Introduction
Every new idea is put forward tentatively, tested as a hypothesis, tested some more and if meeting certain criteria it is promulgated more widely as a theory for all to consider, debate, refine and use to discover more truth. Hope Alive has been in printed form for 12 years, used, tested, published as a book, manual and scientific paper. Now it needs a wider audience. But first, does it meet basic criteria.
Does Hope Alive have internal consistency? Yes. Does it have predictable outcomes? Yes. Does it agree with other accepted facts? The best established facts are in physics. Does Hope Alive agree with the basic tenets of physics? Lets see how basic premises of Hope Alive and Physics coincide.
I Unitary Truth.
Particle physics, chemistry, astro-physics basically agree and learn from each other. There is symmetry, harmony and a beauty captured best in mathematical equations. There were 4 primary forces in nature but with the discovery of the Z boson, the weak force is now combined with the electromagnetic force. With the new particle accelerator in Switzerland coming on line, there are hopes that the three fundamental forces can be resolved into one. That is a day that physicists and Christians long for.
Hope Alive is based on the idea that there can only be one truth because there is only one source of truth. Hope Alive must agree with other well established findings or it has to be modified or there could be some adjustments in physics and chemistry.
Jesus Christ had to audacity to claim He was the “Way the Truth and the Life” (Jn. 14:6). He is the path to all Truth, which is the way to life, all life forever. There is unity in truth. It is not likely that anything that doesn’t fit into the whole truth is true. Yet many discoveries were awkward, not accepted and at first didn’t seem to fit.
II The Designer.
Most astro-physicists agree that the energy and organization behind the big bang could not have occurred by chance. The design is too exquisitely intricate. (1) The enormous energy must have come from somewhere or some infinitely powerful person.
Hope Alive agrees that there must have been an inconceivably intelligent Designer who worked out all the details of humans. He must have designed many millions of them but before making them He designed and made a universe that could sustain them. It is increasingly clear the universe was designed for humans (creation) and not the humans to fit into or sculptured by the universe (evolution).
III The Creator.
While Physicists agree there was intelligent design and are reasonable comfortable with the idea there must have been a designer, they avoid who did the Creating and the big “Why” The ultimate question in science is why did it happen. They state that question has to be answered by philosophers and theologians. They seem to forget that Ph in their PhD is for philosophy. Their branch of intellectual endeavor began as philosophy and so they need not be so shy.
Hope Alive firmly believes there was a Creator who had a persistent purpose in mind long before He created anything we can now observe. It isn’t provable by the usual scientific method but almost. There are so many sane people who attest to having encountered God and gradually gotten to know Him. Observation is the basis of all science and high rates of inter-observer reliability is one of the well accepted tests. Inter-observer reliability for perceiving God in remarkably similar fashion with unique conclusions is remarkably high. It is higher than many observations made by pairs of people peering down a microscope and some unusual bacteria.
IV Purpose for Human Creation.
God desired friends, intelligent, mature, interesting friends; trillions of them. Only an infinitely wise and loving Creator could imagine relating intimately to so many friends scattered across the vast expanse of space. Yet God could not directly create friends because friends need to choose to be friendly. So He designed a creature a little lower than Himself, (Ps 8:5) in His likeness (Gen. 1:26.) and arranged the situation where that human creature could choose Him or something else.
Physicists who have carefully analyzed the structure of the universe admit that it appears to been designed for some life form. They don’t go quite so far as agreeing the universe was made to sustain human life but they will admit it seems very coincidental that all the minute ingredients necessary for human metabolism can be traced to some rather unusual celestial event, such as fluorine being created when one of a binary pair of suns, supernovas. (1)
IV Existence and Purpose
God states that everything was made for a purpose (Prov. 16:4). Since everything exists for a purpose, P=E. Since God’s purpose was friendship, E=Pf. Thus when anything loses or defeats that God given purpose, it will cease to exist.
Hope Alive believes that humans achieve their highest goals in becoming God’s friends and that He prefers mature friends. When by destroying themselves thru war, abortion, famine, low rates of fertility, they defeat God’s purpose for them, He will bring their earthly existence to an end.
When people lose their purpose, the universe loses its reason for existence and will fade. The rate it fades is proportional to the rate humans are exterminating themselves.
Physics has recently discovered that the universe is expanding with an exponentially accelerating rate. It is dying in extreme cold more and more rapidly.
V Exquisite Design.
Physics is fascinated by the intricacies of mass, forces and space. It seems there is no end of things to study and explore.
