by Aaron Davis
b: something that is relative
the state of being dependent for existence on or determined in nature, value, or quality by relation to something else
a: a theory which is based on the two postulates (1) that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and independent of the source or observer and (2) that the mathematical forms of the laws of physics are invariant in all inertial systems and which leads to the assertion of the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time with increased velocity—called also special relativity, special theory of relativity
b: an extension of the theory to include gravitation and related acceleration phenomena—called also general relativity, general theory of relativity
Simply put, this equation tells us that mass and energy are two forms of the same thing. In the right condition, mass can turn into energy and energy can turn into mass. Here, “right condition” refers to near-to-light speed. Maybe, that is why we humans feel that it is difficult to perceive, because we are too slow in comparison to light. Light moves at a speed of roughly 670 million miles per hour, or approximately 186,282 miles per second.84
Concepts introduced by the theories of relativity include:85
Measurements of various quantities are relative to the velocities of observers. In particular, space and time can dilate.
Space-time: space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other.
The speed of light is nonetheless invariant, the same for all observers.
To avoid going into an entire physics lesson on this theory, I’d like to point out that I found a couple of aspects of relativity, both in its definition and concepts, very interesting when comparing them to what I was already studying.
In part 2 of the previous definition, we see that relativity can be:
2: the state of being dependent for existence on—or determined in nature, value, or quality by—relation to something else
And according to the theories in the concept of space-time:
Space-time: space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other.
In both of these examples of relativity, we see that there is interconnectedness and even a dependency between the differing variables of space and time, and one must be present in order for the other to be definable. In essence, there is a continuum that exists, which allows for there to be quantifiable clarity when all of the aspects of the equation are present. However, time without space and space without time present a missing factor that is essential in the ability to build upon or even quantify the equation.
From this foundation of the interconnectedness of space and time, additional (and much more complex) variables can be brought into the equation. Science can then begin to mathematically theorize and substantiate how a much more complex set of issues like time travel could exist at specific speeds if understood physical restrictions and physical laws (like a particle with mass cannot go faster than the speed of light because as it gets faster, the energy makes it heavier, slowing it down instead of going faster) were not factors.
AΩ ≠ ∞ (ALPHA AND OMEGA ARE NOT EQUAL TO INFINITY)
On one hand, I was really struggling for several days with questioning and weighing where God was in the tragedy versus what I confusedly thought He may have conveyed to me in the vision I saw of Him weeping and looking on as the tragedy occurred. Some of this was directly conflicting with some theological beliefs that I had surrounding the omnipotence of God.
On the other hand, I was consistently processing the seemingly unrelated driving curiosity I had with quantum physics and a connection to the “what if” questions I had been asking myself about the nature of God.
John G. Lake describes this connection as a blending of faith and science:
Atonement through the grace of God is scientific in its application. Jesus used many methods of healing the sick. All were scientific. Science is the discovery of how God does things. Jesus laid His hands upon the sick in obedience to the law of contact and transmission. Contact of His hands with the sick one permitted the Spirit of God in Him to flow into the sick man.86
In a single moment while pondering my many questions, these two worlds unexpectedly collided and I saw the parallel.
For some reason, many of my most significant ideas, moments of clarity, or breakthrough understandings have taken place in that blank uninterrupted place between rest and sleep. In like fashion, on a relatively uneventful night as I drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness, a very simple algebraic equation popped into my mind as if written on a black chalkboard:
Let me define the variables for you in this equation:
AΩ is God (In Revelation 1, God says, “I am the Alpha (Α) and the Omega (Ω).”)
∞ is Infinity
m is man
I saw this and very quickly awoke with profound clarity as to what the equation implied and, admittedly, a level of confusion pertaining to how to process it.
I immediately contemplated the E=MC2 relativity parallel, and although I had never before considered the equation I just saw in my mind’s eye, I knew what every variable meant and I knew that this spiritual-physical relativity equation was a significant aspect of the answer that I had been asking God for! I knew that it directly related to the mental vision I had and the question that so many of us have pondered of where God was in the midst of tragedy. Although I understood what the variables implied, I realized I was going to have to put some significant effort into quantifying it in order to even consider its plausibility myself because, in concept, it seemingly contradicted (at least in some aspects) some pretty foundational ideas about God that many, including myself, had subscribed to.
WHEN GOD LIMITS HIMSELF
I posed the question in chapter 3, “Is there anything that God cannot do?” From a biblical perspective, the only answer I’ve been able to derive to this question directly relates to my assumption of God Himself betraying His own Word or covenant. Like Dr. Phil Pringle, Pastor of C3 Church in Sydney, Australia, says, “Not even God will violate what He has set in place . . . ”87 But from what I can understand from scripture, lying is not in His nature and for Him to lie or break covenant would be to betray His own nature as the God who changes not . . . (Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8).
