One quality of nature and of the gospel is its fractal condition. A brief explanation will help us follow the development of this article. For more information I refer you to the teancum publication «Fractal Geometry, Scripture and the Gospel» of August 2018.
A fractal is a figure composed of smaller parts that are similar or equal to the original and that are repeated at different scales. The best known example is the broccoli because it branches into smaller pieces each time and all of them are similar to the main set.
If you take a broccoli and cut it, you will see that the smaller parts keep the shapes and proportion of the whole.
Nature’s geometry is fractal because its objects are rough, complex and chaotic. But they keep an order and proportion at large and small scales. In the case of broccoli, it expands in space with a ratio of 2.66. The same applies to coasts, rivers, trees, etc.
The church of Jesus Christ also keeps this geometry. The fractal reason for its expansion is in the keys delivered in Kirtland. At any scale of its whole we will find the recollection of Israel (keys given by Moses), the perfecting of the saints (the everlasting covenant of Abraham where all the families of the earth would be blessed) and the redemption of the dead (given by Elijah the prophet).
We will find that «broccoli» structure in any dimension, in a family, a stake, or in the whole. That fractal reason reproduces in any dimension of the church the complete structure of the gospel without any effort. In the temple we can see these three dimensions
Christ the fractal reason
In the same way, the house of Israel, within which the church is circumscribed, has as a fractal reason the Lamb of Israel, who is Jesus Christ. All the ordinances from Adam to the temples of Jesus Christ today have in their design fractal images of the Savior. Adam needed to understand that principle to understand the magnitude of the gospel.
When the angel asked him, «Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.» (Moses 5:6) Adam had not cut the «broccoli» yet. He only saw the trees but not the forest, he did not understand the relationship between the form of the ordinance and its execution through space and time with its nucleus of knowledge. «And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitudeof the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.» (7)
Also with the Redeemer this image is repeated, for he needs another angel to face the unexpected dimension of what was taught to Adam.
By pointing out the likeness of the fruit sheath, which is the ordinance, to Christ is showing the Only-Begotten as the fractal reason for the Father’s plan of salvation. From then on, we will find Christ in every space and time of the plan of salvation until the restoration of the gospel. That’s why he presents himself as «I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.» (D&C 84:120) and in that statement we understand that he is not only in the beginning of the series and its end, but in all its permutations, in all words, in all combinations. He is the fractal of the plan for humanity.
The teachings of the Savior
The Savior uses in his teachings the likeness of the natural order to the heavenly order. Just as the angel teaches Adam, in the ordinance on the stone altar, the order of the heavens and their stars. There is a fractal reason between a mustard seed and faith, so if you look at one, it will lead you to the other without changing the truth or its form. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like «a man which sowed good seed in his field» (Matt. 13:24) to a «king, which would take account of his servants.» (Matt. 18:23) or also to «a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.» (Matt. 20:1).
The gospel and the scriptures thus prove that he belongs to creation, since he shares the same geometry that describes the mountains, the heavens, the seas, and creatures of this world. This is why he, speaking of his church, says: «notwithstanding the tribulation which shall descend upon you, that the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world» (D&C 78:14), that independence from other creatures does not exclude it from belonging to the rest of the ecosystem.
Correspondence between scales
The prophet Alma also teaches that correspondence on the scales, or the fractal «…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.» (Alma 30:44). And here we must make an observation.
Alma employs all the available cosmology of her time and uses it to show the footprints of the creator of the Universe before Korihor. And such knowledge may not have been of religious origin, given the tradition of these peoples in observing the sky. He had no more, unlike us, to further elaborate the sequence of knowledge that began in Adam. As Adam we have to consider the Universe the altar of creation, and ask ourselves what its revolutions mean.
We cannot separate the cosmology of the gospel from the advances in modern cosmology. Alma didn’t. I’m not saying open the door to everything and just accept it. But with prudence and common sense we have to train ourselves to compose an Iliad, a cultural substratum like saints that will macerate an inquisitive attitude, brave and of faith, without aspirations to establish doctrine. But let him compose a mosaic where future generations can settle their feet, without feeling that they are excluded from the city of their century.
It is one of the objectives of teancum. Among other tasks, to receive the heritage of the science of our time through the light of Christ. Or as Nephi would say to inherit «the science of the Jews» or the gospel from our ancestors, but also «the language of the Egyptians» or the knowledge environment where the church thrives.
It is a long introduction to what brings us here, but it is necessary.
Uncertainty by the veil
In the tabernacle and in the temple, the presence of Jehovah was veiled. But the dense substance of the stone was not used in a wall, but that of a fabric, the veil. Prayers and incense went through the veil, but nothing came out of the other side. It could not be pierced, but it was possible to remove one of its corners. There is not even any record of any message when on that occasion the high priest entered the most holy place. The presence of the divinity is veiled under normal conditions. As we stand next to that veil, we notice the uncertainty of our senses as we cannot see or feel. Living with this uncertainty is the germ of faith, since it is born in a special kind of emptiness.
