Plato, Einstein and God

I HAVE THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF TWO BOOKS FOR SALE ON THIS SITE, BOTH OF WHICH ARE ON CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, VINDICATION AND DEFENSE OF THE GOD OF THE BIBLE WITH OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE FROM A VARIETY OF DISCIPLINES, E.G.QUANTUM MECHANICS, RELATIVITY, COSMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, AND HISTORY. THE SECOND BOOK, WHICH HAS THE SAME TITLE AS THAT OF THE SERIES, IS THE NEW CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. IT IS NOT QUITE FINISHED.

TO COMMENT, SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN.

HERE IS AN INDEX OF WHAT YOU WILL FIND BELOW.

1. Chapter 7 of Book 1

2. Biographical Notes

3. Questions About Christianity Answered

4. We Are All Immortal; The Physics and Philosophy of Eternal Life

5. Evil as a Subtraction from Goodness: a Parasite with No Existence on Its Own

6. (We Are) The Thought of God

7. Photograph of Author

8. A Theodicy. Chapter 1 of Part 3 of Book 2

9. The Mercy of God

Chapter 7

Knowledge vs. Belief

Science as Beliefs about Nature

The third reason that it is not the job of science to answer questions about ultimate matters concerns its inability to produce facts; there is little or no scientific knowledge, and scientific endeavor and discovery involve belief and faith much like Christianity does. Requiring knowledge here as opposed to belief in order to put our scientific findings into action would render us highly impotent compared to what we are currently able to do with a method of thinking and learning which has revolutionized human abilities.

Each of us has his or her place in the order of things, and we do best when we figure out what it is and try to excel in it. The same would appear to be the case with regard to various scholarly disciplines. We had best not try to get a crew to the moon and back by harnessing the beauty of the writing of Shakespeare or by applying Adam Smith’s seminal work on economics, though the former may help us to see how such an accomplishment fits into the state of being human and the latter could ultimately help us in some way to obtain the money to pay for such an adventure. Thus does science likewise need to step aside at the point where it is doing nothing but getting in the way, even though it contributes mightily, across the board, to human progress. I think most scientists, particularly those whose studies pierce deeply toward ultimate realities which we cannot fully grasp, accept this concept and that of fitting the task to the method.

Certainly objectivity is a central pillar of all good science, especially when that science is applied, as in the practice of medicine, and objectivity begins with being honest with oneself. Such honesty in turn begins with recognizing the limitations of one’s mind – the quantity and quality of its content and its ability to manipulate information vs. its lack of same. The bottom line here so far as the scientist is concerned is the realization that there is no scientific knowledge anymore than there is philosophical or theological knowledge; there is in fact more likelihood of finding axioms in the

latter two disciplines, since ethical axioms can best be categorized there and mathematics is not part of science.

We explored, in chapter nine, the error of leaving theology out of one’s thinking a priori, and we can and should make a similar plea with regard to philosophy. Having thus accepted all three paths to enlightenment as legitimate, we are then well advised to look for connections among them, for it is in these crossovers that we are often able to confirm, to the extent that they can be confirmed, the greatest truths. In other words, when we are led to the same conclusion whether we begin with science, with philosophy or with theology, we find ourselves in possession of the most powerful kind of evidence that the conclusion is correct. We have already encountered some of these truths, and we will find many more. Such correlations are often found on such a simple level that they are not immediately recognized as being particularly profound, but they are all dependable and exciting indicators of discovery, markers that are similar to beauty and simplicity in their validity as such. A great vein of logic runs though the confluence of science, philosophy and the theology of the true God, and it is here that many other disciplines dovetail to our advantage. The more paths there are to a given conclusion, the more likely is that conclusion to be true, and there may be multiple paths within a single discipline. As all roads led to Rome mainly because it was Rome that had built those roads, it is my contention that all thoughtful deliberation and intellectual discovery leads to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is vital that we be objective enough to proceed without prejudice, to utilize all the varieties of human endeavor without allowing preconceived and subjective ideas to creep into our thinking. Obviously we must come to believe what is actually true rather than simply that which we would like to be true if we are to achieve the goal of all philosophy. It is probably scientists who have the greatest difficulty self-enforcing this principle. As we have previously noted, science has come to be looked upon as the greatest, perhaps even the exclusive, source of knowledge, and it is no such thing. It includes faith and belief aplenty, as I have

already claimed in so many words. If in fact we demanded knowledge as opposed to belief in order to consent to our scientific findings’ being put into action, we would be tremendously crippled compared to the state which we find ourselves in, which consists of abilities beyond the unprompted imagination. The practice of medicine affords us an excellent example of how this surprising truth plays out in our everyday lives.

Usefulness of the Non-proven

Physicians have been increasingly careful in recent years, for example, to be sure that our conclusions concerning diagnoses and our recommended therapies are supported by solid evidence, but that does not mean that we always do our job on the basis of iron-clad proofs. We often treat on the basis of judgments composed of factors like how sure we are that the findings of this or that research are truly valid and the degree to which we are certain of diagnoses. If, in order to act, we required the kind of certainty that is called for in court in order to convict someone of murder, it would render us much less capable than we are. Humans know only mathematics and various ethical axioms; we only believe the rest of the so-called knowledge through which we direct our daily lives. Faith is therefore an everyday thing, not something practiced only by the pious.

If we consider the magnitude of a God Who has the capability to do all we have thus far indicated that He would have to do in order to warrant His title, we can readily see, I believe, that it would be improbable that He B the Lord of the universe and beyond, the Potentate of time and the Origin of Being, could be confined in/by minds as limited as ours, and such confinement would be the case if we knew of His existence as opposed to believing in it. It is furthermore quite incongruent for the pure scientist to demand something close to absolute proof from the theist and at the same time promote Beginning scenarios that are fantastic beyond adjectives. (We will examine some of these in Book 2.) I am not saying that such schemes are necessarily wrong B some may be right or partially so; what I am saying is that none of them represent the Answer, the ultimate explanation, as none of them involve the Prime Mover. Also, it is incongruent to expect such proof from Christians concerning our faith while approving of the practical uses of science that are based on tentative evidence, which I exemplified. There is as much faith and belief in science as there is in religion B probably more.

The scientists who best understand what I am saying here are those whose work takes them to the limits, or at least to what may seem to be the limits, of what the human mind is able to assimilate; these are probably the scientists who best realize that all that we know is comparable to scratching the surface of a sphere the size of the universe. Theoretical physicists probably comprise the best example of such researchers, and scientists of this ilk talk about God considerably more than do those whose investigations are less sublime and more directly utilitarian. It is therefore not surprising that we find a man like Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, writing a book about his belief in Jesus. His group has thoroughly analyzed DNA, and he calls his book The Language of God. This is certainly apt, as reading the awesome double helix is like reading God=s recipe book with regard to all of life that we know about.

The faith of Christians is no more blind than that of pure scientists, and both are based on rationality. That the information provided, admonitions delivered and the recommendations given to us by way of the Gospel are highly and entirely reasonable is the reason that I am a believer, and I cannot square any other religion with anything approaching the degree of rationality with which the faith of the Christ exudes. Absolute certainty is as best elusive in our world, but one can believe that certainty exists. Christianity works. It fills the bill. It responds positively and emphatically when we seek answers in its Scripture. It provides us with description of behavior that, if it were put into action by all, would result in a world that the most blatant idealist has never been able to imagine, and it gives us answers to all the questions that are of the most vital importance to us. (We have to take some initiative because God is a Gentleman and does not force Himself on anyone.) Other creeds may contain a part of the Truth, but basic Christianity embodies it all.

There are many Christians who say that they are sure of their faith. Who can say that they are not? Who can effectively say that God has not inspired them or that He has not spoken to them in a way wherein they indeed know and do not just believe? I have seen such claims in action, and the resulting lives have been truly amazing to behold. These individuals often become sages, revered by Christian and non-Christian alike, and people often want to sit with and learn from them after initially hearing no more than a couple of sentences rife with wisdom and teeming with obvious and sincere caring.

There are/have admittedly been scientists who are comparable to such people, but these are, in my experience, always learned and objective to confirm that, though we have precepts we call principles or even laws, our finest science has a foundation which consists of theories in which we have faith. We believe theories mostly because of their dependability in enabling us to predict what is going to happen as a result of the existence or creation of a given set of circumstances. (This method of testing could remind us of the principle practiced by the ancient Jews that the credibility of a prophet was measured by the extent to which that which he predicted came to pass.) In a word, our science is very empirical, and I certainly submit B with, in fact, great enthusiasm B the Christian faith for scrutiny with regard to what happens when one adheres to it B i.e., to empirical consideration. (But let us please leave out of this process people who mark down a Christian denomination on forms and/or go to church, but do not know what Christianity is all about and are not committed to its Founder; these, sadly, are legion.

Objectivity is a central quality of all of the truly intellectual, such that it is certainly incongruent that so many who claim to be scholars are so close-minded that they reject a priori any concept as sheer fantasy which cannot be tested by resorting to our physical senses. These subjective thinkers actually abandon a principle that is as basic to science as is causation. The scientists among them are those who ridicule any thought of the validity of the supernatural without giving any real thought to this issue at all. This kind of thinking is anything but expansive. These individuals tend to speak assuredly of scientific “knowledge” and religious “belief,” without stopping to think about some things that they very well know but do not keep in the forefront of consciousness. They are very well aware, for example, that we can go to the moon and back on the shoulders of the revered Newton B we do not need Einstein for that ride B though Sir Isaac did not give us knowledge about space, time or gravity B only belief, and incomplete belief at that. Eventually, he required correction by Einstein, though Newton, in his day, pulled together the discoveries of his colleagues of the preceding hundred years in such heroic fashion that his conclusions were essentially believed to be unquestionable, and though his discoveries have enabled his fellow humans to rise all the way to the capability of space travel. We know very little, but we believe much, and our belief, synonymous with or highly comparable to faith, empowers us beyond belief.

The Credibility of Theology as a Source of Information

In no way does one sacrifice intellect in order to be a theist or a Christian, and history has shown that the opposite case is in fact true. Prior to the 18^th century, at least in the western world, the possibility of God=s being a mere myth was hardly thought about, and of course, in Europe and the Americas, Christianity comprised the way the great majority of people thought about Him. Countless fine minds in the mainstream of human thought, of scientific bent or otherwise, have had no problem reconciling rationality with belief in deity, as one can easily see by examining the course of human history over the past 2000 years. Francis Bacon, who, around the turn of the sixteenth century, thought large enough to question some of Aristotle=s schemes with a great degree of success, said: AA little philosophy inclineth a man=s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth mens= minds to religion@ B italics mine. (124-Ref.) (Maybe this is the reason Alexander Pope said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing B italics mine.)

