Since the begining of time people have been asking the question "Why do we exist?", "who is God?", "Why does a good God allow for so much pain to exist in the world?", "How do various institutions such as government, education, marriage, work and others fit into the big scheme of things?" From a Christian perspective people are made in the image of God, since God is a being made up of three connected yet distinct entities, so are humans. The three entities that humans are composed of are: the body (physical), the spiritual (mind and conciousness) and the soul (given to us by God at conception). The whole purpose of life is to return to God what God has given us (the soul). How we do this is explored throughout this book.
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
Bring your Soul Back To God and as Many Others As you CanBy Mark A. KolodziejAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Dr. Mark A. Kolodziej
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-4086-2Contents
Introduction.............................................................ixChapter 1 Defining Infinity..............................................1Chapter 2 After Infinity Then What?......................................6Chapter 3 Selecting A 3rd Dimensional Body...............................11Chapter 4 Sin............................................................18Chapter 5 Forgiveness....................................................33Chapter 6 Resurrection...................................................42Chapter 7 The Personality Of God - I God You!............................49Chapter 8 Nature, God Revealed...........................................58Chapter 9 The Sabbath....................................................67Chapter 10 Heaven And Hell...............................................77Chapter 11 Happiness: The Unity Of The Three Persons.....................83Chapter 12 Changing What God Has Made....................................88Chapter 13 Marriage......................................................103Chapter 14 Children......................................................114Chapter 15 Death.........................................................121Chapter 16 Pain..........................................................135Chapter 17 Work..........................................................142Chapter 18 Volunteering (Work For No Pay)................................149Chapter 19 Law And Order.................................................152Chapter 20 Ageing........................................................164Chapter 21 Religion......................................................170Chapter 22 Business......................................................178Chapter 23 Government....................................................187Chapter 24 Sexuality.....................................................195Chapter 25 Competition...................................................203Chapter 26 Communication.................................................210Chapter 27 Education.....................................................216Chapter 28 Stewardship...................................................220Chapter 29 Final Thoughts................................................230
Chapter One
DEFINING INFINITY
We say that God is infinite. What does infinite mean? The answer is difficult to comprehend in a world that is finite, and with beings that think finitely. Since this chapter deals with infinity it may be difficult to read. If you find this is the case then please go directly to Chapter 2, as the discussion is very philosophical. The rest of the book will still make sense if you skip this chapter.
The term infinity is very similar to omnipotence (a term frequently used to describe God). Omnipotent means to know everything, past, present, and future. For God to know everything that has ever occurred means that He has had to have existed before anything happened. (Throughout this book we will use the traditional gender (masculine) to describe God. There is only one way that a being can exist before anything happened and that is that the being would have always had to be, or had no beginning. Logic tells us that to be first means that there was a time when there was nothing. We know that nothing comes from nothing, and that in order for there to be something, it has to come from something. God always was. Everything has its origins in God.
In order for God to be omnipotent, He needs to know what is happening in the present, thus God continues to exist. In other words God was, and God is. If we add in the future tense, we can finish off the definition of omnipotence by saying that God will always be. In order to be omnipotent God was, is and will be!
There are only two ways that someone can know the future. The first way that a person can know the future is that they have already been in the future. The second is that the future is predetermined and they know what will happen because it is predetermined. The second way implies that we are robots; nothing we do can change what will happen or where we are going. Experience (life) tells us that every choice that we make has a consequence. The consequences are different depending on the choices that we make. If we believe in the freedom of choice, the future is not predetermined. Because of freedom of choice, every decision that we make will impact the future, meaning that the future is not predetermined. If the logic is correct thus far, the only way that God can know the future is that He has already been there. To already have been in the future means that God is greater than the three dimensional world that we live in. In other words, God transcends time. Time is called the 4th dimension by many scholars. Because God transcends time, He always was, is and always will be.
Infinity not only transcends time, but infinity also means that there is no room for anything else because infinity takes up the entire "space". If there was something beyond what we call infinity then what we have called infinity is not infinity. In other words, if God is infinite then there can be nothing more. Infinity cannot change, for if it does then it wasn't infinite to begin with. If God is infinite, then God is not changing. If God is not changing and nothing can be added to infinity, how do we explain creation? Creation means that something exists where previously nothing existed, but the definition of infinity precludes that either creation did not occur or the world always was, which means that it was not created.
There is only one way that something that is infinite (God) can increase or change, and that is to work in a different dimension than where infinity exists. Not only does creation and change have to occur in a different dimension, it needs to occur in a lower dimension than where its creator exists. Since the creator already is infinite, and there is no room for anything else when infinity already occupies a dimension, creation must occur in a lower dimension than infinity, and is not infinite. Perhaps this is why infinity is such a hard concept for us to grasp in our three-dimensional world. It does not exist, but God (infinity) does partially come to visit us in our dimension, and with Jesus, took finite format to live with us for some 30 years.
