Mark Hrachovec
10/23/16
Are Things Thoughts? Are Thoughts Things?
This is the time of year we approach All Saints Day and All Souls Day which are
celebrated by some denominations, and of course Halloween. This is known as a
“Thin Time” where the material world and spirit come very close together. In preChristian Ireland it was called Samhain (Sah-win), a time marking the beginning of
winter where the harvest was in, the livestock slaughtered and the doorway to the
spirit world opened and the dead could visit the living world for a short time. Food
offerings were placed outside the front door and people would put on costumes and
visit neighbors for entertaining evenings of poetry, laughter and celebration. It
seems like a good time to look at what the Bible says about the nature of existence,
whether angels and other spirits exist and how humans fit into, perhaps, both the
material world and the spirit world.
There is a book called, “Why Does The World Exist?” by Jim Holt, a writer,
commentator and journalist. Mr. Holt is not a scientist but has the necessary
curiosity that prompted him to write this amazing book. I say amazing because it he
interviews famous people around the world that have much to say about physics,
philosophy and religion. He got interviews with Roger Penrose, whom some would
say is the Einstein of our day, and even the Dali Lama. His letters requesting
interview times must have been very persuasive as most of the people he spoke
with are the heavyweights of their respective disciplines. He would ask about the
nature of existence, how they thought it was that things came to be and why did
anything exist at all? Why wasn’t there just nothing? Of course if there were
nothing, the question probably couldn’t be asked now, could it?
The reasons they gave filled the whole spectrum of human thought: Poetry,
theology, physics, humanities, logic, science, science fiction, pure speculation and
not just a few shrugged shoulders. Taken as a whole, the answer seems to be, it is
simply easier for things to be than not to be. There is a natural tendency towards
existence. You might compare it with the tenacity of life. Operating rooms in
hospitals are scrubbed and sterilized. Every attempt is made to rid them of all
bacteria and viruses, and yet, not only does contamination persist, but all our efforts
to clean operating rooms resulted in the evolution of super bugs: Things that can
be difficult if not impossible to kill. The same may hold true for the cosmos: It may
be impossible to not have galaxies, stars, planets and comets. How did this come to
be? Let’s take another look at the Gospel of John chapter 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was
God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being.”
This may seem like pure poetry, but let me give you an example of why I think it is
closer to the truth:
1911. This may seem long ago, but it wasn’t that long ago. The Titanic was being
fitted out for it’s first voyage, Ty Cobb was becoming famous as the best baseball
player in America, St. Louis was still basking in the glow of success of their recent
world’s fair, and the house I grew up in had just been built. Albert Einstein had
published his special theory of relativity just six years previous. We were on the
cusp of a golden age of scientific discovery. Earnest Rutherford, a New Zealand
physicist, wanted to determine how solid matter really was. He took a piece of gold
foil, solid but thin, and surrounded it with a device that would count alpha
particles. Then he shot alpha particles at the gold foil to see how many alpha
particles would go right through the gold foil and how many would hit a nucleus of
the gold atoms and ricochet off. He was amazed to find that almost all of the alpha
particles passed through the foil as if it were not even there. His calculations
showed that there was an enormous amount of empty space in atoms. In fact, the
result he got can be demonstrated by this bb. This bb represents the nucleus of an
atom. Take this bb and place it on a pitcher’s mound, and the outer edge of the atom
will be at the outer wall of Yankee Stadium. There’s nothing else in there. It’s all
empty space. So the story goes, Dr. Rutherford was so frightened by his new
realization that matter was mostly empty space that he was afraid to get out of bed
for fear that the floor would not support him. Now you must remember that this
bb represents the really solid part of the atom. Inside of this nucleus are protons
and neutrons. Each of those contains three quarks. Let’s take one proton: If you
expand this bb, representing a single proton, to a sphere the size of the orbit of
Pluto, that is, it’s now as big as our Solar System, the three quarks inside this proton
can be faithfully represented by these three playing marbles. Think about that for a
second. That’s not much matter for such an enormous volume. Not only that, but
there is not much inside of a quark. Sorry, I don’t have a demo for that. But one
scientist said about these comparisons that, “The more you look at matter, the less it
appears to be a machine, but a giant thought.” Think about what the Gospel of John
said, “The Word was God …all things came into being through him.” It’s not too
much to say that God literally spoke the cosmos into existence, and science is telling
us that on a sub-atomic scale, everything looks more like a giant thought, than
anything solid.
