Living In the City of God
The Apocalypse and Quantum Physics
“…but the rest of the dead lived not again until a thousand years were finished” –
Revelations 20.5
“Relativity teaches us the connection between different descriptions of one
and the same reality” – Albert Einstein
One of the profound questions for a Christian, and perhaps any person with or without faith, is “how shall I be judged?” How will my life be weighed? Who will be the judge? What will be the consequences?
These questions are tied up with the mysteries of death and dying, the conduct of our lives, and the nature of salvation.
There are some in Christian theology who support the doctrine of apocatastasis, a Greek word used in certain contexts to describe the reunion of all of God’s creatures, good or evil. This sort of universal salvation may give great comfort to those who believe it, and they might argue that there is even some precedent for it in the Gospel. “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all-in-all.” - 1 Cor. 15:28
The debate about this has raged in the Church for centuries. “Universal salvation” was preached in the Eastern Church by St Gregory and St Augustine spoke against it. More recently, many theologians have argued that Dietrich Bonhoffer’s concept of “cheap grace” raised the debate again in the middle of the last century. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross..”, Bonhoffer wrote These words touched off a firestorm of argument that still goes on regarding whether there is any act that can bring man into the state of grace necessary for salvation.
So, there are two questions that arise out of the Christian theological tradition. How will I be judged, and, when will I be judged. Taking Revelations literally, there will be a time in the future when God will come to judge all people, the living and the dead, and grant them either eternal salvation or damnation. The timing of this event is complicated by the fact there there was a school of thought in the Church that believed that the events in this section of the Bible actually took place in the 1st Century AD (Preterism) So, the issue of when this judgment will take place has been open to interpretation for many centuries.
Since we are mortal and our lives are short, both in comparison to the span of history and immeasrably short in terms of eternity, the issue of our judgement “at the end of days” is almost certainly with us at all times, whether we are concious of it or not. This is fueled by the news of death and dying that is a constant.. What happened to those who died in a hurricane, a tsunami, or a plane accident? What happened to the man down the street who died? Some famous person written about in the obituaries? A loved one? Death is, literally, all around us, but most of us force it from our concious minds to whatever extent we can, to keep from dealing with what is truly the central issue of our lives. How will we be judged?
Catastrophies, especially those with many deaths, open our thoughts and hearts to two of the great mysteries. The first has to do with death and judgement, and the second with the question of why, if God is good, do the innocent often die before their “time”? The recent tsunami in Asia where 250,000 people perished riveted the whole world on these questions.
Until the 20th Century, it was generally assumed for hundreds and hundreds of years that time was linear. There were mystics and sects that thought otherwise, and even some Eastern religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Hidduism that philosophically viewed time as something other than one day after another. But, in our Western view, minute followed minute and hour followed hour. We aged from birth, over a number of years, to death. We could count our age in years. Anniversaries became an integral part of our culture. Rememberances were based on the years that had passed since an event, like WW II, had ended.
But, quantum physics, and, more recently, the highly complex world of string theory being advanced by scientists and mathematicians have demonstrated that time is truly relative. And, unlike some philosophical or religious view of time, string theory has the benefit of being grounded in hard science and basic research, and is in many ways the godchild of Albert Einstein..
For those of us who have questions about judgement day and the timing of peoples’ deaths, it opens a facinating door.
What if God’s judgment of humanity is not at some time in the distant future? What if it is on-going and part of our everyday lives? What if accidents and catatrophes great and small are part of a judgment process that goes on throughout eternity? If time is not strictly linear, who is to say when the End of Days will be? Perhaps for some of humanity it is in the past, and for some the present.
These are extremely complex questions, but, given the two issues of theology here, judgement and suffering of the innocent, the question becomes whether modern science and the Bible speak to one another in any way that helps give us a glimpse at answers?
So, let us look at both and see if there are valuable intersections that give us insight into these questions that face every human being at one time or another.
Judgment
“Seeing that all things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” - 2 Peter 3.11-12
“I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me” – Job 33.9
Judgment appears unexpectedly. This is true for Job and for us. Job appears to have done little if anything to deserve God’s judgment, and yet for a time, he loses everything. Why is Job chosen, singled out by God? If he is indeed righteous, why does he suffer? According to 2 Peter, God will appear suddenly to judge us as well, but at least we have been given the preparation that the New Testament affords us, and advocacy of Christ who died and was resurrected. Job has neither.
Let us return for a moment to the concept that time itself is relative. The terms “past”, “present”, and “future” have a meaning to us as a human framework to mark time, but even our own science tells us that time moves at different paces under different circumstances. Most of us have heard the example of the two twins that is used to explain relativity.. The first twin is put in a spaceship and travels at close to light speed. The second stays on earth. After a twenty-year round trip, the traveling twin has aged only that amount of time, but his counterpart on earth has aged 46 years because he stayed in the inertial time frame, the place that was not moving as fast through time.