We cannot compare things from one dimension to another, for the characteristics of the different dimensions are so different that it is impossible to think of one dimension in terms of another. It is possible for more than one dimension to be present at the same time, but not to use one dimension to explain another, especially a lower dimension to explain a higher dimension. Like a computer program, the new program (higher dimension) can read and interpret older programs (lower dimensions). However a lower dimension cannot interpret the higher dimensional data. A major reason why we have so much trouble comprehending infinity (God) is that we are trying to describe God in a time bound fashion (3D), and God is not time bound. We cannot describe God in any terms other than three-dimensional, for as beings from the third dimension, we are limited by third dimensional thoughts - we are time bound.
Our physical bodies are bound not only by time but by sequential time (first, second, then last, etc.). Our cognitive dimension is still time bound but now it is not necessarily sequential (also not random). Now we can bounce back and forth in time as well as jump back and forth to different locations (memories of childhood or a holiday). We can even try to predict the future (what will happen if.....), even though our prediction may not be accurate and our bodies may never ever enter the cognitive reality.
It seems then that the very first thing that God created was time. In other words God created the fourth dimension! Then within that dimension many other things were created to exist in time. For God to allow new and unique consciousnesses (people) to come into existence, He had to create a lower dimension. For things to exist in a lower dimension, higher dimensions must exist. We cannot have second dimensional things without the third dimension, for the lower dimension must exist within the higher dimension. Higher dimensions have fewer boundaries (restrictions) than the lower dimensions, but there are still boundaries. Only infinity has no boundaries! Things in the second dimension (like a drawing on a piece of paper) can only exist if the piece of paper exists in a higher dimension, the third dimension. And similarly we can only exist in the third dimension because the 4th dimension exists. In summary then, the second dimension (in mathematical terms, this is called plane geometry) can only exist because the third dimension (or space) exists. Space can only exist because the fourth dimension exists, that is time. Time can only exist because the highest dimension, God, exists. What we don't know, is if the highest dimension is the one after time or there may be several other dimensions that we will not even become aware of until we go into the next dimension which happens at death of the physical body.
Since infinity is as large as you can get in one dimension, and God is the highest dimension, the only way to increase is in a lower dimension. A lower dimension cannot be infinite, for then it will equal the higher dimension, which is impossible. Since infinity does not exist in the third dimension it is only a concept for us. Infinity from another dimension can and does exist concurrently in lower dimensions, but usually as a partial visitor (for if infinity came into our dimension, there would not be room for anything else). Infinity can be present in a lower dimension, but cannot reside in this dimension. Just like an artist who creates a picture in the second dimension, part of the artist is in that picture, even though the artist is not of two dimensions.
Let's try to use mathematics to show this complexity and how illogical defining infinity with 3rd dimensional thinking is. We know that N/0 = infinity (N divided by 0 is infinity). In other words, 1/0 = 10/0 = 100000000/0 = infinity. How can this be? What we are saying is that division by 0 is undefined. The number is so large that we cannot comprehend it. Like God, there are a whole bunch of different properties which we cannot comprehend in our dimension, but they may make perfect sense in another higher dimension. We don't know what higher dimensional properties there are, just that they are different than our 3rd dimensional rules, often called nature, and that we will never be able to fully understand anything in a higher dimension. This does not mean that we cannot begin to understand components of the next highest dimension, nor that we cannot get to know God, but merely that we will never understand Him fully while we are in our present time-bound three dimensional mode of existence.
In the beginning God created day and night. That is, God created time. Now that God has created the context for the third dimension, everything else that is three dimensional could be created. Some people call this creation a big bang! Call it what you want, but time was created by God. If there was a big bang when it occurred, there was no one to hear it. Like any of God's other miracles, we are probably better off saying "God decided to create, and there it was".
Chapter Two
AFTER INFINITY THEN WHAT?
For God (infinity) to increase, He must create in a different dimension than the dimension in which infinity exists. God could not create in a higher dimension, for He is the highest dimension. God did not create in His own dimension because His dimension is already full (by definition of infinity), thus to create, God had to do so in a lower dimension. First God created the dimension (time) and then He created all that was in this dimension.
After time came the creation of the Heavens and the earth. Part of the Heavens is Heavenly beings. These beings are usually called angels. Because angels were created, they did not always exist, meaning that angels are finite, for they have a beginning. Within this new dimension that God created, bound by time, there are two sub-dimensions. These sub-dimensions are the spiritual and physical worlds. To mark us as His own, the angels in the spiritual sub-dimension and humans in the physical sub-dimension, God put part of Himself into each and every one of us. We call this component of humans the soul. The soul is part of God Himself, and because the soul is part of God, given to us by God (He created us in His own image) it belongs to God. Because He has put us into a lower dimension than Himself, our goal is to bring our souls back to Him, and in doing so we also bring back our spirits which includes our unique conscious identity.
