The Mystery of Spirit

Will the world of science and scientific method ever understand and describe spirit? The ultimate spirit is God and the 'sevenfold spirit' which comes from Him. Is The Spirit of God only ever to be known to those who believe? Even scientists who believe must surely be frustrated by not being able to describe the Spirit of God to scientists who do not believe. One outcome of work of the Spirit of God is the existence of believers, yet it seems to me that they cannot expect to be able to explain their own existence as believers or the work which resulting in their faith to unbelievers, no matter how well educated those unbelievers. This is a both mental torment and a delight. It gets a little easier to bear it when scientists find evidence of what I would like to call 'spirit', such as when their experiments reveal the reality of phenomena like precognition. This allows educated, intelligent, reasoning thinkers to ask questions like: Does everyone have 'spirit' and 'soul' as well as 'body and 'mind'? Can 'spirit' exist outside of body and mind? Can inanimate entities have 'spirit'? Does 'spirit' link points in the space (and time perhaps) not linked by physical forces or entities such as photons and subatomic particles? Can 'spirit' allow an affect to take place across time and space without the need for such particles or physical forces (or string theory entities, whatever they might be)? Does this mean the future can affect the present? Can the future be known? Some eminent scientists like to rubbish such questions but the questions remain and the surely answers will be one day fully known.

My favourite line in lyrics

From a song by Jimmy Owens called 'He Came in Love':

[referring to the crucifixion death of Lord Jesus, the Christ (God's Anointed)]

"But the blood that flowed to the earth below brought forgiveness to the world that had treated Him so."

Understanding those words is pretty much it.

Sing!

"They also serve who only stand and wait" said the famous poet. I beg to differ, to some extent.

Humans clearly aren't the only creatures with the ability to sing but maybe they are the only ones with such reluctance to use that ability. Humans, Catch up with nature! The birds sing, why not humans? Yes there is much singing heard around the world but mostly a few people singing and everyone else listening. Why doesn't everyone sing? Some like to sing in the bath. (Maybe they want to be heard so that nobody charges in on them unaware they are there.) Some like to sing in church. Some like to sing in karaokes. Why is it then that when I walk down the road I'm afraid to sing aloud because of people thinking I'm peculiar or demented? Why do I have to sing in my head or keep my singing to my own apartment? What is it with people and other people singing? Singing is natural. More than that, it can be spiritual and noble, especially to sing the praise of the Creator, glorifying Him as one of His creatures.

If they also serve who only stand and wait, how much better they might serve - serve their Creator - if they sang (His praises) too.

The Lord's prayer

Although the Lord's prayer is probably the greatest prayer known to Mankind, the Lord clearly didn't intend it to be recited. "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. They Kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread..." He evidently worded it as an example of HOW to pray, not as the literal words to be used: Succinctly and briefly, remembering that God is in Heaven and we on Earth so that our words should be few. In other words, don't show off before God when in prayer, and don't pray to make a good impression with those around you. Better to pray with few words to God in secret than many words in public for the sake of impressing humans listening. Remember who you are addressing: You are addressing the One who has power to know what you will say before you say it.

When He gave the example of asking for daily bread - "Give us this day our daily bread" He was telling His followers to keep on asking for a daily dose, as it were, of the Spirit of God, which is to be His disciples 'daily bread'. He followed on to say how it is that God gives His Spirit to those who keep on asking just like a parent or neighbour gives bread to a child who asks or a friend who asks.

When He says in His example prayer "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" He followed it by commanding His disciples to forgive anyone they hold things against at the time they are praying so that God will see it and forgive the sins of the one so praying and forgiving. They aren't to be a mere recital of words but a genuine act of giving others forgiveness while there praying before God. Then God also forgives the one praying but He cannot be mocked. He forgives the forgiver and He gives the daily bread which is His Spirit to the genuine believer; not merely to the one only vainly reciting the words.

Keep it real, but the words of the Lord's prayer do teach us how to do so, if they are used in genuine faith, by the help of God's grace.

