Colossians

St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians (the congregation at Colossae, east of Ephesus in Asia Minor) includes a very old Christological Hymn (1: 15-20), possibly the earliest liturgical Christology extant. It offers just the conceptual framework we need to understand Universe as a whole: 

"He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, 

the first-born of all creation, 

for in him all things were created…

God is insensible, but Christ is the sensible image of God. Creation (Genesis and/or Big Bang) is the moment of minimal entropy (maximal order) – it would be, wouldn’t it? Christ is maximal order, the ordering principle in fact, as well as order itself (logos), the general precondition necessary for the emergence of entities.

“All things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things 

and in him all things hold together…

Christ is universal and eternal. Christ is the locus, the origin, and the destiny of whatever is (was or will be).  Therefore, Christ conditions everything that comes to be. Because all things (events) share a common origin (Christ) and a common destiny (Christ), all things hold together; but because Christ is also the locus of all events (above), all things hold together in him. 

“He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead.

For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, 

and through him to reconcile all things for him…" 

Death is the moment of maximal entropy, minimal order; you can’t be any deader than dead! Whatever emerges from maximal entropy must (by definition) manifest an incremental increase in order; so whatever emerges from a state of maximal entropy (death) manifests Christ.

Christ is not just the sensible image of an insensible God; Christ is God. ("In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell.") Entropy in the spatiotemporal world steadily increases due to conflict. Outside of spacetime (i.e. in Christ), reconciliation (through Christ) transmutes (for Christ) order-eroding conflicts into order-enriching contrasts and ultimately into cosmic harmony.

Today, academia is engaged in a search of TOE – a Theory of Everything. Needless to say, this search is not taking place in the context of Christian theology. However, it would be well to keep in mind that any modern day cosmology claiming to be a successful TOE must at a minimum meet the criteria cited by Paul 2000 years ago in Colossians: 

It must account for the diversity of entities (events) amid the solidarity of the Universe and the solidarity of a Universe that consists solely of diverse entities (events).

It must explain how and why entities (events) emerge in the first place.

It must model entities as unique, holistic events and Universe as a nexus of co-modifying entities.

It must explain how things that decay can yet endure. It must allow entities (events) that become and perish in spacetime to be eternal. 

It must explain how conflict can be resolved into contrast and contrast into harmony.

Do you have a pet TOE that meets these criteria? Write it up (under 2,000 words) and we’ll consider it for publication in a future issue of Aletheia Today Magazine. (Authors will be compensated if published.) Upload your submission here.

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