Day 9
The Miracle of Life
Read your Bible: Psalm 33:1–9
Spotlight Verse:
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.Psalm 33:6
For the next few days I want to help you to rediscover wonder.
To get lost in amazement.
To wander in worship.
Famous scientist Stephen Hawking wrote The Grand Design to defend his atheism. Ironically, the book had the exact opposite effect on me: It rocketed my faith in the creativity and omnipotence of God to new heights. For weeks after reading just the first chapter I walked around in wide-eyed wonder that anything living existed at all.
In that first chapter Hawking says, “The discovery recently of the extreme fine-tuning of so many laws of nature could lead some to the idea that this grand design is the work of some grand Designer…” And then he elaborates on some apparent evidences of design:
Many improbable occurrences conspired to create Earth’s human-friendly design. We need liquid water to exist, and if the Earth were too close [to the sun], it would all boil off; if it were too far, it would freeze.
Even a small disturbance in gravity would send the planet off its circular orbit, and cause it to spiral either into or away from the sun.
It is not only the peculiar characteristics of our solar system that seem oddly conducive to the development of human life, but also the characteristics of our entire universe — and its laws. They appear to have a design that is both tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration.21
He goes on to produce many examples, and then concludes:
Most of the laws of nature appear fine-tuned in the sense that if they were altered by only modest amounts, the universe would be …unsuitable for the development of life. They do seem tailor-made for humans…22
In fact, he says, if you try to explain how this all happened by accident, you run into literally impossible odds. There is simply not a chance that this happened by chance!
But then Hawking goes on to handle the problem of God this way: Since it is too incredible to believe this finely-tuned universe came about by random chance, why not postulate an infinite number of multiverses?
If nature randomly spat out an infinite number of universes so that a nearly infinite number of them now exist in a multiverse, then surely at least one would have our characteristics, just by luck of the draw.
Another famous scientist, Paul Davies, wrote his response to this idea in the New York Times:
The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.23
I am certainly not qualified to issue some detailed critique of the work of an esteemed scientist. What I get out of this debate goes in a different direction:
Everything I can see on earth every day that is alive, even common things like leaves and skin and blades of grass, is, when seen in the scope of the whole universe, more precious than the rarest jewel.
The odds against anything being alive anywhere in this universe are so great that the mere fact that you are reading these words, inhaling air, conscious of the beauty around us, thinking about this together, is less likely than you winning every lottery in history.
The Bible’s explanation? God is the creative powerhouse behind everything, the artist-engineer-poet-scientist who wove it all together. The creation sparkles with life endowed by the Creator!
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Psalm 102:25
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. Psalm 33:6
And you want a real-mind-blower? The One who made all this is the One who loves you so much He gave Himself to you in Christ!
Take some precious moments today to consider the sheer greatness of God’s power. Let your spirit soar with His Spirit.
Pause to see… with eyes wide open.
Take in the heavens, the stars, the moon and the sun and the clouds and the oceans and the mountains.
God is… infinitely powerful.
Questions For Reflection
How does meditating on the omnipotence of God impact you?
Where today did you see evidence of the power of God?
