Some important uses of the number six

 

Some important uses of the number six are shown above. I guess that the most important one is for the six quarks. If current theory in physics is true, then, as the Wikipedia says, they are "a fundamental constituent of matter." In other words, you and I and the screen or paper you are reading this on are mostly quarks. If angelic beings with six wings literally exist, that would be important, too. In fact, it would be important if they were only an attempt at describing the indescribable. But dice, time, degrees, cubic crystals, and honeycomb are also important.

Thanks for looking.

God's creativity

God is unimaginably creative.

John 1, Colossians 1, and other passages indicate that God the Son was and is the chief agent in creation, and in sustaining it.

So what did God create?

1. Substance (including energy, which is a type of substance – e = mc²).

Matter and energy are creations of God. He is outside of His created universe, and made it come to be from nothing. However, He can and does enter it, as shown in the miracles of the Old Testament, the Incarnation of God the Son, and the presence of God the Holy Spirit. Ken Schenck, in this post, points out that God created the nothing, too. It wouldn't have been there without God.

It is possible that all the types of sub-atomic particles, or even each and every such particle, all the elements, all the types of heavenly bodies, the earth itself, and the kinds of living things, were brought into being by individual creative acts. It is also possible that God’s planning was so extensive and complete that He created matter so that most or all of these things emerged, over time, as a result of the Big Bang. Either way shows God’s limitless intelligence and creativity, (See here for information on the suitability of sub-atomic particles for the existence of the universe.) and we don’t need to know which of these (or both) has been true.

Satan probably has no power to create any kind of substance, but he can make use of created things.

2. Time/Eternity
Substance has been created in time, which is another of God's creations. Since that is true, God is not in time, but outside of it, in eternity -- God can experience the past, present and future. Or, perhaps, God created eternity, too. All of the entities shown in the graphic play out in time, and in eternity. I'm not clear as to whether eternity is just time stretched out infinitely into the past and the future, or whether time somehow exists in eternity, and it doesn't matter what I think. I'll leave that question to God.

Satan apparently existed before the creation of substance, but probably not eternally into the past. Humans, and satan and other beings are going to exist eternally into the future.

3. Beauty

All beauty, imagined* or existent, of pattern, appearance, sound, and form, either:

was created by God;

is a natural emergence from what God created;

is based on what God brought forth;

or is possible because He gave humans the ability to be sub-creators.

(J. R. R. Tolkien, who was a Christian, used the word sub-creation about the fantastic worlds created by himself and others.)

*“Imagined,” because, for example, Beethoven was so deaf by the time his great Ninth Symphony was performed that he could not hear it, and had not heard it, except in his head, while he was composing it. Similar processes of imagination occur during writing, painting, and other creative arts, and also in the sciences, even in sports. Newton imagined his Law of Universal Gravitation – he didn’t develop this from experiments. That Law’s simplicity is one of many scientific phenomena that scientists sometimes say possess beauty, because of their simplicity (at least to the scientists!) and explanatory power:
F = (g x m₁ x m₂)/r²
The scientific search for patterns in elementary particles, and for broadly applicable formulas and laws (such as the so-called theory of everything, or the “God particle”) is motivated by a belief that there is an underlying pattern and beauty in the way things are. Einstein, who was not a believer in a personal God, sometimes spoke as if there was a God who had arranged things in the way that they were, understandable, describable, and relatively simple.

Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate, said: “What is it about nature that lets this happen, that it is possible to guess from one part what the rest is going to do? That is an unscientific question: I do not know how to answer it, and therefore I am going to give an unscientific answer. I think it is because nature has a simplicity and therefore a great beauty.” “Seeking New Laws,” pp. 143-167, in Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, New York: Modern Library, 1994. Quote is from p. 167. I have read most of Feynman's popular writing, and seen no evidence that he believed in God at all.

Naismith imagined a game involving tossing a ball into peach baskets.

Satan probably has no power to create beauty of any kind, although he can mimic God’s good creation, and can use beauty as an evil force. (Pornography, for example.) Perhaps Satan, as an angel, had creative powers that humans don’t. We don’t know. Satan apparently can imagine events that have not happened yet, or that might never happen.

4. Relationship

The power to form relationships with other sentient, responsive beings is possible because God made it so.

A human who is incapable of establishing relationships with others, or who does not want to do so, is abnormal. Humans are constructed so that we form and maintain relationships with others, from birth to death.

