Am I Becoming More Real or Fading Away?
The Choice Between Light and Entropy
The Choice Between Everlasting Light and Everlasting Entropy
"At that time Michael, the archangel who stands guard over your nation, will arise… Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace. Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever." (Daniel 12:1-3)
Light does not die. Every photon ever created still moves through the cosmos, untouched by time.
So does something else.
In Daniel 12, the angel Gabriel describes a time when two kinds of everlasting people will rise—those who shine with wisdom and those who fall into everlasting contempt. This is not poetic language. It is a description of metaphysical reality.
We exist in a world that is both physical and metaphysical—a reality that is more than what our eyes can see. The Christian view of eternity is not an abstraction; it is the foundation of existence itself. Eternity is not just a future hope—it is woven into the fabric of reality.
Did Plato See the Same Light as Daniel?
Daniel’s vision speaks of those who “shine like the stars.” Simile, yes—but also a deeper truth about divine wisdom and its radiance.
Consider Moses—his face burned with divine kavod (glory) after encountering God. This kavod was weighty, dense—a divine density. And then, the Light entered history itself.
C.S. Lewis called it transposition—the higher entering the lower. The Incarnation was the great transposition of divine radiance into flesh. Jesus did not simply bring light. He was the Light.
Plato, long before Christ, also envisioned an eternal reality. He described a realm of Forms—unchanging, weightless, perfect. In Timaeus, he saw the material world as a mere reflection of an eternal blueprint. In Phaedrus, he spoke of the soul glimpsing eternal truth before birth, then spending life trying to recollect it.
For Plato, wisdom meant ascending to the eternal, escaping the transient world.
But Daniel’s vision speaks of something descending—eternity entering time. The everlasting is not just something to reach for; it reaches us. And when it does, it transforms.
Why Light Never Dies: The Science Behind the Eternal
Imagine a world with no light. Not just without the sun, moon, or stars—but without light itself.
Light is paradoxical. It has no mass, yet it shapes reality. A photon never decays—it exists forever unless absorbed.
Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclical Cosmology (CCC) suggests the universe undergoes infinite cycles or “aeons.” Over time, all matter decays, leaving only massless particles like photons. In this vision, the universe becomes pure light—until it collapses into another Big Bang, and the cycle begins again.
Yet, for all his theorizing, Penrose cannot explain one fundamental mystery: Why does something as infinite as light exist at all?
Science offers no answer to this paradox. But Daniel’s vision does.
Divine wisdom is light that does not fade. As light remains while matter falls into entropy, so too does wisdom transcend decay.
What happens to those who embrace divine wisdom? Do they, too, become unbound by time? Everlasting?
And what if we reject the Light? Do we enter into everlasting entropy—dissolution, loss of density, eternal contempt?
Jesus, Light, and the Physics of Glory
Jesus did not bring light—he was the Light.
“I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” (John 8:12)
The Incarnation is the ultimate paradox: the infinite Light bending into finite form.
Think of light’s infinite nature—massless, unbound by time. Now think of the Light of the World stepping into a world of decay. The divine kavod—the weight of God's glory—wrapped in flesh.
This is the confrontation: the weight of light versus the entropy of decay. The universe itself hints at the choice we must make.
Light or Entropy: The Choice Before Us
Daniel’s vision presents us with two paths:
To shine forever—to bear divine wisdom, to take on weight, to become luminous.
To fade—to collapse into disorder, to dissolve into nothingness.
Every day, we make this choice. Do we move toward the weight of glory, or do we become weightless?
Etched in Gabriel’s words is a promise—light is the inheritance of the faithful.
To shine forever is not an escape into a Platonic ideal. It is the endurance of real substantial transformation. The weight of light is a refining fire, not an easy ascent. To fade is not to cease existing—it is to lose all density, to be carried away by the entropy of meaninglessness.
We stand at the threshold. The eternal does not remain distant; it reaches for us. Light bends low, calling us not merely to look upward but to embrace its radiance.
The question is not whether eternity exists. The question is whether we will bear its weight.
✨ Please leave a comment below and share how the Light of God’s love has shaped you and encourages you daily.
✨ Welcome to all new subscribers! If you’re new to my writing, a great place to start is my book, The Beauty Chasers: Recapturing the Wonder of the Divine. I’m so glad and humbled you’re here. Thanks for entrusting your inbox to my writing.
🙏 Wishing everyone a wonderful, Light-filled week!
Cheers,
Tim
Hey Tim, I’m new here. I just finished reading (and absolutely loving) “Beauty Chasers” and can’t wait to read more of your writing. Especially this new book! 🤯🤯🤯
Three things come to mind when talking about God’s light in my life.
1. I have always absolutely adored sunlight. I struggle deeply on cloudy days with depression (so thankful to live in Arizona where those are rare!) and Jesus’ voice has always felt like sunshine in my soul.
2. In the last few months, I have discovered classic poetry (everything from Chaucer to Elizabeth Bishop) for the first time (my homeschooling was utterly lacking when it came to literature) and the first time I heard Wordsworth (from The Prelude) it felt like sunlight on my soul. I have been chasing this sunlight every single day since. I can’t get enough!
3. My family and I are in the final stages of building (with our own hands) our house. We’ve been living in RVs for the last 3 years pouring our blood, sweat (oh! so! much! sweat!!!) and tears into this project. And of all the things I love watching come to shape before my eyes, my favorite thing has been discovering how the light plays out in each room, corner and angle. It’s something I hadn’t considered in the process of all the dreaming of the last 4 years, and it is wildly beautiful!
Tim, your words are an encouragement and a kind of harmonizing for me. Lately I have been considering the light as it enters my home in the morning and the light of the afternoon and sunsets in the evenings. The beauty and the glory of it. I think about God’s faithfulness seen in the regularity of His light. And the Light. Thank you for your words so well crafted.