Nurture And Protect
"It is I who made
the earth and created humankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshalled their starry hosts" (Isaiah 45:12).
Over the past few months I've encountered some great science
commentary. There are always new things being written and discovered which
point ever more clearly to their being an intelligent and benign Designer and
Creator of everything from the tiniest sub-atomic particle through every cell
and life form, to our Solar System and Milky Way Galaxy and the entire
Universe. I did only high school science so have to work hard to be clear on
some of the more complex subjects, and trust that I can express that clarity
here ..
Science is so very good at explaining many things the Bible
mentions only briefly. It seems that planet Earth was created just as it is and just where it is expressly because it was to be home for us humans, all
of us, who are made in God's image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). The way we are
made requires that we have light, air, fire and water, and an abundance of
food, and weather and seasons to grow the food. God Himself is a family, and,
so that we can truly be in His image, he gave us to be marriageable and able to
have babies "So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created
them, and God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the
earth'" (Genesis 1:27-28).
These verses are seen by some as a license for humankind to dominate and exploit our planet, and take anything we want from it. I do not agree with this. As God created over the six days He stated that everything He made was "good" (Genesis 1:10). As we serve God and love Him we will also honour the "good" of our environment and nurture and protect it. In Genesis 2:15 God put Adam into a magnificent garden "to work it and take care of it". Adam was given Eve as "a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). We, like Adam and Eve, are to participate with God in His sustaining work of the "good" creation. We are to be stewards and serve our planet as we serve our God.
These verses are seen by some as a license for humankind to dominate and exploit our planet, and take anything we want from it. I do not agree with this. As God created over the six days He stated that everything He made was "good" (Genesis 1:10). As we serve God and love Him we will also honour the "good" of our environment and nurture and protect it. In Genesis 2:15 God put Adam into a magnificent garden "to work it and take care of it". Adam was given Eve as "a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). We, like Adam and Eve, are to participate with God in His sustaining work of the "good" creation. We are to be stewards and serve our planet as we serve our God.
Seasons
Our lovely blue planet doesn't just sit still, but rotates
on its axis to give us days and nights, for work and living and for rest and
sleep. It also rotates around the Sun and this gives us seasons and years; the
seasons mainly come from the tilt of Earth on its axis and the varying distance
of Earth from our Sun. I find all this really exciting, awesome. It perfectly
fits what we find beautiful in our environment and in life.
Our Sun
It turns out that our Sun has great characteristics all its
own, it is not any ordinary star. All stars emit flares,
huge bursts of very hot fire rising from their surface; the Sun emits only
moderate flares so we are never all burned up with all our water evaporated
into the clouds. If the Sun were one of the hot stars it would emit too much
ultraviolet radiation, that is the kind that gives us sunburn, but not just us,
the cows and lions and other animals would also not be able to survive greater
ultraviolet. Cooler stars emit more infrared heat and wouldn't work for us
either.
The Sun is the perfect star for
planet Earth in another way. As we humans go about our lives the Sun's
ultraviolet light causes our skin to generate vitamin D (which is really more
of a hormone than a vitamin), this can also come from our diet but for most
people 90% to 95% of our vitamin D comes from the Sun. It used to be thought
that vitamin D was just for our bones but research over the past 50 years or so
shows that it also plays very big rôle in our whole musculoskeletal system, our
heart health, our fertility, our brain health and emotional balance and
wellbeing, our immune system, our ability to prevent or fight infectious
diseases, cancers and type 2 diabetes, and
fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, and much else besides. So we need that perfect Sun for life and
health. Thank you Jesus!
The estimates that our Sun is billions of years old are now
in doubt. What we see of the Sun is the result of nuclear fission, if this
process was billions of years old the Sun would have been substantially cooler
billions of years ago, perhaps 30%, so would not have supported life, even the
primitive forms that those who believe in evolution of the species talk about.
Our Sun is just right, perfect for us and for life.
"He determines
the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names" (Psalm
147:4).
"Praise him, sun
and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!" (Psalm 148:4).
The location of our Solar System is also perfect for us. We
are located in the nicely stable Milky Way Galaxy, not near its core where
intense radiation would prohibit life, and not near its edge where half our
night sky would be empty of stars and other objects thus making it hard to
navigate and investigate the Universe.
