The Space Age And Our Faith

Prof. K. Runia. Trowel & Sword. August 1960

Preamble: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” All dedicated ‘Trekkies’ will immediately recognise these words as the opening lines of the T.V. series ‘Star Trek’, which incidentally, hit our screens six years after Prof. Runia wrote this article. Captain Kirk and his successors have been exploring for the last 60 years but, despite many imaginative storylines, not to mention the vast amounts of time and money expended in real life on the S.E.T.I. and similar program, no new worlds, new life or new civilisations have so far been found – perhaps testament to the futility of the effort to find any evidence which could then be used to cast doubts on the Biblical narrative.

The Space Age And Our Faith

It may well be that the combination of these two words gives you the impression of being STRANGE, if not FAR-FETCHED. When we hear the words ‘Space Age’, we all immediately think of rockets, satellites, sputniks, trips to the moon, etc. In the last years these terms have all become more or less familiar. Fiction writers and the producers of comics have eagerly seized the opportunity to build up a new, mysterious world of sensation. We are also inclined to believe that we are living in a revolutionary age, which may bring many changes in our way of thinking and our daily existence.

But – does it have anything to do with our FAITH? We for us believe that this question has to be answered in the affirmative. No, we do NOT expect NEW REVELATIONS as a result of the future conquest of space. We wholeheartedly believe that the Bible is the final revelation for this world age. We have to expect only one new revelation, which at the same time will be the end of the history of this world: the glorious revelation of Jesus Christ, who will return as the Great Judge of all mankind.

We do not believe either, that anything in the Bible will prove to be UNTRUE or INCORRECT, in the light of the discoveries that lie ahead of us: we need not be afraid that there will be any conflict between the Bible and space science. True, the Bible also makes statements about the universe, but these statements are not meant, nor are to be read as scientific pronouncements. And yet we do believe that the new development in man’s exploration of the universe can be of great significance for our faith. For the discovered data, if understood in the right way, can be really helpful in a BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE BIBLE.

We will illustrate this at three points.

In the first place, the discoveries of space can enlarge our understanding of the greatness of our God as THE CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. As often as we open our Bible we are overwhelmed by those simple and yet so powerful words: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven(s) and the Earth’. For the Old Testament believer these words have always been a living reality. Time and again the prophets reiterate them in one form or another. Read only Isaiah 40: ‘Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing’. (KJV)

Read also the answer the lord gives to Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38-41), or read Psalm 104. Surely, these men did not need to know the results of space exploration to be filled with awe for the greatness of their Covenant God, who also was the Creator. Yet it cannot be denied, that our modern understanding of the immense vastness of the universe is far beyond what they ever could dream. Does our mind not reel before the immensities which have been brought to light by modern astronomy? What to think of the fact that this Earth, on which we live, is one of about ten million stars which form the Milky Way, *(current estimates range from 100 to 400 billion), and that the Milky Way itself is only one among innumerable galaxies which lie millions of lightyears distant? All our imagination utterly fails here.

In his booklet ‘The Blessing of Belief’ Gordon Powell gives the following information: The new Sky Atlas being published in America at a cost of £903 (Australian) per copy, consists of photographs taken by the Big Schmidt telescope. This telescope reaches out into space 3,600 million, million, million miles. The ‘Hale’ telescope, the largest in the world, reaches out three times as far as that – and they still haven’t got to the end of our universe. In fact they now tell us that stars in this expanding universe are rushing away from us so fast that their light can’t come back to us. In other words we can never see to the end of our universe, let alone think of travelling there. Moreover there are so many stars in the Atlas composed of photographs taken by the Big Schmidt telescope, that they will probably never be counted. If an Atlas were made with the Hale telescope it would take 10.000 years to photograph the heavens’.

