Fathers Kingdom of God vs. Kingdom of Heaven?

[Jim_Baur]

According to the Fathers, is there a difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven?

Did Scholasticism see any difference/

Thanks!!!

 

[Joe_5859]

The old Catholic encyclopedia seems to think the terms are interchangeable:

Kingdom of God

I’m not sure about the Church Fathers, though. In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes a chapter on “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God.” On page 55 he writes:

But Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, not just any kind of kingdom. It is true that Matthew speaks of the “Kingdom of the heavens,” but the word heavens is an alternative expression for the word God, which the Jews, with an eye to the second commandment, largely avoided out of reverence for the mystery of God. Accordingly, the phrase “Kingdom of heaven” is not a one-sided declaration of something “beyond”: it speaks of God, who is as much in this world as he is beyond it—who infinitely transcends our world, but is totally interior to it.

So it appears that Benedict also believes the terms are interchangeable.

 

[Jim_Baur]

Joe

thanks!