So with this perspective in mind, if God were to create or institute a law (whether we are privy to its existence or not), would this theory hold constant that He would be bound by His Word to uphold it and could even be restricted by the terms of it? And if this were the case, could He remain omnipotent and there still be something that He could not do?
As I pointed out earlier, and to put my ponderings in a less hypothetical light, God covenanted with Noah that He would never again destroy the world by flood. So, the question is not, “Can He destroy the world by flood?” We know that He can if He did it before. The question is, “Can He destroy the world by flood and still be true to who He is as a keeper of covenant?” The answer would be no, for to do so would, in fact, change His very nature as a covenant-keeper, and as a result, make His promise a lie.
So, when asking the question, “Is there anything that God cannot do?” it could be argued that God cannot again destroy the world by flood. And in this scenario He remains completely omnipotent yet restricted.
MAKING IT RELATIVE
When I couple these kinds of thoughts with experiences I have had, I wonder if there may be some legitimacy to this spiritual-physical relativity equation. Now that you know what the variables mean, I’ll explain what I believe the overall equation means.
Just remember:
AΩ is God
∞ is Infinity
m is man
Traditionally we have been taught in Christianity that God is omnipotent and everything that happens in this world is ultimately His will expressed on the earth. Or perhaps otherwise inferred, God can do anything He wants and nothing happens without His green light. In essence, Alpha and Omega
equals infinity. Or—God is infinitely unlimited.
That equation would look like this:
However, like many Christians, agnostics, and atheists before me, I have questioned this mentality when comparing it to other revelations of God and His nature, such as His being a God of love and wanting to do good things for we His children. When I consider the above formula in combination with things like starving children around the world, the Holocaust, people being sexually trafficked or tortured and killed, I feel like there is a very legitimate and obvious elephant in the room if God has the power to stop these kinds of occurrences and injustices and simply chooses not to.
If this is somehow a part of God’s plan, as so many would rationalize with the clichéd statements referred to earlier, such as “Everything happens for a reason” or “It must just be God’s will,” it would seem to me that in these instances, God’s will would directly contradict a significant number of scriptures that describe Him otherwise as a God of love, protector, provider, healer, father to the fatherless, friend who sticks closer than a brother, good God who desires to give good gifts to his children, and furthermore would redefine His nature from a covenant-keeper to a covenant-breaker—if it were substantiated that He was complicit in such atrocities. Yet this is how so many have processed who God is and how He relates to mankind. And if perception determines reception, I wonder if the current state of the decline of Christianity is the cost of such belief systems. After all, if God is not relevant, then why would anyone seek Him for any other reason than fear?
From this perspective God doesn’t make sense. You can’t have it both ways and still be a covenant-keeper. Either God is or He isn’t who the Bible says He is.
THE SPIRITUAL-PHYSICAL RELATIVITY EQUATION
This was the mental dilemma I was previously struggling with before I drifted off to dreamland, the night my friend insisted God be brought up on murder charges. However, when I awoke, I experienced much resolve as I investigated and biblically quantified what this new equation I have termed the spiritual-physical relativity equation implied.
This equation was immediately clear to me to mean “God = infinity divided by man.” Where typically it is believed that “God = infinity,” I wonder if it is possible, at least here on the earth, that man plays an aggressively active role, instead of the typically assumed passive role in our human-God experience.
Maybe man has the power to institute or divide the infinite and omnipotent will of God through the establishment of His kingdom on the earth.
I also wonder if maybe God has instituted laws or if perhaps the covenant agreement that He has with man actually restricts Him from freely instituting His will here in this realm (if for no other reason than it isn’t His anymore). And if He has, what would be the needed catalyst for His will or kingdom to be established in a realm where man and his less-than-optimal understanding of God’s involvement or their covenant relationship with Him exists?
If a great majority of people believe and rationalize that everything that happens (good and bad, but especially in the case of the bad) is some form of God’s will and they do not believe that they have any direct involvement in the overall experience or process, what would need to happen for their perceptions to turn and for man to experience active agreement with the infinite possibilities that they (man) are currently the dividing factor in the above equation?
Psalm 115:16 (AMP)
The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth has He given to the children of men.
Considering this scripture in combination with the original intent of God in giving Adam dominion in the earth (to the greatest extent of man actually being able to relinquish what God had given him, both physically and authoritatively, to Satan, which could easily be argued would not have been God’s will in the situation), I wonder if it is possible that we actually play a significantly greater role in what happens here in this physical realm than we realize.
