Is God in Heaven or on Earth?

Rabi Moshe Ben-Chaim & Howard Salamon

These 2 verses present an apparent contradiction: 

“[God] gaze from Your holy abode, from heaven” (Deut. 26:15).  

“But will God really dwell on Earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!”  (Kings I, 8:27)

King Solomon is correct: the heavens do not contain God. How do we prove this? God created everything, that is the definition of “God”: “the sole cause of everything.” Not only the amazing universe, but the space the universe occupies too is a creation, as Genesis says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and Earth.” The sequence is logical: space—“heaven”—had to be created first, and only then Earth, planets and stars could be created within that space. But prior to all creation, there was no such thing as space or location. That means God exists without physical dimensions, without any physical characteristic, even without location.

As this reasoning fully endorses King Solomon, how do we explain “[God] gaze from Your holy abode, from heaven”? This suggests God does have a location, in the skies…as does this verse: “God in heaven above and on earth below” (Deut. 4:39).

Maimonides taught that Unkelos was diligent in correcting any Torah anthropomorphisms, lest people think God is physical in some manner. On this last verse, Unkelos adds 2 words: “God’s shechina is in heaven above and His rulership is on earth below.” Thereby, Unkelos clarified that God Himself does not occupy the skies or Earth. Rather, His shechina (brilliance of creation) is evidenced in the heavens, and His rulership is evidenced on Earth, as Howard Salamon explained, through His reward and punishments. 

As Unkelos felt this verse required clarification, why then did Unkelos not clarify “[God] gaze from Your holy abode, from heaven”? Why did Unkelos not deem this verse as equally requiring clarification to avoid viewing God in the skies? 

It is because the verse itself discounts that notion by sating “Holy abode”—holy means unknown and not in space. Okay, that’s reasonable, but the verse continues to mention that God should answer man’s prayer for rain (Rashi) “from heaven!”  This seems to throw God back into physical space.

This is answered by saying that heavens refers to the source of rain, not to God’s location. For this is what the Jews are now praying for: that God irrigates their crops. Therefore, this verse reads as follows: “God should recognize us from His holy bode (unknown existence), but from heaven—rainclouds—should be His response of rain.

We must finally ask why Torah leaves things unclear and allows some people to assume God does have a location, forcing our great rabbis to clarify. Why not make this clear directly from the verses? This question is strengthened through God’s employment of  phrases “God's hand” and “God’ strong arm” which also suggests anthropomorphism. 

The response here is that the rabbi's teach, “Dibra Torah b’lashon b’nei adam; Torah speaks in man's language.” Torah must reach people on all levels, including those first starting to learn, yet unaware of God’s non-physical nature. To allow anyone to be aware of God's strength, even if the term hand or arm must be used. Of course, these terms must be corrected as one matures in his learning.