Starting with something simple, if you were a two spatial dimension being, having only length and width, any third direction of spatial expression would be unknowable to you via your senses. Now, if higher dimensional being wanted to explain what a pencil is or anything with 3D spatial characterisitcs, the only way you could sense the 3D object is where that 3D object intersects your 2D world.
As a pencil--for instance--passes through your 2D plane, you look at the intersection intensely and perhaps imagine how adding up all the sensed intersections would sum up to a 3D object. But you could only sense where the 3D object intersects your 2D world.
Jesus focused Philip's attention upon this same problem in John Chapter fourteen, where Jesus told Philip (paraphrasing), 'If you've seen me you've seen the Father, because all you can see of the Father is what you see in me, for I am in the Father and the Father in me.' Literally, what Jesus was teaching Philip was that human limits in dimensional sensing allow Philip to see only the amount of The Father that is in Jesus.
Now let's apply that to the expressions of God in Three persons, the Trinity, and see how the work that God is doing helps to focus us upon which of His personage is the essence. God's name is I AM. I take that to mean He is timeless, and thereforethe Creator of dimension time and dimension space. It is a human trait to which we must analogize, but it helps to imagine that God imagined Whom Jesus would be as an expression of God, then God created space and time and all that there is in the known and unknown universe. That Creation process is by God greater than the creation.
The balance of forces is so delicate for the universe which has brought forth Jesus that God as Holy Spirit sustains it all in this extremely delicate balance.
So we have God The Creator bringing into existence time, space, and all that there is in the universe, holding it all in an extremely delicate balance by His Holy Spirit, so that God as Jesus can eventually come forth within the Created universe. Three expressions of One God, indentified by the work He is doing, the reality He is expressing.
The Bible tells us that God in Jesus made Himself a little lower than the angels (in expression and sensing). As God became flesh and dwelt among us, He had to limit the expression of Himself in order to 'fit' within the limits of our space and time.
HOWEVER, as God He retained the knowledge of what the forces are that His Holy Spirit sustains to keep the dynamic universe operating. Knowing the physical laws in total allows Him to do things like feed 5000 with but a few loaves and fishes.
Literally, everything that is happening is happening because God is sustaining the delicate balance which allows the universe to continue in existence without collapsing or quickly dissipating.
If you knew the complete physical laws of the universe, including the way God is sustaining the whole in delicate balance, you would be 'seeing what God The Father is doing.' Because the universe is in delicate balance yet is dynamic in nature, events can occur and so long as the physical laws of His universe are not violated, choices by living things can be made.
Here is another analogy which might help this explanation. Suppose you were privy to a pair of time binoculars, by which when you look through them you can see an object as it is expressed in spacetime for the next three hours, displayed before your eyes in total as you look through the lenses. Perhaps the lenses run a rapid movie of what is actually coming over the next three hours when you look through the lenses at an object located in the dynamic universe. You could literally say that you are seeing what God is doing, since it is His Holy Spirit that sustains the entire dynamic process of spacetime! Now, how much more power would you have if you comprehended the entire set of laws by which the entire universe is sutained?
If there are other unsensed expressions of dimension time, that as a 'knowing being' you were privy to as you dwelt upon the earth, perhaps you could moved between locations in time, perhaps leaving a stone tomb without rolling away the stone, because in a dynamic universe, if you could step 'sideways' in spatio-temporal expression because of your undersatnding of the volume of time in which the plane of present exists moving linearly from past to future, the planar location of the insides of the tomb in spacetime move on, leaving you outside of the tombs insides, able to step back into spacetime or remain in the where/when to which you stepped 'sideways'!
Now, perhaps the question bubbling up in your mind is 'so you're saying there is no free agency, we are stuck on a track doing that which God has already determined will be?' And my immediate answer is, no, because God chose as one of the characteristics of this universe that He would sustain the processes and the physical aspects, while leaving open the choices living things can make which effect the universe He is sustaining ... God's Holy Spirit sustains the spacetime bubble we sense, but He allows us to alter/affect the dynamic expression within that bubble of spacetime since we in our limits cannot change the forces He is sustaining across the entire universe.
