Want to watch someone without even philosophy training butcher some of life's biggest questions? The only reason I dare to try is that these are the answers I tell myself. If they're right, they're worth sharing, and if they're wrong, they're worth correcting.
So, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be" (John 1:1-3). We start with the Trinity because that's what there was to start: God who is Love in its three parts: the lover, the beloved, and the fruit of the love. The beloved called himself the Word, and John hails him as such, because the nature of words reflects his nature. Uniquely among material things, words maintain their essence no matter their substance. Eiffel Tower, no matter if it's a pattern of ink, scratches in a wall, or a sequence of vibrations, is a hunk of metal in Paris. In the same way Jesus, incarnate or not, is the Son of Father.
If God did not permit separation from himself, then in his perfection he would not even be triune. But by creating everything through the Word, the name Lord was written across everything. God created the angels, who either accepted the Divine Will or rebelled. Now an important fact bears mentioning: the immaterial world has no space or time. For the rebellious angels, there's no place to hide. They live in constant knowledge of their separation from the Good God, hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Time and space are key to out creation in the material world. Space, specifically a space that is neither infinite nor infinitesimal, allows things to be separate discretely instead of binary. Instead of the angels' harrowing "heaven or hell," we can simply be "over there." But all this space is just a hiding place without time. Time also must be finite because otherwise things would be instantaneous like in the immaterial world, or else never happen. Or if our time alive were infinite, our concepts of sin and repentance would fall apart. Now that's not a bad way to live, that's how Adam and Eve lived until their fall, and it's what beyond the end of time will be like. But since death is among us, our every moment matters. Yet because out capacity to know and do is limited by time and space, each moment matters only a certain amount. The same mechanic that prevents us from instantaneous destruction upon our first sin also means we must choose God moment by moment.
In summary, material reality is like a playpen. We're given blunt instruments and limited range so we don't hurt ourselves. The immaterial world is where the real sharp instruments are. The irreversibility of time is only a shadow of the immutability of consequence there, and the separation of space an illusion altogether. But Jesus enabled our creation in this merciful world, or rather God the Father enables it in his Love for Jesus. That's why he's the Lord of Creation and our brother. If you think I just called real life childhood compared to the afterlife, yes. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways." (Isaiah 55:9)
- Carbite
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