Physics asserts the universe was most energetic and complex in the first microseconds of its existence.
Hope alive is also fascinated by the complexity and delicacies of humans. There seems no limit to the amazingly constructed nervous system and the seemingly limitless human mind and personality.
Hope Alive finds perinatal studies bolster its conviction that the human was most complex and vital in the first few microseconds after fertilization. That tiny speck contained all the basic structures and processes of the adult human and more. That very small particle as or will have all the attributes of an adult human and therefore deserves to be recognized and respected as a person.
VI Uniqueness.
Physics has yet to discover any two suns, black holes, comets, planets or moons that are identical. The question is how could all these individuals be so balanced that they dance about each other except when there needs to be a sub-creation event such as a supernova. It prompts the question why would a designer do it this way when it would have been so much easier to balance everything by making many copies.
No two people have the same finger or iris print in the whole world. Not even identical twins are really identical. The great Designer seemingly desires to have a great variety of friends, each with something different to think or say. Hope Alive believes that each infant has a God given unique blueprint. Each child is born with the task, shared by their parents, family and society, to fully develop his blueprint into that fascinating person God intended him to become. The child can read his/her blueprint and thus know what ingredients he needs, how much and when for his optimal physical, psychological and spiritual growth. In this way infants are very wise and need to be listened to when they scream for something that makes no sense to their parent.
Hope Alive believes that the individual can only be assessed and known in terms of their blueprint. To compare them to the average to determine their normality is a grave distortion of who they are and an insult to their designer.
VII Parts and Whole.
Physics finds that everything observable is related to many smaller forces and particles. There is always something behind what is seen. There is always some much larger force or system of which that entity is part.
Hope Alive uses its perception that everyone is necessarily part of a family, social network, culture, nation etc. to understand to know an individual. Every child must be welcomed into a family and acknowledged for who he is. No child can become the person he/she was designed to become without a family, society etc. It is deadly wrong to “want” that child and determine if he lives or dies in-utero by how much he/she is wanted. A child always belongs to him/her self and to God. His family’s joyful duty is to welcome each child loaned to them, in the name of their Creator Jesus, to find out who he truly is and obtain the nutrients, experiences, knowledge etc that he/she needs to become the “Person I Am Designed to Become”, (PIADB). To deny any small component of the child’s needs according to his/her blueprint is to neglect that child.
VIII Compacting.
Hope Alive believes that even though just conceived, an infant is a person, extremely well compacted. We also believe that the whole of God was concentrated in His Messiah, Jesus. At conception a new, unique person began life with the fusion of the genetic material in the sperm with those in the ovum, together with the human spirit that God implants in every human from conception.
Physics has concluded the incredible notion that the entire universe was, at the beginning, compacted into an infinitely small, extremely well organized, immeasurably energetic particle. From that particle approximately 8x 10 9th suns in each of 8 X 10 9th Galaxies was created. It is inconceivable but almost irrefutable. That spec at the command of its Designer’s “Now” became all we know as space, matter, energy.
With physics, Hope Alive believes these mind boggling mysteries are able to be investigated. The discoveries can enhance our appreciation of who God is. Letting anything remain as a mystery is not God’s purpose in promoting interesting friends.
IX Immeasurable Reality
Physics now accepts the existence of matter and energy that gives off no radiation and cannot be detected with any ray. This dark matter makes up 90 to 95% percent of the universe.
Hope Alive also accepts the reality of unseen forces and creatures in the many millions. Though they cannot be seen or heard, their influence is felt. Their communication can be detected by the human mind, especially when asleep. God who reigns in this invisible world is active in human affairs and directs their history.
X Time
Although time, according to time measurements, is relative, physics now recognizes that time must be part of the equations in understanding the universe. Although, because of vast distances, it is possible to observe events millions of years ago, it is agreed that time only moves forward. The history of the universe is recorded in various types of radiation that were spawned in events long ago. Reading that history in ancient images informs humans of origins of their world and its universe.
Hope Alive understands that an individual can only be understood in terms of his/her history. Moreover, that history is recorded automatically in the person’s mind. History is necessary and needs to be carefully uncovered like an archaeological dig. It is not to be denied or buried. The mind has a huge capacity to observe and record what happens to the person, not only experiences but thoughts. This memory is necessary for the person to understand themselves.