There is no reason to believe that God is governed by such rules, but it does open the possibility that events, such as final judgment, do not have to be governed by a linear time framework that begins with the birth of the Universe and ends with the Apocalypse. We may, even by our own scientific standards, live in a world where final judgment could go on every moment.
This concept is both liberating and frightening. Who would not be affected by the anxiety of believing that all people will be judged at one time, and, perhaps, in comparison to one another based on their thoughts and deeds, at a single point in the future? As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, but in the timeless vantage point of eternity, how can men say when that might be? If our own science tells us time in is flux, why would we believe that the eternal world of God must be held to a stricter, more human measure of calendars and clocks.
So, whether we are slaves to our own science, or believe that God’s eternity does not run by a clock, we can at least accept the notion that Christ’s judgment of us may occur at any “time”, and the End of Days may be part of our everyday life. This leaves us with the issue of how we are judged, the issue of Bonhoffer and St. Gregory. Are all men saved by Christ’s sacrifice, or only those who have faith or good works? It is a subject that has been at the heart of the Christian debate about salvation for almost two thousand years, and there is clearly no ready answer.
But, there may be a hint within the puzzle of the suffering of the innocents. When 250,000 people were killed in the recent tsunami, we can be almost certain that young children and devout Christians were among them. They did not have live long lives, and whatever happiness they had as mortals was taken from them. But, were their deaths ruled by our finite view of death, or did they return to Eternity, and by the judgment of Christ, a life with him forever?
As humans, we cannot look into their hearts, and we cannot see their innocence or guilt. We cannot see if they could lament as Job did that he was righteous and wronged. That is for God and not us. As they passed from this world to the next, perhaps Christ’s judgment went with them. Perhaps the innocents received their reward, then, and not “until a thousand years were finished”. The Father of all does not wear the shackles of time and He is not burdened by a perspective of whether we are good or evil that is a part of the human view of man’s condition.. His judgment belongs to a realm which is neither restricted by the passing of the hours or the sound of the gavel.
Douglas A. McIntyre graduated from Harvard with a degree in the Comparative Study of World Religions.
The Apocalypse and Quantum Physics
“…but the rest of the dead lived not again until a thousand years were finished” –
Revelations 20.5
“Relativity teaches us the connection between different descriptions of one
and the same reality” – Albert Einstein
One of the profound questions for a Christian, and perhaps any person with or without faith, is “how shall I be judged?” How will my life be weighed? Who will be the judge? What will be the consequences?
These questions are tied up with the mysteries of death and dying, the conduct of our lives, and the nature of salvation.
There are some in Christian theology who support the doctrine of apocatastasis, a Greek word used in certain contexts to describe the reunion of all of God’s creatures, good or evil. This sort of universal salvation may give great comfort to those who believe it, and they might argue that there is even some precedent for it in the Gospel. “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all-in-all.” - 1 Cor. 15:28
The debate about this has raged in the Church for centuries. “Universal salvation” was preached in the Eastern Church by St Gregory and St Augustine spoke against it. More recently, many theologians have argued that Dietrich Bonhoffer’s concept of “cheap grace” raised the debate again in the middle of the last century. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross..”, Bonhoffer wrote These words touched off a firestorm of argument that still goes on regarding whether there is any act that can bring man into the state of grace necessary for salvation.
So, there are two questions that arise out of the Christian theological tradition. How will I be judged, and, when will I be judged. Taking Revelations literally, there will be a time in the future when God will come to judge all people, the living and the dead, and grant them either eternal salvation or damnation. The timing of this event is complicated by the fact there there was a school of thought in the Church that believed that the events in this section of the Bible actually took place in the 1st Century AD (Preterism) So, the issue of when this judgment will take place has been open to interpretation for many centuries.
Since we are mortal and our lives are short, both in comparison to the span of history and immeasrably short in terms of eternity, the issue of our judgement “at the end of days” is almost certainly with us at all times, whether we are concious of it or not. This is fueled by the news of death and dying that is a constant.. What happened to those who died in a hurricane, a tsunami, or a plane accident? What happened to the man down the street who died? Some famous person written about in the obituaries? A loved one? Death is, literally, all around us, but most of us force it from our concious minds to whatever extent we can, to keep from dealing with what is truly the central issue of our lives. How will we be judged?
Catastrophies, especially those with many deaths, open our thoughts and hearts to two of the great mysteries. The first has to do with death and judgement, and the second with the question of why, if God is good, do the innocent often die before their “time”? The recent tsunami in Asia where 250,000 people perished riveted the whole world on these questions.
