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The Big Question: Where Is Heaven?

by Desiree Cole and Alyssa Witte

Is heaven a physical place? Is it all around us? Or, maybe, in another dimension? We may never know for sure, but that hasn’t stopped writers, philosophers and theologians from hypothesizing. Click through the slideshow below to read some theories and thoughts on where exactly we can find heaven…

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John Burke, author of Imagine Heaven

“Heaven is a place, more real than our experience of earth. Just like a two-dimensional, black-and-white painting exists within a three-dimensional room of color, so earth exists within new dimensions of time and space in which Heaven and all its wonderful new experiences will be found.”

Michelle Myers, author of Famous In Heaven & At Home

“The Bible doesn’t give us a GPS to heaven’s location, but rather, the promise of a place where we will forever worship around the throne of God. Heaven is where God is, longing to be gracious to us, and where Jesus awaits the command from the Father for His triumphant return for all who believe in Him.”

Genesis 28:12

“Then [Jacob] dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

Imaginary view of the Earth in outer space. View of American continent. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Jonathan Parnell, pastor and author of Never Settle for Normal

“Theoretical physicists say that there are at least ten dimensions in the universe, possibly eleven. We can perceive three…Jesus doesn’t take Peter, James, and John to a faraway galaxy light years out of sight. They just walk up on a mountain, and here on this earth, Moses and Elijah stepped in to talk to Jesus in his glorified form. For that moment, the curtain was pulled back, as it were, and the heavenly dimension that overlaps with our reality was seen.”

Hands holding and caring a green young plant

Stan Osterbauer, author of There Are No Mansions In Heaven

“We don’t know the physical location of Paradise. But the location of the New Earth will be right here…the Old Earth transformed!”

Young woman in sweater with heart shape enjoying beautiful cloudscape sitting on the car roof above the clouds on the sunrise. Image focused on the clouds

Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven

“Heaven is the natural home of our essential selves that we connect to from within—the entire, observable physical universe emerges out of that pure heavenly consciousness.”

Sunrays coming through the clouds over the ocean and reflects the light in the water

Watchman Nee, theologian

“When the people built the tower of Babel, God said, ‘Let us go down’…David in praising God said, ‘He bowed the heavens down, and descended’…The apostle John saw a door opened in heaven, and he heard the voice like a trumpet speaking with him, saying, ‘Come up here’…There are many more verses that can be quoted. But these few are enough to prove that heaven, the dwelling place of God, is above.”

Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor

“Heaven is in another dimension. So you don’t necessarily have to look up but you can look out and see heaven. Heaven is a fourth dimension, if you will.”

Portrait of a beautiful young woman with face wrapped with a plaid scarf.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, author of I Can See Clearly Now

“Heaven is a state of mind, not a location, since Spirit is everywhere and in everything.”

Silhouette of a woman with her arms raised to the sun

Henry David Thoreau, poet and philosopher

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

Young woman sits on a jetty above the lake, she is reading a book. Beautiful Autumn day in Italy

Scot McKnight, Biblical scholar and author of The Heaven Promise

“Heaven describes the presence of God where God's will is done. The New Testament describes the new heaven and the new earth, what most people call heaven, as the transformation of where we now live into the glories God has planned for it. So, heaven is not up there beyond the clouds, but what we see and feel and sense now—only much better.”