There are three stages in learning about God B the beginning, where you know little and know it; the middle, where we may think we know enough to exclude God from your thinking; and the end or at least farther along, if we progress far enough, where we know that He must be, or at least are so fully cognizant of our lack of learning that we will bet nothing on the likelihood that He does not exist. Socrates, a man so astute, a person so advanced in examining his own personality and motives, that he seems superhuman across the twenty-four centuries that separate him from us (I find myself wanting to capitalize his name.), concludes his immaculate discourse with Phaedrus (125-Ref.) by suggesting and engaging in prayer; for this greatest of philosophers, piety capped off all thought, according to Sugrue. (126-Ref.) (If I call Socrates the greatest of philosophers while naming Plato the same, note what I have previously said with regard to the two of them, and do not think me inconsistent.) Even Voltaire, perhaps the heart of the Enlightenment, and a man who had not the slightest worry about what anybody thought of him, said that with religion there are difficulties, but with atheism there are absurdities. (127-Ref.)

That wise and versatile statesman, publisher, and scientist, Benjamin Franklin, wrote the following to the president of Yale University shortly before the former=s death: AYou desire to know something of my religion….Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this….@ (128-Ref.) Franklin may have been a deist, but the step between belief in ethical monotheism and Christianity is a short one indeed, as Lewis found. (129-Ref.) Virtually all of the founders of our country, the first and greatest example of thorough personal freedom the world has ever seen, believed that God provided paradise for those who in this world take the right path, even though they lived during a time particularly characterized by intellectuals who questioned the authority and necessity of God.

Scientists and others of intellectual bent can, particularly on the basis of what has been learned since 1900, logically and without betraying the scientific method, insert thoughts of the supernatural into the discussion of any puzzling question or issue, not as just a last resort, but as part of a rational approach to seeking ultimate answers. When persons of faith are engaged in intellectual discussions, particularly concerning matters of fundamental ilk, it is improper for the other participants to assume that they are brain-washed or attempting to impose a belief system on anyone if they do this and consequently do not censor themselves from thinking big in expressing all ideas which they believe may make sense. It would in fact make no sense for them to leave their religious faith out of any discussion to which they believe it pertinent, as strong religious belief, in those who have it, is a major part of their identities and valid intellectual armament; the same goes for believers or supposed believers who are in the middle of making decisions or trying to explain why this or that might have happened. Swimmers do not restrict the use of their arms because these are longer than those of their opponents. Furthermore, believers who leave ideas and opinions which are beyond doxa out of discussions for the purpose of avoiding ridicule would seem to be intellectually dishonest, possibly cowardly, and out of sync with most of the great thinkers of human history.

Many people are disturbed by the idea of believing in any deity because they like to be in control, and they do not want to be told what to do. But disbelief does not change the fact that we are not in control, whether we like it or not. Your or my brain may be bashed on the interstate tomorrow, or one of us may begin the morning with a seizure, indicating the presence of an incurable brain tumor, to cite two small examples of the human condition which are obvious but seldom considered on the conscious level. Independence is similarly illusory; we are thoroughly dependent, either upon chance or upon a Higher Power B in other words, whether we are chancists or believers in God. We do not know what our situation will be ten minutes from now. We are also dependent upon each other; the great majority of those who say they make their own rules are not likely to be willing to do without grocery stores, car dealers, electricity, water, etc., etc.

Our Lack of Understanding of Basics

I do not believe there is any theoretical physicist who will not agree that, on the most fundamental level, though humans have learned to do amazing things, we don’t understand the basics of how we do them. This is really strange, but it is true, and it is obvious to all who think most deeply, such as the Japanese philosopher, Masanao Toda, who had this to say about Relativity and its equation connecting matter and energy: “No one, apparently, can claim to know what time is. Nevertheless, there is this brave breed of people called physicists, who used this elusive notion as one of the basic building blocks of their theory, and miraculously, the theory worked. When one of the leading figures of the clan, by the name of Albert Einstein, quietly mumbled his secret incantation which sounded like ‘Combine time with space in such a way that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then mass is equal to energy,’ lo and behold, atoms exploded ever so noisily.”

E = mc², energy = mass multiplied by the number representing the speed of light squared, consists partially of time because it contains velocity which is defined by how far a body travels through space in a given period of time. The crux of what Toda is saying is that, beginning with this equation, we can end up with a mechanism which can be used to blow up cities, run submarines under the sea without refueling for periods of time of amazing length, light up large areas of land with exceeding efficiency, and on and on, in spite of the fact that our foundation for all this capability consists partially of an illusory entity of which we have virtually no understanding at all. Please keep in the forefront of your mind the concept of our not fully understanding how we developed the technology that we now have, especially when the knowhow of which I speak involves time. I believe it to be of exceeding importance. In the next chapter, we will discuss examples of the incongruence of understanding and accomplishment as pertains to physics, chemistry and biology.

Davies has written, in About Time, that time is a highly derivative concept of the higher intellect which has nevertheless very mysteriously become a Acentral conceptual pillar@ around which Galileo, Newton, and Einstein all built scientific pictures of physical reality. Time looks as if it is Aall in our heads,@ and it apparently is. But, if it is imaginary or almost so, why does it affect us so dramatically B or at least seem to? How can it be so powerful when it is so nebulous? It is really strange; we do not know what time is all about, though we spend every minute of our lives in the closest of relationships with it. It is like air to us, and like water is to a fish. We are kind of like tadpoles which do not understand the nature of water and will eventually leave it behind and get their oxygen and preserve their lives without living in it. We are so immersed in and closely associated with time that timelessness seems impossible to us, but I believe that this intimacy is the only reason we cannot conceive of the absence of space-time and eternal life. We are like computers which are programmed with time and space, but have no programming at all that excludes either of these. Like them, we will someday live without time and think nothing about it.

We place great faith in mysterious time as a constant and crucial parameter of our daily lives, and it delivers astonishing benefits not only in spite of its relativity but also in spite of its subjectivity. As we have come to understand, I cannot say how fast time is going by for you, nor you for me, even if our velocities through space are essentially the same, i.e., even when we are not speaking relatively. Also, consider this: A moose is old by the age of ten. Do we have here a pitiful animal that goes to all the trouble of attaining a weight of perhaps 1500 pounds and grows antlers which by themselves weigh maybe seventy pounds only to keel over dead at an age where human children are just beginning to really experience their world, or is there more to the story? Is the life of this animal really short? Does it seem short to the moose? Well, of course we do not know, but I do doubt that the moose is bothered about the whole thing because he does not think. But, even if the moose could think, I do not think he would feel discriminated against. What about a variety of insect that lives only one day in its adult form? I will leave consideration of this particular situation entirely up to you, but I think time may be going by more slowly for the moose and for the dayfly than it does for humans.

Perspective

Perspective, perspective B always think perspective. Perspective is not quite everything, but it is a lot of what ultimate reality is all about insofar as we are concerned. We have seen the importance of perspective in our examples of the workings of Special Relativity and have discussed it briefly with regard to God=s point of view vs. ours. We can gain perspective on a forest fire by going up in an airplane, and we can gain perspective in philosophy by continually thinking big and including imagination and timeless thinking; if we include faith in the true God as well, I say that we will be able to deal with much more than at first seems possible and will gain understanding and wisdom with maximum dispatch.

Faith: Valid, Credible, Powerful and Multifaceted

Similarly, through faith, we can have the best chance of avoiding the elusive entities and/or outright barriers that seem to so often come to the fore just when we think we are about to truly understand basic workings of the universe or get a real glimpse into the realm beyond. The path of logos as opposed to strictly studying doxa carries us far in such seeking, but, in order to go as far as is possible to us time-dwellers, we must have faith.

Faith is the sense that enables us, in a sense, to burst out of time and space. It is not a matter of believing because of fear of damnation or because of having been raised a Christian. Other than having been divinely inspired to do so, one may decide to commit to the Christ for many logical reasons engendered by learning, socialization and other experiences; in this case, faith enters the picture in the form of remembrance, and perhaps intuition which is subconscious memory in action. Here we well remember, for the rest of our lives after we meet the Lord, why we first believed. We remember our First Love, as Revelation puts it (2:1-5.), in the face of the passage of time and the many diversions in life which can pull us away from Him if we do not make a constant effort to remember why we converted to Christianity, especially when a lot of time goes by. In cases wherein people cannot remember when they didn’t believe, they can have what might be called faith by taking care lest they forget the time(s) when they believed the strongest. (This was the primary way in which C.S. Lewis thought of faith; it reminds one of Paul’s admonition to pray continually (130-Ref.) and Brother Lawrence=s counsel to constantly practice the presence of the Lord. (131-Ref.) Some would say this is closed-mindedness, but it is not B it is rather learning how to prevent error from creeping into our thinking without one’s being aware of it.)

It is my opinion that one also may develop faith in God as a result of his/her not feeling Aat home@ in his/her present life. Speaking from the time-bound perspective, we talk about going to heaven, but, if heaven is timeless, one wonders if it is possible to talk about having arrived there. If not, we would have to say that anyone who is in heaven has essentially always been in heaven, and, if that is so, it must be that we came from Athere,@ in a sort of embryonic form, when we were first born on earth, in order to develop into distinct individuals, in order to develop identity. (This is admittedly speculation or something close to it.) Consider how much more of a distinct personality you are compared to when you were a child: You have learned and done many things which have made you who you now are. Difficulties in life have endowed you with strength and wisdom. You have developed opinions and convictions; you have developed identity.

Interestingly, it is kind of traditional to think of babies as coming from heaven because they (ordinarily/hopefully) seem like a wonderful gift, but I am of course speculating that they may really come from the Kingdom of God in terms of their minds. I intuitively tend to believe this because of individuals I know/have known who seem to have been born with great faith in God; I wonder if this faith (has) resulted from their remembering heaven better than the rest of us, such that they especially yearn(ed) for their true home as opposed to the one in which they sojourn(ed).

I suspect that, except in the case of Jesus, this remembrance is at best vague and hardly ever, if ever, rises to the conscious level, but that, in some people, it is quite powerful in spite of being subconscious or even unconscious. In addition to heavenly pre-programming by way of embryonic existence in heaven, I also believe that God actively programs all of our brains before we are born here in time, as computer programmers put information in the form of programming/software into computers before we buy them. This is, in my view, particularly true with regard to an absolute standard of ethics. In addition, I think that God builds into all of our brains at least a tendency to want to seek The Truth which is Him. (God as The Truth will be covered in great length in Book 2.) Thus, people who have particularly strong faith may also possess such because God, for whatever reason, programmed them with it. If we do indeed begin as some kind of heavenly Aembryos,@ when people B and I know many who do this quite often B speak of “going home” at the time of earthly death, they do so quite accurately.

