Posted on 07/11/2007 8:00:31 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
When you think of God, what comes to mind? A.W. Tozer once said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” If our ideas about God are coming from the wrong places, then our God will be too small. God’s Word, His Son, and creation give us ideas about the Creator. In Romans 1, Paul tells us that creation reveals God’s glory, but men have suppressed this knowledge.
In her latest book, Time Peace, my friend and colleague Ellen Vaughn has come up with a wonderful way to blast our too-small conceptions of God out of the water—and that is to contemplate time and light, two very complex elements of the created order.
While I can hardly do justice to her arguments in the space of a short commentary, I can say that Ellen shows us how scientific findings can enlarge our perspective of God. And she does this in an easy-to-read manner that doesn’t make the average reader’s head spin.
Ellen starts with Albert Einstein upsetting time’s applecart. As she says, “His discoveries showed us that the rate of time’s passage is not fixed, but is in fact relative to contextual elements like velocity or gravity.” Ellen tells us how in Einstein’s famous formula—E=mc²—m, that is mass, and e, that is energy, are really just two forms of the same thing. Energy is matter that has been freed. Matter is energy waiting for liberation. As she says in her down-to-earth style, “The amount of energy available in any given bit of matter—a Tootsie Roll, a stone, an atom—is the matter’s mass multiplied by the fastest velocity imaginable. That would be the speed of light or c squared.”
That means if somehow we had two twins and we were able to send one around the world at the speed of light and the other one stayed home, the one who went jet-setting around the planet would actually come back younger than the one who stayed home. Or to put it another way, if both those twins were wearing watches, the one who had been traveling at light speed would actually have a time that read earlier than the one who did not leave planet Earth.
If all this is mind-bending and perplexing, you’re not alone. But it just begins to scratch the surface of how big our God is. After all, if a being could move at the speed of light, for that kind of being, time would not move. Scriptures tell us, “God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
As Vaughn says, “Is God light? Surely we can’t pin down the nature of God Himself, as if He can be analyzed, calibrated, or clocked. God is not an object.” She’s right. But I agree with her premise—the more we understand light and time, the more humbled and in awe we will be when we read how these biblical images are used to describe God.
Time Peace has certainly made me think more deeply about the way I think about God. I hope that as you read the book, you will discover where your ideas of God have been too small—and where your view of the time God has given you may be stunted, too.
I recommend this book. Not only is it a good read, it is also a powerful apologetic for the existence of God.
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BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
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mega ping to article
Do you know this book?
$10.19 plus shipping at Amazon.com
That is one of the few things likely to be true.
And one side of the universe would seem like it is right next to the opposite side.
An excerpt can be found at http://www.zondervan.com/media/samples/pdf/0310267269_samptxt.pdf
Exellent NOVA tape on the universe talks about mathmaticians attempting to come up with the universal laws that apply to small particles and huge astronomical bodies. Example the mathematical equations relating radiation, gravity and etc observed on planetary bodies should be the same with small atomic particles. Experiments and observations show that they are very similiar but slightly different, meaning the scientists are still missing something in their observations and measurement. Mathmeticians attempt to come up with the fudge factor and determined that the universe has 14 plus dimensions (humans can sense only 4 (length, width, height and time)). God in theory should be able to sense all 14 plus, meaning he can move, sense and do things that we mortal humans cannot because we are confined to 4. Believe or not, the longer astromoners and particle pychicists are involved with this academic exercise the more amazed they are of the orderliness and finesity of the world concluding the possibility of an intelligent designer or God.
Thanks for the ping! And, no, I haven’t read this book ... yet.
This is an awesome yet true concept, yet I disagree that if someone were slowed down to around the speed of light, then went faster than the speed of light, actually, in theory you could travel to the future, but never to “the past”-The past is a physical impossibility for physical beings such as mankind!
String theory is “bunk” and not Einstienian at all..its a way to try to explain the universe as “accidental” and not created specially by God, it delves waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into theory for me, and not enough in true scientific methodology.