Until the 20th Century, it was generally assumed for hundreds and hundreds of years that time was linear. There were mystics and sects that thought otherwise, and even some Eastern religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Hidduism that philosophically viewed time as something other than one day after another. But, in our Western view, minute followed minute and hour followed hour. We aged from birth, over a number of years, to death. We could count our age in years. Anniversaries became an integral part of our culture. Rememberances were based on the years that had passed since an event, like WW II, had ended.
But, quantum physics, and, more recently, the highly complex world of string theory being advanced by scientists and mathematicians have demonstrated that time is truly relative. And, unlike some philosophical or religious view of time, string theory has the benefit of being grounded in hard science and basic research, and is in many ways the godchild of Albert Einstein..
For those of us who have questions about judgement day and the timing of peoples’ deaths, it opens a facinating door.
What if God’s judgment of humanity is not at some time in the distant future? What if it is on-going and part of our everyday lives? What if accidents and catatrophes great and small are part of a judgment process that goes on throughout eternity? If time is not strictly linear, who is to say when the End of Days will be? Perhaps for some of humanity it is in the past, and for some the present.
These are extremely complex questions, but, given the two issues of theology here, judgement and suffering of the innocent, the question becomes whether modern science and the Bible speak to one another in any way that helps give us a glimpse at answers?
So, let us look at both and see if there are valuable intersections that give us insight into these questions that face every human being at one time or another.
Judgment
“Seeing that all things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” - 2 Peter 3.11-12
“I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me” – Job 33.9
Judgment appears unexpectedly. This is true for Job and for us. Job appears to have done little if anything to deserve God’s judgment, and yet for a time, he loses everything. Why is Job chosen, singled out by God? If he is indeed righteous, why does he suffer? According to 2 Peter, God will appear suddenly to judge us as well, but at least we have been given the preparation that the New Testament affords us, and advocacy of Christ who died and was resurrected. Job has neither.
Let us return for a moment to the concept that time itself is relative. The terms “past”, “present”, and “future” have a meaning to us as a human framework to mark time, but even our own science tells us that time moves at different paces under different circumstances. Most of us have heard the example of the two twins that is used to explain relativity.. The first twin is put in a spaceship and travels at close to light speed. The second stays on earth. After a twenty-year round trip, the traveling twin has aged only that amount of time, but his counterpart on earth has aged 46 years because he stayed in the inertial time frame, the place that was not moving as fast through time.
There is no reason to believe that God is governed by such rules, but it does open the possibility that events, such as final judgment, do not have to be governed by a linear time framework that begins with the birth of the Universe and ends with the Apocalypse. We may, even by our own scientific standards, live in a world where final judgment could go on every moment.
This concept is both liberating and frightening. Who would not be affected by the anxiety of believing that all people will be judged at one time, and, perhaps, in comparison to one another based on their thoughts and deeds, at a single point in the future? As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, but in the timeless vantage point of eternity, how can men say when that might be? If our own science tells us time in is flux, why would we believe that the eternal world of God must be held to a stricter, more human measure of calendars and clocks.
So, whether we are slaves to our own science, or believe that God’s eternity does not run by a clock, we can at least accept the notion that Christ’s judgment of us may occur at any “time”, and the End of Days may be part of our everyday life. This leaves us with the issue of how we are judged, the issue of Bonhoffer and St. Gregory. Are all men saved by Christ’s sacrifice, or only those who have faith or good works? It is a subject that has been at the heart of the Christian debate about salvation for almost two thousand years, and there is clearly no ready answer.
But, there may be a hint within the puzzle of the suffering of the innocents. When 250,000 people were killed in the recent tsunami, we can be almost certain that young children and devout Christians were among them. They did not have live long lives, and whatever happiness they had as mortals was taken from them. But, were their deaths ruled by our finite view of death, or did they return to Eternity, and by the judgment of Christ, a life with him forever?
As humans, we cannot look into their hearts, and we cannot see their innocence or guilt. We cannot see if they could lament as Job did that he was righteous and wronged. That is for God and not us. As they passed from this world to the next, perhaps Christ’s judgment went with them. Perhaps the innocents received their reward, then, and not “until a thousand years were finished”. The Father of all does not wear the shackles of time and He is not burdened by a perspective of whether we are good or evil that is a part of the human view of man’s condition.. His judgment belongs to a realm which is neither restricted by the passing of the hours or the sound of the gavel.
Douglas A. McIntyre graduated from Harvard with a degree in the Comparative Study of World Religions.
posted by douglas mcintyre at 8:13 AM
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