And when praying for another individual or group of persons, don't waste many words for no reason just to be praying; far better is just a few words you are sure God will hear and answer - a few words with faith - far better than many words in pretense and vanity. It is the outcome not the impression which counts. Be careful what you ask for in faith because if you ask in faith you will get what you ask, provided it is according to God's will. This is just as well because He wills what is good and what on the whole saves people, even though sometimes that involves a certain degree of evil, as when it is a prayer for justice or vengeance from Him against an enemy. Yes He does answer such prayers too, especially when the aggrieved one keeps on praying and praying for justice from Him. That also Jesus taught. But He did warn that people should bless and not curse because those who curse are liable to be cursed but those who bless will receive blessing. Be careful not to wrong anyone whose prayers God hears because their prayers might be for justice against you and God is unimaginably powerful. He is unimaginably loving too and unlike most people He has a special love for the poor and the wronged and all the more for those who belong to Him. They are bought by the blood of His Son, the Christ, so He will give them pretty much anything else they rightly ask for too. That might be justice against you, especially if you have caused them to to do wrong against their God. How we live our lives is a very serious matter with very serious consequences, whether we believe that or not.

If you do all this and He gives you what you asked for, remember to thank Him for it. If you asked half you life for something and He gave it you at last, all the more reason to spend the rest of your life thinking Him for it. Ask that your joy may be full. Giving genuine thanks to God for His answer is so fulfilling and one of the highest things in life, like caring for others. "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all you mind mind" and that includes loving Him with your voice, in giving Him credit and thanks for His love in what He gives to you.

The demise of the rich and famous

When it comes to fame, who is it you want to remember your name? God or humanity? It might be there's a choice to be made.

Who gets left behind in the race for fame? Maybe those who prefer the fame given them by humanity, by the academic community, the business world and commerce, the general public, the media, the world of politics. In short: Those who look for such fame and not fame in Heaven.

They might at the end of their days cry out: The world will remember me but God might forget me. That's just sad but perhaps it's inevitable if you make the choice to be famous in the world but not to be famous in the eyes of God.

Do we, the public, impose on our scientists, our musicians, our politicians that they forget their souls and their spiritual well being as they find us unkown facts and top ten tracks and votes? Then when they have done that all their lives and cry out for the faith and hope they have missed, do we turn a deaf ear and say: To late for that now! You've already had what you originally wanted but you missed out on what you would want in the end.

Even in churches and mosques, do we force the attendees to impress us with their adherence to our own rules and traditions and frown on real righteousness? Better to find a church or mosque where you can stand at the back and beat your chest and look at your feet and say to God in Heaven: Have mercy on me the sinner. Save your soul rather than save face. If you can't do that then just stay at home and pray like that in secret.

The Orderliness of Time and Space

This week was one of those weeks where the scientific news (going by Google News - Science / Technology section) gets dominated by the famous physicist Stephen Hawking commenting on his lack of certainty about God and this time his belief that Heaven is a fairy story. I guess I find that forgivable given the subject of his chosen scientific career, the vast entity which is the Universe in time and space and the mathematical laws which seem to govern it. I reckon even a mind like Stephen Hawking can get kind of lost in trying to fathom it and yet completely bowled over the apparent consistency throughout the Universe in the behaviour of its components. We tend to assume that these behavioural consistencies are down to some kind of overall something - that there is something at one end of the Universe (if it has ends) which is also 'there' at the other. In Hawking's case, as with most conventional scientists, he sticks to this something as being 'law' - the 'laws of physics', or, to his thinking, 'science' - science itself. It is as if the only thing which could be at both ends of the Universe and at every point in between has to be the most vast thing your brain can think of, something which can sit between any two points in time and space and at the same time can stretch across billions and gazillions of light years and billions of years of time and yet never change. To him that vast thing can only be science itself. I reckon for some they cannot think that it could be anything more than whatever it seems to be and that something they call 'science' or some kind of governance, hence the term 'laws' of nature. What is strange is that people like Stephen Hawking do not take a little further logical step and say that there could just be one single entity whose existence is so powerful that it has as much affect at one point in time and space as it does at any other point zillions of light years and billions of years away in pace and time. This step is entirely logical because the existence of a single entity with immeasurable power stretching like this and covering every point in between is as close, if not closer, to the concept that scientific law could be an entity so vast that nothing is outside its reach. Why would laws be like that unless there were something or someone driving them - a law enforcer. Laws are nothing unless they are enforced and they are still only as great in their reach as is the power of their enforcer. The idea that laws can exist without an entity which (or who) enforces them is a bit silly to me when I really think about. Jesus Christ's prophets and apostles said it is Jesus Christ himself and the power of His name which enforces the laws of nature in the Universe, and God the Father acting through Him. Hence Jesus Christ is called The Lord Jesus Christ, ruler over God's Creation. There is nothing illogical about just accepting this. His miracles while on Earth around 25AD and His resurrection and ascension prove it to the mind of one who believes. Nowadays He still proves it personally to some, to those who love Him, and even to me. Still mindblowing though - awesome. And to think that this One was on Earth for a time 2000 years ago in flesh and that He was crucified by 'us' and yet the night before that happened he was to be found in secret washing the feet of His disciples to teach them that they too should be able to humble themselves as much toward one another. Wow.

