A Few Proposals

Hey, all.

I'm in the process of writing some papers for the Wesleyan Theological Society conference next year, and I am about to post my paper proposals for your enjoyment/displeasure. If you are interested, you could please read them and provide feedback via the email link attached to my picture on the right, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, I'm quickly developing a practice of writing short stories each Sunday during church, and was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading those. I may post them, but I feel somewhat ashamed, being around such well read individuals, and its rather a risk on my part. But, I would like to develop a better reading ability, so if any readers are with me, I suppose I could try it.

Enough. Here are the current state of my proposals:

Science and Theology Proposal:

Relativity, Quantum Physics, and Retrocausality: Creation Theology in Light of New Scientific Trends

In this continuing age of reason, the tension between science and religion seems stronger than ever. Recent breakthroughs in science continue to raise ethical questions as to our response to humanity, justice, and God. The rule of cause and effect has dictate the direction of science, but has little to say to the One who has no cause. The question that theologians beg to ask is this: where is God in this world of science?

In my paper, I hope to introduce the science of retrocausality and its effects to Creation theology. This will include a brief overview of the sister sciences responsible for the creation of the theory of retrocausation: quantum physics and the theory of relativity. I will explain the fundamental concept of retrocausality, its implications on the principle of cause and effect, and how this could inform Creation theology and the revelation of God.

Retrocausality is the theory that bridges the sciences of quantum physics and relativity. Photons can be measured as either particles or waves. Protons can be "entangled" to one another; actions affecting one will also affect the entangled twin, regardless of time or distance. If we were to measure one photon as a particle, it would force its entangled twin to be measured the same way, regardless of time or distance.

This interaction suggests either faster-than-light travel, or a present interaction with the past that dictates how both entangled protons will act.

Fundamentally, this could mean that in a world of sequential events, and effect could occur before its cause. The present could affect the past, or the future could affect the present.

I believe retrocausality, better than other sciences, gives us a view into the perspective of God, a view that is unhindered by time and linear observation. It is a realm that is eternally now, where all things in both past and future affect the present. It perhaps gives new insight into how God view perceives and created this world.


Christian Formation/Systematic Theology Proposal:

In Scripture, we are often confronted by strong language. Christians are told to "take up their cross" and "die to sin." Traditionally, these intense Scriptures have been read as metaphor, and have had little to no literal interpretation. But what if God's call to die was a call to physical death? If Jesus conquered death on the cross, why is death still a part of this world? If there are those who are forgiven and reconciled to God, why must they die?

Using a systematic perspective of Scripture, I propose that death is a requirement for processional holiness. I also propose that there are two kinds of death; one obedient to God, and one that serves the self, and that these two deaths are so distinctly different, that their response has a profound effect on holiness. I propose that the moment in which God was most intimate with mankind was in the physical death of His son, Jesus, and that now the moment in which mankind can be most intimate with God is also in a physical death. This essay will offer discussion concerning the the relationship between holiness and the physical death, process sanctification, the impassibility of God, and martyrdom. From this perspective, the dead are, as Arthur Hertzberg describes, “too holy.” That is to say, the dead experience holiness in ways only the living can imagine.