John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that
whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus is God incarnate who came not only to redeem the world but also to signify that he is close to humanity and not a remote god. Most ancients worshipped gods in the form of statues of people or animals or combinations thereof with human attributes. The Jews did not; their great temple and the Holy of Holies had no statue. Even so, they attributed human characteristics to their God; He could be angry, vengeful, merciful, and even “came and stood before” Samuel.
In a recent late evening TV conversation, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium commented that the Big Bang emanated from an infinitesimally small bit of matter. To me, as a layman, that means that the universe was created from virtually nothing. And this universe of unfathomable size keeps expanding in ever greater speeds into the unknown. And the fact of creation continues as new stars are born and eventually die in supernovas and black holes.
Did God create this universe, or did the universe create God? Is God merely the composite of the immutable laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry, and life was created by the chance mixture of chemicals in a warm sea? Or does He transcend such with mind, memory and purpose and all we are and know was by His hand? Is there, perhaps, an infinite number of universes over which God presides and at a point in the infinity of time He caused our particular Big Bang so that in the long evolution of time, and on our very small “island home” at least, our particular breeds of creatures would develop?
God has given us humans wits, the capacity to grow in wisdom and knowledge. In the long span of time, only yesterday we saw God in the thunder and lightning we did not understand; he was Our God – the next door tribes had their own gods. As we came to understand the nature of the world in which we live, our perception of God evolved. And as our scientists penetrate the mysteries of the micro world and the universe in which we exist, God seems to be even more remote and unreachable. Is the seat of God even within our universe or somewhere on the other side of our Big Bang? We will in our lifetimes never know.
However you may seek, like the ancient doctors of the Church, to understand His nature and relationship to God, it was Jesus who brought to us an understanding of a loving God who is always with us.
Dick Calhoun
Jesus is God incarnate who came not only to redeem the world but also to signify that he is close to humanity and not a remote god. Most ancients worshipped gods in the form of statues of people or animals or combinations thereof with human attributes. The Jews did not; their great temple and the Holy of Holies had no statue. Even so, they attributed human characteristics to their God; He could be angry, vengeful, merciful, and even “came and stood before” Samuel.
In a recent late evening TV conversation, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium commented that the Big Bang emanated from an infinitesimally small bit of matter. To me, as a layman, that means that the universe was created from virtually nothing. And this universe of unfathomable size keeps expanding in ever greater speeds into the unknown. And the fact of creation continues as new stars are born and eventually die in supernovas and black holes.
Did God create this universe, or did the universe create God? Is God merely the composite of the immutable laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry, and life was created by the chance mixture of chemicals in a warm sea? Or does He transcend such with mind, memory and purpose and all we are and know was by His hand? Is there, perhaps, an infinite number of universes over which God presides and at a point in the infinity of time He caused our particular Big Bang so that in the long evolution of time, and on our very small “island home” at least, our particular breeds of creatures would develop?
God has given us humans wits, the capacity to grow in wisdom and knowledge. In the long span of time, only yesterday we saw God in the thunder and lightning we did not understand; he was Our God – the next door tribes had their own gods. As we came to understand the nature of the world in which we live, our perception of God evolved. And as our scientists penetrate the mysteries of the micro world and the universe in which we exist, God seems to be even more remote and unreachable. Is the seat of God even within our universe or somewhere on the other side of our Big Bang? We will in our lifetimes never know.
However you may seek, like the ancient doctors of the Church, to understand His nature and relationship to God, it was Jesus who brought to us an understanding of a loving God who is always with us.
Dick Calhoun
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