Rethinking Heaven - Roland Trujillo Discusses a Recent Time Magazine Article in Light of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology
Apparently a recent Time Magazine article uses the logical fallacy of attacking a straw man.
Heaven is said to be angels floating around playing harps. This image, of course, is portrayed as a myth; and playing harps is said to be a useless activity. The image of playing harps is set up as the straw man which is easily knocked down.
The playing of the harp is then contrasted with social justice issues and with joining causes to solve those social issues.
And of course, playing the harp (the straw man representing heaven) comes off as frivolous and foolish. Whereas, social justice looks serious and weighty.
Of course, I'm in favor of social justice (who isn't?), but my understanding of Heaven is beyond the comprehension of the writer of the article who would not be capable of even beginning to grasp what I am about to say, even though I have simplified it as much as I can.
Yes, there is a Heaven. But it's not for everyone. The Kingdom of Heaven is very near, much nearer than you would think. Most people are at such a low spiritual level that they are unqualified and, in fact, cannot enter it or even see it. Nor could they stand the bright Light of Truth which would bare their souls to the truth of their own wrong. For the soul not ready to face the truth and repent, it would literally be unbearable.
About a year ago, Steven Hawking, the famous cosmologist, declared that there is no Heaven, that it is a fairy tale for those who are afraid of dying.
He is very clever and does have some good ideas. But he is also wrong on some issues; and he is wrong on this one. Unfortunately even some of his assumptions about the physics of universe are flawed and wrong.
The evidence for the existence of a spiritual realm is right under his nose: the fact that we humans are aware of the passage of time.
Animals are not aware of time passing. But we are, and the reason why we sense the passage of time is because our soul sits at the edge of the timeless realm. The movement of time is sensed in contrast to the stillness of the soul.
There is time and there is timelessness. Time came and comes from timelessness. Our soul is still, relative to the moving material creation. Our soul thus senses time pass because it is still.
There is no time in the timeless eternal realm from which came the material creation. The incomprehensible force which at this very moment fills the universe is sensed by us as time.
We observe how things decay in time, but we do not see that creation which even now takes place in steady state acceleration (Einstein's equivalency principle) out of which energy comes into existence; and from energy, matter, and then space. Time is the cosmological constant (light is a constant too, though of a lesser degree than time).
Time, you see, is really the pre time force in which flow all of the material creation swirls and lags.
Einstein added what he called a cosmological constant to his equations to avoid math that would lead to the universe collapsing in on itself. He was actually closer to the truth than he realized.
In fact, it it the pre time force (of which the first manifestation is light, then energy) that even at this moment is the constant which creates and maintains the universe in movement. It sweeps over and reinforces everything, including the spinning of electrons. Without it, everything would immediately disappear.
Thus time is a constant, but only of a slightly higher order than light. But neither time nor light are the ultimate cosmological constant. Both are subject to the pre time force, and pre time force is itself relative to stillness and subject to the Creator.
Incidentally time only appears to slow as an object increases its speed. Light is the first thing which is created, and as such it almost straddles the material and the timeless realm.
If there were a line dividing the material creation from the timeless spiritual realm, the human soul would sit just on the other side (the spiritual, timeless side). Light would sit just on the material creation side of the line, yet very near to the spiritual realm.
In fact, light's remarkable properties do vouchsafe its propinquity to the still, timeless spiritual realm. Light shares a bit of the wondrous properties of the eternal realm, which it shares with us.
It may be that light is an instrument of translation of the spiritual realm imparting light, warmth, and other wonderful properties to the material creation. It is no accident that the visible electromagnetic spectrum shares with us both light and warmth, corresponding to the Creator's Truth (light) and Love (warmth).
You may also have guessed that the soul is the instrument of translation of spiritual light and love to the human being.
Just beyond the speed of light is uncharted territory, the field in which pre time may create light, energy, matter, and space as primitive matter comes into existence at tremendous steady state acceleration speed.
As matter approaches the speed of light (the speed limit of the created universe), it is approaching the realm where there is no time--only timelessness. Time appears to slow down because it is nearing the place it cannot go, where there is no time but where it was birthed. Time would cease for it if it entered that realm, but it cannot. If it did, it would evaporate like a snow flake.
