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| Electrons orbiting an atom: Vaguely Trinitarian? |
I hate Science. I got a C grade at GCSE for it, but I did enjoy Brian Cox's BBC Wonders of the Universe for his sheer, childlike joy and awe of the galaxies and stuff. I do, however, like theology and have decided to do some pseudo scientific theology this evening. Here are my results that I'll be sending to the New Scientist magazine next week. Pretty groundbreaking stuff this!
So, a new discovery has been made concerning electrons by scientists who refuted the claim that electrons could live on top (or inside, does it matter?) of one another (I was told about this by a Chemistry student at College today) on the grounds that electrons are 'near perfectly round'. My conclusion: God likes spheres very much.
Apparently Origen claimed that our resurrected bodies would resemble spheres. I don't know for sure, but I think people told him he was an heretic. Can we, however, see God in this week's new discovery? I think its really very fascinating on these grounds.
The planets are nearly perfectly spherical. The Moon, the Earth, the Sun, all planets of which we are aware share this spherical quality. These are not known to be perfectly round, but just like the electrons orbiting an atom, 'near perfectly round'.
The beads of our Rosaries are spherical as well. The sphere is said to be a symbol of perfection. Does God, or did God, intend to reflect Himself in His Creation? God reflects, perhaps not Himself, in His Creation, but His attributes. Mankind is made in God's image and likeness. We look at man and we see no spheres there. Yet, according to science we too are made of spheres. Atoms, molecules, electrons and the rest. So, then, the smallest created things, invisible to the human eye, are in fact spheres. Does God reflect His nature of perfection in His creation?
The spherical, created object, or matter, or whatever we call it, has no beginning or end. This, we can say, is like God. The sphere is a thing complete in itself. It symbolises the eternal nature of God. The sphere represents perfection, unity, wholeness, completeness, eternity.
With the discovery that the smallest things we can imagine, things of which we ourselves are made, are spherical, can we posit the possibility that not just electrons, not just planets, but the Universe itself is spherical, since this would only follow a wider application of what appears to be a natural law. A sphere within another sphere, or rather, Realm, that is God? Is God, literally, 'outside of time and space'?
Interestingly, for us Catholics, God, is both utterly transcendent, beyond comprehension, but also, with us, literally, dwelling in our midst, in the Blessed Sacrament. God is not only 'outside of time and space', but also in our time and in our space, in Holy Mother Church. God entered into human history once in Jesus Christ, yet daily He condescends and descends from Heaven at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass when the Priest utters the words of consecration. God is also with us in the Tabernacle always, 'even until the end of Time' when He shall be 'all in all', uniting Heaven with Earth, as two seemingly opposed Worlds collide cosmically at the Wedding Banquet, when the Lord Jesus, the Groom, embraces His Bride, the Church.
It is interesting that the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Host, the Lord, is, round. Not spherical, but round in appearance, if not in Reality. Looking at the planets, it is not hard to understand why Origen thought our resurrected bodies would be spherical.
So, before I disappear up my own behind, remember these are vain, idle speculations which can in no way be taken seriously. Forgive me if I have uttered any heresy and correct me if I have done so. I have no formulas, no equations, no evidence with which to back up my theory that the Universe is somehow contained within God, but, as it stands, looking around at what we can see, there is more evidence for my theory than there is for 'string theory' (I don't know what 'string theory' is). Whatever the truth of the 'matter', one thing is clear to we who do believe in God.
God very much likes spheres and round things, but no created sphere is perfect. Why? Because only God is Perfect and also only God knows the answers to the things we are investigating with our puny brains. If He had wished us to know, He would have told us. Here today ends my pseudo science-theology thesis. I hope you enjoyed it. God bless.
10 comments:
But my rosary beads are square.
Good to see the science/religion debate here.
I'm sure you got A at English.
There are some really fine physicist theologians around thinking along these lines but such ideas are also ancient-
“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Empedoklis 5th century Greek philosopher.
No heresy from you Laurence, just thinking like a mystic. Nice.
Twice the Apostle John categorically stated that God IS love (1 John 4:8,16).
That's probably easier to understand!
I wonder if the Holy Spirit might like a mention, God present within, not only at the Eucharist-
"Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own"
1 Corinthians 6.19
Tim.
The person who made them was trying to make spherical beads. Every now and then the bead making process goes awry and they make square ones by mistake.
Don't worry.
As long as its been blessed by a Priest it is still a Holy Rosary.
It's important, in the future, that you don't say anything that contradicts my pseudo scientific theological theories.
More speculation please. It's helpful.
You write-
"If He had wished us to know, He would have told us."
Don't we know what God looks like, what Love looks like -I thought that was the point of the Incarnation.
Check out the thoughts of Christian Cambridge Professor of Theoretical Physics, the Revd. Dr.John Polkinghorne
"Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality".
...I need a lie down after reading that...
Come to think of it the Host is square in Eastern Rite churches. And the Heavenly Jerusalem is square (Rev. 21:16). God likes cubes not spheres.
My rosary beads are oval!
Welcome to the world of pseudo-science-theology!
Tim. God likes cubes but He prefers spheres. There's a difference there. Alright, the underpinning of my theory has been decimated. I acknowledge near total intellectual defeat.
On the subject of rosaries, round, square or oval, I was interested to see on a visit yesterday a part of one (with round beads!) displayed in the Museum of London. With it was a notice saying that the word 'bede' was Old English for prayer a fact I never knew before. It also stated that rosaries were made illegal in England in 1549 although they were continued to be used in the home.
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