Following on the previous post, "God & Reality (II)":
In the second installment of this series on "God & Reality," we left agnostics and atheists to their own counsels, and now we do the same with those who reject science in the name of faith, particularly biblical literalists. The literature arguing for a close relationship between science and religion is huge, and there is no need to try to add to it now. Instead, what I'm working on here is how the findings of science can help us better understand God, the One who created the realities studied by science.One of the most important things we're learning from science about reality is that it is in constant flux. Nothing stands still. Nothing is permanent. The only absolute seems to be that there are no absolutes. This is just as true in the realm of religion as it is for anything else. Our theologies are constantly changing, evolving. The Bible continues to change today as scholars discover new ancient texts or figure out meanings that we didn't understand before. Just as our bodies are seething colonies of ever-shifting cells and microbes so our religions shift and change. Everything is in flux. Nothing stands still. Even the ground we stand on is constantly shifting on tectonic plates, which are in constant motion.
God, we can only conclude, created a universe in flux where change is the norm. Change is reality. According to the Bible, God's plan for humanity also changes—or, perhaps better, God's strategy for achieving the divine plan changes. God created humanity sinless, but that didn't work out. Eventually, God "called" a Semitic tribe whose patriarch was Abraham to be God's people. But that didn't work out as they became trapped in slavery in Egypt. Then God "called" Moses to free the Hebrews and gave them a promised land. But that didn't work out. And on it went through Christ to the creation—ongoing creation—of the church. Everything changes. Even God's plans change.
The Book of Nature reveals, then, that at the very least God participates in and has a clear affinity for change. As Christians, we see God's participation in a changing world most clearly in Jesus of Nazareth, a man who also had a seething colony of cells and microbes for a body just like the rest of us. He was born, grew up, and lived "on the road" during his public ministry, as if to affirm a divine affinity for flux. As Christians, we sense God's participation in a changing world through the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit, which is constantly prodding and calling us to change, which is what the word "repentance" means after all, a change of heart.
Does all of this say something about the nature of God, at least as best we can understand God? Stay tuned.
