Questions of immanence and transcendence continue to occupy theologians, the concept of apocalyptic with its transcendent eschatology has been to the fore in Biblical studies and there has been a resurgence of quests for experience of transcendence in contemporary culture. It is not surprising that in this intellectual climate the tension between this-worldliness and other-worldliness should have remained a crucial problem for the Christian life-style. Interest in such broad contemporary issues provided the original context and the initial impulse for a study which might at first sight appear to be a rather obscure angle of approach to Pauline theology.

Before embarking on a consideration of the function of heaven in Paul's thought it is worth briefly placing this consideration in some relation to aspects of the thinking of recent decades about the heavenly dimension or transcendence. If there is an average reaction to the concept of heaven, perhaps it is similar to the anguished but naive doubts of the squadron chaplain in Joseph Heller's Catch-22.