More Than Meets the Eye

by Richard Swenson

  Exceeding the speed of light— Efforts are under way in some scientific circles to design faster-than-light communicators based on quantum connections. If they succeed, the intention is to use possible superluminal quantum linkages (theoretical and highly speculative) as a signaling medium.34 I do not bring up such research to speculate about the possibility of its future success. Instead I want to point out that God already has provided us with a faster-than-light signaling medium—prayer.

  We know that prayer originates somewhere in our brain-heart-spirit. But where is God’s ear? One possibility is that God is so close, so omnipresent, that prayer does not travel at all. God intercepts it precisely as I am thinking it. But if prayer has to travel—even an inch—it must travel at infinite speed. Orthodoxy maintains, and I agree, that prayer is an instantaneous phenomenon. If travel is required, prayer must exceed the speed of light.

  One additional spiritual property that travels faster than the speed of light is God’s sight. Human eyesight is dependent on photons, which are bound by the light speed barrier. God, however, obviously uses a non-photon-based vision mechanism. We don’t know how He sees—and we don’t have to. It is enough to realize that He sees all things at all times instantaneously, and darkness cannot hide anything from His awareness.

  Light and the spiritual realm— Everything about light suggests that it has a metaphysical dimension. Light regularly captured the hymn writers’ imagination. As a result, the theme of light is a mainstay in the great hymns of the church.

  Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

  In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,

  Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,

  Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.

  Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,

  Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;

  All praise we would render: O help us to see

  ’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee. 35

  Poetry with religious themes also deals frequently with the theme of light as a spiritual and hopeful entity:

  Enthroned amid the radiant spheres,

  He glory like a garment wears;

  To form a robe of light divine,

  Ten thousand suns around Him shine. 36

  THOMAS BLACKLOCK

  Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;

  It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings. 37

  WILLIAM COWPER

  Throughout Scripture God refers to light in a spiritual context. Light is mentioned in the first chapter of the Old Testament:

  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 38

  It is also prominently featured in the last chapter of the New Testament:

  There will be no more night. They will not need

  the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,

  for the Lord God will give them light.39

  Light is always referred to in the context of hope and righteousness. When God appears, a light signals the way. When God withdraws, the land is plunged into darkness. Jesus is heralded as the “true light,” and then later says of Himself:

  I am the light of the world. 40

  Most powerful of all light references are the passages where light is used to describe God’s essence. In 1 John, God calls Himself light. Very seldom does God allow a noun to be substituted for His name. We do find it written that God is love, and that God is Spirit. But such occurrences are rare. In 1 John, however, we read:

  God is light. 41

  Finally, the New Jerusalem, created as an eternal residence for the redeemed, is marked by two notable absences: no temple and no sun. In a tremendous display of glory and holy splendor, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are both the temple and the light of the Holy City:

  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it,

  for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its

  lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings

  of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

  On no day will its gates ever be shut,

  for there will be no night there. 42

  What will it be like to someday have God, the Great Physicist, take over? He will redefine everything, change the laws of science, and rid His realm of decay, pain, and aging. He will introduce new dimensions that will grant us mobility and communication possibilities previously unimagined.

  And in our midst will be a Light so brilliant that it would blind us with fear had it not first swallowed us with Love.

  SCIENCE,

  SCRIPTURE, and

  SOVEREIGNTY

  SCIENCE has much to teach us about the power and precision of God. Scripture points in the same direction. Both reveal that God’s strength is impressive, His wisdom is unfathomable, and His rule is sovereign.

  Even though God discloses Himself both in science and Scripture, still much mystery remains. Partly this is because our finite understanding can never fully penetrate His infinite reality, no matter how advanced or sophisticated we become.

  But there is another explanation for mystery besides unfathomability, namely that God conceals from us vast stretches of ultimate reality. It is like the summit of Mount McKinley—we know it is up there but seldom see it through the clouds.

  As the centuries and millennia pass, however, God slowly pulls back the curtain and opens up the door. Even though many mysteries remain, through ancient scriptural revelation and recent scientific discovery, the Creator has allowed us to see new spiritual truths and scientific principles that demonstrate His nature. As the “glass darkly” lightens, our understanding of the greatness of God deepens.

