Real quick, sorry I forgot to post something last week! Anyway, today is Chemistry day here at Prometheus Studies, and I want to tell you about the Master of Paradoxes as endothermic and exothermic!
So endothermic and exothermic are chemically opposite phenomena that make beautiful analogies to how God works. For those of you who don't know, something is endothermic when it absorbs heat and exothermic when it gives off heat--endo for "in" kind of, and exo for "out." I always remember exo because of exoskeleton, which is the outside part of a bug, but that's probably not the easiest way for you to remember it. However you remember it, things that are exothermic give off heat, and end up becoming colder than they were. If you touch them, they feel hot, because the heat they are giving off is being absorbed by your hand. So when something feels hot, it's exothermic and losing heat (becoming colder) as you take the heat away with your hand. The opposite is true of endothermic--it absorbs heat, and feels cold because as IT is getting hotter, YOU are getting colder because it's stealing your heat like the mean little temperature vampire that it is mwahahahaha
As you can see I'm a bit on the excited side today.
Anyway, so God is infinitely exothermic and infinitely endothermic. He is exothermic because he gives off heat and light and energy, always at his own expense, to support and supply all the rest of us. To us, he feels hot, sometimes threateningly so, or comfortably warm, because he is a violent and dangerous giver. An explosion is an exothermic thing--he is like that. A hand-warmer is another exothermic thing, and he is like that, too. Whether in violent ways that blow us away, or in gentle every day kindness, God is an exothermic giver.
But can God really become colder, like exothermic reactions are doing as they lose and give off heat? As in, while we take what He has, does He experience loss? Well, I would say yes, because when Jesus was walking around on earth, he was always losing. He lost comfort, friendship, pleasure, and even life on his exothermic mission to give. That's in fact the whole mystery of Jesus--that an infinitely warm God could become cold and dead as He poured Himself out for His people.
This ties back to the whole point of this blog. Fire, which Prometheus brings to man in the Greek legend, is a result of an exothermic "oxidation reaction" between oxygen and something else (usually an organic polymer like cellulose in wood) burning to create carbon dioxide and water. It's the giving of heat as heat is taken out of the chemicals themselves. Prometheus was exothermic just like the reaction--as he gave fire to man, he experienced loss of all the "heat" that makes existence wonderful as he suffered alone, a failure out on a cold mountain top cursed by the gods. The Abundant Source of Fire finds himself cold, although we feel him as warm and giving, and the Abundant Source of Life finds himself dead.
I really appreciate that my dear Exothermic One did that for me.
All Gen Chem knowledge. Next week, in Part 2, we'll talk about how God is endothermic.
So endothermic and exothermic are chemically opposite phenomena that make beautiful analogies to how God works. For those of you who don't know, something is endothermic when it absorbs heat and exothermic when it gives off heat--endo for "in" kind of, and exo for "out." I always remember exo because of exoskeleton, which is the outside part of a bug, but that's probably not the easiest way for you to remember it. However you remember it, things that are exothermic give off heat, and end up becoming colder than they were. If you touch them, they feel hot, because the heat they are giving off is being absorbed by your hand. So when something feels hot, it's exothermic and losing heat (becoming colder) as you take the heat away with your hand. The opposite is true of endothermic--it absorbs heat, and feels cold because as IT is getting hotter, YOU are getting colder because it's stealing your heat like the mean little temperature vampire that it is mwahahahaha
As you can see I'm a bit on the excited side today.
Anyway, so God is infinitely exothermic and infinitely endothermic. He is exothermic because he gives off heat and light and energy, always at his own expense, to support and supply all the rest of us. To us, he feels hot, sometimes threateningly so, or comfortably warm, because he is a violent and dangerous giver. An explosion is an exothermic thing--he is like that. A hand-warmer is another exothermic thing, and he is like that, too. Whether in violent ways that blow us away, or in gentle every day kindness, God is an exothermic giver.
But can God really become colder, like exothermic reactions are doing as they lose and give off heat? As in, while we take what He has, does He experience loss? Well, I would say yes, because when Jesus was walking around on earth, he was always losing. He lost comfort, friendship, pleasure, and even life on his exothermic mission to give. That's in fact the whole mystery of Jesus--that an infinitely warm God could become cold and dead as He poured Himself out for His people.
This ties back to the whole point of this blog. Fire, which Prometheus brings to man in the Greek legend, is a result of an exothermic "oxidation reaction" between oxygen and something else (usually an organic polymer like cellulose in wood) burning to create carbon dioxide and water. It's the giving of heat as heat is taken out of the chemicals themselves. Prometheus was exothermic just like the reaction--as he gave fire to man, he experienced loss of all the "heat" that makes existence wonderful as he suffered alone, a failure out on a cold mountain top cursed by the gods. The Abundant Source of Fire finds himself cold, although we feel him as warm and giving, and the Abundant Source of Life finds himself dead.
I really appreciate that my dear Exothermic One did that for me.
All Gen Chem knowledge. Next week, in Part 2, we'll talk about how God is endothermic.
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