I took a walk today and my mind ran away with me a bit. I started thinking about this and it makes sense, so I thought I would share. I am not claiming that this is right or that this has any scientific or Biblical support I am simply making an observation.
Here is the concept about God and his relation to us. We, humans, are in the 3rd dimension. We are 3-dimensional beings, as in X, Y, and Z. We have the power to move though this 3rd dimension and to interact with objects also in the 3rd dimension. When we speak or make a sound, all sound can be defined in the 2nd dimension as a wavelength, or X and Y. To go the other direction would be to move into the 4th dimension which is time. We are stuck with time being an "impenetrable plane" which we cannot touch, or alter. We are confined within it.
Any object that has a shadow loses one dimension. If you hold your hand up to light your hand creates a shadow on the wall. Every part of the shadow is perfectly flat on a surface. It can be defined as X and Y on a flat surface. Therefore, All 3-dimensional objects become 2-dimensional in "shadow-form". A shadow is an "image" or "likeness" of the original object. Take note of the Tesserect here, meaning 4th dimensional objects cast 3-dimensional shadows.
Applying this to God. God exists outside of our world. He exists outside of Time. At the very least God lives in the fourth dimension. In the 4th dimension, God would have the power to move through time, and be completely unbound by it.
Getting to the point. As humans every little thing we do loses a dimension. Our voice is a 2D wavelength (x,y). Our shadow is a 2D image (x,y). God has a +1 dimension, thus if he also follows this same idea would lose a dimension. When God spoke the world into existence, as a 4th-dimensional being, his voice would literally be 3-dimensional objects. God spoke creation into being. Also in Genesis 26 it says, "Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness" To be an "image" or "likeness" of God Himself would make us shadows of Him, losing a dimension from 4th to 3rd.
If you don't mind, I'm going to nit-pick, then expand on your analogy.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the detail: Sound isn't 2 dimensional. Sound propagates in all 3 dimensions. Actually, something to be said about sound, is that it relies on 4 dimensions: x, y, z, and time. Same with light: it propagates with respect to x, y, z, and t. This becomes an interesting point in the study of waves (one of the classes I'm taking right now!). The wave appears differently when observed at different points in space (x, y, z) and at different points in time (t).
Another aside, which is important for the next paragraph: The physics community generally accepts quantum theory, which states (with heavy paraphrasing) that all subatomic particles behave both as waves and particles. From this, you could then observe that everything in the universe, even things we think are constant, are time varying, and therefore it's worth observing them with respect to x, y, z, and t.
Now I don't bring this up to interrupt your analogy, only to introduce a different idea upon it. We as humans only have control over our observation position, our x, y, and z. Even then, some positions aren't obtainable for observation. Even worse, we can't choose our time, it's predetermined. Sure, we can record things and look back on previous times, but there is no possible way to record something perfectly. In short, the only time that we can truly observe is right now.
Now to bring this full circle. Your mention of a shadow is a great analogy, although I would have chosen the word "projection". Most often, when we talk about projections, we are projecting an n dimensional object into the n-1 dimension. A shadow is a 2 dimensional projection of a 3 dimensional object. So, if we were to say God is in a higher order dimension, we could say that God could be projected into the 3rd dimension. What do I mean by this? I mean we can find God in our 3 dimensional world.
Now this all begs the question: How can you say God is 4+ dimensional? Or how could you say God is dimensional at all? But I think that's getting too specific. This is just an exercise in understanding what a projection truly is, and how you can take something that you cannot fathom (such as a 4+ dimensional object) and view it from a viewpoint that you can understand. Similarly, we can use religion as a way to view God, something we can't possibly fully understand, through a projection of God. Sure, we may never see the whole picture, but a projection is the best we can get. That's what makes Faith hard. But wouldn't you do whatever you can to see God, even if all you can see is a projection?