"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." --Genesis 1:2-3
The most fundamental packet of energy we know of is light, it is pure electromagnetic energy, yet it also has mass like properties.
In the beginning with the big bang we can image a universe filled with light only, (before the creation, condensation of matter) which is the only thing in nature we know to behave both like a particle of matter and/or a wave packet of energy.
So in a sense light has properties of both spirit and matter.
(Zondervan’s New International Version) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
According to current Physics conceptualization, there is a subatomic quantum that is the force communicator for each fundamental force in the universe, such as gravity at galaxy sizes (the graviton), electromagnetism at atomic and molecular sizes (the photon), the weak force and strong force at nuclear sizes (with separate ‘photonesque’ particles of specific properties for each). Physicists have succeeded in combining predictability equations for all but gravity, and are seeking an equation or set of equations that can include gravity. Such an equation or equations would be called grand unification, making it possible to calculate phenomena from the smallest scales all the way to the reality of galaxies, using the same equations. One of the problems with this quantum mechanical definition of reality is the yet to be found gravity particle, the graviton. If no such particle for the force communicator is found then some other way of describing the ‘field’ of gravity will be necessary.
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Time is as much a dimension as space is a dimension. We speak of past, present, and future time, but in fact we perceive only events that have already happened in our world because it takes time for information of the event to reach our senses and be processed … the information system of energy exchange (those force communicator particles) carry a representation of present for when the event takes place at the sender, and that present is conveyed to our mind via photon particle arrival at the receiver. According to Physics (but there is a catch to this that we will get to in a later chapter) nothing can transmit information at a rate faster than the speed of light (300,000,000 meters per second --meters are almost as long as yards, for you football fans), or roughly 186,000 miles per second. It is possible to transmit information much more slowly, as in the Pony Express for example, but the top speed limit for information transfer in the universe of our perceptions is the speed of light because that is the typical speed at which light exists in our spacetime.
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Do not assume that God created the universe from light. God created the universe of spacetime with information, the Wisdom of God, the Word of God. [John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. JN 1:3 Through him all things were made (NIV)]
God’s command to time and space became light to build the things in space and time, but the universe of spacetime and the energy were created through His Word. God created space, time, and energy, then He made things with light … which brings us back to light (sort of). What follows is not basic Physics, it is a speculation upon the nature of God’s command ‘to’ the energy in spacetime at the beginning.
The Genesis 1:3 passage conveys a kind of span, from present to present, as if a length of time, or a length of space bounded by variables of time. Notice that in the majority of parallel versions quoted the command starts with a verb ‘Let’, followed by location ‘there’, followed by another verb ‘be’, followed by a noun ‘light’. The verse is completed with ‘and there’, that location which is a representation of space and implying present tense with the ‘and’, then ‘was’, a past tense verb, then the noun again, ‘light’. The first part of verse three is a linear span of time or space bounded at each end with present tense, the second part of verse three is a span of time bounded at one end by present and the other end by past tense. It is as if there are two versions of light: one bounded by present and present, one bounded by past and present. Would the present and present separated by a span represent the mixing of space and time? Could the expression of length of dimension space be the notion conveyed by present bounding each end of a span (linear, as simplest variable of space)? Might the span with past at one end and present implied at the other be conveying an unfinished span and thus make room for wave motion of the energy we perceive as light?
If we were discussing classic string theory [the notion that everything in the quantum world is made of very small vibrating strings, some of which are open on one end or the other and others closed upon themselves like tiny circles or closed loops] one might think that Genesis 1:3 is describing the formation of quantum strings! We are not asserting that, but we will use that concept to aid in explaining what happened at the Belshazzar party.
It was THIS fact that got me seriously thinking about GOD!
A snot nosed young lad of 18; a know-it-all HS graduate, thinking of the BigBang and a sky full of brillant pinpoints of light on a cold Colorado, November night.
"Yeah! That's how all this came about: BANG! and all those massive stars are flung out there. Einstein and all that stuff!"
Walking along, back to the barracks, when a small, almost audible thought(?) formed in my head, asking, "Where did the ENERGY come from?"
I knew the formula -
E=mC2
and knew you could re-arrange it so:
m=E/C2
A few years later, and many contacts with folks who KNEW what and where the ENERGY Source was, I, too, came to believe.