Start by considering the notion that God can program beings and things into existence. As that thought spreads throughout our mind, it cleanses. It leads to the idea that “God programmed angels as sub-programmers to put the world in place.”
Suddenly, what many see as a “twenty billion year old earth” is, instead, seen as the product of a rapidly written program downloaded a few thousand years ago.
We see that all the layers of rock, seams of coal, and pools of oil were all programmed in place for a simple reason. The complicated universe gave us free will.
If we have used our free will to progress to the point that we see God as Programmer, (in Aquinian terms, The Unprogrammed Programmer), and are exploring some aspect of Catholic Fundamentalism, then we have arrived upon the fringes of the Company of the Saints. We have gotten to one of the high places from which salvation is not just possible, but dimly visible.
A few seconds after we realize that God can program particles, all the miracles there ever were make sense. Then, we are overwhelmed by The Programmer’s power. If The Programmer just changes a tiny bit of code, any one of us is suddenly healthy, sick, alive, dead, rich, poor, jobless, employed, orphaned, widowed, happy, or sad. We know how easy it is to flick a finger.
It is frighteningly easy for The Programmer to make immense changes in our lives. “Turn then, Most Gracious Advocate, Thine eyes of mercy toward us”, is a prayer in which we ask the Mother of God to intercede for us, knowing that her power with God can persuade Him to change things with only the merest glance.
That is why the Operating Instructions, passed on to us in the form of Holy Scripture, inform us that “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” Increasing our awareness of His ability to program in many dimensions makes us especially fearful of offending Him, the Programmer of Programmers.
