Symbols

Reading the scriptures, attending the temple and pondering the sacred ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ are all undoubtedly essential and edifying; however, if any of you are at all like me there are times when complete understanding seems unattainable. Occasionally the fullness of truth appears to be shrouded in a mist of symbolism and metaphors - the sheer number of names we have for various analogies is telling: simile, metaphor, symbolism, allegory and parable just to name a few. At times I find myself wishing certain lessons were taught more explicitly, but generally speaking I appreciate the good aspects of these teaching methods. It becomes apparent when given opportunities to teach, that parables are exceptionally effective in conveying deep and profound messages at multiple levels of understanding. Furthermore the symbols associated with the temple greatly assist in retaining the sacredness of the things done and taught therein. Despite my good-faith efforts to be understanding there has always been one thing that frustrated me: why are the interpretations so many and so varied? Choose any symbol or parable in the scriptures and ask a group of five people what it means, or what it is teaching and not only will you get five responses, you will get some multiple of five somewhere in the hundreds! Because the teachings are authentically divine I erroneously assumed that there must be a set number of sanctioned symbols and interpretations, lest truth be perverted or lost. Continuing down that fallacious path I viewed a multitude of opinions regarding various symbols and analogies as well-intended but incorrect at best.

Imagine the shift of thought that took place when it occurred to me that a symbol's or analogy's validity is established as soon as it improves ones understanding of truth. In addition, given an analogy, any interpretation is equally correct as long as it improves ones understanding of truth. It is clear that there is no limit set by deity what symbols or interpretations may be used - in fact Nephi taught quite the opposite when he wrote "and all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him". In other words, in ALL things there is a type of Christ. I "knew" this all along but I guess it finally clicked. Is it any wonder then, why the temple, the scriptures and the beliefs of the ancients are replete with symbolism? True religion as revealed by God is not a dimly lit network of mysticism, but often great understanding can be obtained when analogies and types are applied to the truth. It seems that the source of confusion lies here: God and truth preceded the symbols. Now you may notice that it took an awful lot of words to reach a simple conclusion, namely: parables, types, symbols, metaphors, etc. are good.

Having read that, you have all just experienced an I-told-you-that-to-tell-you-this moment. Though my writing history begs otherwise, I do actually think about things besides science and religion; however, this will be more of the same. If you are at all perturbed by a lack of variation you are free to submit such an opinion in the comment portion of this post and it will be duly noted, you are also free to not read and just pretend like you did. Now to the point: there has been a few rare and treasured occasions when I have been studying apparently secular things then blindsided by a spiritual epiphany. As I gained an understanding of the meaning and place of analogies in true religion (as described above) I was able to see these spiritual insights from physics and chemistry for what they were: my own personal parables - symbols for myself.

The first of these occurred to me one spring break when I sat in my apartment doing the very thing that spring break was designed for. I was catching up on the volumes of reading and homework that had gone by undone throughout the semester. The subject was physics and the topic was gravitation. As I read, phrases stood out to me such as: "gravitation is a universal force between all objects in the universe!" and "Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects". Reading these words, I recalled almost simultaneously the words from Doctrine and Covenants 88,

"For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things."

It seemed to me that the very law of gravitation was but an extension of an eternal law revealed to a prophet by the Lord himself. As I pondered the possibilities I thought of the hierarchical structure of the universe, with planets orbiting stars, stars orbiting in galaxies and so on for billions of light years, then (and this is the important part) I realized that the Lord and Creator Jesus Christ is the center of it all. Regardless of whether my metaphysics are accurate the Holy Ghost in that moment bore powerful witness to me that Jesus Christ is real and is our master, and that we, as God's children, are drawn to Him as light cleaveth unto light or mass unto mass. Evermore, when considering the heavens and the celestial bodies or the universal glue of gravity, I am reminded of the the great Atoner and our relation to Him.

Another similar experience happened one school day as I sat on the floor in the hallway of Old Main waiting for my next class to start and reviewing the physical chemistry test I had just finished. The test base was very broad, but two of the topics were state properties and entropy. A state property is any property of a system that depends only on the initial and final states of the system and is independent of the path taken from initial to final. For example if you had a bottle full of air and varied its pressure by heating it and cooling it, the change in pressure only depends on the initial and final pressures regardless of what it could have been between there; on the other hand if you were to determine the amount of work done by the air in the bottle between the initial and final states you would have to consider the initial and final states, as well as every point in between. Pressure, therefore is a state property and work is not. Some of you may remember from beginning chemistry or physics courses the term entropy. You may even remember that entropy is a measure of the "disorder" of a system and that every system wants to maximize its so-called disorder. This is the basis of the second law of thermodynamics. A better, and probably more accurate, way of thinking of entropy is not as disorder but as number of microstates. If you had a bunch of molecules and could take a picture of them with one of those rapid fire cameras you could see how the location and configuration of the group of molecules changes. Each picture would represent a microstate of the system, and entropy can be thought of as the number of different pictures you could have. The most stable state of any system is that in which the number of microstates is maximized. As I looked at the questions related to these topics it was as if the Holy Ghost forgot or didn't care that I was not in church or reading the scriptures (a lesson in and of itself) and powerful impressions of truth were abundant. Reading about state properties it became clear that change of heart and conversion are state properties just as pressure, temperature and volume. Regardless of our individual path it's the sum of change that really matters. I was touched by the mercy and wisdom of our Father. Without skipping a beat thoughts drifted to entropy as a type of God-given agency, just as the laws of nature demand that a system stabilize itself by maximizing the available number of microstates, so to are God's laws and commandments designed to maximize our freedom and abilities. Again I was impressed and inspired with a new-found understanding of God's mercy and love.

The difficult part is over now - you are free to remove your thinking caps. In summary it could simply be repeated what Alma of old said,

"The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."

I offer these experiences not to suggest that these analogies and symbols that I found should carry any weight on your soul or mind (though I would not object to that), but rather as proof of the soundness of a suggestion made by the Lord himself. "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." To others my analogies are most likely strange, over-extended or immaterial but I believe that each of us would do well to ponder the things of God and make them a part of what we do everyday. Thus did the ancients and, most likely, in so doing they drew nearer to Him, even if they did manage to confuse hosts of us in the future. On rare occasions I've been able to find God in the everyday and the effects have been of great value to me in witnessing that there is a Supreme Creator.