I can thank my wife, Shawna, for getting me up to speed on this little gem of a principle regarding physics and agency of man and all of God's creations down to the smallest particle.
With all of my physics classes to ready me for Engineering, I just remember a snippet of the Heisenberg principle, but Shawna brought it to life for me from her simple (one and only) Physical Sciences class at BYU. Here is a link to the basic definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
The nuts and bolts of it state that there are three basic variables that affect every single thing that we do in this temporal-based world; event, time of a specific event, and location of the event. Relating to any given event, you cannot state/measure/plan for, etc. the place of a known event without (to at least an infinitesimally small degree) affecting the time of the event and vice versa.
Such is the nature of preserving agency of man, beast, element, etc. God will not hedge us in as to the three things that make each event in our lives have meaning. To violate this basic principle would cause God to cease to be God (he must follow His own laws and eternal principles - a whole other blog topic quoting Cleon Skousen and the First Thousand Years). Thus the seeming ambiguity of prophecy that is given to mankind for their benefit.
For example, we can say that a (non-specific) 'life changing' event will occur on a specific date and at a specific location (HARD TIME, HARD LOCATION), but no hard specifics will be given for the event. A similar prophecy could be given with hard statements about a life changing event (lets say a car crash that leaves the subject paralyzed from the waist down) on a specific day (HARD EVENT AND TIME) but the location variable would be fuzzy or non-specific. The third possibility would be for an individual to receive an impression that the same paralyzing crash would occur at a busy high speed intersection (HARD EVENT AND LOCATION), but the time might be fuzzy or non-existent in the prophetic utterance. If all three variables were known to an individual, the individual could just simply thwart that future event/prophecy by avoiding that area on that day and, just to be sure, borrowing a friend's semi to drive around, thus ensuring that they would be on the giving end of any injury in a potential collision.
So it is with prophecy of any kind. I am yet to find any forward looking statements in any scripture or inspired statements that declare all three variables with surety. Even any that Jesus stated in Matthew 24 simply state two of the three - never three of three. If I do find something that someone is trying to float as prophecy with all three variables spelled out, I can, of a surety throw it out and dismiss it categorically as false. Thus the statement on the second coming of Christ where the event and places are clearly spelled out - and then the statement "No man knows the hour". Not even Christ himself knows, the Father only. That is strong - but spells out how tightly that principle of agency is maintained.
MORE TO COME AS I FIND SCIENCE ARTICLES THAT CORROBORATE THIS PRINCIPLE. CHECK BACK IN A YEAR OR TWO.
Simple and elegant. Thanks once again for thought provoking material.
ReplyDeleteThought provoking, no doubt. However, you may need to expound on the concept a little more. I can't help but notice that you yourself kind of poked a hole in your theory at the end when you said that nobody knows the time of Christ's coming.... except God. The Father knows the event, time, and location with exactness.
ReplyDeleteTo add to that, I do believe that scriptures also indicated the event, time, and location of Jesus' birth (or at a minimum reveal enough to show that the Father knew all 3).
I am not saying that you're not on the right track. But, if you are on the right track, you're still missing something. Anyway... food for thought.
Brent, thanks for the input; I love comments. I think I get where you are coming from. Yes, you are right - the Father does know all three. He alone. We are left with less in order to have our agency, but God knows all things and the beginning from the end. One day, when we have complete mastery of ourselves and all principles of earth and heaven, we will have the same privileges. Isn't that something to think about?
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