By Potpher Mbulo
A renowned philosopher in Medievalism, Umberto Eco, says he come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. In reflection to this, I say a man without ambition for truth does not know that deeply buried in deception is always found laziness to pursue truth through objectivity. Thus he who does not know that he does not know, knows not that he holds the highest degree in foolishness. However, a fool who knows that he is a fool is no longer a fool for he has taken the first step to wisdom. Moreover it’s no surprise that such sentiments come from a former catholic ardent believer and a staunch critic of the bible. His biggest fallacy is his assumption that the universe has no meaning. Anyway that’s his opinion. Nevertheless anyone is free to infer design or self construction depending on the analysis of the phenomena. If I find a sharp stone with a wooden handle attached to it with a rope, I will conclude that someone designed the tool. What Eco can’t appreciate is that a living cell is more complex than a sharp stone fastened to a wooden handle. Here is where he lacks logic.
There is a difference between Order and Organized Complexity. Though we see order in a lot of natural phenomena thereby we infer not to design as the origin, organized complexity in living things is achieved against 2nd Law of Thermal Dynamics through programs and in-built systems. On the other hand order in non-living things is achieved naturally by the dictates of 2nd Law of Thermal Dynamics that imposes a reduction in thermal agitation, as heat energy is lost in an attempt to reach thermal equilibrium.
Current science does not answer all questions. Some “What?” questions are easily answered by science. However “How?” questions are at the boarder of scientific knowledge. It is of no surprise that “Why?” questions are beyond the metaphor that science can examine. For example:
What is life?
How did life form?
Why did life form?
You will agree that the difficulty of finding an answer to a question increases from “What” to “How” to “Why”.
Eco is a typical atheist who believes naturalistic processes are good enough to construe existence of the universe. Atheists describe the universe in terms of the principles of philosophical materialism:
- The mind is identified with brain
- There is no "soul" without a living body
- The world is governed by strict deterministic laws
- Free will is an illusion
- There are no final causes
- And whatever happens takes places because it inexorably must.
Most notoriously, the work explicitly denies the existence of God, arguing that belief in a higher being is the product of fear, lack of understanding, and anthropomorphism. Atheists say that one need not ask an artisan but one only need to apply logic to the examination of the artifact itself in order to determine its origins.
I may argue with Atheists but the word of the bible was and is and shall always remain fact, despite our contradictions. Eco is a critic. It is evident that it is possible that Eco can choose to interpret the bible the way he feels or deems right in his eyes just like he can do it to any other book or object. But the fact is that the truth of the thing in question is not exactly his perception of it. Therefore any deliberate or ignorant misconception does not warrant the universal disrespect of the object in question to render it null and void or else if it were for so, then nothing that is could be true because perceptions vary and are in fact different from the real object. Therefor it's not strange that one can always give answers but never ever find correct answers. The truth is that God can do all difficult things that are impossibles to a human mind because all things are subject to God. However not all things are possible with God because the word "with" entails or suggests a second part i.e. the human and it is that is the only limiting factor. Luck of faith on the part of humans tie God's hand from doing that which is impossible. It's amazing to note how vividly true is this coined phrase: it took God just a few hours to get the children of Israel out of Egypt but it took Him about 40 years to get Egypt out of the their heads.