It obeys not the heavy evidences of the palpable, but the spontaneous creation in what is not seen.
«Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?» (Job 38:17)
The greatest veil for all of us is that of death, «from whence no traveler can return» (2 Nephi 1:14). Death is a global fact that we only see when it occurs locally, then its horizon disappears from our life. However, we know that it is there and that it modifies our existence in every aspect. Its gravitation forces us to spin constantly in the orbit of survival.
A part of the tunic
However, as part of the fur tunic, we have incorporated the belief in God and perceive it from the very moment we learned of our mortality. That whispering voice «of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them,» (Moses 5:4) is a vector of force in the direction of our orbit in history. Many think that belief is man’s response to the uncertainty of the veil of death. However, it is as old as we are, it is a genuine abstraction, as advanced as mathematical ability, because it transcends, as well as mathematical ability, what is necessary for survival.
Faith is not a construction, it is a property of intelligent life in its orbit of falling into the veil.
The veil in the universe
As latter-day saints we are familiar with the veil in the plan of salvation. He hides life from our mind before we are born. However, the veil extends far beyond that because it is also a property of the Universe, it has its proof.
No matter how far we look through powerful telescopes, we cannot see the origin of the universe. It has a veil that hides its nakedness. Like any singularity, he is also dressed. In the same way, the knowledge of the plan is clothed in ordinances, Adam could only access it by revelation. In the same way, Adam needed to dress and hide his nature with modesty, that gift of wisdom. The power of procreation, like a fruitful cosmos, is covered with that modest veil. It is only in the ordinance of the everlasting covenant that all its breadth is revealed, and not just one aspect of it.
There’s also a veil in space.
Black holes and dark matter are one of the greatest enigmas of science, that is, for all of us. It is not a matter for scientists but for people. So is mustard seed, tares, wheat, or a statue in the mouth of a fish. A black hole is a hole in space. It occurs when a very heavy body, such as a star of more than 3.5 solar masses reaches the end of its cycle. When it dies, it collapses on itself, towards its centre. There is so much mass or weight at that point that it pierces space.
Everything that falls inside it disappears and makes a bigger hole. Like the veil of the tabernacle, its horizon is the veil of space, nothing comes out of it, not even the light, we don’t see what comes after it..
The new kingdoms
In every galaxy there is a massive black hole in its center. The influence of this configures the shape and behavior of the entire galaxy. So what is not seen, what is behind the veil, shapes what is seen. The black hole is to matter what death is to consciousness. And in the same way everything that crosses its horizon disappears from this world. A black hole is a perforation in space-time, and death is the crack towards which consciousness is directed. Just as our world exists until death, space and time exist until the limit of events of a black hole. It is the death of space-time. In both cases there is a veil.
Like the universe, we also face the same horizons.
The fractal geometry of the universe reaches everything. In our fringe, it is the scriptures that testify to us of the Lord of the kingdoms since, «and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power» (D&C 88:47). In all those new kingdoms that we discover through science, we can see God at work in His majesty and power. To renounce their «cultural colonization» by the modern pioneers of restoration would be to neglect our divine nature as explorers of their kingdoms.
Reading «any or the least of them» gives us an indication of any scale, in any fractal dimension we look at. Therefore the time of season has come, «…the light of the countenance of his lord.» (56) is for every kingdom even for those of us who believe inert. It is in those new kingdoms that put our reason to the test that we most visibly find the remote traces of divinity. When they pointed to inert matter as the first task.
The Veil in the Plan of Salvation
We do not know the laws that govern the beginning of the Universe, since they belong to a singularity. A singularity is a state of matter in which the laws of physics we know do not apply. That’s why we can’t know exactly its destiny either. We can theorize but not affirm with certainty.
Therefore, if the Universe were endowed with consciousness, it could ask itself the same questions about its origin and destiny as we do. It would have our own uncertainty. If we go on a smaller scale, on a quantum level, we also find it with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. When we want to establish the speed and position of a particle, which is its plan of probation, we have to choose between knowing one thing or another not both.
The Father’s kingdom is an oasis in the midst of a completely impersonal universe, a pearl of great price in a solitary field. To appreciate this perspective we must find the height current of restoration. Use it as far as it takes us, even if it sometimes frightens us.
In those uncertainties before the universal veil we read «…and prepare for the revelation which is to come, when the veil of the covering of my temple, in my tabernacle, which hideth the earth, shall be taken off, and all flesh shall see me together.» (D&C 101:23).
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