Dear William Lane Craig,
You are my personal hero and I am utterly grateful to you for great changes in my life!!
You have perfectly clarified God's Divine Nature's relationship to the dimensions of time and space - aspatial, timeless (and immaterial) prior to the Creation of the material reality and aspatial [or transcending the existing space], temporal (and immaterial) after this great event. My concern lies in the Human Nature of God: how does The Human Nature of Jesus refer to the dimensions of Space, Time and Matter (1) prior to the creation of the material realm, (2) after the creation of it, (3) during the Earthly life of Jesus and, finally, (4) after Jesus's Human Nature's Ascension to Heaven. Am I correct to hold that Jesus's Human Nature began to exist only within Holy Mary around 2000 years ago, so in (1) and (2) God possesses no Human Nature? I think it's clear that in (3), from Jesus' Human Nature's beginning to His Ascension He is within space, time and matter. Now, the part I struggle with, (4) is partly answered by you in #562, where you explain:
"the departed, having no bodies, are not spatial beings and so are not in any place"
It follows, Jesus's Human Nature and the departed are in some intermediate state ushering the Heaven, for we are promised to be given bodies in Heaven, which you confirm in the same article:
"We should not think of the departed as being in any place in a spatial sense, including heaven. On the Christian view when we die, we do not go immediately to heaven. Rather we exist as disembodied souls in an intermediate state while we await the resurrection of our bodies and our final entrance into the new heavens and the new earth"
It makes perfect sense when we see the departed bodies left here in the physical world... yet the Scripture teaches that Jesus's Human Nature was 'fully' taken to Heaven - and no material body is left in the physical reality. Is it coherent to conclude that Jesus's Human Nature is in Heaven, and the departed are at the intermediate state? If that is true, am I right to think that the departed are in an aspatial, temporal and immaterial state of existing? If yes, but one question is left: how does Heaven ( where Jesus' Human Nature exists and we, after we pass the intermediate state, will exist) refer to space, time and matter.
Thank you for so much care for us, questioners!
Utterly grateful,
Michael