“God is like your kindly old physics professor.” Considering my dislike for physics I find the word “kindly” to be incompatible with the study of physics. The Hobbit is an engineer by training, a Purdue University mechanical engineer at that. He
enjoys and understands physics. He often speaks of the “physics of consciousness.”
Truth is I didn’t try very hard at physics. It really never captured my interest. Psychology, now I was fascinated by psychology. Much of what he says I eventually understand but this “physics of consciousness” business is different.
Now, he also says, “Jesus was God’s audio-visual” of what life is really all about. I get the idea of an audio-visual. Actually, I’ve always thought that Jesus’ life was more the point than his death and resurrection. But I think I’m in the minority on that one. Don’t get me wrong, I think his final three days and his forty days on earth after his death are a critical part of the whole story but may be not the most critical.
His life was about consciousness. Consciousness is the scientific word for spirit. His life was about communicating that there is more to life than our physical being, our desires, our impulses. There’s more than just our senses. There’s more than just this existence. His life was about how we are to be reflective. And it was about how to live from the spirit while we’re here.
He actually didn’t talk much about what happens after life. Life after death has not been a major issue for Jews, including Jesus. He is a Jew.
Then “it” happened! I received Brian Green’s The Fabric of the Cosmos for my birthday. When I got it I must admit I was puzzled by the gift. Oh yes, I had watched a couple of DVDs of The Elegant Universe, another of his books. And yes, I had found them fascinating but to read a book written by a physicist? I doubt it. Remember, physics never captured my interest.
So the book has been sitting on my desk. I’ve thumbed through it a couple of times but found no fascination there. Then, this morning, for no “apparent” reason I picked it up and opened it to a chapter on space-time. Wow! For just a little while the subjects of consciousness, spirituality, quantum physics and psychology coalesced.
“We’re not really in control of our life’s scenario,” says the Hobbit “it just appears that way.” I must admit it certainly appears that way to me, so much so that I find this idea implausible. He says, “the physics of the universe are such that we cannot be in control or else God would have to be fragmented from himself and that’s impossible. So at any given moment you are experiencing the fabric of your life coming through you, but you are not creating or doing anything, it is not coming from you, no matter how it appears.”
I’ve been thinking that I need to talk with the Hobbit about this. It really poses a problem in that it’s just not “common sense.” It’s too hard to believe and too hard to explain to others. It’s wonderful theology, you know God is omnipotent and all, but it just can’t be born out by our experience of life and most certainly not by science or anything else objective.
Then Brian Greene came along. This world-class quantum physicist says, “We are all within space-time. Every experience you or I ever have occurs at some location in space at some moment of time.” He goes on to explain that on the space-time continuum if you were able to change your position you’d be able to “examine all the coming and goings on planet earth.” You could therefore theoretically be any place at any time and experience the event.
It is the mind, the light of consciousness, which provides the illusion of a flow of events. Actually, all events are happening simultaneously. There is, according to the quantum physicist, no flow. Each moment simply is.
Of course, Greene goes on to explain that even if you could visit another space and time you could not change anything unless your changing it was a part of the event. In other words, you are not in control of any event on the space-time continuum including the moment you are experiencing right now. So the quantum physicist and the Hobbit agree, “We’re not really in control of our life’s scenario. It just appears that way.”
Oh kindly physics professor, thank you! Now my spiritual position, as explained by the Hobbit, and my scientific position, as explained by Dr. Greene, are more consistent.
By the way, the moment you are experiencing right now actually happened anywhere from a nanosecond to several minutes to, in the case of star gazing, many years ago. The stars you looked at last evening might not even exist anymore. You are seeing the light that left the star years ago. Of course, we have all come to understand the speed of light and how we’re always seeing what was but not what actually is. Our perception, because of a lapse in time, is always slightly behind the events. We never actually see what is happening right now!
So Jesus has always lived. It must be so because not only does that Bible tell us that but also so does quantum physics. And he lives today. Not only does the Bible tell us that but also so does quantum physics. And what of his resurrection? Well, we’ll all be resurrected. The Bible tells us there is a life beyond this and, since every moment is a “living moment” according to the physicists, so does science.
One more thought. Jesus is the audio-visual of God’s reality. The resurrection of Jesus although cool was not, if you accept the Bibles position or that of quantum physics, anything other than what we should expect. But the fact that roughly five hundred people who saw Jesus after his resurrection, now that was the mystery and the miracle. They experienced something that humans don’t routinely experience. They experienced Jesus alive in another space and time yet still in their space and time. Now this is really some lesson from the “kindly old physics professor.”
This must have been for them a sort of “born again” experience. Think of it. To see into another space-time or to have another space-time invade your space-time now that would be a rebirth of sorts, wouldn’t you say? Whoa! I like this kind of physics.
