see more Hubble images<\/span><\/a>)<\/div>\nLet us toss a pinch of cosmic pixie dust this week to the Hubble Telescope, the latest toy \u2013 a term I use with deep, proper, appropriate reverence \u2013 that allows us to view the universe more clearly. To appreciate creation better. To renew our sense of awe. To understand God more fully? <\/p>\n
Not really, no. The stunning images of the universe we have received for 25 years allow us to see God\u2019s handiwork in ways that scientists throughout history could never dream, and dreamers could never explain. At best \u2013 which is very good \u2013 the images we are graced to receive from Hubble\u2019s penetrating gaze remind us of a God who is all-powerful, bigger than our biggest thoughts, and audacious to a degree we cannot comprehend. But\u2026 we don\u2019t automatically understand Him better. I \u201cunderstand\u201d Him less, in fact, not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.<\/p>\n
In sixth grade, the father of my friend Eric Wells took a group of neighborhood kids to New York\u2019s City\u2019s Hayden Planetarium for Eric\u2019s birthday. We beheld, there, that era\u2019s best representation of the infinite heavens, the projection of an enhanced night sky on the planetarium\u2019s interior dome. Under thousands and thousands of virtual stars and planets, I leaned over to Mr Wells and said, \u201cIt makes one feel rather insignificant, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d I later heard that the remark impressed him, but I was either swiping a Peanuts gag, or simulating one. (I was destined for a life in comics. More than a life in astrophysics. Believe me.)<\/p>\n
These images do, however, make us feel insignificant. Even if we are on the \u201cinside track,\u201d knowing God, satisfied with the mystery of creation and God\u2019s ways \u2013 that is, not having to know every detail of matters that are wholly God\u2019s domain \u2013 and grateful to be part of His plan. Even then, as King\u2019s kids and co-heirs with Christ, we are still awestruck by the majesty and mystery of Creation.<\/p>\n
Are we Luddites, living in happy ignorance and distrustful of knowledge? Of course not. It is an exciting time in history, to look heavenward, as did Adam and Eve, or the Neanderthals Ug and Glug did, or as the impressionable wise men in Egypt and Greece and Phoenicia, or as did uncountable poets and philosophers and lovers, and ask \u201cWhat is there? What more is there? Do we see what we think we see?\u201d For the first time in history, humans nudge a little closer to seeing, almost feeling, the reality of unknown worlds.<\/p>\n
Like the first Enlightenment thinkers, we appreciate science for opening paths to God. (This is contrary to what our schools teach about the Age of Reason, ostensibly when science \u201cliberated\u201d itself from superstitious religion.) Science should not make us greater skeptics: it should bring us closer to an appreciation of God\u2019s greatness; better to behold His handiwork; to advance civilization by rational incorporation of spiritual inspirations. Newton saw things that way. As did Bach. Their main goals were to explain and glorify God by the scientific tools they employed.<\/p>\n
Other questions, like How did the universe start, and When did it begin, almost seem like setting off stink bombs at a debutante\u2019s ball. The questions are real\u2026 but ultimately more silly than profound. The \u201cBig Bang,\u201d only recently a rock-solid explanation of creation, is now undergoing a sort of scientific recall. Second thoughts. New facts. Matter and anti-matter, once the property of science-fiction writers, has now been appropriated by PhDs and professors. Good for them. Carbon-dating, for instance on the Shroud of Turin, is now being reassessed too.<\/p>\n
I have always thought that the more detailed the explanations were of the Big Bang, the more they simply sounded like mumbo-jumbo restatements of the Book of Genesis anyway. All the saints and sages who have discussed of the universe\u2019s origins inevitably are stymied. The universe started\u2026 when? And what was it the moment beforehand? Creation started as an atomic particle exploding? What surrounded it before the explosion; who caused the explosion? The universe is expanding? Into what? How far? What is beyond that? Who started all this? If \u201cnobody,\u201d then\u2026<\/p>\n
When your head stops hurting, you will affirm that unanswerable questions do not prove the existence of God by themselves, but abstract skepticism \u2013 ultimately, rebellion \u2013 surely does not disprove God\u2019s existence. I\u2019ll take Awe. I don\u2019t often quote Matthew Harrison Brady, who inherited the wind, but I am persuaded to be more concerned with the Rock of Ages than the Ages of Rocks. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He that sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are as grasshoppers; Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in: Who brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth as nothing. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and He shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for He is strong in power; not one is missing\u201d (Isaiah 40: 21-26).<\/p>\n
It pleased the Creator God to fill this mysterious void with billions of galaxies, colorful, ever-changing, intriguing. It pleased Him to create a species of beings in His image, and fill our world with wondrous animals and plants and mountains and seas. It pleased Him to embrace us with love, and provide a means of salvation so that, wherever and however, we will spend eternity with Him. And it pleases us that He ordained science, which confirms His greatness and omnipotence, more and more frequently. Thank you, Hubble. Happy birthday!<\/p>\n
+ + +<\/p>\n
Click: Adagio by Tomaso Albinoni<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5-4-15 Hubble deep space (see more Hubble images) Let us toss a pinch of cosmic pixie dust this week to the Hubble Telescope, the latest toy \u2013 a term I use with deep, proper, appropriate reverence \u2013 that allows us to view the universe more clearly. To appreciate creation better. To renew our sense of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[62,53,10],"tags":[1795,1792,1790,88,965,1788,1791,1787,1793,1349,207,1789,1794],"class_list":["post-3072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplation","category-faith","category-life","tag-albinoni","tag-big-bang","tag-charles-schulz","tag-creation","tag-creationism","tag-eric-wells","tag-hayden-planetarium","tag-hubble-telescope","tag-inherit-the-wind","tag-isaac-newton","tag-johann-sebastian-bach","tag-peanuts","tag-william-jennings-bryan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1bRYz-Ny","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3072"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3087,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mondayministry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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