Faith is in any case a circular process. The more we believe, the more obvious His existence becomes. The more obvious His existence becomes, the more we want to learn of Him. The more we learn of Him, by way of the Bible, through discourse with other Christians, and in reading dependable Christian authors, the more we believe. And so it goes on. One can begin at any point on this circle, and I believe that, if one simply decides to thank, praise, and/or offer love to God, he/she will find him/herself in the circle. Think of a conversation you might have with God here. You say to God, AShow yourself.@ Perhaps He then says, ABelieve in Me.@ You reply, AShow yourself a little, and I will believe a little.@ He might reply, ABelieve a little, and I will show myself a little.@ You (hopefully) reply, AOkay, I believe a little@ (or AI offer you a little commitment.@) God then (we hope B I am not going to try to put words in His mouth or guarantee what He will do or not do.) shows Himself a little, and you recognize that He has done so. You respond by believing more, and He shows Himself more. This process continues, and eventually you believe a lot; you have found strong faith. Another important conversation could go like this. ALord, I have not been very religious, but my daughter is very ill, and I am seeing the error of my ways. I ask that You heal her. If you will do so, I will believe and serve you.@ Reply: AIf you ask a doctor to heal your daughter, what does that entail?@ Being quite perceptive, you answer, AI put trust in the doctor.@ AAnd what is trust?@ God may reply. AOkay, I see B I have faith in Him.@ ARight,@ replies God, Aand I would like the same consideration.@ (Incidentally, I feel sure that God would also not want you to say, AIf you will do this, I will do that,@ but rather, AI will serve you unreservedly from now on, regardless, but would you please help me B not as a favor in return for my promise, but because I humbly ask, and You are good.@ This is the give-give process, which I feel certain is the only person-to-person process in heaven.) Therefore, if you want something from God, believe as much as you possibly can, and if you do not feel you are able to believe, then commit, unconditionally, as in a proper marriage.

It makes sense that the degree to which God reveals Himself to a given individual is directly proportional to the amount of faith possessed by that person, because, if He made Himself totally obvious to people not already dedicated to Him, they would tend to come to love Him because of what He could do for them, and He, like humans, desires to be loved because of Who He is, as in the old song that goes, “…I love you ’cause you’re you.” We see the danger of the development of an undesirable relationship in the situation wherein one nation is helping another, financially or otherwise B foreign aid. Unless the recipient country is devoted to the donor country, there is considerable tendency for the recipient to somehow feel that, the more it gets, the more it should get; not only can this lead to a vicious circle, wherein, there is cycle after cycle of giving followed by the expectation of more giving B the recipient can easily develop dislike, even hatred, toward the donor, for various reasons: (1) Recipient feels inferior and responds negatively. (2) Recipient develops a feeling of jealousy toward the donor. (3) Recipient develops a feeling of patronage on the part of the donor. (4) Recipient comes to think of the donor as being so rich that its giving is nothing special.

All this is human nature, and I feel sure God wants no part of it. Most especially, He does not want to be hated, for His own sake, but mostly, I suspect, for our sake. If we hate God, we are in deep trouble; to hate the Source of life and of everything else that we have may well cause us not to have anything at all, including life. I strongly suspect that this consequence does not even require action by God in order to occur, because of the free will with which He has forever endowed us. It may often be to our benefit to have things withheld from us, and God desires everything that is for our benefit. Thus, to prevent ruination of the character of a child of His and to avoid the diminishment of a child=s relationship with Him, as well as for other reasons which only He can know, God may very well decline to reveal Himself without advance action on the part of His creature. It is like tough love. A parent who indiscriminately gives to a child may well see that child Ago down the drain.@

Finally with regard to faith, I want to elaborate further on it as a sense, the only one which penetrates the veil and allows us to Asee@ into the sphere of ultimate reality which is the Kingdom. (132-Ref.) We may think of the border, so to speak, between our earthly lives and the Kingdom of God as a veil analogous to the one in the Temple in Jerusalem which tore when Jesus was killed. The figurative rent in the border has forever after given us direct access to the Father through the Son, but a large degree of division between the two realms remains, such that the analogous veil, though torn, is, in effect, still hanging. (Because the veil is torn on account of and only because of what Jesus did, it makes sense that we should utilize the access to the Father that the tear provides only through Him; thus, Christians end our prayers Ain Jesus= name.@) In other words, we certainly don’t clearly see, hear, feel, smell, or taste “the other side,” but we can access it to a real and true degree by belief, which usually proceeds from commitment, which most commonly comes from learning about the Lord and almost always leads to such learning. In addition, the other augmenters of faith in general B reading scripture, talking to fellow Christians, listening to a competent person expound on the Word, and especially praying constantly sharpen this sense of faith, whereas our natural senses can be improved only in limited ways, most of them artificial, e.g. the acquisition of glasses or hearing aids.

Though, as Paul said, we are saved by grace through faith, it may be quite important that we increase in faith for yet another reason; it may be the only sense we have in heaven, substituting for the physical senses we presently enjoy. I speculate that heaven is a realm of pure mind, wherein images, sounds, feeling (with regard to touch as well as emotion), smells, and even tastes are more intense than they are in our present lives in spite of their being related to new bodies which are products of mind. Any particular body of a person who formerly was a human on earth will, I believe, be the product of the thought of his or her mind. (Partly because they will not be susceptible to disease, our bodies in heaven will nevertheless, I believe, be superior to those we possess now.) I will write in Book 3 about why I think all sensations, and life itself, will be much more intense in the Kingdom of God than they are in space-time. I think that any thought that life in heaven could be associated with less physical sensation than life in the time-bound state has mostly to do with lack of understanding of the power of mind in the timeless realm. (We are not to engage in mind-games in time, like extra-sensory perception, because this kind of communication and some other mental activities are reserved for heaven.)

Faith in God can develop, especially with regard to its beginning, in a variety of ways. I think that which of these paths a person follows is not very much under his or her control and that one may arrive at belief by way of more than a single route. As previously discussed, it can be a matter of intuition. I call this the “I know that I know that I know” way, after the faith of my first wife as she described it. She believed for as long as she could remember, with no concept of what it might mean to doubt. Her personality and witness, along with those of others I know and have known who believe and believed in this manner, have led me to believe this is the best way. It is also the way that Jesus seems to have endorsed, as recorded in John 20:29 (speaking to Thomas): “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” It may well involve grace, the grace of God. I suspect it is a matter of inspiration/revelation, God’s favoring a person for reasons of His own. Perhaps it has to do with His foreknowledge of who is likely to please Him the most.

Another way of coming to the true God is per the following discourse, which may be entered at any point of its circular form: Inspiration leads to a closer walk with Him, which leads to more inspiration, which leads to a closer walk yet, etc., or perhaps something good happens in a person=s life which seems to be divinely directed, and this results in a closer walk with Him, which results in a person=s having greater ability to sense God=s attempts to get in touch, which leads to inspiration or increased inspiration, etc., etc. This is a very good way to proceed for those who cannot do so by way of intuition. (Many would call the latter the way of the right brain.)

A third way is that which I have long been in the habit of calling the Doubting Thomas way to faith. (133-Ref.) I have previously equated it with the apologetic path to the Word, but have recently been led to realize that Thomas’ needing more evidence via the route of his physical senses is contrary to my belief that things are not as they seem. I indeed have needed evidence, but it has not been the evidence of doxa that I have required, but that of logos. Thus, the true Doubting Thomas approach amounts to requiring direct assurance of Jesus’ resurrection, as opposed to rational evidence of His validity. I infer from the way that Jesus responded to Thomas’ request that he see His wounds and put his hand in his side that He does not entirely disapprove of this approach, though He clearly prefers a different way, as per the John 20:29 as quoted above.

The final way that comes to mind is the apologetic way. It is the way that I approach just about any issue of profound importance, and I formerly thought this fact might be due to the influence of my father, who was very scientifically oriented. Ironically, however, my dad could have been an intuitive believer. Near the end of his life, when I spoke to him of my Christian belief, he simply said, “I believe it,” right afterwards remarking to my mother, “I think Jimmy was worried about me.” Though I believe my way is inferior to the intuitive path, I believe it is satisfactory, so much so in fact that I am writing four books to support it. If, however, you believe intuitively, read these solely out of interest and do not let me get in your way.

Knowledge vs. Belief

To the pure scientist, roughly equivalent to the entirely worldly person, we have scientific knowledge and Christian belief. But I think that the truth of the matter could be that we can only have something closer to scientific belief and Christian knowledge, and perhaps the Christian who hones his/her faith is better able to arrive at certainty than is the scientist with his/her observation, experimentation, induction, deduction, categorization, and recording. For belief which can lead to know-how, we may inquire into science; if we seek understanding, certainty and knowledge, I submit that going to the Gospel affords us a greater chance of success. Paradox of paradoxes B knowledge/certainty comes from belief, faith, even mere commitment, and belief, highly similar to faith, emanates from the study of doxa (and is enhanced by utilization of the scientific method therein). Knowledge is elusive on earth, but it is an everyday benefit in the Kingdom of God, where there are no Amaybes.@ Yes, mathematics is precise, but mathematics is an expression of God=s creative thought and is more supernatural than natural.

The Physics and Philosophy of Eternal Life

Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to each other, AWhy do we sit here until we die? If we say, >We will enter the city,= then the famine is in the city and we shall die there; and if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare us, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.@ (2 Kings 7:3-4 here describes the plight of three rather helpless outcasts agonizing over their plight in a setting where Jerusalem is being besieged by the ancient Assyrians.)

The New Christian Apologetics

We find ourselves in “the new Christian apologetics” for two reasons: Utilizing Albert Einstein’s Theories of Relativity, along with much logical reasoning and some help from quantum mechanics, we can show that we are immortal, and, looking at some of the most amazing aspects of quantum mechanics, we can virtually prove that God exists. Therefore, apologists are more heavily armed with regard to eternal life and the reality of God than in the past, and the reason is science, as we shall see.

Science, Theology, and Apologetics

We all live forever, and I will provide enough evidence to this effect to win a civil court case or a debate on the matter.

Things are not as they seem. Almost nothing, in fact, is what it seems to be in our world. Our physical senses serve us well in their helping us to live our lives in time, but they have little to do with the discernment of ultimate truth and reality. We can best examine this feature of our time-bound home in terms of logos and doxa, and we shall do so in this chapter as we develop the concept of a “logos universe” that is quite different from the doxa universe that our physical senses present to us daily. This will enable us to perceive more clearly the ultimate nature of the physical universe, a world where death is not what it seems to be. This chapter is the first of two installments of the “new” apologetics. As we begin here our investigation of what is new in the vindication and defense of God, we shall find that the subordination of the universe and everything in it to mind, together with Einstein’s belief that space-time is illusory, leads us to a concept of our world that is fundamentally new.