God is limitless - something our natural mind cannot conceive.
Thanks for your testimony, and thank God for His love.
BTT
Please put me on the Colson ping list. I’m in the middle of reading Colson’s “God and Government” - it’s really good so far.
I need to read this book.
I have discuused these things with pretty smart people. One claimed that Genesis is just another creation myth along side things like the sun being such and such god’s chariot traveling through the sky or that the earth sits on the back of a large turtle, etc.
My response is typically: how about you start with the simple stuff? Explain gravity, space, light, and time to me. Then let’s delve into creation. It is a very effective argument. The greatest minds on the planet have never ironed it all out. It helps the individual to accept that maybe it is a tad beyond them to bluster about the creation of all that is.
Though God doesn't preclude us searching. M-Theory, growing out of superstrings, is a "beautiful" guess, though the energies to test it are currently outside our means.
The physicist Paul Dirac even once said, "It is more important to have beauty in ones's equations than to have them fit experiment." His knowing full well, I think, that they should "fit" together.
He believed in God too.
Hi xzins! I'm not familiar with the work (yet); but I certainly agree with Colson's statement, above.
Some thoughts (speculations really): Everything that was to come into existence was derived from God's primordial light (Gen. 1). Toss in a (hypothetical) universal Zero Point vacuum field, out of which photons (light) are constantly, spontaneously emitted, in a manner that facilitates successful communications that in turn maintain the living state of organisms. God's Light is "first and last and always," from the Alpha to the Omega. It is the fundamental principle of Life at both the creational and maintenance levels....
Anyhoot, Sir Isaac Newton proposed what looks very much like a universal field; he called it the sensorium Dei, by means of which God is eternally "Lord of Life with His creatures".... I see a close analogy to the universal ZPF here.... Light is the facilitator of Life; it comes out of Nothing, commanded by God's spoken Word; and is the basis of everything we see in the universe, inorganic (e.g., the periodic table of the elements, which looks "evolved") and organic (living beings).
Anyhoot, as I said, this is just a speculation I find interesting to think about....
Thanks so much for the ping, xzins!
Rather than feeling bad about the incessant scorn and arrogance we receive from some scientists who believe that it is all an accident and man deserves praise for being so clever as to make these discoveries, we may instead take that opportunity to thank them sincerely for working so hard to fill in the details which (perhaps unknown to them) show the beauty of creation; and invite them to share in the joy of acknowledging the Creator of all.
BB,
Do you recall awhile back there was some news stories about a group of scientists that were working on fundamental theory. They were not physicists per se, but their goal was to find simple mathematical and physical “truths”, or “givens”, or whatever, that could serve as a basis for a physical universe.
If I knew the keyword they were using, they were calling these truths like noomans or something...
Me, I’ll just wander off and take my Alzheimers meds...
;-)
Anybody else? TIA!
And if, for whatever reason, your God HADN’T chosen to heal you (just as he hasn’t deigned to heal many other devout believers), what would that illustrate? That He DIDN’T love you? That He ISN’T powerful?
Basing any sort of religious conviction or theological tenet or philosophy of life which you even go so far as to preach to others on a CHANCE event which just as easily could have turned out otherwise is... well, it makes MY head swim.
Perhaps noumena was the keyword djf? It's a term used in philosophy in contradistinction to phenomena, the general idea being that noumena are "essences" that "stand behind" and actuate phenomenal reality.
Anyhoot, I'm not aware of the news stories you refer too, unfortunately. Sounds very interesting!
Thanks so much for writing, djf!
BB,
Bingo, big time! TY dear. That’s the word all right, I guess I have enough brain cells hanging on to almost remember. There was an article in New Scientist or somewheres about it recently and it seems they are trying to bridge the seen with the unseen. This has always been an area of great interest to me, being a long time comp programmer, you kind of have to wonder “What is the program?”
Can we reduce the universe to Backus Naur form?
Thanks again!
djf
Perhaps the time is at hand for ‘That’s In The Bible’, ya think?
