When I Consider The Heavens (Part 3)

  

Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base,

and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out;

at my word they take up their places.

Isaiah 48:13

No Understanding Of This World

Carl Sagan once mused, “We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world we live in. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend.”

How does the evidence of God’s existence measure up to the evidence presented against it? Many people who believe in God’s existence feel compelled to defend their point of view sometimes in very irrational ways. They hurt their cause by doing so. In like manner, many who believe there is no God refuse to give the evidence of His existence a fair hearing.  In both cases, shallow prejudice is the real enemy.

Order In Our Universe

Researchers in astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, physics, and other major disciplines debate over the complexity and orderliness they find at every level throughout the universe.  

Paul Davies, summarises the growing findings of scientists from all these many fields and has this to say:  “A long list of additional ‘lucky accidents’ and ‘coincidences’ has been compiled. Taken together, they provide impressive evidence that life as we know it depends very sensitively on the form of the law of physics, and on some seemingly fortuitous accidents in the actual values that nature has chosen. Suffice it to say that, if we could play God, and select values for these quantities at whim by twiddling a set of knobs, we would find that almost all knob settings would render the universe uninhabitable. In some cases it seems as if the different knobs have to be fine-tuned to enormous precision if the universe is to be such that life will flourish.” 

Mind of A Divine Creator

Astonishingly, precise physical laws govern the universe. Everywhere we look we find evidence of a universe and of a world that gives the appearance of intricate design down to the tiniest details.  Yet, given all undeniable proofs science has discovered up to this day, many still are rooted in an unsubstantiated belief that the incredible universe, including the world around us teeming with an intricate variety of life, is the result of blind, random chance. In my humble opinion, the intellectual beauty of order discovered by science is consistent with the physical world’s having behind it the mind of a Divine Creator. For myself, it is difficult to draw a contrary conclusion. 

The writers of the Bible recognised too in the creation much evidence of a great, all-wise Creator. Consider: whether we are moved by the power of the sea, the grandeur of a mountain range, the delicate beauty of the first flowers of Spring or the miracle of conception and birth, as we look around or above us we cannot but naturally conclude – this is the handiwork of something unimaginably greater than us.  And, if what the rest of the Bible tells us is also true, then what that reveals to me is that we all must be cognizant of our own actions and ideas as transient travelers on this earth.

Consequences of Our Ideas And Actions

Nothing has a more direct impact on our moral choices than whether we believe in God. If God exists, our lives have an eternal significance because then our hope is not in the finality of death, but eternal life. If God truly exists, we then have a standard of absolute right and wrong because this resides in the very nature of God Himself. This makes our moral choices, profoundly significant.

The moral choices that we make determine the outcome of our lives, the societies we belong to and the world we live in. It is our attitude and conduct towards others that are determined largely by our belief (or lack of belief) in God. If our standards and choices are determined by what seems best for us, by what gives us personal satisfaction and pleasure only, then it provides no rational justification for living a whole, completely satisfying and morally driven life.

And yes, people can just as easily fathom some meaning in life if they define meaning as a sense of temporary happiness, enjoying life just for the moment. But that feeling of self-importance devalues the priceless privilege of becoming the only creation of God in the universe that has, an ultimate purpose. It reduces our existence to just being one of the many species of animals that abound.  Therefore, we can choose to live a meaningless life or a life with purpose.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you,

that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing;

therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.”

Deuteronomy 30:19

The Road To Perdition

The Bible relates to us that Adam and Eve made a fateful decision to reject God’s revelation and rely on their own reason to determine right and wrong. Because of free will, God has allowed Mankind to reject His revealed knowledge. He has given us knowledge to formulate our own philosophies about the origin and meaning of life and to experiment with ways of life, governments and institutions through which we hope to find lasting peace and contentment. 

Sadly, It has been an experiment that has failed to give us, Adam and Eve’s descendants all, what we are longing and searching for. History is littered with bloodshed, oppression, recessions, poverty, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, uncertainty, fear, shattered hopes and even now, global warming. Given this dismal record, Mankind’s experiment will likely continue to fail again and again even until the very end of this Age. It seems that we are heading down the road to perdition.

A Purpose For Mankind

The simple truth of the matter is that God isn’t trying to convert this world to His way of life now. He is permitting the human experience to play itself out to its logical, inevitable con-clusion. 

Only by understanding God’s revealed know-ledge can we find abundant life and bounteous blessings – the real reason, I believe, why He created us in the first place and the path to which Mankind can fulfill the singular purpose in His creation.

God does have a purpose for Mankind, but few grasp what it is. We can understand that purpose only if we seek answers. You will find that only from the very source who created everything around us, In doing so, I believe choosing the path to life will be one much easier to make.

I close these considerations for you to ponder upon with another quote, this from Mother Theresa, who once said: “If we cannot love the person whom we see, how can we love God whom we cannot see?”

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