There’s no question that science is chipping away at all the secrets of our existence. Bit by bit, every element of our universe is being examined, dissected, and analyzed to discover the secrets that define every aspect of the world we live in.
Despite their best efforts, however, time remains elusive.
In our everyday lives, we all experience the ability to move in the three physical dimensions. We all experience variations in speed of movement. We all experience the effect of gravity. Most of us are impacted by light and sound. Science has given us the ability to manipulate all of these elements – all except time. Even if blind, deaf and standing still, we all experience the passage of time. We ride the wave of time, with no control over it. We cannot delay it or accelerate it. We cannot reverse it.
As science continues to explore the elements of our world, one thing stands out – everything seems to have a connection to time.
We measure the speed of movement through physical space as the distance traveled in a fixed period of time. We calculate the distance to a distant star as the physical distance traveled by a lightwave in a year. That same year is defined as the time it takes for our earth to travel once around the sun. We break that year into arbitrary segments of months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds – all measurements of the flow of that intangible thing we call time.
We calculate the decay of a radioactive element by the time interval required for the number of disintegrations per second to decrease by one-half. We judge the chemical changes of corrosion by the time required for that change to happen.
We record a lifespan, including our own, as the time it takes to age into death or disintegration.
Time, it seems, is the most fundamental function of the universe. It is the foundation of all that exists, yet we have no control over it. We have no means of manipulating it. We have no understanding of it beyond the day-to-day experience we have in using it as a unit of measurement.
As we continue to unwrap the cloak of secrecy that conceals the mysteries of our existence, time it seems, is off-limits. Perhaps time is the one secret that God chooses to keep to Himself. Perhaps time is the unknowable substance that defines God.