Genesis 1:26 (AMP)
God said, let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority . . .
I posed earlier the possibility that God has established laws or processes, formulas, or equations into this physical realm that God knows, the devil knows, and maybe we even know about (in part) because of biblical instruction, but our agreement with or opposition to has the ability to free or limit the true establishment of God’s will and kingdom on the earth.
If this is the case and God has given us instruction to do specific things a certain way and we choose not to, I wonder if perhaps this could be a reason why we live in a world that seems to less and less resemble what our expectations of God’s will and kingdom establishment on the earth would look like. Perhaps this is part of the reason we are told to pray and to declare things in faith without doubt.
Maybe there are situations and scenarios, even spiritually instituted laws where we (human beings, mankind created in the image of God) actually play a direct part in removing what would be a barrier for God to be able to move on our behalf. I wonder if there is even a place of exercising the authority that God has given us in the earth where we can combine our will and God-given authority with His will and omnipotence through direct communication and instruction from Him. If so, instead of dividing infinity, we couple ourselves with the one thing (God and the institution of His kingdom) that makes all things possible, and in essence, bring heaven to earth in agreement with Christ’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . . ”
HOW INVOLVED IS GOD?
If everything that happens is “just God’s will,” then why would He tell us to pray? Why would the Bible ask us to place our petitions before God? Why would we be told that “we do not have because we do not ask”? Why would we need to declare a thing, or ask, or seek?
I’ve heard some explain that God wants us to submit to Him, as if He is needy and is only affirmed by being able to provide for us, and as a result He wants us to ask. And maybe there is a small portion of truth to that; not that He is needy, but maybe part of His plan is keeping us involved in recognizing we are not our own source but that He is. Perhaps there is something about intimacy and relationship established in the provision-provider paradigm, but I also wonder if maybe there is more to it than just the formality.
If God already knows the desires of our heart and wants to give us good gifts like a good father, or if God’s will is going to be done anyway, then why the need to ask? I mean, what would be the point of asking for something specific if God was going to give or do whatever the heck He wanted to anyway? I wonder if there is actually a legal reason why He tells us to ask and involve Him.
And maybe there are additional factors at work. What if these factors are actually part of the law that permits or restricts God from moving on our behalf? Referring back to a previous example, what if it’s a wash-your-hands-after-you-touch-something-dead type of scenario and we are just not privy to all of the variables in the commandment? What if the combination of prayer and declaration and verbal release of faith actually is the catalyst that triggers a spiritual-physical chain reaction, opening the door for God to move? And a lack thereof leaves the world wanting and wondering where God was in their time of need.
Matthew 18:18 (NKJV)
Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
IN REAL LIFE
Recently I had a couple of friends, husband and wife, relay to me a story. They flew to Africa to spend time with a spiritual mentor of theirs. This mentor and his church spend multiple hours a day in prayer and intentional communication with God. To hear it explained, it’s as if this church feels a specific call to pray as their part of the kingdom-of-God establishment on the earth.
When my friends stepped off the plane, this African man, a bishop, had an overwhelming feeling that they needed to immediately pray for the wife’s brother servi
ng in the military in Afghanistan. This bishop did not know her brother; he was not privy to the information that he was serving in Afghanistan, but he told them that her brother’s life was hanging in the balance in that region of the world. They all prayed together and within hours, when her brother directly encountered an IED explosion, he lived.
I can’t explain these kinds of events, but in my own life, I have experienced them myself. You may have experienced them too.
During a time of prayer, I saw my friend’s vehicle roll down a hill and the truck rolled on him and killed him. Two days later, after praying for him, I read in the local newspaper that his vehicle rolled down a hill, just like I saw, but contrary to his normal routine, that day he wore his seatbelt, wasn’t ejected, and lived.
It doesn’t make any logical sense; I don’t know how it works and I’m not completely sure what prayer or declarations or the release of faith have to do with it. But from what I’ve come to see as I’ve explored these tough questions, I wonder if it has a whole lot more to do with the overall God-man continuum than what we have presently come to understand in our experience or explanation to date.
If we were less distracted by our circumstances and events of life, perhaps we might be able to more significantly impact our world. I mean, what if God is always speaking and warning us of impending dangers, attacks, situations that we could avert (or divert in the lives of others) and we are simply not in the place to be able to hear it?
A BUSY DEVIL OR A PRIDEFUL HEART?
I’ve heard it said, “If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll just try to make you busy.” I wonder if this may be the case in many aspects of our kingdom involvement with God.