  JESUS REVEALED

  Let’s rewind the videotape four thousand years, back to a time when people knew little about God. The Almighty, shrouded in mystery, called Abram’s name and led him to a new land. As a result, Abraham knew more about God than those before him. Moses heard God speak in a burning bush, witnessed the miracles of the plagues, received the commandments, felt the mountain tremble, and saw God’s glory. Then he wrote it all down, and we began to understand God better: that He was awesome and righteous, that He was concerned with justice, and that He loved us.

  Four hundred years later, God promised David an eternal kingdom, and the plan of a messiah began to emerge out of the mystery surrounding God. A millennium passed. Then, in the greatest unveiling of mystery since Creation, a baby was born. That event changed everything.

  With the birth of Christ, God now lived and breathed in our midst, walked and worked at our side. But even this Jesus was often mysterious, speaking in cryptic parables and telling His disciples “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.”1

  Yet it was impossible to conceal that there was something different about this Man. By allowing the world to see Jesus directly, God opened wide a window. Now we could glimpse all the way into the eternal. Those who surrounded Christ experienced His words and power firsthand: seeing His miracles, hearing His wisdom, feeling His compassion.

  We, of course, were not there. But God made provision for us to listen in. Through the Gospels we read that the people were filled with awe. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.”2 The crowds were amazed by His miracles and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”3 People were overwhelmed, saying “He has done everything well. … He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”4 After another healing, the people were so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.”5 Following each miraculous healing, we read that the people were “amazed at the greatness of God,” saying such things as “We have never seen anything like this!” and “We have seen remarkable things today.”6

  A teacher of the law was overheard telling Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you
go.”7 Peter, after one of the miracles, fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”8 When Nathanael saw Jesus, he declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”9 When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”10

  The Pharisees said to one another, “Look how the whole world has gone after him!”11 In fear and amazement the disciples asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”12 Peter came and told Him, “Everyone is looking for you!”13 When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they cried out in fear. A few minutes later, when He climbed into the boat, the disciples exclaimed, “Truly you are the Son of God.”14

  When He was a child in the temple, everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers.15 The Jews were astonished and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having studied?”16 Teaching in the temple courts, “the large crowd listened to him with delight.”17 The crowds at the Mount of Beatitudes were amazed at His teaching because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.18 Later, reading in the synagogue, all eyes were fastened on Him. All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips.19

  The woman at the well went back to town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” The townspeople later said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”20

  As He entered Jerusalem, the people laid down palm leaves and exclaimed, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”21 The temple guards sent to capture Jesus returned emptyhanded, saying, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.”22 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see Him. From what he had heard about Him, Herod hoped to see Him perform a miracle.23 At His crucifixion, when the centurion heard His cry and saw how He died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”24 After His resurrection, the two men on the road to Emmaus asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”25

  Those who walked with Christ were consistently amazed and overwhelmed. Their hearts burned. It was surely an incomparable experience. Here was powerful, almost irresistible, evidence of the nature of God—a deity who could cure illness, conquer death, and rule time, space, and matter. He was unjustly accused, wrongly condemned, and brutally crucified. Yet when He climbed back out of the grave, He wasn’t even mad! What kind of messiah was this? He was, said Malcolm Muggeridge, the kind of messiah who ruled from the cross and whose only power was sacrificial love.26

  SCIENCE REVEALED

  The people who lived at the time of Christ enjoyed a special privilege: they looked God in the eye. While we do not have that physical proximity to Jesus, we have one advantage earlier people lacked: the new discoveries of science. While science hardly compares to the physical presence of Jesus or the revealed truth of Scripture, we would be wise to not underestimate it. It provides us an advantage in spiritual perspective previous generations could hardly imagine.

  People of faith often tend to fear science or even dread it. My feeling, however, is quite different. Science is thrilling. True science is a friend of Truth. It is only the misinterpretation and misapplication of science that ought be feared (and yes, feared greatly). Truthful science, however, always tells us much about the power, precision, design, and sovereignty of God—details we learn nowhere else.

  God has allowed us the privilege of living in a time when great mysteries are being uncovered. No previous era knew about quantum mechanics, relativity, subatomic particles, supernovas, ageless photons, or DNA. They all reveal the stunning genius of a God who spoke a time-space-matter-light universe into existence, balanced it with impossible requirements of precision, and then gifted it with life.

  Does it not stir your heart to realize that in a millionth of a second, a trillion atoms in your body turn over—and yet somehow God makes it work? Does it not deepen your reverence to realize that God is more impressive than a magnetic cloud thirty million miles in diameter careening through space at a million miles an hour, or a neutron star that weighs hundreds of millions of tons per teaspoon?