Another aspect of existence that is remarkable is, if you take the sum total of all the
forces that make up matter and energy, and balance them out, they cancel each
other completely. Let me say that again: If you take all forces of existence and put
them all together, you end up with nothing.
Isn’t that interesting? The very word “creation” means making something from
nothing. It is the very description of how God made everything: by making his
thoughts, his will, his word into being. It is my conclusion from reading this book,
Why Does the World Exist? that since nothing is the sum total of our existence, our
very existence is the same as the thought of God.
Another interesting book is called, Defining Death, by Robert Veatch and Lainie
Ross. It is an exploration as to the true nature of death, the misconceptions
surrounding it and when does it really happen. One chapter was on what is
popularly known as Near Death Experiences. Some people can revive from a brush
with death without intervention but CPR has contributed to the rising number of
accounts and the popularization of books on the subject. These are becoming more
common with heroic life saving techniques, but were not unknown in history. Paul
of Tarsus relates an account in 2 Corinthians 12 where, speaking of himself in the
third person was taken up to the third level of heaven and shown things that he may
not reveal. Commentators have speculated that this probably happened after one of
the several beatings Paul received and was left for dead. He was close to death,
entered heaven, saw and heard things that he said were too wonderful to reveal and
was sent back to his mortal body as his time had not yet come. Paul’s experiences
both on the road to Damascus and his visit to the 3rd level of heaven fueled his zeal
and explains why he poured his whole life’s energy into spreading the word about
Jesus. Some people have a difficult time giving credibility to these kinds of
stories. However, consider these statistics: in the USA, 80% believe in an
afterlife. 74% believe in God. Now figure that one out. 77% believe in Angels, 74%
believe in heaven. 59% believe in hell. Even 32% of agnostics and atheists believe
in an afterlife. As I mentioned to my daughter Leah, a Presbyterian minister, if we
don’t believe in a spirit world, we’re out of business.
Let me compare it to the electromagnetic spectrum: In 1800 Sir William Herschel
was measuring the temperature of various colors of light derived from a prism with
a thermometer. As it was lunch time, he set the thermometer to the side of the
red color band and upon his return found that the temperature registered in what
he supposed was darkness was actually hotter than the red light. He had discovered
infra red light. Shortly afterward, other scientists found that visible light was only a
small band width of what we now call the electromagnetic spectrum. Everything
from low frequency radio waves to gamma waves. None of us doubt its existence
though all we can actually see is visible light.
The bible refers to angels in dozens of places. There are nine kinds of angels named
in the bible: Angels, Archangels, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues,
Powers and Principalities. We don’t talk about angels a lot except as messengers to
Mary, Abraham, and to rescue Paul from prison, but they’re all in there. I believe
that there are more spirits than these, just as the electromagnetic spectrum proved
to be much more extensive than humans imagined. Where do we fit into
this? People seldom talk about their souls except when their ultimate fate is in
question. The very large billboards on I40 in Arkansas ask: Where will you spend
eternity? Good question. Another good question is this: where have you been
during eternity? Looking back at John chapter 1: All things came into being through
him and without him not one thing came into being.
An imaginative story goes like this: God thought about a new idea: Free Will. He
asked his angels if they would be interested in trying out this new idea. They would
get a physical body, a physical lifetime a nice place to live and a chance to try out
this free will idea. No, they replied. They were good with things as they were. God
asked all the other kind of angels if they were interested. No takers. Then he moved
down the line and asked the human souls if they would be interested in trying out
Free Will. Sure, they replied. We go where angels fear to tread, but of course we
could use some help from the angels from time to time. It’s a deal, God replied and
began preparing a garden for the grand experiment. You and I are part of that
experiment, but we were also from the very beginning. Most of the time we think of
eternity as something just in the future, but we humans souls, according to the
Gospel of John, are part of God’s creation from the very beginning. That’s why we’re
here in church. We have a feeling deep down that we are from somewhere else,
from heaven, and are kind of homesick. We want to return after the experiment, but
our eternal nature knows instinctively that we are not of this world.
The next time you meet someone, say hello or shake their hand, remember that they
too are part of this free will experiment. That they have been in existence since the
very beginning and are as old as the angels. That they have a soul that is longing to
return to God and that that longing is sometimes mistaken as a need for things, for
money or power, for diversion, or even drugs, but nothing can soothe that longing
except the God who brought us into being with his thoughts and his divine
Word. Amen.