And you, dear brother in Christ, wrote: "BB, my Dear Sister in Christ, I fear I must side with MHGinTN on this one. "
My dear brother in Christ, you acknowledge agreement with what MHGinTN wrote:
God is in Christ, reconciling we flawed beings to Himself, thus He is intimately in contact with spacetime in the person of Jesus Christ. That is how He can reconcile us to Himself, through The Christ, The Son of the Everliving God.TX, you provided the following amplification of MHGinTN's remarks:
God diminishes none of His transcendence by functioning as The Holy Spirit holding the unbelievably delicate balance of the Universe together, and in being the earnest of our inheritance present in our human spirit through Christ's work. And God compromises none of His transcendence by indwelling Jesus through Jesus's human spirit made Divine forever more. As Creator, perhaps God is 'outside' the Creation, but as The Holy Spirit and as Christ, He is with us, as the name Emmanuel was given to mean.
God is not only omniscient and omnipotent, but omnipresent at all loci in His creation.But it seems to me the two of you aren't exactly talking about the same thing in the same way. MHGinTN's argument seems to go mainly to theology; yours, to a more "scientific" understanding.
Per our discussion of the "Universal NOW", I believe that He can not only "see" the spin status of every subatomic particle in His creation at any instant, if required for the accomplishment of His Will, His omnipotence enables Him to modify that state to effect His desired conclusion.
Humans call such changes "evolution" or "development" or "progress" — or, if the result appears to contravene one of His "laws", (E=MC2, R=ρL/A, PV=nrT, etc....) we call it "miraculous".
I'm with both of you "in spirit"; but have some thoughts and questions on points.
For one thing, I really do stick with my observation that God is entirely beyond spacetime. The Eternal Now is not in the same temporal order that human beings experience as Time (spacetime). I think there is a correspondence between the Eternal Now and its relation to Time that is directly analogous to the Ayn Sof — God is "No-THING" (that is, uncreated) in relation to "THINGS" — i.e., phenomena of the created world: The Eternal Now is (categorically) "No-TIME."
So for openers, it seems to me if we try to model the Universe in such as way as to include the Eternal Now as a temporal dimension, we speak nonsense.
There has been in all of human history one exception to this "rule": The 32 years during which the Son of God was incarnate as Jesus Christ, Son of Man, around 2,100 years ago [according to our spacetime coordinates :^)]. I suspect that was the only "time" when the Eternal Now and our ordinary sense of Time ever "blended." Then Christ resurrected, back to His Father in Heaven. He has not been "in" the world of creation ever since. He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us after His departure from this world. But it seems to me that the Holy Spirit is not "in" the world either, only in those human souls who respond to His divine call.
I believe that when Christ came, He came not only to redeem us from the sin of Adam, thus to restore the possibility of being reunited with our Father in Heaven; He came also to show us what we humans are, as God-created imago Dei.
To me, the imago Dei is the soul, which incarnates in the human body. The soul is not subject to causes that arise in space and time. Only the physical body is so subject. So we might say the soul already ever lives in the Eternal Now; only the body is subject to Time. To me, this irreducible dualism is the ultimate human condition.
I haven't got the slightest doubt that God — being Omniscient — always and already knows the spin status of every subatomic particle in His Creation, just as He can number the hairs on our heads, or have knowledge of any and every sparrow that ever falls here on Earth....
But to me, this does not suggest that God need be the "micromanager" of everything that happens on Earth. To create man in His image — as possessing reason and free will — and to give him dominion over all the orders of Creation as His steward, charged with making the Creation "fruitful," to me suggests that God created an "under-determined" world. That is, He has left a role for man in the unfolding of His Creation, starting with the privilege He accorded Adam, directing him to NAME all the creatures of the Earth He had made. To me this suggests that God desires divine–human cooperation WRT the unfoldment ("evolution") of His Creation — which from the human side could only proceed as an act of (timeless) soul, not of (in-time) body.
Isaac Newton's concept of sensorium Dei seems like an attempt to relate God to His creation in scientific terms, similarly as you seem to do here, dear TX. Instantly, Leibniz had a field-day with this notion, accusing Newton of engaging in "pantheism." It seemed to Leibniz that Newton was trying to make God somehow coterminous with the world. But I think this may have been a misunderstanding of what Newton was aiming at. His sensorium Dei looks a whole lot like a "field" to me, and thus a created entity in spacetime. The point is this field (although universal) and God are NOT one and the same. One might say this field is an effect of the Presence of God, but is definitely not God Himself.
Heaven stands in relation to the Creation as the human soul stands in relation to the physical body: They are two entirely different categorical orders that affect each other, both of which are necessary to grasp the "all that there is." [In this sense, they are like "complementarities," seemingly mutually-exclusive entities, both of which turn out to be necessary to the complete description of the "all that there is."]
Thus two time orders impinge on man — he lives at the intersection of Time and Timelessness, or the Eternal Now, because he is a creature constituted of soul and body.
Anyhoot, to wrap up, If Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have effects in this world of Creation, it is because of the openness of human souls to receive them. Nothing in science can tell you anything at all about such matters; for science deals only with the physical aspects of creation, the "time-bound" parts of it. Neither can science tell you a single thing about the human soul.
But ultimately, the Creation swims in Timelessness, in the Eternal Now — of God's Being, Word, Truth, and Will.
I have no idea whether anything I've written here makes sense to you. I'm not here to "correct" you, nor even to "persuade" you to my point of view. I'm just saying (FWIW): This is my point of view from where I sit right now, as best as I can put it into words....
Thank you so very much, dear brothers in Christ, for exploring these matters with me, and for sharing your wonderfully thought-provoking insights!
