The biggest explosion ever recorded destroys as many of our ideas of God

Does Science confirm the existence of God

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

Blowing in the wind

A young soldier survived a wayward shot from a German sniper, at Arnhem. His mother was quick to claim it as God’s hand. Noted theological philosopher, CS Lewis was not impressed. He argued that the bullet was influenced by the moral choice of the marksman and the forces of nature.

No Lewis is not a cynic, he was just trying to arrive at a first cause for everything. He opposed the idea that nature begat itself, and I agree. I see the hand of a creator.

Now, of course I think his argument is a tad simplistic, but like Paul, Lewis is a virtual final authority.

As old as ....

I read an article by a leading associate of Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, and whilst I do sincerely respect AIG, I feel the article (Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Literal Days?, Ken Ham, 2007) is worthy of some rebuttal.

He opens his arguments from Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” That is used to argue that Adam and Eve were with God from the outset, so the creation had to be young. That is just simply not biblical. Adam and Eve were created on day 6, not on day 1. Thus Jesus had something else in mind.

And God said ....

The Big Bang concept was first postulated by Belgian priest and astronomer, Georges Lemaître. However, the expression was coined by noted astrologer Fred Hoyle.

The latter chose the term pejoratively, because he had so long advocated a dying theory, that of a steady state universe. The irony is that Stephen Hawking had hoped to have Hoyle as his supervisor, but fate conspired to leave him in the more inspirational hands of Dennis Sciama.

What a difference that little decision made. Sciama brought the very best out of Hawking and continued to promote his ideas long after Hoyle walked away in disgust over the threats posed by Hawking’s Black Hole research.

Creation without a creator??

It is impossible to understand our universe without first understanding the motives behind its formation.

My last post argued that objects like an Italian sports car or a new building or a house, reflect a combination of functional and aesthetic design. It reminds me of a general rule of thumb in aeronautics, which simply states that “if it looks good, chances are it will fly well”.

The fact that our universe is both functionally and aesthetically remarkable, speaks volumes about its maker and His heartbeat. Had we been solely a product of evolution, diversity of species and the preservation of their specificity, would not have happened.

Signs in the heavens

I have a dilemma. I had a desire to explore the signs of God in the heavens, but then I felt a deep check in my spirit. Many years ago I sat through a presentation by a Christian speaker who revealed how even the astrological constellations reveal the hand of God and foretell the destiny of the world. It was fascinating, but not pleasing to God.

The three wise men used star signs to accurately foretell the advent of Christ, so perhaps the bible does acknowledge that there is something in what is far from science.  Genesis 1 and other scriptures also confirm that God set signs in the heavens. Luke 21: 11 says, "... and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven."

The coming storm

The outstretched hand of the Lamb of God and the great coal of fire that is in His hands, portends a coming age of great struggle on earth. Thanks to Hubble there is a growing gallery of profound images emerging from space and this image is right up there with the best of them.

Actually one of the most amazing discoveries of late is a dark chasm in space, spanning billions of light years, which contains nothing - no stars, no gas, no matter, nothing. It is a dark void.

All of the signs currently visible and yet to become visible, predict a coming world crisis followed by the return of the King. 

Awesome power

My firstborn son is an amateur scientist. Having blown up all he could find, whilst burning house and home and shaking foundations or launching surface to surface missiles against neighbours, he also found time for the academic side of science. As far as he is concerned, if he spent all day at shool just doing science, he couldn't be happier. Isn't there a specialist science school out there? I suppose not. Sadly a not so good mathematics teacher has caused him to lose confidence in that vital link to a future engineering qualification, but its all coming back - a little bit of encouragement and support is doing wonders. 

In the process of helping him I took him out for some coffee. On the way, he pointed towards a red indicator light and said, "Dad there is enough energy in that small red dot to light a city". The point he was making related to Einstein's groundbreaking energy formula. 

He stands upon the circle of the heavens

Einstein argued that space-time can be warped. At the time the theory could not be proved, but subsequent observation of black holes confirms that he was right.

Similar to the error of parallax whereby light bends when we observe something under water, so space-time distorts our observations of reality.

When a black hole passes between us and a distant massive object, the extreme gravitational influences bend the light passing between the object and us, so we see the object in a different place from where it is or should be.

In the movie “Next”, scientists reproduce a supposed warping of space-time, enabling them to blend the past or future into the present. Think in terms of space-time being a continuous ribbon, which is then bent so that earlier or future scenes are wrapped back to coincide with the present. Einstein would concede that the plot was theoretically possible, but practically very far from feasible.

Now our galaxy is spiral shaped - because it has or at least had a spinning core. However, as we move further from the core, we get an effect called gravitational braking, which argues that matter cannot approach or reach the speed of light. Thus, the arms of the spirals start to bend into their familiar spiral shape because matter along the spiral cannot move around the core at the same speeds as matter nearer the core.