We can make a case for the insignificance of death by way of debating technique; whether it is otherwise meaningful, I do not know, but I think our discussion would be incomplete without it. Julius Caesar, assassinated exactly 2000 years before my first wife and I began to go steady in high school, has, from my perspective, been dead for 2056 years and 82 days as I write today, but how long has he been dead from his perspective, which would seem to be more important, is quite different. As far as I can see, from “where he sits,” he departed time only an instant ago. One cannot refute the claim that Caesar was killed on the 15^th or 16^th of March in the year 44 BC, but, for someone who is outside of time, time does not pass. Therefore, insofar as Caesar is concerned, it is still March 15 or 16, 44 BC. We are unconscious for quite a while longer than this every night, so why worry about death that removes us from time? Yet it is easier to say that than it is to comfort the bereaved with it. Therefore, I am going to treat death much more seriously than this line of thought suggests I should. Jesus did: Jesus wept.¹

I am not presently writing about whether we will be glad to be alive forever. Happiness in eternity is a religious matter, one to which we will be paying a great deal of attention. Obviously, we must, if we are to have a discussion about something that anyone cares about. There are basically three possible ways to spend eternity: alive/happy, alive/unhappy, and dead. The third is better than the second unless perhaps the degree of unhappiness is mild. The degree of misery could be severe, however. Imagine something like being buried alive forever, and you will quickly see what I mean. At best, our arrival at the end of our appointed years in our present lives will lead us, provided we indeed remain conscious, into a realm with which we shall be entirely unfamiliar, such that satisfactory life in it will necessitate our obtaining help. The only available Guide in our world to come is Jesus the Christ.

Theology is mostly about authority, such that much of the research in this field consists of finding reasons to believe the claims of religious figures and those who support their validity. In order to assess the likelihood that these people are dependable, one looks at their credentials, at the rationality of their contentions, and at whether their communications jibe with Scripture. In addition, we should look for the ring of truth, the intuitive feeling that we receive when we hear or read what someone says and what others whom we respect say about them and their beliefs. Thus, where the Christian faith is concerned, we examine Jesus, primarily by reading His words; we examine the writings by the authors of the New Testament that support His divinity; we examine the works of subsequent writers of good repute after we have distinguished the ones on whom we believe we can rely; we evaluate the integrity and the words of our peers in this respect; and we decide whether this or that faith has the ring of truth.² Apologetics per se is of course not about authority; it is entirely objective, whereas not all of religion can be entirely so.

I do not ask you to believe anything because I believe it, because my grandmother believed it, because I am fretting about the fate of your immortal soul, because I think you might be thinking or doing things that are repulsive to me, or because I believe my welfare in eternity depends on how I do with regard to your prospective conversion. I do not even fret about my offspring anymore, as I believe the Holy Spirit of God will take care of the important things if I do the footwork, and the footwork is not difficult. In fact, I enjoy it.

Modern Physics and Immortality

Modern physics affords me all the information I need to support my contention that we will be forever conscious and eternally able to think coherently. Theoretical physicist Brian Greene states in his most recently published book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, that (paraphrasing) the most important message we have received from scientific investigators during the past century is that experience is often a misleading guide to the true nature of reality.³ Compare this to the contention of Parmenides, almost a mentor of Socrates, 2500 years ago: “…not let habit born from much experience compel you…to direct your sightless eye…but judge by reason.” Hone in on the words, “experience,” “habit,” “sightless eye,” and “reason.” He is saying, “Do not allow the deeply ingrained habits you have learned through much experience prevent you from replacing your undependable senses with reason when you are attempting to discern the ultimately true state of things.” The only essential difference between Greene’s and Parmenides’ statements is that the ancient Greek adds his advice that we seek important answers through rational accounting.

In rendering his opinion here, Greene shows he heartily believes that things are not as they seem, and he emphatically underscores this fascinating assertion with a vivid illustration. He tells us that our view of ultimate reality is analogous to that which we obtain regarding a Van Gogh if we view it through an empty Coca Cola bottle. In expressing this opinion, he is in good company: both Plato and Paul support him before the fact. Plato believed it is our thought, not our senses, that can show us ultimate reality, and Paul wrote in the 13^th chapter of I Corinthians, “…now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.”

Doxa and Logos

The concepts that “Things are as they seem to be” and “Things are not as they seem” can conveniently be defined and described in terms of the terms, “doxa” and “logos,” respectively. Doxa, which gave rise to such English words as “orthodox” and “paradox,” refers to everything in the universe as perceived by our senses. For those who believe that doxa reveals ultimate reality satisfactorily, things are as they seem. Logos means “rational accounting,” and those who disdain doxa as a revealer of ultimate truths and believe that logos is the key to such matters necessarily believe the things are not as they seem. With logos, one sees with the “mind’s eye.” Certainly both “doxa people” and “logos people” employ rational accounting, but the latter consider doxa to be substantially deceptive in revealing the ultimate nature of physical reality. Henceforth, I will often use “doxa” “logos” in the form of a title, I am employing the definitions, “the state of believing that things are as they seem” and “the state of believing that things are not as they seem,” respectively. There is no doubt in my mind that those on the logos side with regard to that which best points us to ultimate truths, e.g. the Answer, are correct, though I believe that faith in the true God is vital as well, as I will discuss in Chapter 4 of Part 3.

Most often, one finds that doxa people are atheistic or agnostic and that they are negative or neutral in their feelings about the possibility of living forever. These individuals particularly admire the scientific method and tend to derive their beliefs concerning all matters from observation and experimentation. For them, nothing, such as ethics, is axiomatic. Most believe that what is right or wrong is relative and depends on various factors, such as the time in history a person lives or the society in which he dwells. “Logos people,” on the other hand, are generally religious and believers in immortality. They may well look to science for evidence concerning ultimate matters, but they see doxa as often deceptive where these are concerned, employing rational accounting and/or faith in their seeking truth. They are apt to utilize thought experiments as opposed to the more conventional sort. These individuals believe in axioms, facts that do not need creation or proof in order to exist, particularly in the sphere of ethics. The doxa-oriented are nearly always humanists, whereas the logos-oriented usually do not believe the assertion of Protagoras that “man is the measure of all things.”

Protagoras is the father of humanism, which is a lot like a religion, and his student, Gorgias, carried it forth quite competently. Protagoras, building on the confusion of Heraclitus, taught that all begins and ends with humanity, that because we do not detect with our senses any minds superior to those of humans, we should assume that there are none in existence. Socrates and Plato strongly disagreed, but Aristotle, though a student of Plato, almost “straddled the fence.” Considering how much he learned in a scientific mode, almost entirely on his own volition, and how much of this he transmitted to his students, who included the illustrious Alexander the Great, he must have been hard-pressed to de-emphasize doxa in any way. Humanism and the claim that doxa is our only source of ultimate truth correlate closely with one another, though many humanists believe there is no ultimate truth at all, at least none that is worth pursuing.

Historical Consensus and Citing

The first step we will take in supporting our thesis of eternal life will be to go through the history of humanity and see what were the prominent beliefs of intellectuals from one era to the next with regard to immortality, deity, axioms, and logos as the primary path to ultimate reality. We shall see that the consensus of humankind with regard to death as termination vs. death as transition has almost always been in favor of transition, at least in the western world.

Ancient History

Looking at the Greek philosophers who lived, studied, spoke and wrote prior to the time of Socrates, one finds that most of them trusted their minds instead of their senses in contemplating the ultimate. I have already mentioned the most important of these, Parmenides, was especially adept as well as enthusiastic in his extolling the virtues of logos. He was possibly the only person ever to win a debate against Socrates. As I essentially noted above, told us to utilize logos for these purposes and not to depend on “doxa.”

Certainly the two founders of western philosophy, Socrates and Plato, living well over two thousand years ago, believed in immortality and that things are not as they seem. Socrates, one of the three greatest teachers of all times, and probably the wisest person who ever lived except for Jesus, went to his death without fear, firmly believing in Providence and an after-life. One sees this clearly in Plato’s four dialogues that have their settings in the events surrounding Socrates’ trial, sentencing, and execution. In the final one of these, the Phaedo, Plato describes the great man’s swallowing the hemlock⁴ and continuing to provide wise aphorisms as he feels his limbs becoming heavier and heavier as he fades away into eternity. He is characterized as remaining completely placid while his friends grieve in forte tone and beg him to try to escape.

Socrates wrote nothing because he felt that communication was insufficient unless it consisted of discourse, such that he could not adequately duplicate conversation with the written word. He felt that give and take is crucial in this respect. More important, he was not as much interested in conveying information as he was in stimulating thought and the development of opinions. He recognized that what we can know for sure is vastly less than what we can believe, for which reason he concentrated on helping people to organize and clarify their beliefs because doing so enhances one’s understanding of why he believes as he does. Plato wrote strictly in dialogue in order to make his works as much like conversation as possible, and, with the greatest of modesty as well as admiration of Socrates, he put the great majority of his philosophy into the mouth of his mentor. Therefore, in most cases, his convictions cannot be distinguished from those of his teacher.

Most students of Plato’s works consider his Republic to represent his greatest accomplishment. It contains his analogy of the cave, which goes as follows. Humanity is represented as people sitting chained to chairs in a deep dark cave. Even their heads are restrained in a way that prevents their turning them. A fire burns behind them, projecting their images onto the cave wall. They watch the movements of these images and believe that they represent reality and all of it. Eventually, one particular person, representing the philosopher, yearns for additional knowledge. He manages to escape his chains and make his way to the entrance of the cave. He goes out into the sunshine and sees the grass, trees, birds and animals, and he is dazzled as he realizes there is so much more to reality than he ever dreamed of. Thus did Plato present to us the most famous and probably the most piercing illustration of “things are not as they seem” that anyone has ever constructed.

A.N. Whitehead, a prominent British intellectual of the early twentieth century, said that Plato was such a great philosopher that all philosophy since his came upon us has been but footnotes on his work. I can only agree; he is to philosophy as Michelangelo is to sculpture. Whitehead was at Cambridge at the same time Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans were there. (These two figure powerfully in our story, as we shall soon see.) He was clearly in the camp of logos.

Though enamored with doxa, Aristotle could not bring himself to disconnect from Plato with regard to the best way to seek fundamental truths.

Traditionally, we can list the ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews as believers in immortality, though they generally held out no hope of happiness after death. In both Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, the major heroes descend into the underworld, the realm of the dead, and find it to be an unpleasant place. One of them encounters Achilles, who makes the statement that he would rather be a slave in an earthly life than a king where he now finds himself. Then, in the first book of Samuel, in the Bible, we find Saul hiring a medium to call Samuel up out of sheol so that he can ask the prophet how he is going to do against the Philistines. (The news is not good, and, the following day, and the following day Saul is able to consult with Samuel without having him brought up out of sheol.)⁵

The Jews were doubtless logos people, probably from the time of Abraham until the present. (To their great credit, they have always worshiped their God without His having given them the hope of eternal life.) They therefore represent an exception to the general rule that theists tend to believe in immortality, and there are others.)

Jesus was the ultimate logos person, particularly with regard to His supernatural powers. He was and is, in fact, “the Logos,” the Word of God, as He is the executive aspect of the Trinity and as He came into space-time to deliver God’s most important messages. Certainly, raising the dead and telling people that they could, with enough faith, move a mountain, reflects His mindset of logos.

I have already noted how Paul the apostle, the original and greatest missionary, expressed in his first letter to the Corinthians the same thought that Plato enunciated in his analogy of the cave.

