Chapter Two
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever, Amen!” Romans 11:36
Having created the heavens and the earth, and all that dwelt within and upon them, God initiated the first…and still continuing…game of ‘Hide and Go Seek’. I’m not talking about the incident in the garden with Adam and Eve, though that did employ both components of hiding and seeking (the cause of which we will examine later). No, I’m referring to the hiding of God’s truths about His nature in the earth’s nature. To ensure mankind would seek Him, He left him with two things: a questioning mind and a quarry of clues. Surely, between the two, man would uncover the Creator of all that was, and is, and is to come; surely he would find, stretched between the beginning and the ending, the One who is the beginning and the ending, the Alpha and the Omega. (Revelation 1:8)
So God waited, and He watched, and He wooed; so man pondered, and he prodded, and he ‘pothesized. What causes the changing of the seasons? What makes the tides come in and go out? What holds the planets in orbit? What causes the formation of rainbows? Yes, God gave man a questioning mind so that, through asking, He could show up and show out that man might grow up and grow out. Just where did God place the answers to man’s questions? He buried them in the earth’s crust and He tucked them into the heaven’s atmosphere and He scattered them across the ocean waves, the sound waves, and the light waves.
Over the years, men have been credited with discovering the clues God embedded in His creation. Men whose names we recognize like Copernicus, Galilei, and Newton; and men whose names (unless we’re science geeks…or amateur writers who use Google) we don’t recognize like Aristarchus, Shen Kuo, and Theodoric of Freiberg. Since the beginning of time, man has interacted with the world God created and he has sought to find the answers for the questions that explode like split atoms in his mind. Though discoveries tend to bear the name of the ones who identified them, it is God who created and concealed them; man simply uncovered them. Men like Sir Francis Bacon and George Washington Carver acknowledged that their discoveries came from God. We know because their insights still waft through time and fall upon our inquisitive hearts.
“A little science estranges a man from God; a lot of science brings him back.” –Sir Francis Bacon
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.” –George Washington Carver
“Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” –George Washington Carver
So, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that Newton’s laws of motion are actually Elohim’s laws of movement, and Kepler’s Laws of planetary motion originated as El Shaddai’s laws of celestial cohesion.
It is within this preface and upon this premise that the Law of Opposites continues to unfold. Having created a world defined by opposites, God crammed it with attributes comprised of opposites. Though they are found within the entire field of science, their existence is summarized in this one statement, in this one law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In textbooks, this is known as Newton’s third law of motion; in Creation’s context, it is known as God’s first law of nature, and its evidence is everywhere.
When we interact with magnets, we learn of their push and their pull: of their polar opposites. When we look at electricity, the light switch of revelation turns on as we note the presence of electrons and protons, the recognition of negative charges and positive charges. And what about the buoyancy principle? According to Archimedes, “the force acting on, or buoying, a submerged or partially submerged object equals the weight of the liquid that the object displaces.” Here we see that force is calculated by the contrast that occurs when two objects have an opposite impact upon each other; one displaces while the other holds places!
Along with the laws of nature evident within our scientific world, there are also the laws of science evident within our natural world. For example, when studying rocks and minerals we note their texture and their density. Are they rough or smooth; are they hard or soft? We find temperatures at which liquids freeze and liquids boil and we manipulate items as they change from a solid, to a liquid, to a gas. With every principle and with every law there lies at its core not only the grain of truth but the God of Truth. That which is tested examines its contents; that which is proven exalts its Creator.
And, when curiosity evolves into questions and when questioning erupts into quarrying, the game of hide and seek begins…and continues…as theories emerge and principles equate and laws establish and God expounds: and the created beholds its Creator. What man mistook for intellect, God meant for insight; what science mislabeled as reasonable, God not only marked but manifested as revelation, for “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” Within the realization of every scientific “discovery” lies the reality of the God who “hid” it. In magnetism, poles with opposing forces work on objects to pull in and to push out; through magnetism, we uncover the attribute of God’s holiness: He pushes away sin and pulls in righteousness. Then, there is the presence of magnetic fields which surround magnets. Does God not have such a force around Him that also attracts and deflects? While God desires that all men are drawn to Him through His Son (I Timothy 2:4), Jesus stated that many would push away from His teachings (John 6:66).
Through Andre-Marie Ampere’s curiosity, God revealed the relationship between magnetism and electricity. Ampere found that magnetic fields have moving particles and that this movement, or current, can produce electricity. Where there is no movement, there is no attraction. Read that again. Where there is no movement, there is no attraction. Need I charge your Biblical worldview battery here, or do you already feel the force of that magnetic field? We know we serve a living, moving, current-flowing God whose one intent is to draw all men to Him, but do we also realize that for Him to draw, we need to move? Do we realize that our attraction to God will wane with the decrease or absence of His current, of His Spirit, flowing through us? Science revealed it…God inhabits it. And, as being made in the image of God, we also display the attributes of our Father. But, lacking His holiness, we can use our magnetism, our “force fields”, to influence others positively or negatively. We can pull them in that they too may learn about the God who first pulled us, or we can push them away and miss the connection…and increased current…God made available to us.
And what about our buoyancy principle? Just how do we amass God’s presence in this? (See the pun…oh, I love it when these float up!) As Archimedes soaked in his tub, God’s truth rose to the surface. Archimedes sat down and the water rose up; Archimedes rose up and the water sat down. To keep from having to actually explain the law of displacement any further, for fear that I would have to plunge into waters deeper than any tub could hold…or my mind could contain, let me plug the drain right here: that which is displaced can be measured by that which it replaced. To relate this to God’s nature, we would say that which God removes can be measured by that which God replaces. In Joel 2:25, God introduces the law of displacement: “The LORD says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.” Here we see God’s restorative nature as He promises to replace that which He removed. When it feels like our losses are greater than our gains, we cling to the God who holds us up…the God who keeps us afloat in shallow tubs and in high seas. (I fear I’ve held my breath too long pondering over the simplification of this principle and, as such, am now experiencing the cranial bends. Therefore, if my accuracy has been displaced as my analogy submerged, please forgive me and seek the truth yourself as you soak in your own thoughts…or tub.)
While these are but a sampling of examples, I believe them to be accurately depictive of God’s created nature and of His revealed nature; I believe God’s creations bear not only His fingerprints but His DNA as well. Within the world that God created, He not only left visible signs of His omniscience but He also left invisible signs of His omnipotence and of His omnipresence; God inhabits the works of His hands and reveals Himself through its principles, its laws, and its truths. And, when He set things in order and then in motion, He established the first law of nature: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. God is the God of opposites. It was manifested when He separated light from dark, the heavens above from the earth below, the waters from the land, and when He created mankind: male and female He created them. And the evidence of opposites is apparent not only in the creation of the world but also in the sustaining of world for the law of opposites courses through the very laws through which God holds all things together. The law of opposites pulses through creation and is as palpable as a heartbeat detected by a doctor’s stethoscope; it is the heartbeat of God: for every rhythm, there is an equal and opposite rhythm…for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things…to God be the glory forever! Amen.
Next week…the law of opposites revealed first in heaven…and then in the garden.