It's fun watching movie heroes jump into Saturn rockets and
zoom off into space to intercept and blow up asteroids which would soon collide
with Earth causing great destruction. But you needn't worry that these guys are
all getting old now; it's most unlikely that they'll ever be needed. Four of the Solar system planets are many times the
size of Earth and, as they sweep through the Heavens on their own orbits, their
greater gravities also sweep up the bigger bits of space junk which may have
been a risk to us. Earth's geography shows that we probably have had some
massive crashes in the distant past but it is likely that Jesus will return
before the next big one ..
Dark Mysteries
While figuring out gravity and the Universe, scientists
found questions without answers and have proposed that Dark Matter and Dark
Energy offer hypothetical (theoretical) answers.
Dark Matter, (if it indeed exists), doesn't interact with light so cannot
be seen, but it seems to exert a gravitational pull on everything else and may
make up 22% of the Universe's mass/energy total.
Dark Energy may be the unexplained force which appears to be driving
galaxies away from each other against the pull of gravity, and is estimated to
represent a huge 74% of the mass/energy total. This leaves only 4% of the total
mass/energy that can be seen, as galaxies, nebulae, stars and planets! Great
mysteries here.
Perhaps we'll discover that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are
manifestations of God's presence and continuing authority over the Universe. God is omnipresent, everywhere, all the time (1 Kings 8:27). We know that He
created "all things", and
He sustains "all things" ..
His loving interest and influence continues:
"This is what the
Lord says - your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: 'I am the Lord, the
Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth
by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense'"
(Isaiah 44:24).
"'Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?' declares the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:24).
"For in [Jesus]
all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been
created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things
hold together" (Colossians 1:16).
Because we know that God created everything, it is clear that He also created the laws of science
and engineering; of physics, chemistry, biology and thermodynamics, or
"heat power", and many others. The First Law of Thermodynamics, known
as the Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy cannot be created or
destroyed in an isolated system, for example, the Universe. The Second Law
states that the entropy, (or the percentage of un-usable energy within an isolated
system), always increases. And the Third Law states that the entropy of a
system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero,
which it is bound to do, (at absolute zero, or 0° Kelvin, atoms would stop
moving, nothing would work, indeed, everything would collapse, every atom).
The inference of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics is big. The Universe is constantly losing usable energy and
never gaining it back. We therefore can logically conclude that the Universe has to have had a beginning. Like a
wind-up clock, the Universe is winding down. The obvious question: who built
and wound up the clock?
NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow addressed this question,
"Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the Universe had
a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. It turns out that the
scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict
with the evidence", (see Note 4).
Quantum Physics
Quantum physicists are discovering more and more about the
very nature of matter and energy, and seem now to agree that everything in the Universe is a part of
one great undivided Whole which is in a continuous state of dynamic flux; the
whole Universe can be viewed as a gigantic field of energy where matter is
simply a "slowed down" and compacted form of energy.
Scientists also have confidence in a theory called "The
Observer Effect" which says that the existence of an observer is fundamental to the existence of the
Universe. This means that the Universe is a product of consciousness; and we can see that this consciousness is
God as we know Him (Genesis 1 and 2, and John 1) through both Scripture and life!
These understandings help clarify my thinking about the six days of Creation. The Sun and Moon and the stars were spoken into being on the fourth day; before that Jesus was all the light the Universe needed (John 1:1-4, Genesis 1:3). And in the new Heaven and the new Earth, Jesus will again be the light (Revelation 21:23-24). The Psalmist says that God reached out His hand and put each star into place, and that He knows all their names (Psalm 8:3, 104:19, 147:4).
Did God simply convert some of His energy into the forms of energy and matter necessary to make
the space objects and the World? On the third and later days whole ecosystems
were created, clearly they were in full working form; there would have to be
soil containing all the bacteria and bugs that soil needs to even be soil, and humus from rotted
vegetation, and trace elements, moisture and warmth. Some of the plants would
need to be dead and being eaten by termites and grubs so that the termites and
grubs had a home. When we accept that it was created on the Word of God, this
all makes sense ..
"By faith we
understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that what we see
was not made out of things which are visible" (Hebrews 11:3).
Our global ecosystem is fully symbiotic, if any major
element is not present and working, then the whole thing will quickly grind to
a halt. We need climate, geology, geography, enzymes, bacteria, fungi, plants,
insects, birds, sea creatures and animals, males and females and on and on ..
