I. Introduction
Skeptics oftentimes argue that the Christian claim that Jesus is the Son of God and simultaneously (the perfect) man cannot be justified on the grounds that deity implies, at least, omnipresence and perpetuity, i.e., boundlessness in space on the one hand, and in time on the other, while humanness implies replete finitude. The skeptic thus holds that the Christian claim is an oxymoron. What evidence might be adduced that attests to the Christian claim concerning the dual nature of Jesus? With God’s help we wish to address that question in this study.
II. Dualities in the Created Order
Not surprisingly, in keeping with His dual nature, the God-man Jesus, the Agent of Creation, placed dualities into His Creation. We hold that besides the very practical purposes of these dualities, He did this as another means of identifying and revealing Himself through His handiwork (besides primarily Scripture is meant). We are arguing by way of the logic of association; that is, the physical universe, which reflects the creative hand of Jesus, and which betrays the nature of that hand, is itself fraught with dualities-evidence that supports the Christian claim by the logic of association. (The hard evidence lies in the physical dualities, some of which we will illustrate, the admittedly “soft” evidence lies in said logic of association.)
Creation itself exhibits some very significant manifestations of duality that can only be explained by way of disparate scientific principles that nevertheless dovetail into unity within the context of human sensory perception and attendant reasoning (mind); in this way the God-man and Agent of Creation Jesus identified and revealed Himself by leaving fingerprints coming from His creative hand. In this rebuttal-study we will limit ourselves to a selective discussion of mass-energy, space, time, and a very specific form of energy, light (electromagnetic radiation).
Mass-Energy
For starters, it is assumed that the physical universe is a mass-energy, space-time continuum; consider the former. (First, some helpful definitions: matter, any matter, consists of mass, mass is indeed a fundamental property of matter, which itself occupies space, it fills a volume; together with a means of acceleration like say gravity, mass makes lucid the familiar idea of weight; and most characteristically, mass resists changes in motion-if at rest, it wishes to remain at rest, if in motion, it wishes to remain in motion, thus it requires an impinging energy to change its state of motion. Energy is the ability to do work, which always manifests as motion. If a play on words be allowed, where there is motion, there is energy at work.) Okay, there is a remarkable equivalence between mass and energy such that they are interconvertible; this is related by the famous Einstein equation:
In words, an object’s rest energy E available for conversion to other forms of energy equals its rest mass m times (speed of light, c)2, which in mathematical shorthand is oftentimes simply related so:
E=m x c2,
but originally written by Einstein so:
m =E/ c2.
The two forms highlight the equation’s utility and the mass-energy duality we are highlighting. Considering the first form, we are struck with the fact that objects in and of themselves (a paperclip, a grain of sand, a drop of water, a star, you name it), even at rest, contain considerable energy (owing to the c2 term). Sadly, manipulation of this exceeding rest energy is exploited in a deadly manner in nuclear weaponry. Again, considering the first form, notice too that if E were to say decrease consequential to some object losing some rest energy in the process of conversion to another form of energy, then the rest mass m must decrease proportionately to maintain balance between the left and right-hand sides of the equation. Similarly, if there were a change in total mass following a reaction (e.g., nuclear fission, fusion), that mass change appears as energy E following the same relation, and for our purposes, all this bespeaks an equivalence between mass and energy, a profound fact and not accidentally a boon for the created order, not least consequential to myriad chemical and nuclear reactions that pervade nature and thus our lives. Consider the sun as an example, an amazing nuclear fusion reactor wherein occurs transmutation of mass:
H==> He,
here, any post-reaction mass imbalance is accounted for by the emission of energy (in the form of electromagnetic, thermal, and particulate energies) precisely in accordance with the Einstein equation forms above. Speaking of the sun, consider the second form above-this is the form in which the equation first appeared in Einstein’s 1905 paper entitled “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” (The answer is yes by the way.) This form highlights the fact that if energy were somehow placed on a hypothetical weighing scale, it would register the familiar everyday concept of “weight.” In keeping with the equation, our sun for example is losing mass owing to the energy it emits and thus “weighs” less moment by moment (is less massive moment by moment to be precise).