I guess Stephen Hawking and others are not perhaps so much discounting the possibility that the laws of physics and science are enforced by something or someone, so much as demanding the proof - and proof through scientific methodology. Here they seem on one hand to exalt science to being the ruler of the Universe and on the other imply that it is human methodology which is also called 'science' which should be the only methodology by which the enforcer of the Universe's laws should prove itself or His self to them the 'scientists'. Sorry but I don't quite buy it that the human method of discovery called 'science' is the same as the 'science' which is the 'laws of nature' so I cannot go along with asking that the one be the only means to prove the other. Yet He did indeed prove to one of His disciples His human body existence after His resurrection using the methodology dicated by that disciple. Thomas said 'unless I put my finger in the holes in His hands I won't believe He is alive again' (Jesus having had His hands punctured by nails during crucifixion and His disciples having said He had appeared to them alive from the dead) and Jesus when He later appeared to Thomas said 'Here put your finger in the inprint in my hand... stop doubting and believe' so yes I must accept that Jesus' humble character is such that He might indeed prove to the scientists who follow Him that He is the Lord over nature according to their own scientific criteria. I cannot discount it. Maybe the scientists such as Stephen Hawking need to be following Him first though.

Quran 3 : 45

Quran 3:45 (according to the translation of Sahih International) reads:

(start of verse)

[And mention] when the angels said, "O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary - distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah ].

(end of verse)


I find this translation of this key verse of the Quran thoroughly delightful. To me it shows that it was indeed a Spirit from Allah = God who inspired Mohamed. 


Not all translations make it so crystal clear, mind, so I get disheartened that some translations seem to obscure the truth enshrined in this verse. I'm happy, though, that in this translation here it is so clear that Jesus was announced by the inspiration given by God, by Allah, to Mohamed and that Mohamed bore witness to this testimony so well that it when the words are translated they bear this stamp of divine authenticity: The testimony clearly shows Jesus to be the Messiah, born to Mary "distinguished in this world and the Hereafter". To this the Apostles of Jesus, the Messiah, preached that although not every spirit of inspiration should be believed because some spirits have gone into the world which are not from God, not from Allah, yet those spirits which bear witness that Jesus is the Messiah and that He has come in the flesh that these spirits are indeed of God and are to be believed. So Christianity from its earliest times has given witness that proves that Mohamed too is God's (Allah's) prophet. Lets all of us, Christians and Muslims, love one another as surely as we are those who believe the testimony given to all of the true apostles and prophets from Jesus onwards (and eventually leading back to Jesus, the beginning and the end of our faith) that Jesus is the Messiah who will one day judge the living and the dead. Let us show each other and tell each other that we believe this testimony; then we can devote ourselves to love of each other with trust, in confidence that we love those He loves.  

Are there other numbers?

What a mysterious marvel that the introductions, at various times in history, of special numbers have had so much affect on mathematics, science and technology. There was the number we call pi; a ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter. There was the natural logarithm number called 'e'. Then most revolutionary of all, perhaps, there is zero, '0', the space left by empty decimal digits turned into an entity in its own right. I remember a question I had as a teenager, What if there is still a crucial unknown number? What if that number too had a major impact on mathematics, science, technology, even theology, if we only knew it? I postulated it might be so small as to not be noticeable by its absence, yet once included in the equations of physics it could be the difference between order and disorder. I called it, for want of any particular name (since it is unknown to me, though perhaps not to God), the 'blob' factor. Maybe it would explain all sorts of things we find mysterious, such as why certain calculations, weather forecasts, etc fail. Soon we might find it and have to throw out our current models of the laws of physics and other scientific 'facts'. What might it tell us about the Universe? We always think we know it right now but then we always tell each other: "They thought they knew it all back then and they didn't". Maybe most of what we think we know is stuff we will one day throw out as erroneous, silly and inaccurate, just as we do with old-fashioned ideas from yesterday. Today's science is tomorrow's nonsense, n'est-ce pas. In other words, I feel that today scientists exert effort and resources and make many sacrifices in producing mistakes which get called facts until they get called mistakes. Even dogma centuries old gets proven false eventually. What is happening is that as the better knowledge comes the lesser knowledge is discarded. "But some things remain: faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love." (Paul the Apostle of Christ, 1st Century AD).

