Scientific theories about the Universe are forcing Christians to grapple with the post-modern paradox of a personal God in ever-expanding Time and Space. The paradox is this: If Space is mind-stretching and endless, how can the Creator of Time and Space be also real and personal? The Bible informs us that God is an eternal Spirit, but it also reveals that He is both personal and approachable. Is it possible for such opposites to be reconciled?
A paradox is an apparent contradiction. Some paradoxes appear unsolvable — is this one of them?
On the surface, New Age philosophy seems more compatible with science than Christianity. Science makes mistakes, concedes them, and adapts and moves on. Orthodox Christianity, however, appears to flow backwards into ancient dogmatic absolutes — creeds set in concrete. Yet we who are Christians hold to them in a post-modern society that has no interest — or so it seems.
Some Christians say, “We need to get back to the Bible.” Others say, “We need to make it relevant to the needs of people today.” But does the issue really come down to a choice between unyielding fundamentalism and compromising relativism?
Is the God of the Bible a static, remote, impersonal deity? No! He works in and through, and beyond Time and Space. He does not shrink as these expand because He is greater than the sum of them. Yet He is so caring that not one sparrow falls without Him knowing it – nor one hair from the head of any human.
Quoting a pagan Greek poet, the apostle Paul spoke of God as the One “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Much earlier in time, the Syrians mistakenly believed that Israel’s God was an obscure group of mountain deities. (1 Kings 20) They soon found out to their detriment that He was the God of both the hills and the valleys! This is a way of saying that He is the God of everything.
In Old Testament times, the God of all Creation accommodated Himself to His chosen people’s limited understanding by describing His attributes in human terms — for example, His “right arm of power.” He came to some in the Person of the Angel of God. He responded to their prayers by intervening in their circumstances. Finally, and most sublimely, He revealed Himself to them in the person of Jesus His only begotten Son.
Jesus said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” God was “up close and personal” to our world in Jesus. Not just to the Jews, but to all of humanity – and later to all the world.
The contrast between John’s Gospel and the Gospel of Matthew is startling! In John’s Gospel, God reveals that He is as relevant to Greek ideas and philosophy as to Jewish form and ceremony. God had made know His names and His attributes to Israel through His actions —they knew Who He was by what He did. In John’s Gospel, He is revealed as “the Word made flesh”: an abstract Greek concept made flesh in the form of the Man Jesus!
Some of histories most renowned scientists included Francis Bacon (Scientific method), Galileo Galieli (Physics, astronomy), Johann Kepler (Astronomy), Robert Boyle (Chemistry/gas dynamics), John Ray (Natural history), Isaac Newton (arguably the greatest scientist of all time, in his ‘mechanical’ concept of the universe rather than Einstein’s later time-bending concept), William Herschel (Astronomy), John Dalton (Atomic theory), Carolus Linneaus (Biology/taxonomy), Michael Faraday (Electromagnetics), Joseph Henry (Electric motor), James Joule (Thermodynamics), Louis Pasteur (Bacteriology/biochemistry/immunization), Lord Kelvin (Energetics), Joseph Lister (Antiseptic surgery), and James Clerk Maxwell (Electrodynamics).
Great scientists do not deny the reality of God — they affirm it. How absurd then for anyone to imagine that a growing knowledge of an expanding universe could shrink God into insignificance! For no matter how much the universe expands or at what rate of speed our knowledge increases, the Creator of this and every other universe is greater than all that He has created.
A paradox is a statement that at first does not appear to make sense but when understood makes sense. In fact, a paradox says something that cannot be said as well in any other way. Jesus made some paradoxical statements to draw the attention of His listeners, who then had to think about what He had said. The Apostle Paul did likewise.
The Christian life is itself a paradox to many people, but not to those who really live it. Consider the following Christian paradoxes, which will help you understand what being a Christian is all about:
WE FIND BY LOSING “He that finds his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 10:39)
WE RECEIVE BY GIVING “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Luke 6:38)
WE ARE EXALTED BY BEING HUMBLE “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12)
WE BECOME GREAT BY BECOMING SMALL “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:4)
OUR WEAKNESS IS OUR STRENGTH “And he said unto me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9,10).
WE RULE BY SERVING “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the nations lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-45)
WE LIVE BY DYING “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
What shall we then say to these things? If the Christian life is a paradox, in that the actions of individual Christians are at times paradox, this makes non-Christians wonder. The very fact that Christians do the very opposite to what non-Christians would do in similar situations is a challenge to the approach of the latter to life.
Post-modern paradoxes are no threat to Christians, who believe that God not only exists but rewards of those who seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6). He interacts with people who believe that He responds to their prayers. Almighty God may be beyond our ability to describe, but so too is the intimacy of our relationship with Him.