Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Father, the Son, and the Spirit
Commentary
for the December 14, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"Hear, O Israel: The
Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your strength." Deuteronomy
6:4-5, NIV
It seems that sometimes the more
we understand the less we understand. The rise of Quantum Physics in the early
twentieth century taught us to understand that at the quantum level things can
exist in two different states simultaneously and only coalesce into a single
state upon observation. Erwin Schrödinger made an
illustration of this quantum uncertainty with a hapless cat in a box. The
animal faces a random uncertain future of either death by poison or living because
the poison is or is not released by a radioactive
trigger. Therefore, if the box remains closed and the cat unobserved, it is both
dead and alive because of uncertainty about its fate. Once the box is opened
and the cat observed, its fate becomes certain. However, with multidimensionality,
the cat may be in either state or even unresolved depending on distinct factors
intrinsic to those dimensions. This all derived from experiments over a century
earlier to determine if light was a waveform or made up of particles since
experiments seemed to paradoxically suggest both.
Quantum Mechanics opened my eyes
to a scientific/mathematical foundation for an understanding of God. Despite
the contradictions between Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Quantum
Mechanics both models have been verified as applicable to understanding the
universe from the unique perspectives framed by each. It may be that the uncertainties
of Quantum Mechanics are a fundamental reason that a Unified Theory eludes us. But
we do not abandon the quest for that holy grail. Instead, we press on with
faith in the nobility of the pursuit and the hoped for rewards that could
ensue. In the meantime, we live with uncertainty and accept it as a fundamental
of physics.
The paradox here is that nothing
is certain until observed, if even then. Yet, it has become popular to assert
that God does not exist because of the inability to observe such a being. It is
like saying before Quantum Mechanics that sub atomics did not exist because we
could not observe them. One would think we would have learned better when we
discovered the microscopic world of cells and molecules. Their predictability
misled us into a false feeling of security about our universe. We like stability.
It gives us a solid base to assert power and control over our world. And it
works at some levels. But the smaller we go the less that reliability holds.
Our response is to create closed systems to remove the possibility of chaos. But
in the end those systems always seem to break, whether we are talking about
plumbing and HVAC systems or political and religious organizations. We live with
the uncertainty, acting as though it does not exist, even though we are apt to
say, "Nothing lasts forever!"
It is ironic that those who
would nay say a belief in God have no problem believing a physicist whose work and
mathematics they do not fully understand and will cite that same scientist
should they say they do not believe in the existence of God. If an average
person cannot understand sub atomics, what makes them believe that the person's
work is a basis for disbelieving in God? This is perplexing when Quantum Mechanics
makes the existence of God more, rather than less likely. The concept of the
Trinity is an example in point.
Over three thousand years ago,
God was a unit, solitary, alone in the minds of humanity. This may have seemed
like an evolution from polytheism. As evidence of it being such an evolutionary
step, the development of monotheism in Egypt during the reign of Pharoah
Akhenaten is often cited. However, that example died
out in the next generation, and polytheism was the rule outside of Judaism until
Christianity became ascendant and later, the Muslim faith. But rather than
being an evolution from polytheism, both traced their monotheism back to
Judaism. This is not to say that there was not turmoil over what that
monotheism meant. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Two bishops, Arius and Athanasius,
came to blows over the idea of the divinity of Jesus. Arius, who claimed Jesus
was not divine, lost out when the Emperor Constantine sided with Athanasius.
But his followers continued to hold to his belief and became known as Arians.
The Vandals adopted Arianism and managed to keep it prospering within their
territories for the next three centuries. Although defeated militarily by Rome
and Catholicism, its practice never completely died out and today's Jehovah's
Witnesses continue the tradition of denying Christ's divinity.
Some Seventh-day Adventists in the 19th
century adopted a non-Trinitarian belief with some of those later turning to
Trinitarianism. As time went on denominational dogma became more fixed
culminating in the "27 Fundamental Beliefs" voted in by the General Conference
session in Dallas in 1980. Those fundamentals came down solidly on the side of
Trinitarianism. There continues to be murmuring within the ranks over that
decision, but most seem to agree with Trinitarianism as were those General
Conference delegates. Since membership issues are decided congregationally,
unless there were some sort of purge at a local church, the grumblers are
usually allowed to remain in fellowship, but may face little opportunity to find
denominational employment, so those who are anti-Trinitarian who wish to remain
religiously active may choose to form independent ministries in opposition to
the church on this issue.
My position on this is informed
by my admittedly limited understanding of Quantum Physics. Since something subatomic
can exist in more than one state at a time and those sub atomics may be the
creation of a creative entity, why would the Creator not have some properties in common? If God can exist as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, and perhaps other states of which we are unaware, and we are
only able to resolve God into a particular state upon observation, would that
observation tie him eternally to that single state? For instance, if God
allowed himself to be observed by Moses over three millennia
ago, would that single observed state preclude all others? If the principle can
be applied to all of God's known states, then the observation of God in the
form of Jesus would tend to fix that as his state in the mind of his followers
and bring them into conflict with those invested in the previous state. This
could repeat should he appear in another state as a Holy Spirit Comforter. Some
Pentecostalists refuse to perform baptisms in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost as in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew
28:19), but instead insist that only baptism in the name of Jesus is valid,
preferring that state of God. (Acts
2:38) But this is like arguing over whether Schrödinger's cat was dead or
alive between those who peered into the box at different times. Both are right
and both are wrong, not recognizing the possibility that things can exist simultaneously
in more than one state because when we observed, we saw only one.
The Bible makes different states
of God apparent as well. Jesus, who referred to himself as the "Son of Man," was
seen by the martyr, Stephen, standing beside the Father in heaven. (Acts
7:56) He observed God in two distinct states at the same time. He was
stoned to death for challenging the physical form of God established by
observation in Moses' day. To those who could not accept the idea of multiple
states of existence, such an assertion was blasphemy, and the punishment for
blasphemy determined during the time of that past observation of God was death.
There are those who seem equally
adamant that their vision of God is the true vision, relegating all others into
heresy. They would, if given the chance, die upon the cross of anti-Trinitarianism.
As I already shared, such squabbles go back to the early centuries after Jesus,
especially after the last of the Apostles died. But there were competing ideas
on the form and manner of God in his interactions with humanity. Several extant
documents attest to this such as "The Shepherd of Hermas," "The Epistle of
Barnabas," and "The Didache." These and other texts represent different visions
of early Christianity that competed for acceptance but were deleted from canon,
especially once the power of the state was co-opted to support and enforce orthodoxy.
Of interest is that John's "Revelation" was not in the original scripture
canon, but acceptance grew over time, even though it is markedly different in
form and content from John's gospel and his three epistles.
The politics of power and
control more than the Holy Spirit has shaped our understanding of God through
the centuries. When the Jews were in control of Palestine, their monotheism
prevailed until the Assyrians and Babylonians subdued them, first destroying
Samaria and displacing its population, and then Nebuchadnezzar destroying
Jerusalem and its temple. When the captives were set free when Babylon was
captured by the Medes and the Persians, they rebuilt the temple, Jerusalem, and
the cities of their fathers in Palestine, only to have them destroyed again by
polytheistic Romans. Eventually it was the Christians who were able to
establish the continuity of a monotheistic faith, albeit with a twist. God had
three forms, and all those forms were one. God the Father whom Jesus referred
to and prayed to. Jesus himself who declared he and his Father are one. And the
Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to take his place while he is away. My
understanding that things can exist in more than one state at the same time
causes me to ask if these are the only iterations of God's revelation to us? Or
being God, are his states endless as we might expect from a being that defines
infinity by his existence?