Hear now a secret.
This human, if he or she finds the secret to life, can do what matter and other life forms cannot do--step across the barrier between the material realm and the spiritual timeless realm. Only the human has the possibility of entering into the spiritual realm, and mystery of mysteries, taking its transformed body too.
Ordinary matter cannot do this, but the truth loving soul can-- going back to the field of its birth, back to its beginning, to its Creator for Whom there is no time, for Whom there is no beginning or end, only a blessed eternal present.
For the human being, created in the image and likeness of God, but now at the furthest evolvement of matter, the jewel of creation, the soul with its magnificent human form stands at the pinnacle of its development.
Unless the human finds the secret to life, it stands at the end of its cycle, and only deterioration and death remain. Yet there is possible a new adventure and achievement--not of more tedious phylogenetic and ontogenic development, nor painful compensation.
This new adventure would be to literally break the time barrier and, inheriting immortality for entry into the timeless realm, conquer death.
Now read it again and see the deep meaning: This human, if he or she finds the secret, can do what matter and other life forms cannot do--step across the barrier between the material realm and the spiritual timeless realm. Only the human has the possibility of going back to the field of its birth, back to its beginning, for Whom there is no time, for Whom there is no beginning or end, only a blessed eternal present.
He who has ears, let him hear.
Your cat or dog is oblivious to the passage of time. You have a relatively still center, and from the viewpoint of the still soul, the passage of time is evident. You do sense the passage of time, and that, my dear friend, is proof of the existence of a still soul and of an eternal timeless realm.
Here is a quote from John MacArthur. He expresses beautifully in theological language, the mystical change I referred to in the language of science and physics.
"And Paul looks at himself and cries, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?"
Is there any hope? There's hope, verse 25. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." That sounds like triumph to me, doesn't it to you? That is assurance. What are you saying, Paul? Is this some mystical kind of thing? How do you get deliverance from the conflict? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. What would he have in mind? I believe what he has in mind is expressed in the eighth chapter of Romans, look at verse...let's start at verse 18 and we'll get into this later, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." And then he talks about the creation waiting for the full manifestation. Drop down to verse 23, and not only they, that is not only the creation groans and travails waiting for its glory, but ourselves also who have the first fruits of the Spirit.
In other words, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have the new creation, we have the eternal seed, we have the divine nature. And it's there in us but we also groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, that is the redemption of our...what?...of our body. You see, we're waiting for the final phase of salvation for we are saved in hope. We're still hoping for that day when we fully are freed and redeemed in body as well as soul. And I believe that's what Paul's looking forward to in verse 25 of chapter 7. "I thank God," he says, "that the end of the conflict is going to come through the Lord Jesus Christ and it's going to come when He appears and when we are glorified, or when we enter into His presence and are glorified." That's when the end comes, the end of the battle.
You want to hear it in the word of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15? Here it is, "When this corruptible shall have put on...what?..incorruption and when this mortal shall have put on...what?...immortality." "That's when," he says in verse 57, "thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Almost the same phrase he uses in Romans 7:25. And here he says I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord and it's the same day that he sees when this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruption shall put on incorruption. So he's looking ahead at the time of redemption and he says I see it and it's coming and I'm living in hope that indeed it will come. It's the same thing he had in mind in 2 Corinthians 5:4 when he says we that are in this tabernacle do groan. Why? Because we're burdened with our humanness and we would like to be not unclothed but clothed upon when mortality is swallowed up by life. Great truth.
We look for that day. It's the same day he had in mind in writing to the Philippians, when we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our lowly body that it may be fashioned like His glorious body. That's a triumphant hope, isn't it?
Meanwhile, verse 25, until then, "With my mind I serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin." You know what he's saying? Until that day, the battle...what?...goes on and it goes on as long as we remain in the flesh. And we continue to cry with Tennyson "O for a new man to arise within me and subdue the man that I am."
So, the battle isn't going to be over till Jesus gives us immortality and incorruption.
Full deliverance awaits glorification."
