There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under the Sun. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Reflections on Creation and Eternity
Dear Friends
Niels Bohr is quoted with the observation that: “the opposite of an empirically true statement is a false statement whereas, the opposite of a profound truth, is another profound truth.”
OK – I always suspected that True and False questions would land us in trouble! Whatever our conclusion, there can be no doubt that our origin and becoming is deeply profound. We can neither repeat the experiment or find witnesses to the event.
I followed the creation and development of our local Flower Festival this week, bit by bit foundations were brought together, then the flowers, then the artistry to form a wonderful display of fragrance and colour. An undoubted tribute to our masterful Creator. Having gotten through the ‘ooh-aah isn’t it wonderful’ phase, my dalliance with Botany took over – Ranunculacea, Rosacea, Boraginacea, Proteacea, Liliacea, Iridacea, Orchidacea thereby ordering flowers in their complexity. Whorls and bracts, modified leaves, lateral and radial symmetry, Fibonacci sequences and the like started to kick in. Further, the plants on show reflected the hybridisation craft of master horticulturalists, who exploit un-natural selection to exaggerate desirable features. Indeed, some were so engineered that one could have marvelled at the creation of a motor-bike from iron bearing stone.
During the Scottish Mission session obituaries, I had cause to reflect on my former Maths lecturer whose counter intuitive propositions rocked my teenage cradle. For instance: there are as many real numbers between 0 and 1 as there are between zero and infinity was more than I could comprehend. I needed infinity plus infinity to be twice infinity.
The Psalmist’s must have shared this kind of puzzlement:
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Cleary our Creator is not bound by time spans and processes that meet the limits our frail comprehension.
Michael Griffiths in his book ‘Give up your small ambitions’ reflected on St Francis Xavier, a 17th century missionary to China who wanted to inspire students in Europe that there was a bigger world with far greater horizons than the boundaries of their urban experience. Ellen White eternally inspires when she says: ‘higher the highest human thought is God’s ideal for his people’.
Our invitation is not to be the vendors of human propositions and conclusions, rather, our challenge is to engage people in a conversational community of truth holding in tension the great profoundness of creation and Creator.
Thank you for taking people out on this journey, and being committed to bringing them home to His eternal kingdom.
May God continue to bless.
Yours truly
Dear Friends
Niels Bohr is quoted with the observation that: “the opposite of an empirically true statement is a false statement whereas, the opposite of a profound truth, is another profound truth.”
OK – I always suspected that True and False questions would land us in trouble! Whatever our conclusion, there can be no doubt that our origin and becoming is deeply profound. We can neither repeat the experiment or find witnesses to the event.
I followed the creation and development of our local Flower Festival this week, bit by bit foundations were brought together, then the flowers, then the artistry to form a wonderful display of fragrance and colour. An undoubted tribute to our masterful Creator. Having gotten through the ‘ooh-aah isn’t it wonderful’ phase, my dalliance with Botany took over – Ranunculacea, Rosacea, Boraginacea, Proteacea, Liliacea, Iridacea, Orchidacea thereby ordering flowers in their complexity. Whorls and bracts, modified leaves, lateral and radial symmetry, Fibonacci sequences and the like started to kick in. Further, the plants on show reflected the hybridisation craft of master horticulturalists, who exploit un-natural selection to exaggerate desirable features. Indeed, some were so engineered that one could have marvelled at the creation of a motor-bike from iron bearing stone.
During the Scottish Mission session obituaries, I had cause to reflect on my former Maths lecturer whose counter intuitive propositions rocked my teenage cradle. For instance: there are as many real numbers between 0 and 1 as there are between zero and infinity was more than I could comprehend. I needed infinity plus infinity to be twice infinity.
The Psalmist’s must have shared this kind of puzzlement:
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Cleary our Creator is not bound by time spans and processes that meet the limits our frail comprehension.
Michael Griffiths in his book ‘Give up your small ambitions’ reflected on St Francis Xavier, a 17th century missionary to China who wanted to inspire students in Europe that there was a bigger world with far greater horizons than the boundaries of their urban experience. Ellen White eternally inspires when she says: ‘higher the highest human thought is God’s ideal for his people’.
Our invitation is not to be the vendors of human propositions and conclusions, rather, our challenge is to engage people in a conversational community of truth holding in tension the great profoundness of creation and Creator.
Thank you for taking people out on this journey, and being committed to bringing them home to His eternal kingdom.
May God continue to bless.
Yours truly