God also desires relationships. The Three Persons of the Trinity apparently have a relationship with one another. God wants to have a relationship with us. This is not possible, or not nearly fully possible, unless the sin problem is fixed. God loves us so much that He took care of the sin problem for us – we couldn’t do that. In the life of Christ, in 1 Corinthians 13, and elsewhere, the proper foundation for relationships is laid out. It is unselfish, Christ-like love. (Agape love.) Humans, and, to some extent, animals, have some capacity to communicate, to empathize, to imagine how to increase the well-being of others, and to do so. These all contribute to the ability to form relationships. God wants us to use this ability to bring others to a relationship with Him.

Satan is incapable of forming a proper relationship with anyone. We aren’t, either, without accepting Christ’s sacrifice for sin, and following His Lordship and example.

5. Joy

God is responsible for joy. We can, and should, be joyful in comprehending and experiencing beauty and relationship, even substance. God made humor and laughter possible. We should joy in contemplating God’s creativity and goodness. “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee” (based on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) is found in many hymnals.

Satan has lost any capacity for joy that he had originally, and wants to drive joy out of the world.

6. Holiness

Holiness is the opposite of evil and sin. Evil and sin are the absence of holiness. God is holy, and good, and His creation started out that way. He wants us to be holy, and totally good, too, and will eventually transform created things so that they, too, are finally and eternally good. Because God is holy and good, He cannot abide sin. Our relationship with Him should be such that we stop sinning, or at least do it less frequently, and become more and more holy – more and more living a life for God, and others, and less and less living for ourselves.

Satan is unholiness personified. Fallen, unredeemed humans are also unholiness personified.

7. Wisdom

Wisdom is “The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.” (The Free Dictionary). In other words, to have wisdom is to act correctly on the things you know. God allows us to have knowledge, to know things, but merely knowing things is not the same thing as wisdom. Children know a lot, but they are often not wise. Presumably Satan also knows a lot, but he has unwisely rejected God’s authority.

 
Thanks for reading, and thanks to my wife for suggestions.

This is the version of November 1, 2014, somewhat modified from previous versions.

The weirdness of physics, part 2

In the first part of this brief series, I posted about relativity and quantum mechanics.

In the second part, I wish to set forth my understanding of what current physicists think about the very substances we are made of.

When I went to school, we were taught that that there were three common sub-atomic particles, namely the electron, the proton, and the neutron. There was mention of some others, such as positrons -- positively charged electrons, or, perhaps, electrons moving backward through space-time. We understood that positrons were uncommon, and that is still true. Positrons are essential for the existence of antimatter -- matter that is, as it were, the exact opposite of regular matter. Antimatter is so much the opposite, that, if it comes in contact with normal matter, the two annihilate each other, in a grand explosion of energy. We don't know why matter predominates in our universe, rather than antimatter. Positrons really do exist. They are used in Positron Emission Tomography, an important detection procedure in medicine and biological experimentation.

Physicists wanted to know if electrons, neutrons, and protons were made of anything even more fundamental. The answer is that electrons are not, as far as we know -- they are fundamental particles, not made of anything else. But protons and neutrons are made of more fundamental particles, called quarks. When I took physics in college, quarks were not even mentioned. By the time I began teaching, they were postulated, but without any experimental evidence. Postulating their existence brought some order, some explanation, to why things are the way they are. By the 1970s, experimental evidence for quarks was forthcoming. There are, it develops, six different types of quarks, although only two of them go to make up neutrons and protons, each of which is made up of three quarks. So, we think quarks are fundamental particles, whereas neutrons and protons are not. Some physicists have called the multiplicity of sub-atomic particles a "zoo," meaning that there are a lot of them, they are diverse, and implying that there are really more than there should be -- there shouldn't be so many "fundamental" particles. Surely there is some even more fundamental type, and not so many of these?

Well, in answer to the last question, perhaps the weirdest proposal of all -- string theory. As it began, string theory proposed that the particles mentioned above, and all the others, were made of a single entity, a string, which vibrated in up to as many as 14 dimensions, the 4 of space-time, and 10 more. If that isn't weird, I don't know what is. The theory, according to the Wikipedia article on it (see link in the first sentence of this paragraph), has moved somewhat beyond the description I just gave it. But it remains, so far, a theory which hasn't been fully vindicated*. There doesn't seem to be any experimental evidence for string theory, so far. Perhaps there never will be.

The Psalmist, in Psalm 139:14, said "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." (ESV) I don't suppose that the Psalmist had any clue about the existence and description of the cell nucleus, or the atomic nucleus, but, nonetheless, he was right. We, and all matter, are fearfully and wonderfully made, whether quarks and electrons are really fundamental particles or not, and whether or not multi-dimensional strings really exist.

Thanks for reading.

*April 22, 2009. Thanks to a commenter who did read (see below) I changed this sentence, which, wrongly, had said "It remains just a theory." That was a poor choice of words.