Very interestingly, the Biblical book of Isaiah, written a half century before the time of Paul and containing much Messianic prophecy, offers us the following tasty piece of that genre: “…He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear….” This is a very unusual and insightful statement that I would not expect to see in the context in which we find it unless it truly reflected divine inspiration. It could just be that Isaiah was a particularly excellent philosopher who was familiar with the doxa-logos controversy, but I am surprised that he deems it particularly important that the Messiah would avoid utilizing his visual and auditory senses in order to judge whether he was in the presence of truth.

Christianity, rife with the confidence of its votaries in logos, became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the latter part of the 4^th century AD, and the western part of the Empire, which had been fading in authority since the 3^rd century, fell in the 5^th. The Germanic and other barbarians that took over that part of the Roman possessions also took on its Christianity. These peoples melded with the Romans and others of the Roman lands that they conquered, forming early Christendom. The European Middle Ages, the age of the Church, was upon us. Thus, during the time of the late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages, logos continued to dominate.

The eastern part of the Empire took on the Christian faith at the same time as the western and subsequently did much better than the west in the political and military spheres. It successfully fended off invaders until 1453 while the western part lasted only until 476, but both held to their faith and utilized it in their military operations and daily living.

The Middle Ages

Roman Catholicism prevailed in both east and west until 1054, the year of the East-West (“Great”) Schism, when the easterners, who were no longer willing to recognize the Pope as Supreme Authority in the Church, formed the Greek Orthodox Church under a Patriarch. Though thinking of the doxa sort frequently occurred in conjunction with practicalities, there was no hint that the people of the lands of the formerly combined Roman Empire from the philosophy of logos until the 16^th century. Insofar as the Church was concerned, it was essentially part of doctrine, and the same was true with regard to Islam. The same was essentially true with regard to Islam beginning in 610 when Mohammed began to proclaim that Allah was the true God and that he was speaking to and through him.⁶

Various orders of Christian monks arose during the early Middle Ages, often called the “Dark Ages,” which lasted from the 5^th century until the 9^th. Living together in monasteries, monks devoted most of their time to reading Scripture, praying, performing ritual, and in general seeking to draw as close as possible to their Lord. These intense devotees, highly logos-oriented, copied and recopied reams of Christian writings. Beginning around the year, 1000, they unexpectedly began to preserve pagan writings as well, but they were quite particular regarding the pagans of whom they approved. Working on the same materials as many Moslems, they participated in the preservation of the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Charlemagne, who ruled much of Europe during the late 8^th and early 9^th centuries, conferred regularly with a chosen group to discuss intellectual matters. His attempt to encourage deep thinking was rather feeble – it is questionable whether he could even write his name – but, considering the age in which he lived, he was at least forward-looking in this respect.

By the time of the high Middle Ages, which began about 1200, the ancient Greek genius had penetrated Europe to the extent that, except for Church studies, the writings of Aristotle essentially became the entire curricula of the earliest universities, which had come to the fore at the end of the 11^th century and were first established in Bologna (Italy) and Paris. Plato and Aristotle also fed the great exacerbation of learning that occurred in the (primarily Italian) Renaissance⁷ of the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Aristotle’s stupendous studies and findings on most of the aspects of doxa as well as other matters must have led readers in the direction of confidence in their surroundings as they perceived them without a lot of thought, but the teachings of the church held so firmly that Europe remained Christendom in spirit, and belief in immortality and that things are ultimately not as they seem remained solidly in place not only beyond 1500, by convention the first year of the modern era, but a great deal longer than that.

The Early Modern Era

The Scientific Revolution arrived in the 16^th century with Copernicus, a Polish priest who showed that the planets revolve around the sun. It hit its stride in the 17^th century, primarily with Galileo in Italy, the first person to point a telescope at the heavens and learn something important by doing so, and Sir Isaac Newton in England, who invented the calculus and gave us our first theory of gravity and our most basic and important equations of physics. These advances were in the physical sciences–disciplines like physics, astronomy, and cosmology–and they had little if any effect on people’s beliefs. Masters of the arts, in fact, responded at this time with compositions glorifying God, best exemplified by in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach who celebrated the order of our universe with melodies of precise rhythm, pervaded by exuberance that thrilled the soul, pointed out order and promised security. The somber chants of the 1500′s and before gave way to happy celebrations of the partnership of God and humanity. There was in fact so much change in the music that the era is known as the “baroque,” meaning the “bizarre,” period.

The Later Modern Era

Even the Enlightenment of the 1700′s, with its emphasis on humanism, did not make much impact the convictions of the average person or even most intellectuals. Even Voltaire, perhaps the most “enlightened” of all, died “adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.” Logos continued to prevail. Nevertheless, our race began to be proud of itself and its accomplishments. With Hayden and Mozart, music became grander as we celebrated our cleverness in what we now call the classical era. Aloof aristocracy danced the minuet, and the coming effect of discoveries in the life sciences was foreshadowed.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species and, soon thereafter, Sigmund Freud began to tell us what he had learned by way of psychoanalysis.⁸ These life scientists caused God to seem less necessary than He had in the past, and logos began to give way to doxa. Evolution seemed to suggest that, given enough time, various life forms could develop by chance just as well as any God could create them, and psychoanalysis raised the question of whether religion was just another manifestation of sexual fixation or some other foolishness of the subconscious mind.

With failing faith in God came fear, which insinuated itself into the minds of men and women. With diminished hope of heaven, they needed diversion – to emote much in order to think less about death. Beethoven obliged in spades, adding lush and romantic tours de force to the classical music created mainly by Mozart and Haydn. Chopin’s sweeping masterpieces carried one away to exclusive retreats of the heart. Thus, otherworldliness declined in the 1800′s and probably arrived at its nadir between 1900 and 1927. Concurrently, many physicists of that time came to believe that there were no other major discoveries to be made and that further scholarly investigation would only consist of filling in details. Philosophers began to have similar pessimistic thoughts.⁹

The pendulum of thought swung in the direction of doxa, such that people began to be over-confident in it. “Things are as they seem” made more sense to people than it ever had before. The ideas of the pre-Socratic, Heraclitus, who saw nothing beyond the time-bound world and was thus preoccupied with change, returned with an authority his teachings had never attained during his lifetime. The “Things are not as they seem” way of thinking about immortality and such, which had been prevalent at least since the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers, faded in favor of “Enjoy and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Nietzsche, in spite of psychosis and eventual treatment by confinement, attained wide-spread recognition as a philosopher worth reading.

Thus, human history entered into a period of corporate depression, inevitable with diminished belief in Absolute Truth with its absolute ethics. Faith, belief in eternal life, and feelings of security were shaken to their very foundations. In large numbers, people began to change in their feelings about deity, wondering if such existed and whether death might be permanent. People withdrew into themselves — communication dried up. Narcissism became more common than it ever had been before. This state of mind leads to failure of the development of identity, a sense of self and, in fact, self per se. The person most about self is he or she with the least self, and vice versa; narcissism, in other words, leads to small personalities. Knowing little about others, one tends to hate them. We cannot say for sure what this had to do with wars, but the American Civil War, mainly caused by the insistence of southern magnates that some people were born to serve others in bondage, produced over 600,000 American casualties from 1861 to 1865. The Spanish-American War followed, and then came World War I, begun over a triviality compared to the greater than 10,000,000 deaths it caused, which triggered World War II, during which, one way or another, 50,000,000 people died.

Communication is the essence of meaningful life. Without it, one can possibly attend to necessities, such as food, water, and shelter, and one can even learn, but, with no one to discuss anything with, life is barren. One is left with a pseudo-life of competition, and it is not gentlemanly sport to which this situation gives rise — not at all.

Einstein and Planck et al to the Rescue!

It was like a melodramatic movie; at this lowest point for humanity since the barbarians stormed Rome, two shining knights of science appeared. The first was Karl Ernst Ludwig Max Planck, who was advised not to choose physics as a career by Munich physicist Philipp von Jolly, who told him, “in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes.” The second was Albert Einstein, who, along with Planck, found some extraordinarily large and unsuspected holes to fill and some vast expanses in which to roam and employ his vast intellect.

The work of Planck and his intellectual progeny virtually resulted in the discovery of God, and the work of Einstein, the most positive influence on logos since the Logos Himself showed us that time is illusory, such that death, a result of time, is also not what it seems to be.

Like Einstein with his famous thought experiments, Planck also discovered by means of logos. Thus, these two men dramatically restored thought as the primary way of investigating the profound, while at the same time rescuing physics, and possibly philosophy as well, from the threat of dormancy. Planck’s intellectual descendents indeed performed conventional experiments of importance, but they spent and spend most of their research hours in thought and calculation. Relativity has remained almost entirely in the sphere of rational accounting, particularly in its thought experiments, though an observation in the heavens in 1919 virtually proved that space is curved, as Einstein had predicted in his General Theory of Relativity, thus providing major support for that work of genius that he revealed to the world in 1916. (I describe the Special and General Theories of Relativity in Chapter 3 of Part 3.)

Because of Planck et al and Einstein, we have now added an entire second discipline that we list under the category of physics. It is “modern physics,” which has joined “classical physics” and which has caused the fear of running out of subjects to study and discover in the halls of physics to evaporate like ether in Arizona in the summertime

Extrapolations of Modern Physics

Most of us are so used to thinking of philosophy and science as greatly different from each another that, with only two undergraduate degrees ordinarily available, one is called the Bachelor of Science and the other the Bachelor of Arts. The one usually involves no study of philosophy, and the other quite often does. Yet, science and philosophy are closely bound, and discoveries in science can well have philosophical implications.

The profound philosophical consequences of Quantum Physics and Relativity became fully apparent about 1927, according to Foster, when scientists Eddington and Jeans began to make philosophical statements that revealed Einstein and quantum physicists had made discoveries more profound than was previously realized. (Eddington had led the expedition in 1919 that had, by observing a condition revealed during a total solar eclipse, proved the validity of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.)

They in fact went beyond philosophy in their claims and spoke and wrote in terms of theology, showing that it was once again proper to include God in scientific discussions. In an interview published in The (London) Observer, Jeans replied when he was asked the question: “Do you believe that life on this planet is the result of some sort of accident, or do you believe that it is a part of some great scheme?” “I incline to the idealistic theory that consciousness is fundamental (Italics mine, and I believe he actually meant “cognition.”) and that the material universe is derivative from consciousness, not consciousness from the material universe… In general the universe seems to me to be nearer to a great thought than to a great machine. It may well be, it seems to me, that each individual consciousness ought to be compared to a brain-cell in a universal mind.”

This is, of course, one man’s opinion, but he was a very smart and experienced man. On another occasion, he said, “…mind and matter, if not proved to be of similar nature, are at least found to be ingredients of one single system. There is no longer room for the kind of dualism which has haunted philosophy since the days of Descartes.” In The Universe Around Us,” comparing the universe to a painting, he mused, “…the protons and electrons are the streaks of paint which define the picture against its space-time background. Traveling as far back in time as we can brings us not to the creation of the picture, but to its edge; the creation of the picture lies as much outside the picture as the artist is outside his canvas. On this view, discussing the creation of the universe in terms of time and space is like trying to discover the artist in the action of painting, by going to the edge of the canvas. This brings us very near to those philosophical systems which regard the universe as a thought in the mind of its Creator, thereby reducing all discussion of material creation to futility.” Both Eddington and Jeans believed that the universe is thought, that of a Supreme Being.

