“ In the beginning … “ Genesis 1:1
I am not a science person. The last time I took a course in science or math was in Grade 13 in 1977. I never failed a course in the sciences but I came very close a few times. In university, I took only arts courses, with the one Psychology course in first year, but that I do not think qualifies as a pure science course.
But, in my work as a pastor, one the questions that I am asked is about the beginning of the world. Did God create the world in six days or did it happen in another way ? The question often comes in the form of science versus faith . So, I have developed an interest in the physics or the science of the universe.
I have read Stephen Hawking ( British physicist ) and Neil Turok, of the Perimeter Institute here in Waterloo. The Perimeter Institute is one of the world leading institutions on trying to figure out how the world works at the micro and macro level. These two writers try to explain quantum physics, and I do not get it at all. They says it will be life-altering, but I do not see it, but then, I am not a science guy. I believe that physicists are trying to find to find out an equation for the world and how it works.
These physicists are trying to determine how the universe started. They have it back to a few seconds after the “ Big Bang “, but they have not figured it all out yet. So, for Christmas , the celebration of the birth of Jesus ( God’s Son ), I read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. I found it a humble book. Tyson says many things we do not know about the universe, including dark matter and dark energy . Isaac Newton discovered the existence of gravity, and Einstein developed the theory of relativity ( E=mc squared ). Tyson says the world of science is waiting for the next big equation or theory or discovery , to make more sense of the world. Who knows, we might find God at the end of the equation ?
But the most amazing thing that I read in the book is about how big the universe is. Waterloo has a little over 500,000 people. I know the number, but it is so many people. Tyson says ( on page 88 ) that the Sun is one of hundreds billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. This statistics are mind numbing. I only really see one star, the Sun, and that star is about 150 million kms from my house here on Ernst St. in Elmira. For me, there no way of comprehending the size of the universe.
And then for me to try to understand God in this place is also humbling. How could I ever know true mind of God in such a big place ? I believe God created the universe, but I do not know how God did it. The story in Genesis a poetic attempt to say how the world came into being, from a faith perspective. One hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone !!! It is amazing, and it deepens my faith even if I do not understand it, and cannot comprehend it. Faith in God, for me, is about something I cannot see or comprehend. I cannot wait for the next great scientific discovery to deepen my faith.
Ponder Anew 