A Few Universal Thoughts

Webster’s defines universe as the totality of all that exists. This conflicts with my belief that God exists yet is not confined by this universe that contains mankind. I believe mankind cannot accept the concept of infinity. Scientists are constantly attempting to define, and reach, limits, whether it be a final finite fraction of pi or a Hubble-like photo of the ‘big bang’. To acknowledge that such limits cannot be reached poses the reality of eternity. Many deny that to the point their lives are spent explaining the unexplainable.

At one time philosophers spent their time with those explanations. Paul encountered the Greek culture’s desire to cover all bases.

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) [Acts 17:21 KJV]

Hundreds of years before Paul’s sermon to the Athenians, Greek philiosophers were concerned with explaining the unexplainable. Before Socrates, Herclitus taught that one unchangeable thing was change itself. Plato spent a great deal of time to document Socrates’ arguments, then his own.

Today scientists and mathematicians spend more time explaining the unexplainable than philosophers. Expanding on the ‘big bang’, a ‘bubble universe’, proposed by physicist Andre Linde is introduced. What scientists believe become theories. Science can neither explain nor prove these beliefs, only portions of them through limited experiments and physic equations.

I find both philosophers and scientists intriguing in that they often deny that which they cannot see while defining that which they cannot see. A lot of what they study they accept by Paul’s definition of faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. [Hebrews 11:1 KJV]

Yet, I see God in their words. Plato’s ‘The Cave’, combined with our scientists’ description of the universe, makes an excellent analogy – the cave is the expanding bubble of the universe, with mankind living inside. The light of God is reflected in the cave, created the shadows we see of Him. Rather than a man escaping to learn the truth, Christ entered this world to tell us what exists beyond this world.

There is so much we do not know. Why set limits on God’s existence?

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. [1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV]

Hubble's deepest view of the universe. The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. (Wiki Commons)