In the Beginning was Information

– Man did not develop through a chance process of evolution, buthe was formed by a personal Creator.– Contrary to all statements to this effect, man did not descendfrom some animal; he was created separately.– One single man was created originally.– Man does not consist of matter only, but he received a vital nonmaterialcomponent, a spirit, through God’s breath.– He became a living being through the union of the material andthe nonmaterial parts.The saying “Truth does not require many words, but a lie cannotuse enough words”, now becomes meaningful. In spite of itssemantic fullness, the verse quoted above requires amazingly fewcode symbols. No other description of man’s origin is so true andat the same time formulated so concisely. We may deduce thatwhat we have here represents the highest possible semantic informationdensity. Other passages in the Bible also exhibit superlativesemantic densities (e. g. John 3:16 contains all the information necessaryfor man’s salvation).2. The pragmatic density of information: This can be measuredin terms of the effect E produced by input I prompted by sometransmitted information. It usually requires extremely strenuousefforts to be accorded one single line entry in the “Guinness Bookof Records” [G13], for example. This kind of “fame” is veryshort-lived, since the record for eating fried sausages for example,96 pieces in 4 minutes and 29 seconds [G13], may soon be broken.Many human deeds only served selfish honour, and have longsince been forgotten and become meaningless. The Bible directsour thoughts in an entirely different direction. Everything we do inthe name of Jesus (Colossians 3:17), is eternally meaningful(Matthew 10:42). Even a cup of cold water given to “a little one”,will be rewarded (Matthew 10:42). Where on earth will you getsuch a stupendous reward for such a simple deed? Such results areonly found in the Bible. Paul compares the acts of a Christianworking in the name of Jesus, with an athlete. Athletes competefor “a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that willlast for ever” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). We thus have anothersuperlative, namely the highest possible pragmatic informationdensity.156