Read more of Roland Trujillo's articles on time
Destiny: Excerpts from The Majesty and Mystery of Time
Rethinking Heaven
Transcending Time
What Time Really Is and What It Tells Us about God
Heaven is said to be angels floating around playing harps. This image, of course, is portrayed as a myth; and playing harps is said to be a useless activity. The image of playing harps is set up as the straw man which is easily knocked down.
The playing of the harp is then contrasted with social justice issues and with joining causes to solve those social issues.
And of course, playing the harp (the straw man representing heaven) comes off as frivolous and foolish. Whereas, social justice looks serious and weighty.
Of course, I'm in favor of social justice (who isn't?), but my understanding of Heaven is beyond the comprehension of the writer of the article who would not be capable of even beginning to grasp what I am about to say, even though I have simplified it as much as I can.
Yes, there is a Heaven. But it's not for everyone. The Kingdom of Heaven is very near, much nearer than you would think. Most people are at such a low spiritual level that they are unqualified and, in fact, cannot enter it or even see it. Nor could they stand the bright Light of Truth which would bare their souls to the truth of their own wrong. For the soul not ready to face the truth and repent, it would literally be unbearable.
About a year ago, Steven Hawking, the famous cosmologist, declared that there is no Heaven, that it is a fairy tale for those who are afraid of dying.
He is very clever and does have some good ideas. But he is also wrong on some issues; and he is wrong on this one. Unfortunately even some of his assumptions about the physics of universe are flawed and wrong.
The evidence for the existence of a spiritual realm is right under his nose: the fact that we humans are aware of the passage of time.
Animals are not aware of time passing. But we are, and the reason why we sense the passage of time is because our soul sits at the edge of the timeless realm. The movement of time is sensed in contrast to the stillness of the soul.
There is time and there is timelessness. Time came and comes from timelessness. Our soul is still, relative to the moving material creation. Our soul thus senses time pass because it is still.
There is no time in the timeless eternal realm from which came the material creation. The incomprehensible force which at this very moment fills the universe is sensed by us as time.
We observe how things decay in time, but we do not see that creation which even now takes place in steady state acceleration (Einstein's equivalency principle) out of which energy comes into existence; and from energy, matter, and then space. Time is the cosmological constant (light is a constant too, though of a lesser degree than time).
Time, you see, is really the pre time force in which flow all of the material creation swirls and lags.
Einstein added what he called a cosmological constant to his equations to avoid math that would lead to the universe collapsing in on itself. He was actually closer to the truth than he realized.
In fact, it it the pre time force (of which the first manifestation is light, then energy) that even at this moment is the constant which creates and maintains the universe in movement. It sweeps over and reinforces everything, including the spinning of electrons. Without it, everything would immediately disappear.
Thus time is a constant, but only of a slightly higher order than light. But neither time nor light are the ultimate cosmological constant. Both are subject to the pre time force, and pre time force is itself relative to stillness and subject to the Creator.
Incidentally time only appears to slow as an object increases its speed. Light is the first thing which is created, and as such it almost straddles the material and the timeless realm.
If there were a line dividing the material creation from the timeless spiritual realm, the human soul would sit just on the other side (the spiritual, timeless side). Light would sit just on the material creation side of the line, yet very near to the spiritual realm.
In fact, light's remarkable properties do vouchsafe its propinquity to the still, timeless spiritual realm. Light shares a bit of the wondrous properties of the eternal realm, which it shares with us.
It may be that light is an instrument of translation of the spiritual realm imparting light, warmth, and other wonderful properties to the material creation. It is no accident that the visible electromagnetic spectrum shares with us both light and warmth, corresponding to the Creator's Truth (light) and Love (warmth).
You may also have guessed that the soul is the instrument of translation of spiritual light and love to the human being.
Just beyond the speed of light is uncharted territory, the field in which pre time may create light, energy, matter, and space as primitive matter comes into existence at tremendous steady state acceleration speed.
As matter approaches the speed of light (the speed limit of the created universe), it is approaching the realm where there is no time--only timelessness. Time appears to slow down because it is nearing the place it cannot go, where there is no time but where it was birthed. Time would cease for it if it entered that realm, but it cannot. If it did, it would evaporate like a snow flake.
Hear now a secret.
