Opinion column

Connecting with the mysteries of creation

James Knight has been marvelling at some of the wonders of creation, and at the mysteries of the Creator.

In Genesis 1:3, God's declaration, "Let there be light," is seen as bringing order to creation and illuminating the universe, symbolising the beginning of Divine revelation and the emergence of God’s presence in creation. This is fulfilled in Christ, who declares He is “the light of the world” (John 8:12).
 
Theologically, light is synonymous with Divine revelation, and people have spent centuries grappling with the complex nature of this light, especially around how God speaks through creation, through scripture, through miracles, and through testimony, and why there is so much mystery and ambiguity about God’s revelations.
 
This formed the main body of a book I wrote in 2012 called The Genius of the Invisible God, in which I laid out why God’s apparent ‘invisibility’ in most of the creation story is not only for our own good, but also a fundamental and exciting part of the narrative’s continuous Holy Spirit revelation after the Incarnation. Like all worthwhile things, the revelation is commensurate with what we put in too – the transformation is commensurate with our willingness to be transformed.
 
And we shouldn’t find it surprising that metaphysical realities are so mysterious and exhilarating, because even nature’s physical domain is rich in the same qualities. Dig deep into some of nature’s most counterintuitive facts to date, and you’ll find it is similarly steeped in mystery and wonder. When a torch is shone from a moving train, the light travels at the same speed relative to both the train and the ground because the speed of light is constant and unaffected by the motion of its source or observer. Time slows down as we travel faster because, as per special relativity, moving clocks run slower relative to stationary observers to preserve the constant speed of light. Time runs slower the closer you are to a massive object (like the Earth), so time passes slightly faster at higher altitudes where gravity is weaker. Particles can exist in multiple states at once. It’s impossible to precisely measure both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time. When two particles become entangled, the state of one particle instantly determines the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are. Particles can display behaviour characteristic of waves, even when they are observed as discrete particles. Most off the universe is made up of dark matter, which we can't see. There are many more examples.
 
And we’ve found something equally stunning in the past 500 years of new scientific discoveries; the more we’ve discovered, the more the mystery and wonder has deepened further. Increased knowledge has made the universe more mysterious and wondrous, not less. The bigger our intellectual and epistemological landscape, the wider and broader the topological secrets reflect back. Creation has been deliberately partially veiled for now, to ensure that our path to wisdom is an exhilarating journey of faith, humility and discovery.
 
In both the physics of nature and in God’s revelatory unfolding, mystery, awe and wonder are not obstacles, but doorways to deeper understanding and connection with the Creator.

The image above is by Amy from Pixabay.
 

James Knight is a local government officer based in Norwich, and is a regular columnist for Christian community websites Network Norfolk and Network Ipswich. He also blogs regularly as ‘The Philosophical Muser’, and contributes articles to UK think tanks The Adam Smith Institute and The Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). 

The views carried here are those of the author, not necessarily those of Network Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users.