GENS4010 Week 6

To be honest, I found the lecture material for this week a little difficult to comprehend, but one analogy which I think is good that helps me better understand the concept of God and chaos is by thinking of an analog clock. A clock that has different cog wheels and moving parts inside, which is comparable to the laws of physics and science that govern this world, and God could be considered the watchmaker, who simply watches the cog wheels turn and function, and doesn't intervene unless a part of broken.

There was several mentioning of chaos in this week's lecture, but the term is a little ambiguous for me. What does chaos really mean? Something that breaks the laws of physics? Something that is unpredictable? Merriam-Webster online dictionary describes chaos as the following:

'A state of things in which chance is supreme'

Doesn't this imply that we live in a world of chaos, then? When the sky is grey, there is a chance that it could rain. And when it rains, there is a chance that there could be lightening. But I suppose they can't really be called chaotic situations unless the possibility of raining or lightening is left to supreme chance.

So how do I believe God interacts with the world? If given the option, I'd like to say that I don't think God intervenes at all. And if he does, all the tragedy in the world such as the Holocaust would mean that they were caused by God's inaction. I think, He Himself having created His own rules on how His world works, He's aware that interference could create great imbalances in the world, thus afraid to break His own rules in fear that He might damage His own system.

For this reason, I don't really believe in the miraculous incidents of epic proportion that are accounted in the Bible either, such as a colume of flame striking down the Egyptian army chasing after Moses and his followers.

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One thing that I found rather fascinating is the flatlander idea.

I was very surprised that someone could conjure up such an idea to criticise the Victorian class system, let alone introduce the idea of a new dimension. But it encourages the readers (I actually haven't read the book myself, but I plan to) to think about the incomprehensible. One suggestion by the lecturer is that maybe Jesus's resurrection is related to living another dimension that we're not aware of, like a 5th dimension - similar to how the sphere is beyond incomprehension for the flatlanders. Under such circumstances, anything could be thought as possible: resurrection; levitation; time travel; metaphysical existence; and everything else. Perhaps heaven and hell is simply another dimension as well.