We have free choice, to a point that is limited by our temporal and spatial limits as 4D beings, physically. BUT, we are greater than 4D because we are alive, and the expression of life and spirit choice of right and wrong are dimensionally greater than 4D, yet occur within the universe which God Created(Creates) and which His Holy Spirit sustains in the delicate balance we sense and even the portions we cannot sense.
And there are realms of reality which we cannot sense, which are referred to in the Bible, old and new testament. Daniel Chapter five will reveal one such realm, which is accessible to Jesus before and after the resurrection but is not accessible to us because we do not see what the Father is doing in sustaining that other realm, because we are merely 4D spatio-temporal beings where our physical senses are concerned.
Awesome! You blow my mind, MHG. Thanks
kerping
I find is such a joyous, rare occasion when I finally meet someone else who "get's it" in these terms.
Ever considered a job in metaphysical apologetics?
Hey Quix, I found another one!
:-)
I enjoyed your explanation and how you perceive to explain the realities of God’s being, most people have not considered things in that reality to even have an opinion..
While I find delight and have considered in my heart what was said, I still know the Father and Jesus are one, yet different..each retaining their individuality while also being one in the life, the Holy Spirit to me is the thought wave traveling through the being of God, the communicator without the spoken word being made manifest as word to creation has been understood from the beginning. This is why Christ said it is not what enters the body which defiles us it is what comes out..because in reality, God is our life and the life in all through Christ who spoke all into existence, as was learned by Christ from God..So as God and Christ communicate it reavels through all things creating and enlightening those who begin to hear..having been made one in Christ. This celestial conversation is made manifest to us through the Holy Spirit.
Jesus focused Philip’s attention upon this same problem in John Chapter fourteen, where Jesus told Philip (paraphrasing), ‘If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father, because all you can see of the Father is what you see in me, for I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ Literally, what Jesus was teaching Philip was that human limits in dimensional sensing allow Philip to see only the amount of The Father that is in Jesus.
I think that what Jesus was teaching Philip was that the world had never seen the Father, as Christ was the creator by God’s will.. I believe the times Christ spoke as the Father was because in reality it is God who in dwells within Him, so we hear him as Christ, as the Father, and as a man depending on the tuning of our souls at that moment..Christ said call no one good but the Father, yet said when asked to show others the Father, do you not know me, a distinct separation in character and purpose, yet one in life, inseperable, eternally one..
Einstein said if you shine a light into space it comes back to you, because the alpha is the Omega, and the end is the beginning, a there was a new earth and a new Heaven..etc..
Peace to you in Christ..
Works for me.
LOL.
Yeah, MHGinTN has probably been a very bright one all his (I think he, IIRC), life.
I think your analogies are quite apt.
And, understanding is better than not understanding, imho.
However, that and $12 MIGHT get a cup of coffee.
And probably the flatlanders in OThuga’s cliques always were/are terminally ignorant as flatlanders and would certainly have nothing to wrap around the level of understanding MHGinTN has.
LOL.
Truly, we mere mortals are very limited in our mental and sensory perception to four dimensions, three of space and one of time. I believe this limitation is according to God's will for us.
If we were able to perceive in four spatial dimensions and one of time, we'd be able to remove the contents of a box without opening it. And if we were able to perceive in three spatial dimensions and two of time, we'd be able to see into the past and future and change things affecting the continuum in any direction.
[Actually, on a technical note, we never perceive in the present due to the lag time between physical perception and cognition. But that's splitting hairs...]
Sorry, I don’t buy what you are saying. Unless I am completely misreading you, and you are of course free to point where I am, it seems to me that you are trying to explain the Creator in terms of the creation. It’s not going to work. What you are saying is somewhat akin to what, in a much earlier era, was termed modal monarchianism. Your explanation simply does not ring true either in terms of Johannine or creedal theology (which are one and the same, otherwise I would not say, “credo,” “I believe”).
Again, feel free to correct me.