God Again*

Dr. Fredrickson didn't really believe in God, he was just trying to figure out how our universe began when he found God staring out at him from the pages of his research. Most people would have understood what he was saying a little better if he just showed them an image of Jesus that had miraculously appeared in place of his equation but that wasn't what happened. God was in the math and Dr. Fredrickson could see him there even if most of the world couldn't comprehend his scrawl. God did exist; the proof was on his paper. Fredrickson was a curious man at heart and felt that since he had been avoiding God for so long he should try to understand him a little before he published his finding and was swept up in a torrent of notoriety. What Fredrickson's paper told him was that God had indeed been present at the inception of the universe and his had been the hand that gave the push to start it all. According to Fredrickson the universe needed action to put everything in motion so that atoms could fuse, stars could burn and burst and life could start and God gave the universe the start it needed with a shove of his mighty hands.

Fredrickson's mathematical model worked well, extremely well but going over his work to learn more of God and his nature he discovered that he had neglected to add any further work by God into his equations after the great push. Fredrickson tried adding that same force back into his equation for later times but his equations ceased to make sense. He turned his thoughts over and over in his head and after days of failed attempts to include God into the universe he eventually resigned himself to the conclusion that the universe only made sense now if God wasn't having anything to do with it at all. But this frustrated Dr. Fredrickson and as he was an eternally curious man he started doing the math for God just to see what had happened to him after the universe had gotten started. It took him days just to get started but going on a hunch he found exactly the answer for which he had been searching. Over 300 years ago Isaac Newton published three laws governing the dynamics of all things in motion and as it turned out God was not excepted from these rules. Newtons third law states that every action results in an equal and opposite reaction. God pushed the world into motion and as Fredrickson discovered, according to that law when he pushed the world into motion he pushed himself into motion too and in the exact opposite direction.

Fredrickson had never taken interest in theological matters but he wondered what this meant for the church and theology in general. What did it mean for all the faithful people if their God was moving farther and farther away every moment. So he went to ask. His university had a respected school of theology so he dropped by the office of one of his colleagues the next afternoon. After his colleague had ascertained that Fredrickson really did have the proof of God and that he could also prove that God had been drifting away from the universe since its inception he went silent for a few moments. Then he asked Fredrickson if he knew what sin was. Fredrickson answered "Well I suppose I thought a sin was something you had done to offend God." His colleague chuckled "That only how people think of it today. The definition of sin I prefer to use is distance from God, which is also the same definition I use for hell. Do you have any idea what I'm getting at?" Fredrickson didn't feel like being lectured so he gave it his best shot and said "Because God is so far away we are all in sin, by your definition." "Precisely!" boomed the other professor "We are drowning in sin because of our distance from God and our sin is ever increasing. Have you ever felt like the world was going deeper and deeper into sin all the time?" Fredrickson wanted to say no but held his tongue for the time being. "This means that you and I and everyone who intuitively felt that have been right all along. And there's more! You have conclusively proved the idea of original sin, since our distance from God was all caused by one act. You have validated so many of my theories; I would have never thought it could all be settled with math and that I would be right on the mark!" Fredrickson had been listening very closely and knew he had pieced together something his colleague had not. "I haven't proved any of your theories." Fredrickson interrupted. The professor who had almost completely forgotten Dr. Fredrickson was there mumbled an apology and asked him what in the world he meant. "Well you seem to have forgotten entirely that God was the one who pushed the universe into motion." "I don't quite follow you." his colleague replied. "You said that I had proved the idea of original sin, because we were getting farther away from God due to a sin committed long before our time. I'm assuming that original sin was a sin done by man and we are paying the price in our distance from God. What you failed to notice is that God was the one who pushed the world into motion and pushed himself away and I think you know exactly what that implies. It was not man who sinned rather because God pushed us away the original sin is really his." Then Fredrickson gathered up his papers and left his dumbfounded colleague to figure out exactly how he was going to defend his papers and his job when the proof of God saw the light of day.

*I am again writing about God, not the same God I wrote about last time. The God I am writing this time is just the creator of the universe, he isn't even the Christian God; so please don't be confused. This was inspired by my ridiculous philosophy class and I'm just toying with ideas from the reading for tomorrow. Just try to be amused.