God reaching across the cosmos

While listening to the Ask Science Mike podcast, Mike was talking about how language and mathematics are completely inadequate to describe what existed before the big bang. That God, existing as a singularity when laws of physics and time and space were one. We as humans have been trying to define and understand it, yet not quite getting there. As our knowledge grows, it changes and it will continue to grow and change. Despite our increased understanding, words will always fail to fully describe God.

During that bit, Mike said the following, which I found absolutely beautiful.

Even in the bible our understanding about God has evolved.

First, God was a man who walked with us in a Garden. He said that it was good and He showed us how to live. But there was trouble in paradise and we moved on.

Next God was a stranger we wrestled with. An unknown face who looked like a man and only after difficulty, could God be known and be revealed.

But God continued to grow in our eyes. And God became a burning bush that was not consumed by its fire who said simply that, "I am."

God continued to expand beyond just a bush, and after the people of God left Egypt, God was a pillar of cloud during the day and fire during the night that showed the people where to go in the wilderness.

After that, God dwelled in an ark that traveled with the people of God in the fields of battle, and who rewarded His followers with the social currency of that time: military conquest and victory.

When the people of God settled down into their own nation, God became a dwelling Spirit within a temple that denoted Yahweh's rule over a specific geographic patch of the earth.

After that nation was overthrown, and the people of God were in exile, God returned as a man. This time, a man named Jesus. An incarnate face on the mysterious spirit from the temple.

But this time God spoke of a greater and more expansive love than had been part of the faith before.

This time God said, "The most important thing is to love Me, and the next most important thing is to love your neighbor, and all that I say hinges on those things."

And then, this Man left. He ascended into Heaven.

And suddenly, God was a spirit that dwelled within our hearts. A universal force that dwelled not within one temple but every body of every believer.

Potentially, a temple everywhere in world. Everywhere humans traveled.

But our understanding of God was not done evolving still. Because next the church established God as a triune God, three in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Which one of these Christian Gods accurately reflects reality? They all do. They are all metaphors that point to the source of all. They are all pictures of a God that somehow reaches out to us across the cosmos.

As a Christian, I do not feel threatened by science. Rather, I am excited by the new discoveries found by scientists. Groundbreaking, mind-blowing, and endlessly fascinating. My oldest and I will have some of the deepest and most important conversations about faith and life that were born from discussions about alternate universes and time paradoxes.

It bothers me that so many other Christians view science as a bunch of gobbledygook. They're missing out. Science is not an art that should lure us away from our belief in God, but fill us with wonder and awe of the complexities and beauty of His creation. From microbiology to astrophysics, God's fingerprint is present. God is reaching across the universe, screaming our names.