{"id":2674,"date":"2023-06-05T07:42:05","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T11:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2674"},"modified":"2023-06-05T07:42:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T11:42:52","slug":"impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/05\/impossible\/","title":{"rendered":"Impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.
 
\u201cImpossible\u201d is a relative term.
 
Sometimes, things we identify as impossible turn out to be quite possible after all. 
 
Over the past 27 years, Tom Cruise\u2019s cinematic hero Ethan Hunt has undertaken six \u201cimpossible missions\u201d and somehow succeeded every time.  Next month he\u2019ll star in the seventh installment of the action series \u2013 a story apparently so bloated with plot twists and special effects that it was impossible to contain it in just one picture.  That\u2019s why Part 2 of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning<\/em> will be released a year from now. 
 
Some of the world\u2019s greatest scientists have confidently declared certain things to be impossible \u2013 only for the next generation to say, \u201cNot so fast.\u201d 
 
Britain\u2019s Lord Kelvin asserted that heavier-than-air machines would never fly, while New Zealand\u2019s Lord Rutherford, \u201cthe father of nuclear physics,\u201d assured audiences that generating extraordinary bursts of energy by splitting atoms was \u201cmoonshine.\u201d  We can only guess how they might have responded if they had been around when an airplane dropped a nuclear bomb in 1945. 
 
As a kid I was an enthusiastic fan of Dick Tracy\u2019s two-way wrist radio.  I fantasized a world in which moms wouldn\u2019t have to call their children for dinner by yelling loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.  Every child could have some kind of portable communication device.  But that was impossible \u2013 sheer science fiction.   
 
I was wrong, of course.  In my own lifetime, every child has potential access to a portable communication device.  What currently borders on the impossible is kids choosing to go outside instead of playing video games indoors. 
 
Michio Kaku, one of the world\u2019s foremost theoretical physicists, is well acquainted with the difference between things we only think are impossible and those that can never actually happen.
 
Kaku, a second generation Japanese-American, has always had audacious ambition.  For his high school science fair project, he built a makeshift atom smasher in his mother\u2019s garage.  He then wound 22 miles of copper wiring around his school\u2019s football field, creating a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than the Earth\u2019s.  That allowed him to generate a gamma ray beam powerful enough to create antimatter.  And you thought it was pretty awesome when your science fair project conclusively demonstrated that plants that get water and sunshine do better than those that don\u2019t. 
 
In his delightful 2008 book Physics of the Impossible<\/em>, Kaku divides so-called impossibilities into three categories. 
 
Class One includes technological achievements that are impossible today, but which don\u2019t violate the known laws of physics.  These include teleportation (\u201cbeam me up\u201d), invisibility, starships that can approach the speed of light, and something akin to the galactic empire\u2019s Death Star in Star Wars<\/em>. 
 
Class Two accomplishments take us to the very edge of our understanding of the cosmos.  These are theoretically possible, but may be thousands of years away from realization.  Here we\u2019re talking about time machines and zipping between opposite corners of the universe via \u201cwormholes.\u201d 
 
Class Three impossibilities are just that: genuine impossibilities.  They violate the known laws of physics.  This is the right spot for perpetual motion machines (the real-life equivalent of an Energizer Bunny, which keeps going and going without needing a source of energy) and the ability to see what will happen in the future.
 
Kaku\u2019s conclusions are based on the assumption of a \u201cclosed universe.\u201d  What you see is what you get \u2013 the material universe and nothing more.  In the words of fellow astrophysicist Carl Sagan, \u201cThe cosmos is all there is, all there ever has been, and all there ever will be.\u201d 
 
That, of course, is a stunningly transparent bit of religious dogma.  It is an a priori<\/em> statement \u2013 a philosophical assumption that is made apart from<\/em> empirical observation, and that cannot be confirmed by telescopes and test tubes.
 
The Bible\u2019s authors operate within the perspective of an \u201copen universe.\u201d  The cosmos is still there, exactly as materialists find it.  But it\u2019s not necessarily<\/em> the only thing that exists.  The assumption of an open universe leaves open the possibility that there is an invisible or supernatural realm \u2013 and that there can be connections between the two within space and time. 
 
And that casts a new light on the word \u201cimpossible.\u201d 
 
A Galilean peasant girl named Mary, for instance, is staggered by the notion that she might become pregnant apart from interaction with her fianc\u00e9.  Such things just don\u2019t happen.  But the angel Gabriel assures her, \u201cWith God, nothing will be impossible\u201d (Luke 1:37). 
 
When Jesus tells his disciples that it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, they are shocked.  And not a little afraid.  \u201cWho, then, can be saved?\u201d  Jesus replies, \u201cFrom a human standpoint this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible\u201d (Matthew 19:26). 
 
What we cannot accomplish in our own wisdom and strength is clearly right up God\u2019s alley. 
 
The most important New Testament verse on this subject appears in the book of Hebrews.  The author points out that when God made a promise to Abraham, he was never going to take it back.  That\u2019s because \u201cit\u2019s impossible for God to lie\u201d (Hebrews 6:18).  This has nothing to do with the laws of physics.  It\u2019s conceivable that God could alter the \u201crules\u201d of the cosmos.  But God cannot cease to be God.  He cannot violate his own character by reneging on a promise.
 
That\u2019s why the very next verse says, \u201cWe have this hope as an anchor for the soul.\u201d 
 
And Hebrews 6:19 is why, whenever we see an anchor in a stained-glass window or a medieval work of art, we can know that the artist is conveying something about Christian hope.     
 
Another celebrated theoretical physicist, Niels Bohr, was fond of saying, \u201cPrediction is very hard to do.  Especially about the future.\u201d
 
True enough. 
 
But here\u2019s a trustworthy forecast concerning every one of our own tomorrows: God will never forsake those who abandon themselves to Jesus.   
 
That would truly be impossible. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. \u201cImpossible\u201d is a relative term. Sometimes, things we identify as impossible turn out to be quite possible after all.  Over the past 27 years, Tom Cruise\u2019s cinematic hero Ethan Hunt has undertaken six \u201cimpossible missions\u201d and somehow succeeded every time.  Next month he\u2019ll star in the seventh installment of the action series \u2013 a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[602,601],"class_list":["post-2674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cosmology","tag-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2677,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions\/2677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}