We (particularly as SDAs) don't talk about our own 'spirit' as being something separate from ourselves, but as a way of talking about some particular aspect of ourselves.

Not sure where that would leave us with the Trinity doctrine...

Many years ago, someone described the Godhead as three individuals....At some point, they decided that, while thier relationships were good, they wanted to share it with others....so, they took an eternity to figure out all the possiblities of what type of persons they would like to commune with, they took another eternity to figure out what type of universe they wanted these people to live in...and they took another eternity to figure out the "what if's"...

At some point in eternity, they decided to create....First the universe.....since we could not live outside of God, one of those Individuals decided that they would be the matter for the universe. And by stretching Oneself into eternity, they became the universe...That is why, you can not go anywhere without God being there.

One of the other Individuals became the Person whom everyone could come to worship...the last Indidivual was the "back up" plan, in case someone/group of someones decide to rebel.

At least, while this is not MY origional thought, I bring this origional thought to this forum...in the hopes that it adds to this discussion

The apostle Paul seems to clearly define the Godhead as three distinct entities and yet being one. However I don't see any kind of clear definition Biblicaly for either the Father or the Holy Spirit.

I do think God is outside of time. I think of it as reading a book. As I read a book I can read about certain characters on page 10 and about their grandchildren on page 550. Jesus becoming flesh would be like the reader of a book stepping into it and becoming part of the story.

Our God is one God.