So quick summary here, we’re seeing what kind of meaning we can build in this life based upon our observations of the material world. And basically, because we can observe the movement of objects, we can know that we have both material and immaterial in our world. And then, we’ve been referring to the immaterial or the invisible aspects of our world as the rulers of the material – rulers, in the sense that they are what control and measure how much movement matter will have. This suggests that the invisible rulers are very powerful and are something that have existed for a long time, but we talked last episode about the idea that these rulers also seem to be mindful. I’m Matt Blackledge and you’re listening to LifeBuilder podcast.
This episode is primarily just going to be a rehash of what we talked about last episode, but I really want to nail this down because the objectors will say that ‘given an infinite number of scenarios (assuming our universe is infinite), eventually you will come up with a world like ours. And, I actually suppose that if the making of our universe was a one-time thing, you could postulate that something like a random explosion created the world we live in (that it now just happens to be the way it is). However, and this is what we’ve been speaking on, our world is full of movement, and so the way our world is, is dependent on the same things happening over and over again – and so, this then gives us an ever-increasing case for a will behind the forces that brought our world together. Basically, because these forces are predictable and act in repeated patterns in our world, we can know that they are willing what they are causing.
Let’s just go through an example, and we’ll do a little more observation to make sure we’re on the same page here. One thing you’ll notice in observation of our world is that (like many things) trees are very much set on growing. Pretty much without fail they’ll push their way up through the soil and then continue to grow their whole life. Then, at the same time, their constantly spreading seeds at the right moments for them to be able to produce more life. The question is then, what is making these trees grow? We can actually do a few tests to determine this. So, first, you could ask, is it the trees themselves? And the answer to this would seem to be no, since you could uproot the tree or block out the sun and it would stop growing. But actually, the location of the force doesn’t matter too much… What does is that there is some force that is causing this plant to move toward life. And then, since it is moving toward something, it has a target it is
looking to go toward, or you could say it has a will to live, then we would classify
this force as a person. So then, the forces that act on plants aren’t random,
but rather, the plants are caused to grow by these invisible powerful forces that
apparently want it to grow – or they will it to grow.
So, I’m just reiterating that the repetition is what really makes the case here. While there could be pushback, where one says, “everything just came together randomly,” what we have evidence for now, is that the forces of our world aren’t random, they actually regularly repeat their actions, which would suggest that they’re intentional in what they are doing.
I’d like to finish up with one more thought here, and that is that, the idea that there are invisible persons who rule the material world is something you’ll find to be present in every model of reality. So, invisible rulers are obviously present in the very religious models, in the form of spirits and demons, and gods (etc.); but even in the more secular, the supposedly atheistic models of how our world works, you’ll find these invisible forces at work as well. One of the obvious examples of this is in the description of evolution. So, just roughly stated, the idea is that the world was not created, but instead, gradually has progressed from a state of simple elements to some more complex life forms. But in this, there’s sort of an interesting work around here, and that is that, there still is an invisible will involved. You could ask “what is the force that causes these elements to move toward life (or more complex life)?”, and you’ll notice that generally the answer to this question is termed as “natural selection.” Breaking down that idea a little, basically what you have is an invisible force that chooses to move life forward. It’s natural (natural selection), meaning that it is something that just exists alongside with matter, and then (natural selection) it’s also something that selects, or is a will that chooses. So, again, you have that will to live that appears even in this more secular construction of the world. And then, since we’ve defined a person as, essentially, a will (anything that directs force), then even an evolutionary perspective contains within its system invisible, personal rulers.
Okay, that’s the conclusion of that thought… There actually does seem to
be forces other than the will toward living, for example, we can watch decay consistently happen as well, but the point is that the predictable repetition suggests that there is a selector involved with these forces.
Also, we haven’t spoke to the origins of these invisible forces, and I
don’t even believe we can rule out the possibility that something random created these rulers of our material world in the beginning, but really the question of their origin proceeds anything that we can actually observe. Basically, these invisible rulers are what brought about life (since they control the material
world), so whatever brought about their life is really a mystery to us since that
proceeds our ability to observe. What’s interesting though, and this is where
we are headed, in our experience of persons (or personality) (that is, anything
with a will), there’s always the ability to communicate that comes along with personage. So, if we’re curious about origins or about the larger purposes of these invisible rulers, the logical next step would be to attempt to communicate with these personal forces. So, till next time!