by Stephen J. Godfrey
Throughout my adult life, I have been trying to figure out, without success (until now), how to reconcile the physical universe with the spiritual. In my mind, there was a schism between the two, with nothing that characterized both to unite them. (Admittedly, for many, belief in God as the author of both realms is enough. However, because of my long-term struggle with young-Earth creationism, as described in this blog, I was secretly hoping for something—I had no idea what that would be—to bring them together.)
Enter: Relationships
Luke 8:23-25
As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”
The Bible, and this is nothing new, places a premium on relationships. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have forever been in a triune relationship, and more recently with other spiritual beings, with people both dead and alive, and energy/matter in all of its permutations/manifestations. The new realization for me was that relationships permeate both realms and are the connection between God, nature, and spirituality. Relationships characterize all of these. It’s like a grand unifying theory—at least it seems that way to me, and I’ve been reveling in this realization.
The cascading thought began several weeks ago during a sermon, when Pastor Matt Pooley (of Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland), after reading the aforecited passage in Luke, further into his message mentioned that Jesus had a relationship with the storm that blew up suddenly on the Sea of Galilee and that he then calmed. That comment triggered something in me. I had never heard it expressed that way, that Jesus had a relationship with the storm and by extension with all of nature.
It occurred to me that everything in our physical universe is in an extended relationship with something/everything else in this universe. As far as we know, spiritual realm aside, self-aware relationships only occur on Earth. However, in the broadest sense of the word, and at its most fundamental level, one vibrating string of energy (if that is the most fundamental form of energy) interacts (a synonym for relationship) with other strings of energy in an ascending continuum with matter all the way up to the level of the Universe.
Relationships are the one thing that the physical universe shares with the spiritual realm. Entities in the spiritual realm also have relationships, although they may be qualitatively different, and we don’t know what fuels them. If this is in fact true, I think it would be safe to say that God has a fondness for relationships! Love, hate, and all other cognizant expressions are the result of relationships, and they are subordinate to it.
An atheist would probably say that relationships only exist in the physical realm (for that would be all that there is) and they are just the serendipitous outworking of energy, space, and time. Yes, I understand that position. But for me, relationships are not ultimately the result of energy but the other way round—the creative will of relationship created energy/matter/space-time. Relationships permeate both realms, and they are for me the unifying thing that erases the schism that I had been wrestling with for so many years. Relationships within physical reality are ubiquitous, and once I had come to that very simple and obvious realization, I could not not see them. They are equally glaring in both realms, although one is faith-based.
As a bit of a cautionary addendum, relationships and the ubiquity thereof are not to be worshiped and neither is their prominence a nod to pantheism. Relationships are not God, and God is not relationships. Relationships are the result, or an expression, of the will of God. Does the existence of relationships prove the existence of God? No, that comes by faith. However, I am thrilled, and now not surprised, that both the physical and spiritual realms are characterized by relationships, with the relationship with God as preeminent.
Paradigms on Pilgrimage 