On July 12, we received the first images of the James Webb telescope, and they are incredible! The telescope is providing images from billions of light years away, allowing us to peer into what the universe looked like when it was just forming after the Big Bang. The reaction from the public has been overwhelming and, you might say, “spiritual.” There is something about the enormity, the beauty, the grandeur of these images that touch something deep within us. As Bill Ochs, project manager for the Webb project, told NPR, “From the day we launched, we started getting reactions from folks all over the world of how touched they were by this. We had this one lady come up to us, and she said, ‘Hey, I drove three hours to get here only to hear you guys speak. This is such great news in this world full of trouble.’ And she started crying when she was talking to us.”[1]
IS SOMEONE OUT THERE?
There is something deep within us that longs for the transcendence reflected in our glorious, enormous, beautiful universe. As philosopher Charles Taylor, says, we have the haunting sense “that there is something more…Great numbers of people feel it: in moments of reflection about their life; in moments of relaxation in nature; in moments of bereavement and loss; and quite wildly and unpredictably. Our age is very far from settling into a comfortable unbelief.”[2] One of my favorite thinkers is the late physicist, John Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne was a physicist for 25 years, teaching at Cambridge, Stanford, Berkeley, and the CERN, and then at the age of 47 entered seminary and became a reverend in the Church of England. He wrote extensively on the close connection and mutual relationship of science and theology. Polkinghorne suggests that if there is a God, one might expect that we would be given some clues to the fact of God’s existence. These clues might come in two ways. The first would be moments of history in which God somehow revealed himself in some way. All the great religions testify to this—God acts to reveal himself. And then Polkinghorne suggests a second way that God might be glimpsed: “through the character of the world God’s claimed to have made. And here science can help.”[3] Polkinghorne cautions that we mustn’t confuse science with religion, “but some sort of nudge in a religious direction seems a reasonable thing to look for if there really is a God behind the scenes of the universe.”[4] If there is a God, whatever we can grasp of him would need to be consistent with what we can discern from the reality of the universe and would also need to be consistent with who we are as humans, as “creatures” of God. You might say that God must be “real” all the way throughout reality, from those vast reaches of the cosmos down to the intricacies of this earth and into the depths of the human heart. And Polkinghorne is right: science can provide some clues.
THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD
Science provides endless clues pointing to the God beyond the universe. Renowned physicist Paul Davies goes so far to say in his book God and the New Physics, “It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion, science offers a surer path to God than religion.”[5] The 20th century’s most famous atheist, Anthony Flew, changed his mind and became a believer in God on the basis of modern science. As he stated in his book There is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind:
I now believe the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God…Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than half a century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.[6]
This shouldn’t be surprising. The ancient Hebrews proclaimed that “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19:1). The apostle Paul appealed to creation itself as evidence of God, proclaiming that “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that humans are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The universe does provide some clues to the existence, and even the nature, of God, and here are just a few remarkable discoveries and wonders of the universe in which we live:
THE UNIVERSE HAD A “BEGINNING.”
The Bible begins with this affirmation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Physicists now unanimously agree that the universe had a beginning, when matter and energy of the smallest and densest proportions exploded in what is called the “Big Bang,” and the universe is still expanding from that initial explosion. Everything in this vast universe, all the potentiality that finally has come to be, was contained within that first explosion! Physicist and Nobel prize winner Arno Penzias commented on the similarity of the Big Bang with the Genesis account: “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”[7] Or as astrophysicists Robert Jastrow famously said, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”[8]
THE UNIVERSE IS FILLED WITH “INFORMATION.”
We have known for at least a century that matter actually consists of energy. But what we are now understanding over the last decades is that matter and energy consists of information. Information fills the universe, from the farthest galaxy to the incredibly information-filled DNA structure of our bodies. As Polkinghorne writes, “the universe, in its rational beauty and transparency, looks like a world shot through with signs of mind, and maybe, it’s the ‘capital M’ Mind of God we are seeing.”[9] Or as Genesis proclaimed, God spoke the Word, and everything came into being.
THE UNIVERSE IS “FINELY-TUNED” FOR THE EXISTENCE OF HUMANS: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE.
