The Divine Universe

Forever and ever – endless time. But what is time? We all know what time feels like, but we can’t really define it. Poets have described it as flowing like a river, but many philosophers and scientists believe that this is an illusion: it’s just the way our brain works. Our mental apparatus and our [...]

The reason I have called this blog The Divine Universe is that I believe that matter, the physical world, is sacred. This is clearly implied in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, invented in the 3rd century by Tertullian and adopted as a universal dogma by the Council of Nicea in 325. Tertullian referred to [...]

Whether people think theologically or scientifically, they believe the universe emerged from nothing. Catholics use the Latin word nihilo; scientists use the word vacuum. For centuries scientists and philosophers have been pondering about the vacuum, a region in which there is no matter. In recent years they have gone further and explored a theoretical vacuum [...]

Neurologists, molecular biologists and others in the field can tell us a lot about the electrical, molecular and chemical processes that take place when we think or feel with our senses, but such information seems remote from our subjective experience of consciousness. There is a huge gap between objective, scientific knowledge and our experience. Feeling [...]

Matthew has crafted what would have been, to his Jewish readers, a very confronting story. His message is that their Messiah is as important to the Gentiles as he is to the Jews. He has grasped Paul’s ongoing theme of the global impact of Christ: that Jesus is the world’s Messiah, not only the Jewish [...]

The story of the universe is a story of new things. The current version, informed by post-modern science, begins with the Big Bang. From the initial “singularity”, as it is called, new things have continually emerged, and there is no sign that novelty will not continue to be the pattern of the future. New biological [...]

Some of us have doubts about angels from the start. I confess that I am sceptical about good-looking, androgenous, extra-terrestrial humanoids with big wings, musical instruments and shiny halos. But the word angel simply means messenger. In the epic narratives of the Bible, individuals received messages of great significance from time to time in a [...]

Jesus told a story about a rich man, sometimes called Dives, and a poor man named Lazarus, and, when they died, Lazarus went to heaven and the rich man went to hell. There is anger in this story; the eternal fiery punishment of the rich man is horrible. Apart from being rich, we might wonder [...]

You know what an underdog is. Let’s think about the Christian God who offered himself as the Undergod. In every group, in every family, in every business and organisation there is a hierarchy or pecking order. Some individuals are more important than others; they carry more weight and have more influence and control. At home, [...]

We humans are immensely impressed with ourselves. We think we are the last word in biological advance; many people believe we are God’s final masterpiece. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that there could be another, even more advanced species of primate yet to come, and another after that. Genesis says that God took [...]