Hope Alive also believes that time is best measured in experiences. Time cannot run backwards nor can the experiences, which mark its passage, be undone. Though God is merciful and can make all things new in a new universe, he has never, to my knowledge, restored virginity or resurrected an aborted infant.
XI Knowing its, hers and his history.
Hope Alive counselors spend considerable time unraveling and clarifying a counselee’s history. What happened to an individual and their family goes a very long why is explaining who they are. They use this information to help people know themselves. The insights they gain can resolves many persistent puzzles like, “Why do I keep failing in relationships?” or why do I keep finding jobs that sound so attractive but in 1 to 2 weeks are so boring I want to quit?” An individual’s history will help them more clearly foresee what they are about to do next.
Physicists spend many thousands of hours scrutinizing the universe for objects that are on the borders of the knowable universe for there they see very ancient history. It is history that help explains what happened in time and space and what will likely happen again.
XII Principle of Uncertainty.
It cannot be determined if the electron is a particle or a wave because whenever some machine attempted to determine its nature, the cunning electron changed its nature to fit the machine. It is now accepted by physics that it is impossible to understand what occurred in the microseconds after the big bang was ignited. It appears that God who wants mankind to know everything (Isa. 65:1) is keeping some secrets hidden, for now.
Early Existentialists discerned how people change as you attempt to get to know them, so you never will know them altogether. Hope Alive strongly emphasizes empathy in knowing people, but there is a limit. People will always be private, not completely knowable, hidden. Thus when anyone says, “You cannot understand me.” “My experiences are different”. “How could you know, you have never been treated like i have”, those people are correct. That person will always be alone with their perceptions and experiences. Humans are ultimately alone except for God’s spirit who can see through and into everything. Those counselors who are in tune with God’s spirit have an advantage in deeply knowing people. That is partly why, Hope Alive only trains Christians to become a group counselors.
XIII. Life on Loan.
Hope Alive operates on the assumption that although humans are given life by God. Their life is on loan. Their life must be sustained by their Creator. It is not theirs to take. They cannot give their life to another nor do they have the ability to take the life of another human. They may kill their body, but that person’s life is always in God’s hands. Thus no one can attempt to kill another by terminating their physical life without specific instructions from the Creator.
God sustains the universe and all aspects of it. Without the energy that God funnels into a person they would die. (Ps. 3:5) It is so with all creatures. God feeds the ravens and sends rain in its season for the plants. Only God has life in Himself. (Jn.5:26) Humans to live for eternity must eat from the tree of life (Rev.22:14).
Physics recognizes that the existence of all live forms depends on the radiation from the sun. As the sun cools, the radiation is reduced. So it is for the whole universe. Humans can tolerate only a very narrow band of temperature changes without succumbing. The orbit of the earth is bound to decay. This will result in shortening of the day, increasing global warming and “natural disasters” (earth quakes, tidal waves etc. as the tectons shift). The gravitational and magnetic forces will realign themselves as the earth sinks toward the sun. This has happened regularly. (ref. graphs of global temperature changes as recorded by the Antarctic ice core samples).
It seems clear that something or someone very powerful is periodically boosting earth’s orbit to keep humans from being cooked in their own juices. Physics is unlikely to accredit this marvelous rescue to God but there is no other logical explanation. God is the only source of energy that could keep the universe from expanding and cooling or the earth from Rapid Orbital Decay (ROD) resulting in the incineration of terra. What would happen if God decided He has had enough of humans trying to defeat His purpose of having trillions of friends by their killing their own babies, killing each other and being so selfish they won’t have babies? He just might say, “So those arrogant little humans think they can fix global warming by cutting down on CO2 emissions. I will let them try and let them fry.”
XIV Freedom to Choose.
For friends, God wanted only those people who chose Him. So He very carefully arranged a choice situation. In effect He told Adam and Eve, “You must choose, Me or a sneaky fellow sliding down the trunk of that apple tree.” It would seem that choice was predetermined. The choice between chatting with God in a magnificent garden and animals you could talk with and everlasting life or the super salesman who offered nothing but knowing everything, good and bad, would seem to be heavily weighted in God’s favour. Yet the representative couple chose to die. Why? They were fatally attracted by the offer of knowledge come easily and the power like that of the gods, knowing e
Their choice was a free choice, 50:50 very evenly balanced. Since then no one has a free choice nor free will. The choice to find and know God is heavily weighted by factors (parents, availability of the bible, intelligence etc) over which they have no influence. However humanity as a whole still has a free choice if those who have a greater probability of knowing God, would share that privilege. God doesn’t make finding Him easy for most. He hides behind a veil of intense light and apparent moral and spiritual contradictions and puzzling natural phenomena, but He does want to be found (Heb.11:6). He strongly rewards those who persist is searching and makes the eventual discovery as simple as e=mc2.