Atheists say God does not exist. Its true my God does not exist. But does that mean I agree with what Eco believes in? What I can say is in reality, time and space are non-entities. Though we speak of them as real and tangible, the truth is that time is just a measure of duration while space is a three-dimension measure of length. Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity, viewed time and space hypothetically as one entity he called spacetime and this he proposed to have 4 dimensions ("x" axis, "y" axis, "z" axis and "t" axis). Other than that, he managed to show that energy is quantised i.e. inter-transfer of energy is such that it happens in minute (smallest indivisible) unites called quanta. Pursuing it further he showed that light behaves as though matter in that it traveled as small particles called photos (coined "wavecles" because behavior of light was suiting both a wave as well as a particle). But more than this he showed light energy does not need etha "material" to propergate because light is a wave in nothingness. Going deeper he invented the popular equation that modified thermodynamics laws. His equation of relativity is E = mC.C which basically shows that matter can be changed into energy and vice-versa and that nothing can travel faster than light. (this is disputable now)
That said we read also in the bible that God says that He is the Alpha and Omega. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe "Alpha" is the first character of the Greek alphabet while "Omega" is the last character on the Greek alphabet. All He was saying was that He was the beginning and the end in the time domain. “I am I am” also qualifies that He is also the present. I believe He was showing us that He is omnipresent in spacetime. To Him, He is in the tomorrow as vividly as He is in the present. In short he fills the entire universe and entire time spectrum. That’s why He knows the future and predetermined it. I know it's difficult in our physical perception to fathom such a Being in such an occurrence. But what we don't realise is that the physical (matter and energy in spacetime) come out of the spiritual (God who lives in eternity). This is shown in Hebrews 11:3. (Things that are seen come not out of what is seen but out of what is not seen.) To me "spacetime" is just like a point in eternity as opposed to a break that links eternal past to eternal future. The thing that is more real is eternity. I believe in parallel universes e.g. physical universe and spiritual universe.
I saw a documentary on BBC in which cast an experiment was conducted in which two beams of photons was projected in some vacuum and interference of the two beams was observed and a logical explanation naturally is that the photos were the soul cause of the interference. Later on the intensity of two beams were reduced so that only one photon at a long enough time was projected yet interference was still vividly reported. A stupid old belief is that the phenomenon was due to a photon behaving partly as a wave and partly as a particle. But objective thinking – the logic of those who pursue truth does not permit a photon to be in two places at a time. It follows thus that a photon was interfering with some photon-like particles in the parallel universe that our instrument have not yet detected. Unless if anyone has a better explanation you can forward it to me on this forum. I have said it before that what there is, is not just the spoons, knives and pots in the kitchen. There is a whole world out there outside the kitchen. It’s not scientific to say there is only one universe. This is not to say I’m trying to push a spiritual world into your conception. All I’m saying is that that simple experiment shows all of us that there is at least another universe or that our universe is a hologram which explains for Phenomenon of Faster Than Light (FTL).
I humbly accept that I believe in a spiritual world. I say I believe because I cannot prove it to you. However I have encountered the beings and laws of that world and I will not give you my story for fear of being prejudiced as a disillusion person. I swear I’m telling the truth. Whether you believe me or not is you own affair. I’m grateful that at least I can fathom more than just what is naturally observed. I’m glad I can see beyond my eyelids of which only a few humans are able
As I was say, to detect anything, there must exist change e.g. reflection of light is change. The question is, does God change? It is impossible for such a being to change. How can He change when past, present and future to him are one and the same? For him to change would mean part of Him stepping out and become a human being and then he can respond to man's changes by him changing too. Don't we read that Christ had to learn obedience? He was tempted and yet he never sinned. He became human that we might become the sons of God.
Having mentioned the attributes of how God exists I should go further and state that that is why I say that God does not exist. Please don't collapse!!! All I'm trying to say is that God does not exist but He is the Existence. He does not exist in the way that we view existence. However he exists in the way that He views existence. If we relate to the time spectrum and fathom that the past, the present and the future are all one as far as God is concerned, how can you physically probe God who changes not? Detection equipment relies on change. You would have to be spiritual to discern the spiritual. The physical cannot see the spiritual. Now you can relax.
Therefore we can define God as a Being living in the future making and manipulating things according to His will. When us humans arrive there (in our now future) which is actually God's now present, then we exclaim, "I must have been predestinated!" Look: as far as God is concerned, before He begins, He already finishes. He said that Christ is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the universe. The foundation of the universe is at the beginning of time i.e. at the ….in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Like I said time is only confined to the physical world where duration has meaning. In the spiritual (eternity) world, it does not exist, as we know it. In reality we have not yet arrived at the end of the Seventh day when God rested from His work of creating things. If we did, a new earth and a new heaven would have come. What I mean is that He would have stopped resting and embarked on creating the new earth and the new heaven.
Enough for today!!!
