The First Installment in the Lenten Series
I have been obsessed with the idea of a vast universe in which we on Earth are only a tiny part ever since my 12 year old neighbor in Nashville said he witnessed aliens descending from a flying saucer in his back yard. That was in 1950 when I was eight.
But what are we to make of this vast universe and where does God fit into the picture?
As I described in the Advent series, the Bible tells us that the universe was created in six days, followed by a day of rest, and that we humans are created “in the image of God.” But post Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Eistein and now the powerful new telescopes, the creation myths are viewed–accurately in my view–as noble though feeble attempts on the part of us humans to describe the indescribable. As they say in Washington, sorry, above our pay grade.
But questions remain. Where does the idea of God fit into the picture? What or who is God? What is the Divine?
Most scientists now believe that the universe was created in a fraction of a second 13.8 billion years ago, spewing off cosmic dust, which over billions of years formed stars, solar systems and galaxies. Did God do this? And the universe is still expanding and governed by gravity and forces we do not fully understand like black holes, dark energy, and dark matter. Our solar system was formed about two billion years ago around a run of the mill star, which we call our sun. We are about halfway through the life of our sun, and in another billion years all life on the planet will be eviscerated when it expands into a red giant before becoming a white dwarf.
What are we to make of this? Atheists would point to these questions about the universe as Exhibit A proving that there is no “God,” defined as a supreme being responsible for initiating all of life. But even if one were to concede that “God” could be described as the creative force which started the universe, atheists would argue that God is distant and removed from everyday life as we humans experience it and therefore irrelevant.
Other questions also remain unanswered. Where might heaven be? Or where is hell? And what is the meaning of “eternal life”? Is living an eternal life really a desirable thing anyway? Frankly, I think that knowing that everything we experience in our lives on the planet Earth has a beginning and an end is reassuring. Life is hard enough as it is, but to think of an eternity of anything remotely like what we experience on our short time here? Not a happy thought.
Scientists also tell us that in several trillion years the entire universe is likely to run out of hydrogen and perish. How can anything–even the universe– exist for eternity?
And what really is the point of such a vast universe? Why does it exist–especially if there is no life anywhere else except on our tiny blue planet? But how could this be? The new telescopes have identified many rocky planets roughly the size of Earth circling stars and they are about the same distance from their star as we are from our sun, in the goldilocks zone, not too hot and not too cold for life to happen. So far, nothing. There has got to be life out there, right? Why can’t we find it? And could some aliens have already visited us? And what does it mean if the planet Earth is the only celestial body where advanced life–or really any life–exists?
How do we humans on the planet Earth make sense of all that we do not know? We think we humans are smart–and indeed we are–but the ultimate answer regarding meaning and purpose is beyond our ability to fully comprehend. This is where faith enters the picture. In my thinking we humans have to live with this uncertainty and not try to force round answers into square holes.
Faith–at least the way I understand it–is not whether you believe a certain theology or a creed as devised by humans or whether you follow religious rules established by people who maintain they have all the answers, but whether you acknowledge the uncertainty of Absolute Truth and rejoice in simply being alive, with all the good and bad that goes with it. Life itself is the miracle. I also believe that selfless love is the closest thing we experience to a Divine presence in our lives. The Greeks had a word for this, “agape,” to distinguish this from romantic love. Most of us humans have experienced this–certainly from our parents when we were infants but also from time to time from unexpected people and in unexpected places. You know this when it happens. This is our best glimpse of the Divine. For Christians Jesus of Nazareth represents the Divine presence on the planet Earth, but the Divine has a way of showing up in all faiths and, I might add, in all aspects of life as we humans experience it. All we need to do is pay attention.
Rejoice that you are alive. Life itself on this lonely planet is the greatest miracle of all.