December 27, 2023

Wednesday Word:  Faith and Science

Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes – Hymn 423

God is light and in him there is no darkness at all – 1 John 1:5

I am the light of the world – John 8:12

I AM who I AM – Ex. 3:14

On a theological note, we proclaim God to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; that is, God is all powerful, all knowing, and exists everywhere in all time and at all times.  This is one of the reasons why, when Moses asks, “Who are you?” God answers, “I AM who I AM.”  No past.  No future.  God just IS.  When we say that God knows what will happen, we aren’t saying that God is looking into the future; because, for God, all time just IS.  Everything for God exists in the NOW.

Along with all of the omnipotent stuff above, we also describe God as being light.  God as light has a long history in the Church as you can see from some of the above quotes.  We talk about the light of God overcoming darkness.  John the Baptist testified to the light.  And on and on.  God is light, and the darkness does not overcome it.

The other day I saw a short video from Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who seems to be everywhere and knows a whole lot about everything.  He was answering the question, “Does anything travel at the speed of light?”  In that video he says:

            If time slows down as you approach the speed of light, then the equations tell us

            at the speed of light time stops.  That means, if you were a photon, time does not

            pass for you at all.  That means that at the moment a photon is generated anywhere

            in the universe, it gets absorbed at its destination.  We can watch the photon move

            across the universe, but for the photon, time does not elapse.

In other words, there is no past or future for photons, but everything just IS.

I don’t need science to prove whether or not God exists, that is a matter of faith; but I do find it interesting that faith and science intersect at this point where God is described as light and mathematical equations show us that light exist in the NOW for all time.

The gospel for Christmas Day is always John 1:1-14.  I find this to be one of the most beautiful passages in all of Scripture.  And now, thanks to an atheist or agnostic astrophysicist, I have a new understanding of God in the universe. 

The Bible is not a science textbook, but it does offer us a greater Truth.  And sometimes the Truth of the Bible manifests itself in unexpected ways – such as learning that light just IS.

Merry Christmas,