Ultimate Energy

"God doesn’t condemn us for not knowing WHAT He is, but for not believing WHO He is."

As I crawled into bed the other night I felt I had not been as personal with my heavenly Father as I could have been. I was housebound for the past five days with a bad flu. My expectations of accomplishment were low to nil. I was in a mood of “hunker down” and “keep low until this blows over”.

Some time was spent that day in prayer and meditation but due to a lot of coughing and a foggy head, I was just getting by. So I spent some time meditating on the greatness of the one true God and confessed to Him that I was dull-witted and superficial in my relationship today.

The psalmist David said, When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have established; what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him? (Ps. 8:3-4 MKJV).

With all that space out there and billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, no wonder we feel so small.

They say there are only about 4000 stars visible to the unaided eye. But the ancients weren’t stupid. King David wrote this Psalm in his youth, as he contemplated the starry heavens night after night while guarding the family flock of sheep. He knew stars were close and far. He knew they surpassed counting. As seasons progressed he knew the heavens were larger than could be seen in any single night sky. They called the Milky Way a river of stars back in those days, with each star merging into the flood like a mere drop of water in a mighty river.

Today, even with all its power, the Hubble orbiting telescope cannot see the limits of space. When astronomers decided to focus on one tiny speck of visible space for days at a time, the telescope only revealed additional thousands of well-formed galaxies, failing to find the edges of space, and failing to confirm a Big Bang theory of astronomical evolution.

Nothing much has changed since David’s day. The heavens still dwarf us. The mass-energy that created it and by which it consists, defies definition. Scientists have invented words for speculative ideas such as “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy” to fill the voids of knowledge, but these ideas remain utterly unknown and non-verifiable. Moderns, like David, say the visible heavens may be dwarfed by the invisible and unknowable.

Observational science proposes that energy in our universe is steadily dissipating. Hot stars spill their heat into the coldness of an ever expanding space so that the universe is cooling like a hot cup of coffee abandoned on the kitchen counter. What is observed is that all energy is dissipating to the point where no work can be accomplished. At that point the universe is at a dead end.

This pall of death has not failed to discourage some discerning scientists who have studied it. They can only conclude that life is ephemeral and without ultimate meaning. The mass-energy of the universe is an (expletive deleted). The process is unrelenting and impersonal.

A Better Hope

A Christian understands that complex and glorious realities arise from a greater and more glorious source. Through the Bible the “source” or, if you will, “force” reveals himself to us as the eternal God.

Here’s the thing: We aren't left to wonder about this. God has provided revelation in the Bible, which is a guidebook, as it were, to the universe. This God created humans male and female in his image. God doesn’t condemn us for not knowing WHAT He is, but for not believing WHO He is. We don’t need to know HOW the eternal God exists to believe He DOES exist.

Being made in his image, He expects us to respond personally to Him. The unbelieving scientist must conclude that the energy of the universe, of which he or she is a part, is a dead-end, and feels no connection to it. On the other hand, a Christian believer sees that the energy of the universe is actually the effect of an infinite Creator’s will. Being made by Him in his image, we are capable of seeing his Person behind his creation. The mass-energy in the universe is actually evidence of the personal God who made us.

Neither the secular scientist nor the Christian believer maintains that the physical universe is eternal. The secular scientist who holds to a variation of The Big Bang Theory (not all do) must ultimately source a Big Bang out of nothing. The resultant physical mass-energy from the Bang cannot be eternal by definition. The Christian proposition that the physical universe was created by the will of a God who exists independently from the physical universe is more intellectually congruent with the material universe as we know it. It is logical to assume there is an “Ultimate Energy” (outside Nature) that is the source of “Mass-energy” (the current universe).

What Christians find most comforting, both intellectually and spiritually, is the simple revelation that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

The same biblical revelation prophesies a Big Bang yet to come:

"…the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up…” (2 Peter3:10), and,

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” (Rev 21:1).

“Of old You have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They shall perish, but You shall endure; yea, all of them shall become old like a garment; like a robe You shall change them, and they shall be changed; but You are He, and Your years shall have no end. The sons of Your servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before You.” (Ps. 102:25-28 MKJV)

Ultimate Energy is not found in nature. Yes, Ultimate Energy exceeds the confines of “natural science.” It is supra – natural, which makes some people uncomfortable. Eternal life is in God himself and given to humans who repent and believe in Jesus. The universe as we know it will die, but just wait until you see the Universe 2.0! That is why we need to get right with God now. I’m glad that Ultimate Energy exists, and has a revealed name and that He is personal.