This is huge in the annals of theist apologetics.

More Bright Men and Discoveries

1927 was a very good year for theists! Besides being the year that von Heisenberg presented the uncertainty principle and that during which Eddington first expressed his belief that the universe looks like thought, it was also the year that Edwin Hubble announced his discovery that the universe is expanding, that space-time is constantly enlarging, causing the amount of space among its contents to constantly increase. This finding unavoidably gave rise to the idea of the Big Bang, which pictures the universe as having emanated from an infinitely small and dense point located in a void – nowhere, since there was no space until there was a universe. The Big Bang of course fits well the story in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Though conventional Christian doctrine holds that He created “from nothing“, my idea is different, as we shall see in the following chapter.

Hoyle derided the Big Bang, saying that his opponents were possessed by an idea no more significant than that of a firecracker. He wasn’t afraid to tell anyone anything. He eventually became a theist, however, at least in the sense of believing in a Super-Intelligence Who regulated the universe. We might say that he was dragged kicking and screaming into belief in deity.¹⁰

After the Big Bang came the “Big Molding.” In response to the question of the mechanism by which our universe has just the right amount of perturbation of homogeneity, just the right amount of clumping of matter vs. homogeneity of same — a state of exquisitely regulated balance in this respect necessary for the development of life as we know it — Alan Guth proposed the idea of cosmic inflation in 1981. He believes that, during a minuscule part of the first second of the universe’s existence, it passed through an unimaginably rapid phase of exponential (accelerated) expansion wherein it grew at a rate that far exceeded the velocity of light. (Though the Special Theory of Relativity states that the speed of light cannot be exceeded, that rule, more precisely stated, refers to all other electromagnetic waves as well, that are essentially in a vacuum.) Now, there is a difference between a vacuum and a void, or at least what I choose to call a void. The “inflationary epoch” that followed right after the Big Bang consisted of expansion into the void, “something that we cannot comprehend at all” or perhaps “nothing that we can comprehend at all.” This is of course impossible to grasp, but we can reach it with our minds to the extent that we can use the term and the concept in our discussion. To reiterate, with the expansion of the young universe, space-time expanded along with the rest of our world. As all space-time of which we know was part of the universe, it could not have expanded into space-time. We can perhaps say it expanded into the “void.” Of course, that is nothing more than the best term I can think of.) This theory together with the that of the Big Bang gives rise to a mental picture of Creator and Adjustor, with the result that the existence of God seems especially likely and the concept that He did not merely start things going but made the effort necessary to form the universe into a kind of place that is people-friendly is supported as well.

Guth did not study doxa in order to come to his conclusion. Once again, logos was at the bottom of important discovery. This is not surprising since Guth is a physical scientist–a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. The scientists in these fields are the ones who investigate subjects that reach to the greatest heights and depths of human thought and concern themselves with very largest and smallest objects in the universe, and they are the ones who are most likely to believe in God and therefore in immortality; this, I believe, says something to us about the likelihood of His existence.

The work of George Smoot at the end of the 1980′s demonstrated the residua of the Big Bang and provided additional evidence for the validity of the Inflationary Universe. Stephen Hawking called his work “the scientific discovery of the century, if not of all time.“¹¹ Thus, the theories of the Beginning that correlate best with Genesis received more support yet. Though Smoot’s work was about doxa – it involved conventional experimentation on the universe – the reason it was done was to confirm a theory that was founded on logos. Smoot stated about the results of his work, “If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.” He also said, “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and Christian notion of creation from nothing.”

Dr. Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project that unlocked the secrets of DNA right after the turn of the millennium and presented humanity with its most important biological discovery since that of Charles Darwin, is a devoted Christian and believer in heaven, which shows us that life scientists as well as physical scientists can believe that things are not as they seem.¹² It has been recently noted that, if one is looking on campus for an atheist, he or she will more quickly find one in the department of philosophy than in any of the science departments; this was not true a hundred years ago. An increasing number of scientists are doing what Foster said they must: “…in my extensive reading about philosophical scientists, I have found few…who at some stage or another did not have to introduce God. The critical moment is when one finds proofs of an Intelligence which exceeds human intelligence, and in this book the critical point was the realization of biological (improbable) specificity. Presumably the most elegant scientist is the one who can go farthest down the scientific road until at last he has to declare. ‘I give up, God exists.’”¹³

Though Collins’ work shows us that we cannot entirely disregard doxa as a source of help in discovering hugely important and fundamental workings of our universe and its contents, what we do with that information is clearly a matter of logos.

Here in the early 21^st century, something quite ironical is going on. We have not heard from intellectuals as a group, and the masses (a convenient term, not to be taken as derisive in itself) are descending into the deepest depths of doxa, the adoration of the sensual. Those scientists who have been atheists or agnostics, particularly those of the physical kind who work in the fields of study that are especially on the cutting edge of human progress, are swinging to from doxa to logos, such that an increasing number of them believe in God. (However, their cosmic intelligence is admittedly not always the God of the Bible.)

We have thus witnessed the resurrection of logos by the founders of quantum mechanics and Relativity and have seen how Eddington and Jeans extrapolated and interpreted modern physics to the point that they realized it meant that everything with which we are familiar is thought, “mind stuff” as Eddington put it. Things are indeed nothing like as they seem to be.

Mind Stuff

The book of Genesis relates that God repeatedly said, “Let there be ….,” in creating the world. Who did He say it to? Apparently to Himself, and that makes these proclamations thoughts. Xenophanes of Colophon, living during the sixth century B.C. in a town in Ionian Greece near Miletus, reasoned that the Arche’ is a single God, who moves all things by way of his Mind.¹⁴ Aristotle, that giant of study and thought, saw the Creator of all as the Unmoved Mover, whose sole activity is thought. Sir Arthur Eddington enunciated in 1927, “The stuff of the universe is mind stuff,” and his fellow Cambridge professor, the same year that Edwin Hubble made his famous discovery that I have described, had this to say shortly thereafter. “The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter….We discover that the universe shows evidence of a designing or controlling power that has something in common with our own individual minds….” Thus did this scientist of excellence and renown express that which had been impressed upon him by years of searching the heavens and trying to find a common denominator for all he had observed, and he came up with mind and Mind. Like Eddington, he believed that the universe is thought, that of God.

Michelangelo showed the profoundest of insight into the mechanism of the origin of the universe when he painted God reaching out to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel against a background shaped exactly like a sagittal section of the human brain.¹⁵ In that way, he represented the creation of mind by Mind in this greatest of all masterpieces of human efforts to show God at work.

Sir Isaac Newton stated that space is the sensorium of God (meaning the inside of His Mind).

Cecil B. DeMille said, “Let the divine mind flow through your mind, and you will be happier. I have found the greatest power in the world in the power of prayer. There is no shadow of doubt of that. I speak from my own experience.” Compare what DeMille had to say with Jeans’ contention. It appears to me that the true God desires the closest intimacy with His cognitive creatures and that Mr. DeMille may have been more profound than he realized.

Bishop George Berkeley was an 18^th century theologian and philosopher who had the insight to see that any object is merely a bundle of perceptions from the perspective of any person and that, no matter how one struggles to claim it is really “out there,” existing independently, we know absolutely nothing of it except through our senses which feed into our minds. “Thus, even something as obtrusive as a hammer striking your thumb ultimately consists for you only of your brains’ interpretation of the pain impulses streaming up your arm to the parietal cortex and impulses via the retina and optic nerve to the occipital area of your cerebrum, as you watch in horror.”¹⁶ Presaging Jeans’ views of two centuries later, Berkeley saw mind as primary relative to the universe, matter as nebulous, and our senses as undependable with regard to the revelation of ultimate reality.

Jeans was right; mind subordinates everything in our world. John Archibald Wheeler, who was, until his death in 2008, the dean of American physicists, believed this that our entire universe consists of information.¹⁷ He initiated a recent trend among theoretical physicists to think of the universe as information, with space-time and matter as incidentals. Such belief demands the existence of an informer with a stupendous mind and virtually amounts to seeing the universe as the thought of God, the great Informer. Thus did Wheeler, who worked well into his 90′s, echo Eddington’s and Jeans’ concept of the universe. Information is not ordinarily synonymous with thought because not all thought is correct, with one exception; if the thinker is omniscient, His thought will be pure information.

The information of the Informer is all of reality except for God Himself and The axiomatic Truth. Logos thoroughly trumps doxa when we are seeking to understand the most profound aspects of the universe and our lives in it and beyond. We best recognize the value, validity, and superiority of logos in the perception of our time-bound world when we compare it to a painting and realize that we must not look at/into it in order its Source because its Source is outside of it.¹⁸ It streams from the Mind of the Source. The universe is the Thought of God.¹⁹

I cannot imagine a more potent tribute to logos than the universe as the thought of God.

Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

We now return to the thought of the intellectual powerhouses of modern physics, those who are mainly responsible for Greene’s coke bottle analogy, who will lead us to the crux of the physics of eternal life.²⁰ Einstein is most important here, but we will begin with Planck and his associates and successors. Workers in quantum physics have given us such an extreme version of “things are not as they seem” that most current investigators in that field do not even understand the subject of their study; they just know it works, and it yields practical results of momentous proportions. The MRI machine is a good example.

Quantum Mechanics

In 1900, Planck, defying the warning of von Jolly and to be followed by a host of investigators in the field of quantum mechanics which he established, became the first person to perceive that, in the quantum world, the smallest possible entities of matter (narrow sense of the word) and force can exist in either wave or packet (quantum) form.

Planck’s discovery pertains to a fascinating way in which our world is set up differently on the quantum level than it is on the level of our size. In the realm of quanta, form and substance can be separate from one another. If we analyze any “hunk of matter,” we see that it has form, which is essentially shape, and substance. Our bodies, for example, have certain shapes, and they contain “stuff” within the borders of these forms. We do not imagine that our shape could be put in one corner of the room and our substance piled up in another, especially the former. Yet this is actually what Planck discovered can and does happen on the quantum level.

He also found that, when we observe a quark, photon, or other elemental body, we see substance, but that when we look away, form takes over. When we observe, in other words, we perceive substance, but when we do not, matter (broad sense of the word) behaves like waves. This may explain some of the other strange characteristics of the denizens of the quantum level, e.g. elemental entities’ going through walls and the two halves of a split photon’s seeming to communicate though they are far from each other from our perspective because our observation causes them to be quanta to us. Form is more likely to go through a wall than is substance, and the two halves of a photon are not separate when they are both in wave form.

I believe we can think of form as more or less abstract, whereas substance is strictly actual, or would be if it did not reduce to mathematics, as we shall see chapter after next. Abstractions of course have no location, whereas actual objects do.