Space and Time
So, one may say that there is an inherent duality between energy and mass, either one of the two can manifest itself as the other. Put another way, either one of the two may be expressed, without loss of fidelity, by the other. Still, the concept of mass-energy is meaningless without the concept of space-time. Mass-energy is pervasive in “space” and is made cogent in “time.” We must be careful here, because exactly what the “fabric” of space is comprised of is uncertain at present—it is a work in progress; the notion of time, if there really is such a thing, is similarly elusive at present. (Sure, everyone has a “feel” for what space and time are, but what exactly are they if not very practical human constructs?) Proceeding cautiously then, energy per se is the ability to do work, which always produces motion; In the end, motion betrays energy. Thus, energy is the root cause of all motion. And that motion occurs somewhere in the space local to the causative energy, and it lasts for some duration of time; mass- energy and its consequences on a given system occur and exist in the so-called space-time continuum, and in turn the space-time continuum exhibits its own manner of duality as expected. In consideration of this, and leaving the notion of time aside for now, one is forced to ask the seemingly dead-end question, what exactly is physical space? Modern physics proposes that the shortest measurable distance is on the order of the Planck length, some 10-35 meters where, for comparative reference, the diameter of the hydrogen atom is approximately 10-10 meters—the Planck length is about three and one-half orders of magnitude less than the diameter of the hydrogen atom. But this is just a measure—it tells us precious little about space per se—as said, that is a work in progress, and as said, the notion of time is unclear at present. The picture becomes a little more certain and clearer when space and time are considered relative to motion. The speed of light, denoted by c, is constant in a vacuum:
c=space divided by time= constant from the perspective of any nonaccelerating observer; that is, from the perspective of an observer at rest or moving in a straight line with constant velocity. Hence, of itself, the speed of light is a law of physics (of nature) because, by definition, the laws of physics must be the same in any nonaccelerating reference frame. (These remarkable insights were proposed by A. Einstein in 1905 and have since been proven to hold by myriad experiments.) The important point is that given c=space divided by time= constant, it follows that space and time, whatever they are exactly, are nevertheless peculiarly dual in general (it is because of the constant term-it forces space and time to change in definite proportions for a given observer such that all observers record the same constant speed of light in their frame of reference-this is an ingenious design by the Creator with far-reaching consequences the rich depths of which the sciences have not even begun to fully plumb).
The Case for Light
Light is the most primitive form of energy because as we have seen, all other forms of energy can be expressed in terms of one of its properties, namely, its speed, which speed is a law unto itself, and hence rightly a property of light (recall E=mc2). Significantly, this most basic form of energy (light) exhibits its own form of duality: the propagation of light proceeds according to the principles of wave mechanics, but any scattering events must be explained by way of quantum mechanics, wherein the modulations of particles describe the event. Light therefore manifests a wave-like | particle-like duality.
Of the hard evidence here adduced, the case for light is perhaps the most stunning for our purposes. Jesus, Creator God, the God-man, is the light of the world (John 8:12); He set into motion all things and upholds them by the power of His Word (1Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:3, 2:10; power is a rate, specifically, energy imparted, inevitably unto motion, per unit time).
III. Conclusion
Though our argument by way of the logic of “fingerprint association” herein proffered might be considered soft evidence for the dual nature of the God-man Jesus, the Agent of Creation, it is at least something, i.e., nothing of the sort would be possible were these dualities not so evident and not least primitive in the created order. We mean to say, why should there be these “strange” dualities in the created order in the first place? Note how they toy with Occam’s razor-they are more complicated than the “singletons” one would expect, and why? We get dualities here and not singletons because…they were put there on purpose. Is the mass-energy relation (arguably the most famous and perhaps most important equation in physics) that holds throughout the universe as far as we know an accident? How about the universe’s speed limit c, which betrays a space-time duality and all the profound implications of that, is that an accident? How about light’s wave-particle duality, is that an accident too? Without these dualities in place, this universe of ours would be a pretty strange place to us humans if even we were able to exist in such a weird place. So, it seems that the practicality thereof surely weighs in on the side of purposeful design by way of Power and Intellect and Mind, and given that, it is but a short mental step to appreciate that said Creator Being bears His own quintessential duality according to His own claims as the God-man; the Son of God and the Son of Man, yea, He Himself thus claims (Matthew 26:63-64). It should not be a stumbling-block to one’s faith in the God-man Jesus, His dual nature here, that He can and did manifest Himself as both God and (the perfect) man. So, we think that as the dualities He built into His Creation lend fair credence to His own dual nature (cord 1), then by association it would follow that they lend fair credence to Scripture’s claim that Jesus was the Agent of Creation (cord 2), and that, is another testament to Creation itself per the Book of Genesis et al. (cord 3, all-in-all, a threefold cord).
Praised be your Name great Creator God-man Jesus. Amen.