This human, if he or she finds the secret to life, can do what matter and other life forms cannot do--step across the barrier between the material realm and the spiritual timeless realm. Only the human has the possibility of entering into the spiritual realm, and mystery of mysteries, taking its transformed body too.
Ordinary matter cannot do this, but the truth loving soul can-- going back to the field of its birth, back to its beginning, to its Creator for Whom there is no time, for Whom there is no beginning or end, only a blessed eternal present.
For the human being, created in the image and likeness of God, but now at the furthest evolvement of matter, the jewel of creation, the soul with its magnificent human form stands at the pinnacle of its development.
Unless the human finds the secret to life, it stands at the end of its cycle, and only deterioration and death remain. Yet there is possible a new adventure and achievement--not of more tedious phylogenetic and ontogenic development, nor painful compensation.
This new adventure would be to literally break the time barrier and, inheriting immortality for entry into the timeless realm, conquer death.
Now read it again and see the deep meaning: This human, if he or she finds the secret, can do what matter and other life forms cannot do--step across the barrier between the material realm and the spiritual timeless realm. Only the human has the possibility of going back to the field of its birth, back to its beginning, for Whom there is no time, for Whom there is no beginning or end, only a blessed eternal present.
He who has ears, let him hear.
Your cat or dog is oblivious to the passage of time. You have a relatively still center, and from the viewpoint of the still soul, the passage of time is evident. You do sense the passage of time, and that, my dear friend, is proof of the existence of a still soul and of an eternal timeless realm.
Here is a quote from John MacArthur. He expresses beautifully in theological language, the mystical change I referred to in the language of science and physics.
"And Paul looks at himself and cries, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?"
Is there any hope? There's hope, verse 25. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." That sounds like triumph to me, doesn't it to you? That is assurance. What are you saying, Paul? Is this some mystical kind of thing? How do you get deliverance from the conflict? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. What would he have in mind? I believe what he has in mind is expressed in the eighth chapter of Romans, look at verse...let's start at verse 18 and we'll get into this later, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." And then he talks about the creation waiting for the full manifestation. Drop down to verse 23, and not only they, that is not only the creation groans and travails waiting for its glory, but ourselves also who have the first fruits of the Spirit.
In other words, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have the new creation, we have the eternal seed, we have the divine nature. And it's there in us but we also groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, that is the redemption of our...what?...of our body. You see, we're waiting for the final phase of salvation for we are saved in hope. We're still hoping for that day when we fully are freed and redeemed in body as well as soul. And I believe that's what Paul's looking forward to in verse 25 of chapter 7. "I thank God," he says, "that the end of the conflict is going to come through the Lord Jesus Christ and it's going to come when He appears and when we are glorified, or when we enter into His presence and are glorified." That's when the end comes, the end of the battle.
You want to hear it in the word of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15? Here it is, "When this corruptible shall have put on...what?..incorruption and when this mortal shall have put on...what?...immortality." "That's when," he says in verse 57, "thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Almost the same phrase he uses in Romans 7:25. And here he says I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord and it's the same day that he sees when this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruption shall put on incorruption. So he's looking ahead at the time of redemption and he says I see it and it's coming and I'm living in hope that indeed it will come. It's the same thing he had in mind in 2 Corinthians 5:4 when he says we that are in this tabernacle do groan. Why? Because we're burdened with our humanness and we would like to be not unclothed but clothed upon when mortality is swallowed up by life. Great truth.
We look for that day. It's the same day he had in mind in writing to the Philippians, when we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our lowly body that it may be fashioned like His glorious body. That's a triumphant hope, isn't it?
Meanwhile, verse 25, until then, "With my mind I serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin." You know what he's saying? Until that day, the battle...what?...goes on and it goes on as long as we remain in the flesh. And we continue to cry with Tennyson "O for a new man to arise within me and subdue the man that I am."
So, the battle isn't going to be over till Jesus gives us immortality and incorruption.
Full deliverance awaits glorification."
Read more of Roland Trujillo's articles on time
Destiny: Excerpts from The Majesty and Mystery of Time
Rethinking Heaven
Transcending Time
What Time Really Is and What It Tells Us about God
