A Particle or a Wave?

We have to take things to where the evidence leads us. When people studied light they came up with conflicting models as to what is light. Some evidence would give us the impression that light is a point, a photon. Some experiments would seem to prove this. Other experiments seem to prove that light acts like a wave by traveling omnidirectionally. But something cannot be in two places at the same time, can it? Yet the facts about light merely expose our presuppositions and our ignorance as to what light really is. To our way of thinking it acts like both a wave and a particle, yet also in our way of thinking that is not possible. But it is, so we must be ignorant of something.

Many of the teachings we get from scripture are like this. So when we add up all the evidence we get a picture of something we have a hard time conceiving. Like is Jesus actually a true human in every way, or is he God's only son, the exact image of God Himself, eternal creator and Lord of all? All the evidence points to the inescapable conclusion that the answer is yes. But that conclusion takes us beyond our past experience to something that looks like a contradiction. It is not truly a contradiction, it only appears so because of our ignorance.

What about the trinity? How could one be three and three be one? All our analogies look weak. The water vapor, water, ice trinity has only one point of correspondence - three different modes of the same molecule. But the Father - Son - Spirit are not three different modes of God. They are three different beings who are individually and corporately the one God who made it all. That stretches our understanding a bit, doesn't it.

This kind of thinking is not knew. Most world views have some way of unifying contradiction. Yin-Yang is well known as the two sides of the same thing. Though what the thing is is hard to explain or imagine. Explaining it as in evil the seeds of good are sown and in good the seeds of evil are sown is inadequate. It is inadequate because the fields of good and evil must be defined by some objective standard which is assumed. This relates to the eating of the fruit of the tree of good and evil as seen in the book of Genesis. Human nature is defined by its drive to put everything into the categories of good and evil. The most you can say for the Yin-Yang concept is that it clearly defines human nature after the fall.

Yet the scripture keeps pushing us further than where our experience has gone. This is how we grow in understanding. I do not intend to say that contradiction is the evidence of truth, as some mystical world views would have it. I say that contradiction, by itself, proves nothing. This is because contradiction can either be the proof that something is not true or the evidence that we have misunderstood something. How can we tell which it is? By how much faith we have in our evidence. (Just because we have faith in our evidence does not, by itself, make something true. Yet we have no other option open to us. So the perception of truth becomes an hermeneutical issue. It becomes an issue of how we understand, how we interpret, evidence.)

So is receiving the Spirit a particle, a single point in time, or a wave affecting many points at the same time? Yes. We receive the Spirit when we receive Jesus. Yet can we receive the Spirit at another point too. It seems our understanding of the Spirit needs growing.

My Limp, part 2

From the best that I can determine, neither the Evangelical approach - which gives priority to Paul - nor the Pentecostal approach - which gives priority to Luke/Acts - can answer all the questions. It is neither either, nor neither or. So many of the teachings of scripture can only be parsed so far and then they appear to lose coherency. I doubt if it really does lose coherency, it is just that our presuppositions are more likely to interfere the more finely we chop the meaning of words. This is because by finely chopping we get into areas where we cannot triangulate our position without depending on conjecture. It is like building a tall tower with a tiny flaw in the foundation. After a while the tower will tip over as inaccuracy after inaccuracy is piled on top of one another.

The scripture makes it very clear that the world in it's wisdom cannot know God. Cannot is the operative word. One reason is that worldly wisdom teaches that truth is perceived through doubt. By doubting we test the veracity of something or someone. We doubt until we are convinced. But when doubt ends we do not have the truth, but faith. Only by faith is truth perceived. Doubt left to itself will continue to doubt. Doubt cannot recognize truth because it can always come up with another reason to doubt. Whatever someone believes can always be doubted by another. Only faith can end doubt.

So this is why I limp. My natural self, my worldly wisdom, cannot find for me a stable position. I can always find more things to question. And so can you. Yet my encounter with God has given me a staff of faith to lean upon.

I accept both Paul and Luke's testimony regarding the Spirit. I have some ideas as to how their differences can be reconciled, but nothing that is a sure thing. My experience with the Holy Spirit has taught me of it's reality and the reality of Jesus.

I invite one and all to set aside doubt and by faith receive the truth. Will all you questions be answered? No. But how can doubt be set aside? By believing that God indeed loves you and has reconciled himself to you. Be reconciled to him.