Quantum mechanics postulates the accidental choice of world-view. Shrodingers Cat may be dead or alive for any individual. But if there are parallel realities, there would be parallel moralities so God could not exist. Einstein though he initiated the discussion and research into Quantum Mechanics later strongly opposed it, for he foresaw the implications. It has become increasingly clear that Albert Einstein was right (1)and Max Plank is wrong. There is one definite real reality.
XV Conflict
The availability of choice invariably results in a conflict. Hope Alive believes the root of all interpersonal and intra-psychic conflict is whether or not to know God. Those who seek to find God are invariably rewarded for their faith that He is and that He rewards those who seek Him in spirit and in truth. Those that thwart God’s desire for friends by turning away from Him &/or making it impossible for others, eventually find what they desire, alienation from God for ever and that is hellish. The conflicts arising from choosing enmity or friendship with God are played out in abortion, war, famine, ignorance, entertainment etc. Not only do they affect a person directly but the damaging result is passed on to children for at least 4 generations. To help counselees recognized the origin of harmful conflicts, Hope Alive is careful to examine family patterns.
Physics clearly recognizes opposing forces, gravity versus the cosmological constant governing the expansion of the universe, the sun’s radiation trapped or reflected by the earth. Etc. But Physics sees no moral determinant for these. They are just there. Hope Alive accepts the prophetic words of Jesus and the prophets that it is because of people’s anti God attitude and behaviour that there are “natural disasters” and that when people love God and their neighbors, (I Sam. 26:23) there is plenty for all and joy in abundance.
XVI Entropy.
In 1850 Rudolf Clausius (2) (good God loving man) described the great “inequality”, later known as entropy. Everything is losing organization and energy. This seminal idea has increasingly been reinforce many times by later research. It is, or should be, obvious that it is impossible to have both devolution (entropy) and evolution. Scientifically, entropy wins every time, so that evolution has got to be a carefully maintained illusion; modern evidence that Adam and Eve made a very scientifically wrong choice.
Hope Alive believes that conflict upsets human homeostasis and uses energy for no benefit. Therefore Hope Alive spends considerable time helping people to resolve conflict beginning with their psychological conflicts thru helping them understand themselves. The mind will hold the history of a hurt, harm and conflict until it is understood (insight) and resolved (reconciliation). Then it can automatically release it. With insight and reconciliation there is great relief and with relief from pain clouded memories and conflict there is internal homeostasis, symptomatic improvement, freer choosing and behavioural changes. With these the individual lives longer and dies happier.
XVII Healing.
God has built into every system mechanisms some self correction and into all forms of life a modicum of self healing. In addition God provides energy in times of need eg. boosting earth’s orbit when there is excessive orbital decay. In addition He adds healing power to people of faith and occasionally people with no faith in Him. In addition He aids and encourages healing facilitators, educators and investigators. Hope Alive operates on the understanding that counselors are privileged to provide God a little assistance when He heals mental wounds. Is it not obvious that although the skillful surgeon delicately closes the wound with fine sutures, God makes the skin come together and the wound heal by mechanisms no physician clearly understands? By being partners with Jesus, Hope Alive has many advantages: wisdom, protection from major mistakes, energy to keep thinking, personal harmony and joy, effective new techniques, increasing awareness of how God does it etc. Yet though God wants humans to live long and to live in painless joy, He is more interested in their maturing than their curing. For that reason the healing process is usually prolonged and pain ridden.
Chemistry and genetics can describe in great detail how it all works but they have little access to the operation of the mind. The mind is certainly much larger than the sum of its parts. It rejoices and relaxes when persistent mental puzzles are unraveled. “I never saw this before. “Now you help me make sense of why I keep doing…. I feel vastly relieved.”
Hope Alive also recognizes that although there is relief for the counselee and joy for the counselor, there are many damages that cannot be rectified in this life. The trauma of physical abuse will leave a permanent fear of close body contact. Neglect of affection, affirmation will make it impossible to become the self assured individual who knows what he needs for his blueprint and is not ashamed to ask for it.
Even when good parents try hard, because we all live in a wounded world there is for everyone, the need to mourn the loss of the Person I Could Have Become. (PISHB). Grieving that loss is very difficult but from the ashes realistic hopes arise.