In 1927, Werner von Heisenberg presented his uncertainty principle, which, with its consequences and implications, became the most strange and exciting aspect of quantum physics. It appears to show that our minds directly affect the behavior of quanta on the quantum level, though it has been interpreted in a different way by some.

The Genius of Einstein

In 1905, amidst a total of five papers he submitted that year as a clerk in a Swiss patent office, Einstein produced one that told the community of physicists that space and time are inseparable, illusory, and relative. Planck happened to be the editor of the journal in which this master of the shaggy and deranged coiffure declared his discoveries and opinions, born of mathematical thought and based on the findings of investigators who had gone before him. One of the other papers won a Nobel prize, but the Special Theory of Relativity forever changed our conception of the framework of our universe.²¹

Einstein upstaged the previously unrivaled genius, Sir Isaac Newton, showing that perspective is everything and that differences in perspective are produced by the relative velocities of objects. He also taught us that space and time are so intimate, so indistinguishably similar, that whatever is true for space is for time and vice versa.

The Special Theory: What It Is All About

Though I cannot grasp with my mind the subject of Special Relativity, I can, so to speak, “reach” an explanation thereof. What I am about to write about this radical theory is the result of this reach.

Its primary premise is that, while one can increase the velocity of a thrown baseball by setting the pitcher on top of a moving train, one cannot increase the speed of the photons coming from the train’s headlight by having the train go from a stationary to a moving condition. Additionally, light rays (and those of any other electromagnetic waves) are unique in this respect; all other entities will act like the ball.²²

Thus, let us imagine, for purposes of a thought experiment, a train on a track that is on the ground and in a vacuum. The train can travel as fast as one hundred miles per hour, and we have on hand a baseball pitcher, with his mitt and ball, who, even in his space-suit, can throw the ball at a maximal speed of one hundred miles per hour. Now, let him throw the ball forward as hard as he can throw it from a platform built on top of the train’s engine as it travels down the track at the its maximum speed; if we then measure the speed of the thrown ball relative to the ground, we will see that it is moving at a rate of two hundred miles per hour. Then let us measure the speed of the light coming from the train’s headlight when the train is stationary and when it is running down the track at its maximum velocity. We will find that the two velocities of the light are identical, that the speed of the train has not increased the speed of the photons coming from the headlight to any degree whatsoever.

No one has any idea why this is the case. There is something unique about the velocity of electromagnetic waves. The consequences of this quality of light are, however, astounding. Einstein modestly said he “just happened to notice it”: in order that something so bizarre may happen, space-time must warp. “Well, I can understand warping of metal or plastic, but how can space-time bend?” you ask. “Matter warps, but how can space-time warp?!” Certainly I do not know, except to say that before long we will learn that matter may be no more substantial than space-time.

In any case, Einstein was able to work out equations that pertain to the inability of anything to affect the speed of light in a vacuum and that allow the degree of warping to be calculated. The essence of the issue here is that nothing, not even light, can exceed the usual speed of light in a vacuum.²³ These equations are the Special Theory of Relativity. They contain a crucial element that Einstein borrowed, so to speak, from a 19^th century researcher in the field of electricity, Henrik Lorentz, twenty-one years his senior. It is the square root of one minus a fraction that consists of the velocity of a given body squared over (divided by) the speed of light squared. (Now and henceforth, whenever I refer to the velocity of light or electromagnetic waves, I mean “in a vacuum,” unless I designate otherwise.) The only other way the dilemma could have been solved was for the laws of nature to have varied from one system to another, for example from the situation of a stationary train to that of one moving down the track. We know very well that such variance does not occur, however. The laws of nature, largely if not mostly discovered by Isaac Newton, hold in the same manner for a person who is standing on the ground as they do for a person who is riding in a train.

Lorentz’ factor is so exponential that relativistic phenomena are minuscule until the speed of one body relative to another approaches that of light. This seems to be the reason that no one, not even Newton, was aware of the flexibility of space-time until about 2500 years after western Europeans began to calculate in earnest. It was not until relatively recent years that humans have become familiar with anything going so fast.

We can also see that the Lorentz factor contains time squared, in the factor, “c², which represents the speed of light in a vacuum, squared. Now, we recall that the dimensions of velocity are distance per (period of) time, and that, in the glossary, we used 186,000 miles per second as an example of how the speed of light can be expressed. We also discussed there the method of multiplying fractions and the concurrent multiplication of dimensions thereof in the same manner in order to be able to understand what the product is measuring.²⁴ When we square “c,” the velocity of light, we obtain, as the dimensions of the product, distance squared over time squared. Again, we are in awe over Einstein’s discovery of how to work with “square time,” a concept not previously dealt with.

Relativity in Action

Let us now look at an example of the effects of space-time’s somehow being an entity that can warp/bend. Imagine a stationary rocket ship in “outer space” and a moving ship that is coming toward it.²⁵ As the moving ship gets close to the other – their courses are offset so that they do not collide — the pilot of the stationary vehicle, having incredible visual ability and, somehow, a giant mirror a distance away from his ship via which he can see the moving ship from the side, looks through its side window and observes that a clock inside of it has hands that are going slower than those of the clock in his own ship. Furthermore, this observer, being quite familiar with the moving ship, is able to see that it has shortened. With similar abilities and equipment, the pilot of the moving ship notes exactly the same things regarding the stationary ship and its clock. Now, if the velocity of the moving rocket ship reached that of light, time for anyone in it would stop from the perspective of the pilot of the stationary ship, and the moving ship would shorten so much, again from the perspective of the observer in the stationary ship, that it would, so far as that pilot was concerned, disappear. In addition, according to the perspective of the pilot of the moving ship, if it attained the speed of light, the stationary ship would disappear, and time would stop in it. Therefore, an object can leave space-time from the perspective of an observer outside of it, provided the sum of the velocity of the object and that of the vehicle that contains (or otherwise carries) the observer equals light-speed.²⁶

Quantum Electrodynamics also supports the concept of objects’ – in this case, elemental particles — taking leave from and returning to the universe. Thus, both Relativity and Quantum Physics support the existence of the supernatural, a realm outside of our universe, of which a timeless realm is probably an example and probably the sole example.

If you are new to Relativity, you no doubt are thinking something like, “This is ridiculous!” However, it is all the inevitable result of the impossibility of anything’s going faster than 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum in our universe. That is a fact that holds regardless of what has to happen in order to enable it to. Thus, the shape of the universe will change if necessary to prevent light from going too fast.

In the language of relativity, I have just described “time dilatation” and “space contracture.”

Note that the importance of perspective in matters of Relativity is so great as to be absolutely necessary, such that relativistic phenomena do not work without the involvement of a thinking mind. Therefore, we indeed have here yet another reason to consider thought as primary in our universe. Recall that we have found that quantum mechanics also shows us that mind, the source of thought, is supreme.

Why does and how can light-speed subordinate space-time? Keep this question in mind, along with the term, light-speed, itself and the other most crucial terms we have encountered – mind/thought, logos and perspective. Later in this chapter, we will discuss terms and entities that we use and/or perceive from the perspective of doxa, our usual point of view, and will then compare them to those that pertain to the universe according to logos. This will, I believe, lead us to a concept of our world that is substantially different from the one we are used to utilizing in our everyday lives and will give us a clearer view of the part of ultimate reality that is our universe.

Death Is Not as It Seems to Be.

We now hone in on the crux of our story, and, for present purposes, the consequence of time’s being illusory. The most basic cause of death is time; if a cause is illusory, the event it causes will be likewise.²⁷ Therefore, death, a consequence of time, is not what it appears to be.

If death is not as it seems to be and if it looks like termination/annihilation (which it does), it must not be termination/annihilation. Remember perspective, particularly as we observed it and its effect in looking at Special Relativity. Death is the end to those who witness its occurrence in another person, but, to the dying person himself, it may well be something quite different, and I think it safe to say that what it is from the perspective of the dying person is most important here.

Consider two fetuses in a single uterus. They are both warm and comfortable. Insofar as they are concerned, it doesn’t get any better. Then one day, labor begins and one of them is expelled. The fetus left inside thinks something terrible has happened to the other fetus, but the one who exits experiences a whole new and wonderful world. We may also compare here the experience of the philosopher of Plato’s cave with those who never left that cold and dim place. Possibly except for those of us who have had near-death experiences, we the living cannot say what dying is like. Whether or not we think we can is entirely meaningless. I think we have a very large amount of evidence, however, that death is not as it seems—not what it seems to be; I believe, in fact, that a degree of belief wherein one thinks virtually not at all about doubt is quite appropriate here.

Now, the only alternative possibility to annihilation would seem to be some kind of transition, just as the fetus who left the company of the other fetus underwent transition.

What kinds of transitions are there to choose from? These consist of (1) passing to a timeless realm; (2) going to a realm with additional dimensions of time, where we can go backwards and/or sideways in it; (3) reincarnating; and (4) transitioning to another universe. With regard to reincarnation, I say that it is a fanciful idea and one which does not stand up to an apologetic approach or to any other approach that involves reason (if there is one). I do not believe any substantial evidence exists that it is true. One of the two religions²⁸ that entails reincarnation is so tolerant of differences in belief that one can believe almost anything and be a votary thereof, and both²⁹ are belief systems that advocate annihilation as an ideal goal toward which we should strive.³⁰ As I cannot in any way accept the latter idea, I cannot accept any religion that venerates it.

With regard to a multiverse, we have no logical reason to believe that any such thing exists. It may, but, even if it does, we need a number of universes that approaches infinity in order to account for all the fine-tunings that we readily observe in our world. In addition, there is no evidence in favor of the existence of such a thing. With regard to a realm with “additional time” that goes on forever because it contains dimensions of time greater in number than does our universe, it is much easier for me to think of a realm of timelessness than it is to imagine time of any nature or quantity that goes on forever. Therefore, I choose to believe that in death we transition to timelessness. If we do that, we are immortal.