The Mind of God?

How mysterious that numbers exist in the mind of God. There was that famous question: Does God throw dice? I would ask: Does God not do maths?

I find supreme fascination in the mystery of God incarnate. The one who, as the Apostle John wrote, was God and was with God, the one called from very ancient times 'The Son of Man', took human form and became a man. Then around 25 to 30 AD, after dying (crucified) and being raised by God, the Son of Man returned to glory He (the capital H 'He') had with God since before the world began.

Now some see much mileage in debating and thinking about the thought divide between science and religion. I see more mystery and intellectual satisfaction in pondering the overlap between theology and both mathematics and philosophy (which are themselves intimately intertwined). Leibniz wrote much about the concept of the mind; the mind of God and, more familiar to us, the human mind. This philosopher and mathematician developed, hundreds of years ago, many of the ideas behind computing today, continuing the vision for a system of maths, science, ontology and logic pioneered by Aristotle thousands of years ago. Today computer scientists and mathematicians still largely adhere to that system. I wonder if this adds weight to the bases of the concepts which encapsulate the notion that mind is a reality shared by humans and God, that we all take certain concepts as a given, such as that an entity continues to be an entity and a person continues to be that person; that in the mind of God are all possible histories and worlds (not to be confused with the idea that multiple parallel universes actually exist) and that He knows which of these is best. But there are assumptions in these ideas we take for granted that God thinks of the universe in a way which includes the concepts we too have, about existence, people, mind, matter, etc. 

How sure are we that God's mind, although orders of magnitude greater than ours, of course, shares concepts with those we have in our own minds, such as numbers? God's persistence in using the number seven, for example, in determining periods of time between special, ordained, predestined events. (This is even evident in the existence of the period we call a week, is it not?) We have enough in common between our minds and God's mind that we can count with the same numbers and communicate with the same words. That is astounding. Then to find that there is so much similarity that the 'Son of Man' - God from the beginning with God (what mystery is those words) - this Son of Man could become a human man, die, rise again, and then return to 'sit at God's right hand', effectively elevating our humanity to the heights of His divinity. The mind Christ Jesus had had in Heaven He brought to Earth. The mind He had on Earth He took to Heaven. He and the Father (the one we call God or Allah) having always been one with each other (in spirit and 'mind' as we can be ultimately one with Him and with each other in believing in Him) in divine, supreme love, can give us who believe that same mind and spirit and we can all be in harmony though we have been created human from the start.  

A History of Religion

When we look back at very ancient history and prehistoric times we might find that there were times when a person could hardly sleep peacefully without fear of another person harming them in their sleep. When was it that there was first a person who nobody needed to fear this way? We like to think the so-called stone age people were savages, hunting and gathering, killing their enemies and maybe even their friends. Religion may have been animistic and in some places, such a the earliest cities, polytheistic and based on mythologies. There were clearly times and places where people had moral fibre and virtue and worshipped with knowledge the Creator known to them by visions and dreams. There was the great scientist, wise teacher and priestly prophet of God known to us today as Enoch, one of the pioneers of religious writing and author of many scriptural, scientific revelatory books who possibly introduced the first version of the solar and lunar calendars. He and some of his early descendants were known ever since for being righteous and just, above and beyond their contemporaries. This was apparently some 5000 years ago. It must have been a striking thing to have around righteous people who could be trusted and revered at a time when government was perhaps basic and primitive, mainly based on tribal heads and respected people with some early forms of public administration revolving around temple worship of a few cities' adopted Gods or gods.

Roll forward and history doesn't tell us things ever changed away from this very much over the following thousands of years when for most people religion was about idols and myths and dutiful righteous behaviour mainly concerned adherence to laws and religious temple-based rituals. The occasional person whose righteous behaviour went beyond the norm through a special personal faith in and knowledge of God, perhaps through dreams of revelation and other gifts of prophecy was exceptional so that such people were noted as having the spirit of the Gods within them and they were revered as prophets. The majority just conformed to laws and rituals or didn't and were considered righteous or wicked on that basis rather than because of their faith and their faithfulness to a known God. For most God was unknown and unknowable.

