"God is Energy..."

  This theological hypothesis will likely be controversial for several reasons, but it is one which fits all the data so far. It is also what is in the back of my mind when I have been describing the “what” of God. My hypothesis is that what we call “energy” is actually God, or some aspect of God. In the Holy Scriptures, Jesus says explicitly, “God is Spirit”. It is my contention that we could justifiably render this as, “God is Energy.” He is not a particular kind of energy. He is energy itself: zero-point, kinetic, potential, heat, light, and every other expression of energy are all different expressions of His energy.  

According to the Liddell-Scott lexicon, the word translated as “spirit,”“pneuma,” literally means "blast of air" or "wind," and thus also by extension breath. It is translated into Latin as "spiritus" which also literally means "breath" or "wind." More broadly it describes that which animates a living body, and thus English "spirit" from Latin "spiritus." It is this broader understanding of pneuma to which I was referring as the modern concept of "energy" possibly being a valid translation. "Pneuma" in Greek thought is immortal (see 1 Corinthians 15). Energy cannot be created or destroyed. "Pneuma" is unseen yet can have a powerful effect wherever it goes (see John 3). Energy itself is also unseen unless it manifests in certain visible forms like light or flame, and it can clearly have a powerful effect when it is released even from something as small as an atom. So, if we were to use this modern understanding, if we were to translate the word for “spirit” in the Holy Scriptures, we could justifiably translate it as “energy”.

Einstein's physics says energy is interchangeable with matter (E=MC²). At some point in time in the last thirty years, one theory has stood out among all the others as a potential contender for Grand Unification. This theory states that all particles of matter and all particles which transmit energy are actually ridiculously tiny (10-33cm) one (or multi-) dimensional strings or knots of energy that vibrate with a particular spin and frequency like the strings of a guitar. How they vibrate determines what kind of a particle they become. This essentially means that the entire creation can be described as a complex tapestry of vibrations of energy.

The 1st law of thermodynamics says energy can't be created or destroyed, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics says it will eventually return to a static, placid state (what's not so euphemistically called the “heat death” of the universe). The study of what is called zero point energy is fascinating in that it reveals that the entire universe (and beyond into the multiverse) is virtually bathed in energy and even when all heat is removed from particles at absolute zero, energy can still be detected (thus the reason why helium will never attain a solid form).  In spite of all this, virtually every science textbook still defines energy somewhat underwhelmingly as “the ability to do work.” 

The truth is that for all that we know energy can do, and how it is literally the foundation of all of creation (to this day particles pop in and out of existence due to the quantum fluctuations of zero point energy), we have no idea “what” it actually is. We know that it is omnipresent, eternal, animates all life, and required for everything that exists to exist. If you accept the modern physics notion of multiple universes existing in a multiverse (nope, not science fiction anymore folks; welcome to the 21st century), then the amount of energy must also by nature be infinite in an infinite multiverse. 

Is it so difficult to consider that the very thing which animates everything and all life is itself animate and even possibly conscious? And if Energy itself, or Himself, is animate and conscious, it would by virtue of its infinite omnipresence be both omniscient, and omnipotent.

Consider the descriptions given in Holy Scripture, “God is Light” (1 John 1:5), “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), and consider the displays of energy produced when God let Moses see “Him” as much as was possible without killing the prophet Exodus 33:18-23. Consider Moses who, in Exodus 34:29-35, spent so much time in the manifest presence of God that his face glowed so bright he had to wear a veil. Consider the physical manifestation of God’s presence, the Shekinah Glory, between the cherubim above the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle and later, Solomon’s Temple (2 Chronicles 7:1-2). Consider also the transfiguration of Jesus in the Gospels where He essentially lights up like the Sun (Matthew 17:1-3), or the description of the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man in the books of Daniel (Daniel 7:9-13) and Revelation (Revelation 1:12-16) where He appears like a bright, shining, human form, nuclear reaction. Every time we see God manifesting Himself in some way in the Old Testament and at certain points in the New Testament, we see manifestations of energy described: powerful heat, light, and electrical energies are all described whenever Yahweh chooses to let anyone see Him in some “avatar” form akin to His “true glory”.

If God is not energy, then there is something in existence that we call “energy” which is also infinite, omnipresent, transcendent, uncreated, eternal, as well as imminent which exists next to Him that is not Him in any way. This latter idea is completely contrary to what Holy Scripture teaches, and is, at its very root, heretical to Christian orthodoxy.

It is, admittedly, only a hypothesis, but one which I believe reflects the Holy Scriptures, and has great explanatory power on a number of levels.

I suppose my theology on God could be considered monist, panentheist, as well as Trinitarian monotheist all at the same time. Though where the monism is concerned, I would argue that there is a difference between the wave or vibration and the medium it moves through. The wave or vibration is a disturbance in the medium occurring at a certain frequency and amplitude, but it is not the medium itself. The air can exist without the sound, but the sound cannot exist without the air. God can exist without us, but we cannot exist without God. We are not gods, neither are we God, but neither we nor any part of the creation can exist at all without His Existence.

This view is something I find no contradiction with, and something I find best reflects the Being described in the pages of Holy Scripture within whom we live and move and exist (Acts 17:28), and by and for whom everything was created and who is also before everything and within whom everything was set together (Colossians 1:16-17). Isaiah spends chapter after chapter recording God's commentary on there being no one like Him. In Psalm 139, it's clear that the place doesn't exist where God is not, the very definition of omnipresence. 

And we know from the statements of Scripture that He created the sky and the land, the heavens as well as the earth and everything in them. This of necessity includes the entire universe we find ourselves in, and should it be true, the multiverse our universe is only one part of which, as it is potentially expanding infinitely, then He Himself must also be infinite because He must always be greater than His creation. He is First and Last, Alpha and Omega, neither created nor destroyed.

    It occurs to me that, distilling down the arguments against this idea, the fear is that I am making God out to be less than He is. I really don't see it that way. By establishing that what we call energy is actually God or the Being of God I am affirming and establishing His total omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, transcendence (his being completely other than His creation), imminence (His being completely intimate and present with His creation), immutability (that is, energy always remains energy regardless of what form it takes), eternity (cannot be created or destroyed), and infinity (in an infinite multiverse, there must be an infinite amount of energy). By establishing that what we call energy is actually God, I am establishing that He is totally and absolutely greater than anything and everything in all of creation as well as being the foundation and underpinning of that creation through which everything lives, moves, and exists. By stating that all He must do to create is to disturb His "surface," so to speak, and create vibrations or waves which result in quarks and universes, I am affirming the Biblical understanding that He only need "speak" and creation happens. 

    Far from placing limits on God, I am affirming His total sovereignty, mastery, and power over everything, and His total uniqueness. There is no one and nothing like Him in existence. Energy is not created. It cannot be created. There will never be any more or less energy than there is right now, and there never has been. This is the first law of thermodynamics. There is only one Existence according to Scripture which fits that description.

Personally, I find it a comfort that no matter where I go, no matter what I do, He is always right there by virtue of the fact He will never be anywhere else relative to me because I couldn't exist without Him. If I do not sense Him, it is because I am not paying attention, not because He is absent, and all I need do is turn my attention back to Him.