More Reasons to Believe that We Are Immortal

Let us now consider the contents of the universe other than space-time and see whether there is anything about their not being as they seem that can affect our concept of death. Here we have matter, and we have force, but we will lose nothing, in my view, if we leave force out of our discussion. We must leave dark matter out because we do not know enough about it to put it in. According to String Theory, well-reputed these days, there is no more difference between an elemental particle of force and one of matter than there is between two matter particles, and, according to Superstrings, every matter particle has a force particle with which it is paired. Thus, there is a question as to whether matter and force are sufficiently separable to warrant dealing with them separately. In addition, our concept of force is so vague that it is questionable whether we are able to grasp it sufficiently to be able to really deal with it: we do not understand the underpinnings of attraction at a distance, and we do not know, mathematically, how to fit gravity and the other three forces into the same universe.³¹

Therefore, we will deal only with atoms and their components here. Atoms have the peculiarity of being composed almost entirely of space. If we could have before us an atom the size of a cathedral, we would find that its nucleus was about the size of a housefly. If we could somehow sense a proton the size of our solar system, the quarks that compose it would each be about the size of a house. In addition, I contend that whatever material there is in atoms consists of energy, and I cite Einstein’s E = mc² (The amount of energy that can be obtained from mass “m” is “m” times the square of the speed of light.) and “matter plus anti-matter yields energy and vice versa” as scientific precepts that essentially all scientists believe and that I believe virtually prove that sub-atomic particles are made of energy. Not only that, but we do not even know what energy is, though we do know what it can do – heat and accelerate things. We do know, however, that the effects of energy are ordered by math (as mathematics underlies all events and phenomena that occur in space-time). Thus can we say that matter reduces to math. Now, mathematics is a product of mind. Therefore, matter reduces to abstractions. Thinking of matter in this way causes death as the result of the deterioration of matter to seem less ominous than it has previously. If my body and brain are abstract, any significance of their destruction seems far less serious than it otherwise would.³²

Things are nothing like what they seem to be. All of the evidence we have supports the subordination of matter (broadest sense of the word) to mind and the contention that we do not need matter in order to have mind/thought. Having seen that matter reduces to a product of mind (mathematics) in our world and that space-time has been shown to be an illusion and something vague, nebulous and elusive, I find that I even get a better mental grip on mind than I do with the universe as logos. Thus, the idea of a mind without a body becomes progressively easier for me to assimilate. When I then also remember that mind with its thought is necessary for perspective, which is important enough to be on our list of the entities that either compose the universe according to logos or closely and directly pertain to it, I complete my mind’s eye’s impression of the ultimate nature of physical reality.

The Universe as Logos

To reiterate, this list contains light-speed, mind, mathematics, logos and other thought, and perspective. We have identified five key words that stand for the entities that characterize our universe when we use logos, rational thought, in order to seek out its basic components, its qualities (its ultimate nature), and mind, which underlies it and without which it could not exist. These crucial contents of the universe in conjunction with its cause subordinate space-time, matter (narrow definition) and force, and perspective and logos can be placed under the heading of thought. The whole universe therefore reduces to thought and mathematics (with light-speed’s remaining special), and math is a kind of thought such that we may say the universe reduces to thought, which goes along nicely with the universe as the thought of God and with the universe as information, as one cannot really distinguish between information and thought. (In the next chapter, we shall see that mathematics is also something that is even more basic.)

Let us digress just for a moment and look at mind vs. thought in order to disperse any confusion or lack of clarity concerning these entities and terms. I have spoken of both as part of the universe as logos. However, mathematics is a variety of thought, as is logos. Perspective is actually thought as well; it can happen as a result of sensory input, such that we might to think of it in another way, but it basically amounts to thought. Is the universe as logos then thought bounded by light-speed that, like all thought, emanates from mind? Yes. Mind is not really in it just as an artist is not in his painting. I do not think our minds are it either. They are more free than that; they soar beyond it. The boundary, light-speed, of course, pertains only to us and not to God. The boundary is part of His thought as is everything besides Him that is, and it is established in conjunction with human minds.

When we consider the universe according to logos, we see its shining reality, a happy picture of the way that it really is.

By contrast, the universe according to doxa emphasizes space-time and matter in the broad sense of the world. It sees mind as a result of a complex arrangement of matter (narrow sense) and force. If such represented ultimate truth, the concept of life would be supremely anemic; a “mind” or even a consciousness deriving from dead chemicals would in fact seem to be no life at all. It would be a shade-like existence, zombie-like, without real cognition.

More Thoughts Related to the True Nature of Death

We have seen how Parmenides, perhaps the ultimate champion of logos, challenged the wisdom of drawing profound conclusions from the observation of doxa. He also essentially said that something must be. He said that non-Being cannot be and that Being must be. For him there were three basic options: “Being is,” “non-Being is,” and both. The second and third options make no sense because “nothing cannot be.” Perhaps you will want to pause and think about that for a bit if you do not see its meaning(s) right away. To sweep away the cobwebs, what I am saying is that it is more logical to think of something than it is of nothing, that it makes more sense to think of existence than it does to think in terms of non-existence. Thus, it is not such a surprise that the thought of God is reality to us, and it would be stranger if nothing at all existed –unimaginable, in fact. Parmenides also said that our observation of things’ coming into and going out of existence is false, that our senses erroneously inform us with regard to this issue. He claimed that, if we would ignore our senses and pay attention to cognition instead, we would see that the changes we seem to perceive with our senses are, as a rule, ultimately false. Most basically, he said, “…Given that becoming requires both Being and non-Being and given that non-Being is unintelligible, becoming also is unintelligible.”³³ In other words, he claimed, the detrimental changes we observe in this life are ultimately not true reality, and, since death amounts to detrimental changing and becoming, it is ultimately unreal. Thus, to Parmenides, passing out of existence didn’t make sense, and he therefore believed us immortal. He said that the ultimate state of things is eternal being, as all true being is eternal.³⁴

It seems as though non-existence and non-being are losing out everywhere we look, because things are not as they seem. That is a particularly good thing because nothing is meaningful without cognitive and eternal life.

If the universe is the thought of God, we are part of that thought, and we are information. Information, according to Information Theory, cannot be destroyed. Again, we are immortal.

Notes

1. John 11:35.

2. J.B. Phillips, The Ring of Truth. In this little book, the Bible translator shows how the New Testament sounds intuitively true.

3. By “experience” here, he means supposed information supplied by our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch.

4. Plato, the Phaedo.

5. I Samuel 28:7-20.

6. During several decades that followed his death in 632, his followers formed the largest empire in the world, occupying primarily the Middle East and northern Africa.

7. rebirth.

8. Psychoanalysis is more therapeutic than diagnostic, though it is both. It is nothing mysterious, consisting merely of relaxing the subject and enhancing his ability to remember by inserting words, phrases and sentences into a discussion that seeks to find experiences in his past life that may yet lie in his subconscious and periodically rise up to torment him, either by themselves or in conjunction with other memories. This form of treatment would probably be more prevalent today if practitioners had more time to spend with patients, but economic factors make it impractical. Freud felt that buried memories of a sexual nature were the most important ones in terms of the causation of after-effects.

9. Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, the best-known philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century, expressed his fear that there was nothing left for philosophers to do but analyze language.

10. This discovery finished off the Steady State Theory of the non-Beginning, of which the late Sir Fred Hoyle was the last champion of note. It pictured a universe that had always existed and entailed continuous creation of matter within it. Hoyle’s version of this concept also contained the idea of “panspermia,” which had DNA flying through space from millions or billions of light years away from us and seeding Earth with the double helix molecules from which essentially all of life on Earth emanates. Where this genetic material came from and how it came to be was is something he never tried to explain. (This idea is really fantastic, far more so than anything (conventional) Christians have to say.)

11. Smoot has recounted the adventures he had in making his discovery in Wrinkles in Time.

12. Francis S. Collins, M.D., The Language of God.

13. David Foster, Ibid. Foster mentions Fred Hoyle as the chief example of this phenomenon and cites Hoyle’s book, Evolution from Space: a Theory of Cosmic Creation, especially the last chapter thereof, as an excellent description of the theist that he became.

14. Professor David Roochnik of Boston University, Ibid. His fine course, “An Introduction to Greek Philosophy,” is given through The Teaching Company, an excellent source of post-graduate education that comes from the best professors in America by way of CD’s and DVD’s. The website of this enlightened organization is www.teach12.com.

15. Frank Lynn Meshberger, MD; “An Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy,” “Journal of the American Medical Association,” October 10, 1990.

16. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.

17. Dr. Wheeler was the mentor of multiple generations of physicists, including Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett III of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Early in his career, this Princeton University researcher and teacher worked with both Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.

18. This is from the writings of James Jeans.

19. Considering all of the trouble that is constantly occurring in our world, we might postulate that there are numerous gods working in and on it with very little cooperation among them. However, the following chapter and the rest of this volume that comes after it contains much evidence that God is one.

20. The Physics of Immortality is an original idea of Frank J. Tipler, Ph.D., as described in his book of that title.

21. The most basic aspect of the Special Theory, and the most radical, relative to the beliefs of the day according to Newton, is that time and space are relative, not absolute. This means that the length of an inch for you may not always be the same as the length of an inch for me.

22. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.

23. When light penetrates matter, its velocity decreases, but its speed never increases.

24. “Dimension” refers to the increment of time or space that is being measured. It can be single and simple or more complex. For example, one can deal with a quantity of four seconds or of six feet, and, in the case of velocity, feet per second. (The dimension of acceleration is distance per time per time.) We are used to squaring distance (the same as squaring increments of space), such that we can easily feature in our minds the multiplication of the length of a yard stick by itself. However, thinking a time squared, e.g. a foot or a mile squared is foreign to our brains. Whether it was to Einstein’s mind or not I do not know, but he worked with squared time anyway, and he was able to use time dimensions in the same way he used spatial dimensions by inserting the velocity of light into his calculations.

25. This is indeed an imaginary situation because we do not have a frame of reference that allows us to call any object in space “stationary.” The earth itself has at least four known movements: rotation; revolution around the sun; movement with the rest of the solar system around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way; and movement through space with our galaxy. The reality of the situation I am describing is movement of both ships relative to each other. However, for the purpose of simplicity, we will imagine one ship to be stationary and the other to be closing on it at a speed quite close to that of light. (In the case of two ships moving toward one another, we would add their respective velocities in order to determine how soon they would meet.)

26. Again, I am speaking of two objects that are flying directly toward one another. Those familiar with vectors will realize that, with rocket ships that are not on a collision or “close-pass” course, there may be components of their courses that add up to the speed of light and therefore cause relativistic phenomena of varying degrees.

27. In his saying what he did to the widow of his friend, Einstein confirmed that he believed this.

28. Hinduism.

29. The other is Buddhism.

30. Though there are no doubt factions of Hinduism that do not praise the concept of assimilation of our minds by nirvana, with the result that we lose identity in the end, most Hinduism either entails this idea or is vague with regard to it. My feelings are that we strive all of our earthly lives to develop identity and that such individualism is way to precious to even consider giving up. I am forever fully subordinate to my God, but I think He wants in me a child and/or a friend with whom He can communicate and share, and lack of identity militates against such a situation.

31. We can say, “the other two forces” here if we consider that electromagnetic and the weak force to be different manifestations of the same force, which they are.

32. Another way we can cause death to appear less serious than it otherwise would is to imagine ourselves physically transported to the quantum world, where we would probably see ourselves and others as bunches of particles, with broad spaces in between where particles were much less dense. On our level of size, we at times see bad things happening to our bodies such as bleeding, drop in blood pressure, maybe a rash, perhaps abnormal sounds made by our lungs, and sometimes irregular or abnormally fast heart rate. On the quantum level, presumably the level that affords us our most accurate picture of the true nature of physical reality, these things would look very different: they would appear as something like perturbations of dots, which would likely be nearly as frightening as a compound fracture. Again, we have more reason yet to doubt our senses and believe that death is not as it seems.

33. I think he meant “becoming” as an end in itself because I do believe we are in a state of becoming while we are in time and will be in a state of being when we leave it, such that we are becomers who are becoming beings.

34. Roochnik, Ibid.