Is Love the Foundation of reality?

What if Love is the foundation of reality?

We normally tell the story of existence like this:

Matter came first. Eventually matter formed stars and planets.

On at least one planet, matter became life. Life developed brains.

And somehow brains became conscious.

But there is still an unanswered question:

Why should matter ever become conscious at all?

What if we have the story partly backwards?

What if consciousness isn't simply something that appeared very late in the universe?

What if consciousness belongs much nearer the beginning of the story?

That is the possibility I want to explore in these posts.

Not as something science has proved.

But as a question worth asking.

For centuries we have tended to picture the universe as a collection of things.

Particles. Atoms. Stars. Planets. People.

But modern physics has increasingly forced us to think about relationships and interactions between things.

Relational Quantum Mechanics, for example, asks us to understand physical properties in relation to other physical systems rather than treating every property as something an object possesses completely independently.

It doesn't say that God exists.

It doesn't say the universe is conscious.

And it certainly doesn't prove that reality is Love.

But it raises a fascinating question:

What if relationship is more fundamental to reality than we have imagined?

Christianity makes an extraordinary claim about the ultimate reality behind everything:

“God is love.” - 1 John 4:8

What happens if we take those three words seriously?

We often hear this as a statement about God's character:

God is loving.

But John says something stronger.

God is Love.

Suppose God is the fundamental reality from which everything comes.

And suppose the fundamental nature of God really is Love.

Then Love didn't appear for the first time when human beings evolved.

Love was there before humanity.

Before life.

Before Earth.

Before the stars.

Perhaps Love belongs at the very foundation of reality itself.

And Love immediately implies something else:

Relationship.

Love cannot be understood without relationship.

So perhaps relationship isn't something that accidentally emerged from a universe of isolated matter.

Perhaps relationship was there from the beginning.

To be continued.