God's Name is I AM: Our very physical existence depends on His Being. He is Perfect undivided Substance, the "No-THING" Who created space and time as the manifold to receive His Creation, Who articulates as three Persons (depending on context). Our physical bodies are deaf to such notions. But our souls know — or can know — that God IS Emmanuel, Present, with us who seek Him. (If we seek Him, He will find us....)
And may He ever bless you both, my very dear brothers in Christ!
Thank you!
bb, Dear Sister, I believe our Lord has given you those words to zero us in on expressing and unifying critical elements of the nature of "all things" that we have been converging upon throughout our long-term 'sharings' re creation and our Creator!!
For a while now, I have been "building" (in outline form) what I view as a "grand unified theory" that delineates -- and ties together -- many elements of Divine "truth" that are revealed to us in His Word -- and that may be expressed in terms that have been discussed in this thread.
For months, now, bb, you and I have been sort of "talking past" each other -- because, IMHO, our Lord has blessed each of us with viewpoints and understandings that are revealing vital "truths". But HE has blessed us by having us approach these issues from nearly diametrically opposed viewpoints -- both of which are correct!. And both are necessary to full understanding...
And now, you have brought us together in a manner as dramatic as the driving of the golden spike on the transcontinental railroad -- or the historic meeting beneath Jerusalem of the diggers of Hezekiah's tunnel! Praise the LORD!!!!
I am so excited that I can hardly sit still in my recliner beneath my lap desk!! Yet, I am thoroughly frustrated, because my brain and fingers can't handle the "thought / communication throughput load" imposed on them -- by this cumbersome medium... ;-}
~~~~~~~~
A few months ago, I must admit, I became somewhat disgruntled by your "twisting" of my discussion of "Universal NOW" by expounding on your term, "Eternal Now". [ Right, A-G? :-) ]
But, at the same time, I began, like Hezekiah's tunnelers, to "hear" you approaching ever-more clearly and loudly.
As a scientist, I have been approaching this "junction" from the temporal, mortal, physical side. And you, IMHO, have been approaching from the eternal, immortal, spiritual side. And, now, finally, we meet...
In our discussions of multiple spatial and temporal dimensions, I see a clear "place" for 'your' "Eternal Now" domain, and also for 'my' "Universal NOW" domain. As you so clearly pointed out, they intersected during the incarnated lifetime of our Lord, Jesus -- here on Earth. And, as A-G and I have agreed, they also touched at that (spatially, temporally and physically) infinitesimal "point" we call "Ex nihilo creation".
~~~~~~~~~
Not only have we "converged", your last essay-post was LOADED with inspired truths!! I'll not comment on them here, but, (if I have the energy) will do a "between the lines" commentary / celebration of your post and its many "goodies"...
Again, Thank You, Dear Sister in Christ, for your patience with me -- and for sharing your wonderful insights!
IMHO, we have a new beginning for great enlightenment! :-)
To HIM be the glory!!
I sympathize with TXnMA's reaction, I'm gobsmacked with all the insights you've brought to the table.
Thank God for both of you!
I have adopted the use of the term 'where/when' to identify continua in which things exist and events occur. I use a framework of at least four expressions each for dimension space and dimension time. A thing existing (that is not God, that is, a created thing) will be linked to a where/when framework. For the photon, for instance, the where is 'point space' and the when 'moment time'.
[Imagine a plane from which a linear track stretches to another plane, the track being means for arrival of a moment event from the arrival plane perspective--receiving the inforation packet (the track is past linear) but pointing toward a future present from the emission plane; while in the linear/past to present continuum, no time passes for the packet. The notion is to conceive ONLY of information transmission, The actual Universe bubble is a volume in which planar and linear and moment/point continua expressions exist and occur.]
A packet of energy has existence in a where/when; the packet has a little pinch of space and a little bit of time, and for the photon the existence continuum is linear/planar. (Quarks may not exist in the same continuum, thus they effect our spacetime as if an 'impact' where their continuum intersects the continuum of the elementary particle and/or our spacetime coordinates.
A photon crosses the universe always in the present (planar temporal) of when it was 'emitted' from its source. The wave nature of the photon is derived from its planar temporal status, but upon impacting any thing/being detected by the surroubding universe, the linear/planar collapses to the point out of the linear and moment out of the planar.
The photon carries a 'message' from the present of its emission source but we have been constructed to sense only these planar temporal effects as past events (linear temporal events, or said another way, past events). In that sense, photons are 'carriers' of a temporal aspect and are thus aligned in our sensing along linear temporal reasoning by our brain (and of course our spacetime universe, for the message being transmitted is a present of the emission). AG, this may be a clue as to what gravity is, as a non-electromagnetic event, due to the temporal/spatial orientation/continuum of gravity information transmission. The nature of gravity may be due to the ealiest expressings of dimensions space and time, there the photon is a more advanced packet and the field effect of gravity a less advanced expression of space and time ... the gravity effect may be the warping of the spatial by the collective 'lump' of temporal that would be 'in' any collection of 'things'.
Our limitation of sensing only past events may be essentially a characteristic of the physical body our soul inhabits while alive on earth. I imagine the nature of our existence as a sort of 'condensing from/of' a soul, in yjr semse of becoming more limited in our spatio-temporal existence, sort of like water vapor condenses into droplets.
Here's the part that may cause stumbling: any thing which exists (that is not God), exists in a where/when framework of some type. Even the soul exists in a spatio-temporal continuum, but we are not made to be able to sense that where/when ... yet. The Bible tells us that when Christ returns, the souls/spirits of those who have died in Christ shall God bring with Him. In my reasoning, this means the soul/spirit exist in some spatio-temporal framework thus the person/soul can be brought (a thing experiencing an event).