without uncertainty it is impossible to please G-d - as faith could not exist without it.
(this first appeared on my blog - http://liquidlight.wordpress.com - entitled, “G-d and time”.
i started thinking today about how time-bound our perception of G-d and our interpretation of scripture can be, much of the time.
while valid, this is but A point of view and not THE point of view in engaging our Creator, the bible, nature or anything else in the multiverse. this train of thought was sparked off by an interesting post on opensourcetheology.net - thanks Stacy! - about Christ’s descending into hell. in it she suggested that Christ, being G-d and therefore not constrained by time, may have descended to free those in hell AT THE END of time - post-judgement - and not merely 2000 years ago.
this thought hit me between the eyes and my heart whispered, maybe yes.
apart from appealing to my fascination with quantum wierdness, it also highlighted how linear and time-bound my interpretation of scripture and G-d is, which is understandable, given that we largely live in a newtonian world and not at the sub-atomic level.
(anyway it’s my almost exclusive & habitual use of the linear-temporal view in relating to G-d etc that i’m underlining here.)
could it be that our technologies have to some extent started to reflect elements of the realm within which G-d lives and moves - being more non-linear - but that our theologies and interpretations of scripture, in the main, have not?
ie they have tended to remain more static, linear & “in time”.
(does orthodoxy demand this or can we envision and emerge with a more dynamic orthodoxy that shapes & in turn is shaped by the paradoxical @ non-local universe in which we dwell?)
i sense Love as being non-linear which - embedded within the heart of the gospel - may be a clue and a way back-thru-beyond.
could a rigid theology be a pathological response to - and defence against - uncertainty?
in a multiverse where uncertainty = faith’s anti-particle?
if so then the inflexible theologies so esteemed by much of the evangelical church as reflecting “faith”, could from a non-linear perspective be seen by G-d as idolatrous & stemming from a LACK of belief.
without uncertainty it is impossible to please G-d - as faith could not exist without it - and so even the dark is redemptive and in service to the Divine.
as echoed in, “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” - Romans 11:32
surely?
maybe.
sitting down at my desk to work, a small voice suggested something to the effect of: “the bible is a book and G-d = G-d so always keep that in mind”.
things for me to meditate on after time out from wrestling.
perhaps
i love the non-linear and outside of time thoughts of god. tolkein and lewis and other fantastic storytellers take me there - to the mystery of the unknown. it is funny to me that the science that seems to have boxed in the modern period, may be the stepping stone for what ultimately links us to the kind of truth that cannot be contained in a formula, but only in an experience.
Einstein may have broken the
Einstein may have broken the conceptual constraint of time and space that mankind has been bound to since the beginning of history. But it has not converted into a popular recognition of it for humans. The earth is still flat on that account. Just as it took a while for us to believe the world is round, or the reality of the global village with global warming.
The Church diverts us from this spiritual truth. We can only get to the timelessness of God by making it into heaven. We have to pass the test here in time and space to graduate to that after death. It helps to keep humans in the mindset that they are not eternal now, that it is contingent, a bonus of Salvation. So we have to work hard on our theology to conjure it up in this reality of God, humans and inert matter. The only conscious thing outside of God is humans, so the only other ‘spirit’ we have to join with on our journey here are our fellow souls.
It contributes to mankind’s eternal desert, struggling to conjure up ‘spirit’ in every generation through complex theology and a bizarre story called Jesus. Humans are still effectively the center of the universe in their minds, as God caters to our needs in this inert matter.
Nothing much has really changed, despite all our technical and theological prowess. Reality remains only God, humans and inert matter… time and space remaining our prison of perception of who we are, waiting for a promise.