Now, as a very amateur scientist or, preferably, a rank amateur, let me ask, could the universe be a super-spiral, with a common core? Arguably yes. It had a common starting point, the moment of the big bang, and because the massive energy in the system could not be expressed only as an explosion, the core would have started to spin.

Okay, so theoretically we are all caught up in a massive spiral. Well then, could it be that gravitational braking also slows down the speed of orbit for matter further and further from the core? Again we could surmise that it be so.

Well then, is it possible that space-time, at a universal level, overlaps, so that yesterday is infinitely close to today? If so, then if universal time is a function of the core, the way our own solar time references the sun, can we argue that the fringes of the universe approach infinity in line with Einstein space-time theorem?

Now here is the real poser. Jesus is referred to as the “ancient of days”. That implies that He has aged, that He is subject to time. We could concede that, as He emerged some “time” after the infinite beginning of His Father. Accordingly, where Job 22:14 said. “He walks in the circle of the heaven”, did He imply that Jesus stands at the edge of time and eternity? Theologically, He mediated between time and eternity, but if He physically also stands at the edge of the universe, would we find Him seated in a state near-eternity, whilst still being part of the times and seasons of this universe?

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

Does God live in a present-continuous tense?

I was freshly challenged by the view held by most believers, including, until recently, myself, that God dwells in a present-continuous tense. It presupposes that when Christ was “slain from the foundations of the earth”, in God’s mind the event had already happened, would yet happen and by implication is still happening. Another scripture in Ecclesiastes 3 adds to that view, saying, “Whatever is, has already been and what will be, has been before”.

“Slain before the foundations of the earth”, refers to a provision or guarantee that God made to underwrite project earth, not to predetermine its fall. It was a divine insurance policy. If God had been so predeterministic, He would be in no position to judge us. The scripture in Ecclesiastes is also moot, referring more to the continuity of life and the fact that nothing is really new – our issues today reflect issues of bygone eras.

Time and eternity

Time is limited to created things that all have defined beginnings.  The creator is the only truly independent variable and everythings stands or falls by Him, so all things that we made must be relative to Him and subject to Him. Thus the entire universe is a subset of His absolute constancy. Time and Space are also relative to Him and exist by and for Him. So far so good, but by that logic is there time in heaven? Whilst we about it, can did Jesus have a beginning?

Jesus, though also eternal, is a sub-set of His (Eternal) Father. He had a defined beginning (Eternity + n). He will also continue (reign) within the context of this universe, until He has restored all things and put God’s enemies under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25-28). Beyond that, we understand Him to be the heir of all things, so by implication He stands to inherit His Father's estate and continue His dynasty. This is challenging theology, but Paul confirmed these ideas in that same scripture, when He said, "Then God shall be all in all".

Jesus was mandated from before the foundations of the earth, to restore order to a universe that had been corrupted by the rebellion of Satan. The process of restoration fulfils Newton’s laws, by which all things must revert to a rest state.

Project earth was God’s response to sin, but to explain that will take much more space than this article can afford – indeed there is not enough space in the universe to describe the depth and power of God’s eternal wisdom. Suffice to say, that God needed to set a precedent for the judgment of sin and so made His spotless Son subject to the law and its supreme penalty, so that He might subject Satan to the same laws.

So what we have is a time horizon involving Jesus and the earth, which has a discrete beginning and a defined conclusion: an end. Within that season are many bit-parts and sub-plots, each with seasons that involve specific people or peoples. The key plumb-line, for all that happens on the earth, was the cross, which coincidentally also defines time before and time after. The cross is the sundial of God that cast its shadow on the past and became the fulfilment of all that went before. But it also cast a shadow on the future, thereby defining its ultimate conclusion.

Human time has been set relative to Calvary. Recently we started speaking of BCE (Before the Current Era) and CE. But that merely removed references to Christ from the notations “BC” and “AD”. It did not alter the fact that the climax of history was when Christ hung on a cruel Roman cross for the atonement of sin and the judgment of Satan.

The outstretched arms of the saviour reached into all the past and all the future and embraced all space, as far west and east as space will go. The vertical of the cross took the cross beyond dimensions of time and space into the physical-spiritual dimension, for after he died, Paul declares in Ephesians 6: “He descended to the lowest parts of the earth and then ascended to the highest heaven, so that He might fill all things”.

Thus He stooped as low as humanity can stoop to take us to the greatest of all heights, but in doing so He reached all people of all time and in every culture and creed, for He is the King. He is the only true potentate, the saviour of the world and the light that shone in darkness to bring light and hope to those who live in the shadows.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net