Genesis 1:1a — continued

In the beginning God …

In addition to Titus 1:2 and 2 Timothy 1:9 saying time has a beginning, Christianity views eternity, not as a place of infinite time, but as a place outside of time. Once again, science and the Bible are in harmony. But if eternity is outside of time, what will Heaven be like? Is our concept of Heaven totally simplistic?

Of course it is. Our concept of everything is simplistic. The Bible is a finite book about an infinite subject. If our reaction to it is anything other than humility, we’re kidding ourselves.

Fortunately, the Bible is specifically written for us. Parts of it stretch our simple minds to their limits, but we are spared the stuff that we could never grasp. We are left knowing that God does perform miracles, and we shouldn’t expect to understand how. We don’t even always know why.

Mathematics and science have opened doors into a world beyond our imagination. Relativity is one example, but there are others. The field of Complex Numbers is strange enough to give any student pause.

Look over a university catalog and you’ll find a high-level mathematics course named something like “Complex Variables.” It’s all based on the square root of minus 1, which they call “i”. Since the square of any number is positive, the square root of a negative number is impossible. Mathematicians call such numbers “imaginary,” as opposed to regular numbers, which they call “real.” These labels seem pretty fair. When combined, they’re called “complex numbers” (another fair name, unfortunately).

The whole thing seems ridiculous, but apply algebra and calculus to complex numbers and things start to get interesting. As you pound further and further into the topic, it starts to yield some dramatic and useful results. Many tough problems are made much simpler by using complex variables. Furthermore, complex variables can be used to solve some problems that have no other known solutions. Even more amazingly, the complex variables methods never yield a false result. These crazy tricks are reliable.

And that’s not all. Some of the most important equations in physics have i in them (e.g., Schrödinger’s Equation). Physicists are frustrated by this, but without any workable alternative, the i remains. They use words like “less agreeable” for the presence of i in these key equations, but physics is all about results and the equations with i in them work. Thus, they have survived a century of great minds looking for a more palatable substitute.

The student is left wondering just how awesome the whole truth might be, and also wondering just how unawesome we are. This too agrees with the Bible. General revelation coughs up some pretty cool stuff.

The Heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. — Psalm 19:1

You take the red pill; you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. — Morpheus (in The Matrix)

Be awed by God’s creation; in that you’ll be awed by God. Unfortunately, we seem to lack that awe. This is sad, given the steady stream of awe-inspiring things we get from science. Here’s an example from 2018 on NASA’s astronomy picture of the day website. Be sure to read the explanation.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180807.html

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These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays' by Matt Richardson. Subscribe here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, are here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.