Then along came a special time when the first person some 2000 years ago received not only special revelation of God, in this case of the Christ, but also the means to bring many others previously oblivious to God to a true righteousness by faith and personal knowledge of God Himself. This extended religion to the masses as the means to reach them was at last revealed. Who was this? Paul. What was this means of reaching the pagans? Preaching of the Christ and of Him crucified. The Christ had appeared to Paul (then called Saul) on the road from Palestine to Damascus giving him the first taste of that preaching as the Christ proclaimed to him "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting". Paul became an apostle of this preaching, proclaiming to both Jew and Gentile this Christ, Jesus, once crucified by evil people, now risen and all-powerful and able to save those who turn to Him, believing. Religion had changed for ever and now salvation could come by preaching to those who believed the message: The message of the persecuted, crucified Christ Jesus, raised again by God, soon to return to Earth to judge the living and the dead and to give to believers eternal life.    

Who hounds the Hound of Heaven?

Living as I do in Stokes Croft, well-known as a center for anarchism, I have ambivalent feelings on anarchism. We recently had recurring riots yards from where I live - something to do with the opening of a supermarket despite objections from 'locals' (not sure whether or not they are locals or just people who make the Stokes Croft area a focus for their activist efforts). On one hand I bemoaned the attacks on that recently opened supermarket I had quickly come to love. On the other hand I appreciated the way the riots focused attention on the area and its community voice as distinct from the society that surrounds it and sometimes seems to suppress that voice. In fact I relish the way it gave me more reason to identify myself with my neighbours rather than the national government. You see I regard national government as a mixed blessing. I love the protection it gives me as a tax paying citizen and I love the police officers who have now and in the past stood up for my welfare out of a sense of decency and duty. Yet I know that the times in history when there are persecutions against people for their beliefs it is often as a result of the combination of people and their government. This toxic mixture can result in terrible times for the victims of persecution, whatever the government at the time. So I ask the question: Who hounds the Hound of Heaven? The Hound of Heaven being in my view the One above the clouds who seeks and saves those who believe but who so identifies with them that any action against them is action against Him. Hounding Him is persecution against His followers. Governments persecuted Him when He was on the Earth because the people of the time stirred them up against Him. They even killed Him but in so doing they unwittingly participated in the sacrificial slaying of the Lamb. That slaying, the flesh and blood offering satisfies believers' hunger for salvation and stays our hearts and souls as we face the certainty of our sins and future judgement. Yet that in no way lets off the hook the governments who are often so readily led by the jealous masses against us. Now He is raised by the One who sent Him, He tells us, urges us, to come out and be separate from the people and governments who so easily turn against us and to no longer live by their standards and wisdom because He ever lives to save us and judge those who are against us and we should not share in their judgement. Desist from hounding Him, from hounding His believers. Turn to loving Him and loving His believers.

Bizarre

The Liberal Democrat political party in the area just got me delivering their leaflets round the block of flats I live in. I hate doing it because I have to walk along inhumane walkways, part of the flats' ultra-modern design, perched in the open air above the dizzy heights of the sixth floor in a roaring gale of a wind with nothing but glass keeping me from falling to my death! I don't do heights. Seems like us Brits are meant to do democracy though.

Anyway, it got me thinking that if I actually knocked on doors and asked if anyone actually wanted one of the leaflets before delivering them to my poor defenceless victims I might be a bit less like a spam-mailer (sorry, should I say 'mass-mailer' though that sounds more like 'mass-murderer'). Then again, it might make me more like someone acting in competition to the 'Lib-Dems' since I'd be trying to get people to trust me, their neighbour, rather than trying to get them to trust the political party the leaflets represent (I'm not even a member).

Now say a real politician went round the doors and people took them for a postman and said, after they'd gone, things like 'funny, we didn't think the postal services did things like canvasing for votes'. How bizarre that this kind of thing really happens when people think about not politics but religion. I'd be thinking to myself: When the Christ came from God telling people to love one another and love their neighbours as themselves it was plain as day what He was saying and who could deny that really happened in history (during the Roman occupation of Palestine some two thousand years before this blog). Then I have to remind myself that if I ever mentioned it to someone here in the UK (or perhaps anywhere in the Western World) I'd be most likely to get a response consistent with the kind of reaction of people thinking a politician was really the postman or pizza delivery person. It would be a reaction something like this: But we don't think Jesus actually was from God telling us what to do, surely (they'd say) he was a reactionary rabbi of such-and-such a tradition or just a concoction of a few extremist breakaway religious-nut sectarians. Bizarre. This bizarre society we live in needs to get over ridiculous unbelief and start thinking about and discussing how to actually do what God told us to do.