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Originally published by The (Columbia, S.C.) State and the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, October, 1995. God and the Astronomers By Jennifer Graham Knight-Ridder News Service First, scientists told us they underestimated the age of the universe by 2 or 3 billion years. That revelation should have been enough to keep creationists happy for a couple of millennia. But then came this: Scientists now say they can't figure out what comprises more than 90 percent of the universe. Even with the giant, steady eye of the Hubble Telescope, they cannot identify what they call dark matter, the celestial glue that holds this thing together. "As hard as they try, they are unable to grasp the nature of what lurks in the blackness enfolding the luminous stars and galaxies, that shadowy substance whose gravitational pull must be the organizing force for the evolution and overall structure of the universe," writes John Noble Wilford in the New York Times. This black hole of knowledge is unnerving for astrophysicists, whose theories of the universe rest upon the Big Bang, dark matter and the hoped-for unified theory. But for people of faith, the thought that science doesn't know everything about what lies beyond the moon is encouraging stuff. Ever since the first human flew beyond the clouds and brought back word that there are not streets of gold a mile up, religious beliefs about the cosmos have taken a beating. As science looked deeper and deeper into the universe without finding the person of God, it became harder to explain heaven. People used to believe heaven was "up there," and hell was "down there." But now we know that what's down there is iron and nickel and other hot metal. And we know that what's up there is .... Hey! We DON'T know what's up there! Says so in the New York Times! Happy days are here again. I recall once hearing a country song titled, "If Heaven Ain't A Lot Like Texas, I Don't Want to Go." In seminaries today, heaven isn't described as a hot, dry place with lots of mechanical bulls. In fact, it isn't described much at all. "Heaven and I'm not being facetious is where God is. And more and more, in mainline Protestant seminaries, theologians talk about our existence in heaven being life with God," said the Rev. Frederick Reisz, president of the Lutheran Theological Southen Seminary in Columbia, S.C. Theologians, perhaps, are rightfully cautious to make connections between their work, things spiritual, and the work of scientists, things physical. But with bewildered astrophysicists talking about things like "organizing forces" and "huge quantities of unknown matter," it does give the believer something to think about contentedly as he drifts off to sleep at night. All this brings to mind an image constructed by Robert Jastrow in his excellent book "God and the Astronomers."
"The scientist 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."
©2003-2007 Jennifer Graham |