XVIII Homeostasis, balance for efficiency.
The counselee is helped to see and develop insight and reconciliation with those he/she has been hurt by, and those who were hurt and those who stood by and those who were hurt by not being forgiven and God as perpetrator, observer and victim. When this happens there is usually considerable symptom relief, disease remission and greater energy. To maintain that state the counselee must live a life of loving. They must use what they have learned to prevent in others the bitter experiences they had. By loving, their mind is focused on others and their systems function more harmoniously. They must also bring together their beliefs and behaviours. When there is a discrepancy there is internal and interpersonal disequilibrium. Consequently there is greater entropy, their systems are not working in harmony, they are tense and restless and they die younger.
Physics recognizes the effects of entropy on destroying local and celestial systems. Apart from appealing to God to renew the energy and harmony of a decaying galaxy, there is nothing humans can do.
XX The End or is it.
The best evidence from astro-physics is that the end of the universe is as a snowball not as a fireball. Yet the orbits of the planets of Sol will decay as the sun accelerates its dying by becoming a red giant. Thus humans are more likely to experience global hotting rather than cooling. This is inevitable but when no one can predict when because it is not clear when God will let things “go to pot”
Hope Alive understands God is fully justified in letting humanity die for they have frustrated His purposes by killing their young for so long. Moreover, if God is prochoice, then He must stop rescuing people from their ignorance and arrogance. He will eventually accept a person’s “No, God I am not interested in getting to know you”.
Physics offers no alternative to the inevitable freezing end of everything. There will not be a bounce and a new big bang. Some reincarnationists believe, against all scientific evidence, that there will be a new universe in which, billions of years from now, a wiser, kinder species will evolve. No. This is the only life on earth we humans will ever have.
Hope Alive has a great and realistic hope that death will not be the end of those who found friendship with God.
XX Eternal symmetry and harmony, truth, life and joy.
By measuring the deflections of the photons by something massive but not observable, (and other techniques) physics has determined there is dark matter and energy that comprises about 93% of everything in the universe. Hope Alive hypothesizes that God is spirit and has made humans in His image as essentially spirit. He will reveal everything unobservable that was there all along. Like dark matter and energy, people cannot see or feel their spirit but they can see its effects. What we suspect will happen is that in some cataclysm, the universe of matter as we know it will be atomized. When that happens we will be able to see “dark matter” and the spirits who live in it. God’s people will be made anew, reclothed (IICor. 5:3) with a time and space free body. Then we will be free to travel and investigate God’s real creation. Then our hopes will all be alive.
Physics as a science does not attempt to address the ultimate why, but more physicists are addressing “Why are we?” If they continue to ask why and honestly accept the answers, they will find God. For God is the only Way, Truth and Life.
Backed by good science, logic and faith, Hope Alivers have found some of the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions. We live and move and have our beings in God. That is our secure hope.
References.
1. The Creator and the Cosmos, Hugh Ross. NavPress, Colorado Springs, 1994.
2. Einstein: the Life and Times, Ronald C. Clark, Avon Books, New York, 1972.
3. Five Equations That Changed the World. Michael Guillen, Barns Noble, New York 2000.
Summary Table
Factor
HA
Phy
Comment
1. Unity of Truth + + + T The more discovered the more unity
2. Intelligent Design + + E Extremely remote chance it was accidental
3. Purposeful Designer + +? Phys designed to support complex life forms.
4. Purpose of Creator + +? Phys “Maybe but leave it to philosophers”.
5. Exquisite design + + “Amazing”, “fascinating”, “unbelievable”
6. Unique, individual + + ” “Nothing like it or her or him anywhere”
7. Whole bigger than parts + + W Whole understood from parts and vv.
8. Compacted + + In Incredibly small, complex, powerful at the
Be beginning
9. Limit to observing + + C Cannot see spirit or dark matter
10. Relative time + + But time is necessary part of the equations
11. Must know history + + E Everything and everybody has a informative
hi history
12. Uncertainty + + Attempts to observe distort object
13. Life on Loan + + Universe and people need infusions of energy
14. Freedom to choose + + Unknowable influences govern much choice
15. Conflict + + Opposing forces
16. Entropy + + Everything, everybody is winding down.
17. Natural healing + + G God or something keeps correcting decline
18. Homeostasis + + Balance delays entropy
19. The Ending + + Local fireballs, universal snowballs.
20. Eternity + – Only God can make all things new