Every part is needed. The Creation
account in Scripture gives a clear, though very brief, description of that
time, and it seems to be supported by what science is telling us; our Creator
God spoke and whatever form of matter was called for in His design was created,
and then He gave life to all the organisms, all the creatures. Scientists have
no believable explanation for the existence of life and consciousness, and no
proofs at all. Every single cell which has ever existed has its own life and
was able to reproduce itself!
Non-locality is a quantum physics term and is defined as the phenomenon where objects are
able to instantaneously know about each other’s state, even when separated by
enormous distances. Albert Einstein called non-locality “spooky actions at a
distance”.
To me, as I live in the reality of the spiritual world, and
see and have experienced supernatural, miraculous events, non-locality sounds
like a God thing; everything physical has been "designed in" to His
spiritual foundation, ("God is Spirit" (John 4:24)), so can be subject to it. The supernatural is simply God's
beginning place, the spiritual, from where He arranged all things outside and
beyond the physical laws, according to His will.
Our spiritual self can "know" to pray for someone
or for an event on the other side of the world, then subsequently learn that a
tragedy was narrowly averted at the very time of our prayer .. prayers have no
boundaries of distance or time (Matthew 8:13), but do
have great power, this is an expression of the supernatural power of God, ".. God also bore witness by signs and
wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed
according to his will" (Hebrews 2:4). Many people have spiritual
experiences, not just Christians: déjà vu, whirring dervishes and fire-walking for example; those
people too will understand the nature of non-locality.
"And he who
searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for God's people in accordance with the will of God" (Romans 8:27).
"Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before
him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as children through
Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" (Ephesians 1:3-4).
Thank You Science
It is lovely to learn, once again, how perfectly God has
provided for all us people! Not only does everything hold together, but it is
beautiful and delights our senses. Sure, there is much trouble in the world,
and some people are greedy and wasteful and squander resources, causing
ecological degradation. But science and Christian faith still belong together just as
Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Albert Einstein and countless other giants of science always knew and still do today.
Praise Jesus. Bless all the scientists, and bless us too ..
NOTES:
Note 1.
heic1509a-NASA-ESA-Hubble-Westerlund-2.jpg - The Cluster
Westerlund 2 and its Surroundings -
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1509a/ Apr 23, 2015 - This NASA/ESA
Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings
has been released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit and a quarter of a
century of new discoveries, stunning images and outstanding science. The
image’s central region, containing the star cluster, blends visible-light data
taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and near-infrared exposures taken by
the Wide Field Camera 3. The surrounding region is composed of visible-light
observations taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Credit: NASA, ESA, the
Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2
Science Team.
Note 2.
Our Milky Way Galaxy NASA photo -
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/milkyway1.html
Note 3.
Earth: Blue Marble Eastern Hemisphere: NASA photo -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2015/R1/v/Blue_Marble_Eastern_Hemisphere.jpg
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository 29 Nov 2018
Note 4.
(Robert Jastrow, 'God and the Astronomers', 1978, page 16.
Quoted in https://www.allaboutscience.org/second-law-of-thermodynamics.htm)
Note 5.
Galileo Galilei, astronomer, mathematician, and physicist,
saw only a healthy marriage between science and religion: "God is known by
nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word"
(https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/scholarsandscientists/galileo-galilei.html) 8 Dec 2018
Sir Isaac Newton has been called "the greatest scientific genius the world has known". Yet he spent less time on science than on theology, often spending whole days studying the Bible.
Lord Kelvin, born William Thomson, is a giant of 19th
Century science. In addition to the Kelvin Scale of absolute temperature, his
pioneering research in the fields of mechanical energy and mathematics proved
vital in the task of laying the first transatlantic communication cable which
connects Europe to America
"I have long felt that there was a general impression
that the scientific world believes science has discovered ways of explaining
all the facts of nature without adopting any definite belief in a Creator. I
have never doubted that impression was utterly groundless. The more thoroughly
I conduct scientific research, the more I believe science excludes atheism. If
you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God,
which is the foundation of all religion". Kelvin attended Chapel daily.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24535331) 28 Nov 2018).
Albert Einstein: In January of 1936, a school girl named
Phyllis wrote to Einstein to ask whether you could believe in science and
religion. His reply concluded with these words:
" .. everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit
of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the
universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit
of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely
quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
With cordial greetings,
your A. Einstein"
(https://bigthink.com/did-einstein-pray-what-the-great-genius-thought-about-god) 8 Dec 2018)
Amen.
Amen.
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Praise Jesus.
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