God and Chaos Theory

I'm not much of a mathematician but one concept I love is chaos theory. Chaotic systems are a reason to learn calculus!!! There had to be one!

So what is chaos theory?

Chaos theory is a theory of complexity - Today, “complex systems pervade every nook and cranny of daily life, from the patterns of traffic in urban transport networks to the movement of prices in financial markets.  In these systems the processes are fundamentally different from the simple systems that have constituted the focus of the scientific enterprise since Newton.” (Casti, 1997, p. ix) 

 

Some characteristics of a chaotic system

• Paradoxes opposite of what is expected
• Self reference repeating iteration or pattern
• Instability easily changed or destabilized
• Uncomputability not calculable
• Connectivity everything effects everything else
• Butterfly effect
• Emergence organization from randomness
• Ex: the mental ah ha moment 

So why chaos theory? Well first there is the first law of thermodynamics that says that all closed systems move towards entropy or randomness. All you have to do is not clean your room for a week and you know that's true. So why isn't our world falling apart? The answer is energy, but we will get back to that. Let's look at those characteristics  of a chaotic system again:

Paradox isn't it fair to say that Jesus is a paradox? Sinless but sacrificed for sin, dead but now alive?

   Self reference In Genesis and Corinthians we are told that we are made in       God's image. We are an iteration of God. Know you know about these patters you see them in nature all the time they are called fractals. The human race is a fractal of the Creator. Here are a couple of the over 100 verses about being self referenced to God -being made in his image

   Ephesians 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

  Genesis 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

   Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:26  Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 9:6  “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Colossians 3:10 And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Instability means we are easily changed. When we accept Christ into our life doesn't that change become easier? In science there is a term called tropism. Tropisms are responses to stimuli. Instability means we respond to small stimuli and change.

One of my favorites characteristics is uncomputability. We can try to understand the how and why of God our entire lives but there will ALWAYS be things we don't understand or can't explain. Here are a few verses on the immutability of God

Isaiah 55:8-9   
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Job 36:26   
“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him;
The number of His years is unsearchable.

Deuteronomy 29:29   
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.

Job 5:9   
Who does great and unsearchable things,
Wonders without number.

Job 11:7   
“Can you discover the depths of God?
Can you discover the limits of the Almighty?

What does this mean that there are some things we will NEVER understand that we have to take on FAITH

Connectivity What we do affects others and what others do affects us, this is why fellowship is so important. It helps keep us accountable, which keep us salty and bright. One of the concepts that falls under connectivity is Strange attractors. These are the people, places and things that attract us. I am sure you have heard about the Butterfly Effect and how if a butterfly flaps its wings over the Atlantic you have a storm over the Pacific. Well why is it the Pacific and not the Indian or Arctic Oceans? That is where the strange attractors come in. Linking the influence of the butterfly from one node to another we get to the Pacific. What are your strange attractors or are you the attractor? Are others drawn to you, are you a leader in something what do you do with that opportunity?

Finally there is emergence. In biology there is a special word for this autopoesis. We know from the law of entropy that emergence requires energy. Remember when we talked about how all matter reflected God well when matter explodes it becomes you guessed it energy!!! 

So the very force in the world that operates against entropy is also a reflection of our Lord and Savior

Think of all the ways that energy is just enough

Just enough gravity that our solar system and our planet hold together

Just enough of the weak force that atoms don't explode or implode

Conversion of energy form solar into forms that we can use through photosynthesis which captures light and converts it into energy and thru cellular respiration which basically reverses photosynthesis to provide energy to all non-autotrophic species. That provides just enough qxygen for our planet

Jesus our source of energy our just enough.