And that being would have infinite mass and, as you say, could literally be everywhere at once.
Here is a challenge for old earthers:
1. Astronomers say that the objects farthest from the earth are over 14 BILLION light years away. That means that the light supposedly left that object 14 billion years ago to reach the earth today. So what we are actually observing is the position of that object 14 billion years ago, i.e. that object reached that position 14 billion years ago.
2. Assume that both the earth and that object are equal distance from the center of the “big bang”, 7 billion light years.
3. Problem, how did that object reach a point 7 billion light years from the center of the “big bang” only 500 million years after the big bang without violating Einstein’s theory of relativity which states that NOTHING can travel faster than the speed of light?
Alan Guth explained that observation. It’s only math, though.
Most definitely so, MHGinTN!!!
It would be fun to have a conversation about Genesis 1 and 2, and what is going on in these two chapters....
Ooo, I would relish that conversation! Have to set aside an entire weekend for that one don’tchaknow.
Faith is a funny thing, it only grows when used. And you can't use it, if there is nothing to challenge it with.
True a thread just for this conversation.. with an apropiate title(trap) to entice the heretics.. So many deem others heretics.. Whom are the spice in the stew..
Here’s a brain teaser for you: When Scripture says Jesus Christ is The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, is that a big hint that God has access to all of time such that He saw the fall and the instituting of the penalty (the wages of sin is death) even at the beginning of it all? And if God as Creator can see across time, as the incarnate Christ can He also enter time at any when of His choosing in His resurrected body? [Form the ‘time traveler’ chapter in progress.]
Reminds me of the story of a scientist who found out how to create life. He was so proud of himself he called out God himself to show how he could do it. God told him to proceed. The scientist started, "first you take this dirt.."
God interrupts: "You get your own dirt first".
We(you and I) COULD be watching this intercourse (between our human selves) real time..
Time travel for some purpose.. What purpose, I don't know.. I can't concieve of a good reason to do it, now.. The desire to be a fly on the wall (during some historical event) if time travel is possible in the future could be a reality..
"Heaven" whatever it/that is, could be interesting..
Just to be able to see what happened Historically will be fundamental at The Great Throne Of Judgment don’tchaknow, ‘cause no one will be able to argue ‘I didn’t do it’.
That is pretty much what John Milton the poet came up with. God saw how it would come out for Satan, and so did Satan for that matter but he will play it out anyway. Outside time altogether.
Indeed.
I love it when you tie things all together with some literary reference. Would you like to get into the ‘Genesis’ discussion bettyboop imagined?
Aha! Excellent insights! Thank you, dearest sister in Christ!
Got a gut feeling like Homeland Security it wouldn't go over well. Little has beeen analyzed and dissected as much as those passages.
Moving clocks tick slower.
Indefinite prepositions are a b$%^&, especially when elided. Makes casual writing nearly incomprehensible, but in this at least translations can be superior.
So if God set His watch upon the soliton of creation as the universe began expanding, could His view read six days and ours read 14 billion? [That’s the sort of discussion betty boop was implying, RW. It would be a fun discussion don’tchaknow!]
If a watch is found on the beach, was it a watch before it was found by someone who knew what it was?
Heck if humans can make dvds what could the "angels" watching it all have available to them?.. Especially IF some angels are watching/monitoring each human life.. Then time travel would not be needed since it all is recorded..
On the other hand "WHY record" if time travel is quite easy to produce.. ugh!.. make happen.. -OR- what would be gained by doing any of this at all(time travel)..
The future("heaven") could have wonderful challenges that would dwarf any of this and make it seem silly.. LIKE; "the population/populating of this Universe" with qualified humans(and angels) monitoring their development.. Sans a menace(Satan) with a beneficial monitor instead(certain humans).. Qualified by a human life..
Contemplated from whose frame of reference? If from The Creator’s frame before the advent of temporal expression, the mere thought of it would cause it to come into being as time unwound, don’t you think? LOL ... I can almost hear those professorial gears clicking.
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