  Does it not give you pause to think that of the ten thousand trillion (1016) words spoken by humans since the dawn of time, God heard every one, remembers every one, can recite them all backwards from memory, and even knew them before they were spoken? Or that of the 1030 snow crystals necessary to form an Ice Age, each snowflake—comprised of a hundred million trillion water molecules—is unique in all the universe?27 A British mathematician has determined that the precision seen in the created universe is on the order of 1010123.28 How can that fail to impress? Science is a close friend of the theology of sovereignty. None of these findings were understood in detail until science uncovered them. When science digs, faith rightly grows.

  SOVEREIGNTY AND THE REST OF OUR LIVES

  The truths of Scripture, the life of Christ, the discoveries of science—all should combine to lift us heavenward. Yet we remain strangely anxious. Our days are swamped by the mundane; our nights are swallowed by insomnia. Seldom do we know true restedness. Yet God would tell us, “Be still before me; wait patiently. Trust in me, and I will give you rest.”

  We know that God is out there, that He sees and cares. But we are still tempted to run our lives independently, often consulting Him only for crises or trivialities. Yet God would tell us, “Don’t you know that I care more about you than a hundred billion galaxies? That I work in your life on a thousand levels all at the same time?”

  We have heard that God is strong, but perhaps have trouble believing that His strength extends all the way to our problems. “Most of us believe God can move mountains,” observes Russ Johnston. “But how many of us believe He will? There’s a world of difference. We believe God can work mightily on our behalf, but we really aren’t sure He will.”29 Yet God would tell us if we but “have faith as a grain of mustard seed …”30

  The Almighty has sufficiently demonstrated His greatness in both the Scriptures and science. The problem is not a deficiency on God’s part but rather a dimness on ours. “Spirit of God descend upon my heart … I ask no dreams, no prophet ecstasies … but take the dimness of my soul away.”31 Only then will we rest under a full awareness of His dominion. “Oh, that we might learn the undefeatedness of God!” said Watchman Nee.

  In the end, sovereignty wins. In the end, glory will be unrestrained. Finally, at long last, God will deliver us from our dimness. And in the shelter of the Most High, we will enter our rest.

  NOTES

  Introduction: A New Vision of Power

  1. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: HarperPerennial, 1982), page 52.

  2. Shirley A. Jones (editor), quoting George Washington Carver, The Mind of God & Other Musings: The Wisdom of Science (San Rafael, CA: New World Library, 1994), page 56.

  3. “Reflections,” quoting Thomas Merton from a 1965 audiotape, Christianity Today, 11 January 1999, page 80.

  4. Jack Stimmel, quoting Charles Spurgeon, “Heaven’s Song—Earth’s Only Hope,” sermon delivered in Menomonie, WI, 11 April 1999.

  5. K. C. Cole, quoting Sir James Jeans, The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty (San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 10.

  6. Fred Heeren, quoting Albert Einstein, “What’s Behind This ‘Intelligent Design’ Movement?” Cosmic Pursuit, Spring 1998, page 5.

  7. Dillard, page 52.

  Chapter 1: Our Body in Particles

  1. Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7.

  2. David M. Baughan, M.D., “Contemporary Scientific Principles and Family Medicine,” Family Med
icine, volume 19, January/February 1987, page 42.

  3. K. C. Cole, The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty (San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 63.

  4. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

  5. Shirley A. Jones (editor), quoting Sir J. Arthur Thomson, The Mind of God & Other Musings: The Wisdom of Science (San Rafael, CA: New World Library, 1994), pages 116-117.

  6. Genesis 3:19.

  7. Baughan, page 42.

  8. Jones, quoting John Tyndall, page 96.

  9. George Leonard, “In Praise of Monogamy,” American Health, November 1988, page 105.

  10. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos (New York: Summit Books, 1986), page 48.

  11. 2 Corinthians 4:16.

  12. The electric field is as large as 107 V/m. John R. Cameron, James G. Skofronick, and Roderick M. Grant, Physics of the Body (Madison, WI: Medical Physics Publishing, 1999), page 38: “Each of the trillions of living cells in the body has an electrical potential difference across the cell membrane. This is a result of an imbalance of the positively and negatively charged ions on the inside and outside of the cell wall. The resultant potential difference is about 0.1 V, but because of the very thin cell wall it may produce an electric field as large as 107 V/m, an electric field that is much larger than the electric field near a high voltage power line.”