All of this intricate organization and beauty of the universe seems to have one goal—us! Physicists have discovered that the various properties and forces of the universe, the arrangement of matter and energy at the beginning of the universe, and the complex chemistry of the universe all are extremely fine-tuned in such a way as to allow for carbon-based, human life to exist. In other words, if certain forces were ever so slightly different at infinitesimal levels, or if the sequencing of energy and matter at the beginning of the universe were in the minutest amount different, no life on our earth would exist. Scientist have described this fortuitist result the “Anthropic Principle” (from anthros, Greek for human). We live in what physicists call the “Goldilocks universe,” where fundamental forces, matter, and energy are in just the right proportions and configurations to allow us humans to exist. This was one of the most important discoveries for famed physicist and one time atheist Fred Hoyle, who conceded that there must be a “super-intellect” behind the universe, and that “there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”[10] Freeman Dyson, a colleague of Einstein, wrote, “The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”[11]
THE UNIVERSE IS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING AND ENJOYMENT
The universe is not only filled with information and intricately ordered, but we as humans also have an intelligent mind that is able to appreciate and find enjoyment in the wonder, order and beauty of it. Einstein is often quoted as saying “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is so comprehensible.” John Polkinghorne wrote, “science is privileged to explore a universe that is both rationally transparent and rationally beautiful in its deep and accessible order. It does not seem sufficient to treat this as a happy accident. Scientists frequently speak of the experience of wonder as the reward for all the weary labor involved in it.”[12] There is no intrinsic reason for this—why? The apostle Paul had an answer: “That we might feel after God and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27).
THE UNIVERSE IS MASSIVELY HUGE BEYOND COMPREHENSION.
There is one last thing we must remember about the universe, which colors everything else: our universe is massively huge beyond comprehension. The universe contains over 200 billion galaxies! I’m talking galaxies! Each galaxy contains on average about 200 billion stars each, and most of those stars are larger than our sun. That means the universe contains approximately 40 billion trillion stars! Can you imagine that? You can’t! We simply can’t wrap our minds around that, and here is where science stops and can’t tell us much more. If there is a Creator behind this vast universe, he would of necessity have to be a bit bigger than our universe. Can you imagine? We can’t! God is inconceivable! And that is why science can only take us so far. Science can provide evidence for the existence of God, and as Polkinghorne argues, there is a very solid reasonable basis in science for the existence of a Creator God. But science can only go so far to answering the one question we all want to know: What is God like?
MESSAGES IN THE STARS AND IN OUR HEARTS
We could only really know anything about God if he were the one to initiate the contact, if he were to disclose himself in some way. The invitation would have to come from him. Not only would the contact need to come from him, but we also can’t know this “bigger than the universe” God in any “immediate” sort of way, as if we were on the same level as God. So how in the world could he reveal himself in a way that we could possibly catch any glimpse of him? As an early Christian said, “No one is able to know God unless taught by God. God cannot be known without the help of God.”
The ancient Hebrews had two different names for GOD, and these names are contrasted in Psalm 19. The first name is the word El, which is used to refer to God in a general sort of way, as the Creator of all those galaxies. As Psalms 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of El.” But that is only God from a distance, God writing messages in the stars. The other name is unique, personal, and intimate. It describes God speaking to us, wanting to write messages in our hearts. It is the four Hebrew letters “YHWH” (which scholars transliterate as Yahweh), which means “I AM” or better yet, “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” It is the name God disclosed to Moses at the burning bush, the personal name of God has he used to initiate and reveal himself to humanity as the God who is profoundly interested in every detail of every human’s life. Psalms 19 starts off with the heavens declaring the glory of El, but then contrasts that with the intimacy of Yahweh, who speaks to humanity, bringing joy, delight, security and wisdom: “The Torah (or Word) of Yahweh is perfect, reviving the soul…bringing joy to the heart…making wise the simple…giving insight for life” (Ps. 19:7,8).
The name “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE” reveals what God is really like, as he is “with” humans, revealing himself, journeying with us. Yahweh invites us to relationship and trust, and I think the best way to describe this dynamic, mysterious, beautiful name is God speaking into our hearts and saying:
You will come to know me as you let me know you, as you trust me to act in your life for your own good, as I journey with you and as we love each other.
The writer Frederick Buechner imagines that if God were to prove himself by writing a message in the stars that says, “I EXIST!,” that would be exciting and thrilling and might prove to most people that God exists. But after a while, if there was nothing more, we would start to ask “So what? What difference does that make?” As Buechner writes,
For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the word. It is not objective proof of God we want, but the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle that we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.[13]
[1] Shapiro, Ari (2022, January 17). There are 344 ways the Webb telescope could fail after launch—it still succeeded. [Radio broadcast]. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/17/1111714756/james-webb-telescope-big-bang-galaxy-image-interview-project-manager-bill-ochs
[2] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 727.
[3] John Polkinghorne, Quarks, Chaos & Christianity (New York: Crossroads, 2005), 32.
[4] Id.
[5] Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (1992), quoted in Polkinghorne, Quarks, Chaos, 47.
[6] Anthony Flew, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 88-89.
[7] Arno Penzias, quoted in Stephen C. Meyer, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe (New York: Harper One, 2021), 243.
[8] Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, 116.
[9] Polkinghorne, Quarks, Chaos, 36.
[10] Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections,” Engineering and Science, November, 1981.
[11] F.J. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper & Roe, 1979), 256.
[12] John Polkinghorne, Science and The Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 12-13.
[13] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 18, 19.