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The reason for this is simple: When Matter was created, so wasTime. All angels began to exist not only in heavenly perfection withGod but to witness and be drawn into Time.
"Now we can step out of it, and I can to some extent recall whenthere was no lure of Matter or Time; but I can't really tell you whatthat early stage was like anymore. Matter and Time changedeverything totally. They obliterated not only the pure state that precededthem, they upstaged it; they overshadowed it; they, how shall Isay... ?""Eclipsed it.""Exactly. Matter and Time eclipsed the Time before Time.""But can you remember being happy?""Interesting question. Dare I say this?" he asked himself as hecontinued to speculate. "Dare I say, I remember the longing, theincompleteness, more than I remember complete happiness? Dare I saythere was less to understand?
"You cannot underestimate the effect upon us of the creation ofthe physical universe. Think for one moment, if you can, what Timemeans, and how miserable you might be without it. No, that's notright. What I mean is, without Time you could not be conscious ofyourself, either in terms of failure or achievement, or in terms of anymotion backwards or forwards, or any effect.""I see it. Rather like the old people who've lost so much intelligencethat they have no memory moment to moment. They'revegetative, wide-eyed, but they are no longer human with the rest ofthe race because they have no sense of anything . . . themselves oranyone else.""A perfect analogy. Though let me assure you such aged andwounded individuals still have souls, which will at some point ceaseto be dependent upon their crippled brains.""Souls!" I said.
We walked slowly but steadily, and I tried not to be distracted bythe greenery, and the flowers; but I have always been seduced byflowers; and here I saw flowers of a size which our world would surelyfind impractical and impossible to support. Yet these were species oftrees I knew. This was the world as it had once been.
"Yes, you're correct on that. Can you feel the warmth aroundyou? This is a time of lovely evolutionary development on the planet.
When men speak of Eden or Paradise, they 'remember' this time.""The Ice Age is yet to come.""The second Ice Age is coming. Definitely. And then the worldwill renew itself, and Eden will come again. All through the Ice Age,men and women will develop. But realize of course that even by thispoint, life as we know it had existed for millions of years!"I stopped. I put my hands to my face. I tried to think it throughagain. (If you want to do this, just reread the last two pages.)"But He knew what Matter was!" I said.
"No, I'm not sure He did," said Memnoch. "He took that seed,that egg, that essence and He cast it in a form which became Matter!
But I don't know how truly He foresaw what that would mean. Yousee, that's our big dispute. I don't think He sees the consequences ofHis actions! I don't think He pays attention! That's what the bigfight is about!""So He created Matter perhaps by discovering what it was as Hedid it.""Yes, Matter and energy, which are interchangeable as you know,yes, He created them, and I suspect that the key to Him lies withinthe word 'energy,' that if human anatomy ever reaches the pointwhere angels and God can be satisfactorily explained in humanlanguage, energy will be the key.""So He was energy," I said, "and in making the universe, Hecaused some of that energy to be changed into Matter.""Yes, and to create a circular interchange independent of himself.
But of course nobody said all this to us at the beginning. He didn'tsay it. I don't think He knew it. We certainly didn't know it. All weknew was that we were dazzled by His creations. We were absolutelyastonished by the feel and taste and heat and solidity and gravitationalpull of Matter in its battle with energy. We knew only what wesaw.""Ah, and you saw the universe unfolding. You saw the Big Bang.""Use that term with skepticism. Yes, we saw the universe comeinto existence; we saw everything set into motion, as it were. And wewere overawed! That's why almost every early religion on earthcelebrates the majesty, the grandeur, the greatness and genius of theCreator; why the earliest anthems ever put into words on Earth sing theglories of God. We were impressed, just as humans later would cometo be impressed, and in our angelic minds, God was Almighty andWondrous and Beyond Comprehension before man came into being.
"But let me remind you, especially as we walk through this magnificentgarden, that we witnessed millions of explosions and chemicaltransformations, upheavals, all of which involved nonorganicmolecules before 'life' as we call it ever came to exist.""The mountain ranges were here.""Yes.""And the rains?""Torrents upon torrents of rain.""Volcanos erupted.""Continuously. You can't conceive of how enthralled we were.
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