And you know, we as Christians should not only say: what a mighty universe we are living in: Of course that is true. But still more wonderful is the other truth: what a mighty, almighty God we have!  He is the Creator of this whole, well nigh endless universe. “It is the work of His hands. He spoke and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast. Yes, what a wonderful God we have! We can only stammer with Elihu:  ‘Behold God is great, and we know him not’ (Job.36:26).

A second point, where the increased knowledge of this vast universe may be very helpful for our faith, is the understanding of our own HUMAN SMALLNESS. What are we men in this infinitely big universe? This, too, is not a new understanding of man. The BIBLE has preached this same message already for ages. When the Psalmist looks up to the heavens and thinks of the fact that they are the work of God’s fingers, when he considers the moon and the stars, which God has ordained, he exclaims in amazement and wonder: ‘What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that Thou visitest him?’  (Ps.8:4).

And this same disproportion between themselves and the cosmic world around them has been experienced by many of God’s children throughout the ages. Thus PASCAL, the great Christian thinker of the seventeenth century said: “The whole visible world is but an imperceptible speck in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may swell our conceptions beyond all imaginable space, yet bring forth only atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference which is nowhere,.. What is a man in the infinite?” On an other occasion he wrote the haunting words: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me”.

Is it not true? What is man in this immense cosmos, the boundaries of which are untraceable and unimaginable? Certainly man has an asset which gives him an outstanding place in the universe around him; man is endowed with the power of thought. The same Pascal also pointed to this, when he said: “Man is but a reed, the feeblest in nature, but he is a thinking reed”. We even must say more: man is created in the image of the almighty God. He does have a unique, unparalleled place in the whole cosmos. And yet – how small he is! How small compared with the universe, let alone with Him, who is the independent, all-embracing Creator of the universe! How is it possible that this utterly small man ventures to raise his voice against this God? How is it possible that he thinks himself to be independent and self-contained!

A Christian can only join in with the Psalmist and confess in profound wonder: ‘What is man that thou art mindful of him?’

For that is the third thing, we can learn to understand better. This incomprehensibly great God IS MINDFUL OF US. He not only created us in His image, assigning us by that special relation a unique place in His world and in the whole universe, but, what is more, He also redeemed us. Having fallen away from Him in sin and rebellion, we were not cut off from His love, but He renewed His love in His grace and mercy. Yes, He even sent His Son, His only-begotten to the insignificantly small planet amid the innumerable milliards of stars, in order to become man.

The INCARNATION OF GOD’S SON has always been a miracle beyond all human understanding and imagination. No apostle has ever been able to fathom it. No Church Father or Reformer could do more than but stammer about it. God’s Son in the flesh! For us! How precious we must be in his sight!

Yet against the background of our space age the miracle becomes increasingly more unintelligible. If ever we were forced to realise that we can only accept it by faith alone, it is now. But by this same faith we also know that it is true. And we joyfully join in with the Church of the Apostles which sang it in its hymn of worship about the mystery of Godliness: ‘He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory’.

And what about all the OTHER QUESTIONS, that sometimes are raised in our day? What, if there are man-like creatures on other planets? Would they also be fallen creatures? Would Christ have come to their planets too? What about the following lines of poetry: ‘God may have other words for other worlds / But for this world the Word of God is Christ’?

The only answer we can give is: Let us never, never indulge in any kind of pious SPECULATION: All such speculation is idle and sterile. In the first place we KNOW SO LITTLE yet about space. Rightly it has been said that so far as the exploration of the universe is concerned, it is evident that even under the most favourable conditions the space-traveller cannot do more than paddle in the rim of the vast ocean that surrounds us. Even if he could travel with the speed of light (186.000 miles per second!), it would take him two million years to reach the nebula in Andromeda! But what is more, the BIBLE itself does not give us even the slightest opportunity to indulge in such speculations. It does not invite us to be concerned about space men (if they exist!), but it asks us: WHAT ABOUT YOU? ARE YOU SAVED? For the time being (!) that is more than enough for all of us to ponder upon. 

K. RUNIA. 

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