God is one entity in three persons. We are one entity in three persons, for God made us in His image. These entities are our soul, our mind and our body. The soul transcends time and space, for this is God Himself. The angels, made up of a substance that is time-bound but transcends space, is the same substance that our consciousness is made up of. Finally, the third component of the human being is the physical component, which is time-bound and space-bound. The difference between the angels and our consciousness is that the angel's consciousness is not housed in a physical body, and thus is not space- bound. The angels, like us, also have part of God within them, and like us are unique beings.
Because the angels are not bound by space they can go (within the confines of time) anywhere in an instant. God transcends both distance and time and thus can be in two places at the same time as well as in two different times. When God created the angels and humans, in order for them to be new and separate entities of value made in His image, they needed to have a free will. Otherwise, they would not be separate entities but merely extensions of Him. God has given to us the option of coming back to Him (bringing our soul back to God), or not. The angels as well as humans can either follow God or choose not to follow God, each in their own sub-dimension, each with the ability to make decisions independent of God. Our decisions affect God, for our decisions affect our souls, which are part of God Himself. Because God transcends time, when He created us He knew that some souls would return back to Him, and others would choose not to reunite with God. God knows this, for He has already been in the future, as well as the past and present. God also knows that because of creation there will be many consciousnesses together along with His, and this conglomeration of consciousnesses is greater than only the consciousness of God.
Since the angels are finite, intelligent beings (for they have a consciousness, a unique identify, a beginning and a free will), they, like us, can choose to bring their souls back to God. Because the angels are beings less than God, they can make mistakes in reasoning, just like we humans can. One mistake that is made by some angels is the thought that because they have direct contact with God, they think that they can themselves be God. Some of these "fallen angels" perceive (falsely) that if they can turn enough of their kind into believing that God is not infallible, that they will be able to overtake Him. Even though these angels have direct contact with God, they (like us) cannot understand the concept of infinity. They believe that if enough angels go against God, that enough of God will have been removed from God (since our souls are from God), that God will no longer be all powerful. Since humans also have a soul, these angels believe that if they get enough of our souls together with the angel's souls, that that will be enough to overpower God. God created angels, and when the first angel, turned against God (Satan), he became evil or anti God. (God did not make evil things, God made good things that chose to become bad!)
Angels were created with the Heavens and the earth, prior to humans, thus angels have been around for a longer time than humanity. Even though God saw that His creation was good, there was more that He wanted to accomplish, and hence the creation of the rest of the world and a second sub-dimension. Let's call it the third dimensional universe. To better understand God, instead of viewing Him as an entity that we cannot comprehend, let's look at God as "wise love". Wise love means that God knows, and God feels. God is both logical and compassionate at the same time. God is the ultimate interaction between wisdom and emotion, (He has to be, for He created both)! Love requires logic, and logic requires emotion, both gifts from God. Logic allows us to determine right from wrong and to use our free will. Emotion keeps us motivated to keep on using our logic and free will. Even though evil was not created per se, it developed. By the time man was created, both evil and good existed but prior to creation there was only good, there was only God.
In His wisdom, God gives the angels something to do, so that they can bring their own souls back to God. God created man. The role of the angels is to care for those who do not have direct contact with God, just like one role of man is to care for newborns and children.
We have the 3 persons of God all being one God, just like the human is made up of mind, body and soul - also 3 entities within one being. The soul, as mentioned earlier, is God Himself in the highest dimension, the Holy Spirit is God in the angelic sub-dimension, and Jesus Christ is God in the physical dimension. God made us in His image, and thus the three components that make up the human being are the same components of God.
The biggest responsibility that God has given to us is to bring our souls back to Him. In other words, He has given us and the angels control over the destiny of our souls (the angels have souls as well as humans). In His wisdom, God has also given us the responsibility to bring as many other souls back to Him as we can. It is easier to withstand the forces of evil with support from others who also wish to bring their souls back to God rather than standing alone with this responsibility. God wants us to bring our souls back to Him where it belongs, for it first belonged to God, for it IS God. Satan will try to do what he can to turn us away from God with the thought that at some point (with enough souls) he will be powerful enough to overthrow God! Our purpose in life is to bring back to God what belongs to God. Jesus said "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God". In the process of bringing our souls back to God, we also bring our consciousness, or our identity with it. When there are more consciousnesses, even if the amount of matter is the same, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. An analogy of this thinking is the birth of a child. The child is made up of the genes of the parents, yet the person is a unique individual, different from the parents. The biggest difference with the child is that it has the ability to think and have emotions different from the parents. Genetically, the child is similar to the parents, similar in height, weight, hair color, etc., but yet a unique identity.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE PURPOSE OF LIFEby Mark A. Kolodziej Copyright © 2011 by Dr. Mark A. Kolodziej. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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