Gooding, David: 1 - Cosmology

The main topic advertised for our studies today is creation. And I want to say forthwith my, my particular aim is in these studies. I aim that we should have, through our studies, a clearer and a firmer grasp of the great realities that underlie our Christian gospel. I speak today as a Christian, not a very good one, I hasten to add, but a Christian, and therefore I am in that sense biased, and that I would like you to know freely. Many people who speak on these subjects are also biased, because it is quite common to find scientists who come at their studies on the basis of, uh, uh, atheistic, uh, uh, methodology. That is to say, in studying science, they begin by disregarding God completely and would say that science, to be true science, must adopt this methodological atheism. That is no room for God. God just doesn't come in to the study at all. They, therefore, in my book, they too are biased. You'll see. But I freely, uh, admit my bias. I would like you to understand that. Moreover, the demands of time today will mean that I shall have to be very selective in the evidence that I quote, and I am aware that that opens me to a charge, uh, of serious selectivity, choosing those bits of evidence that support my point of view and disregarding those that would go against me. I trust that my having shown myself aware of this will somewhat mitigate your wrath and, uh, help you to see that what today I am expounding is a Christian view of things, and how a Christian might well respond to, uh, science in general, and in particular to the discoveries of more recent times. On that point, I would like to add this and underline it. It is a common objection to the Christian explanation of things that Christians are forever bringing in a God of the gaps, as he is called. Meaning that, uh, where we have not yet any scientific explanation of some process or phenomenon in the universe. Christians rush off to God and say, well, God does that, you see. In the form, for instance, that in centuries past, when it thundered, people said that was God actually speaking. That was God's voice, a deep tenor bass voice, or whatever it is, in the thunder, you see. Uh, but to explain thunder at that level as simply the voice of God speaking would stop all scientific investigation, wouldn't it? So the scientists said, well, let's not, uh, run to God as an explanation of this phenomenon. Let's examine it, you'll see, to see what the mechanisms of thunder are. And as every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows, and some of their parents, eh, you'll see, uh, the thunder as we understand it, is, and demonstrably so, can be, uh, accounted for by the workings of electricity. I remember some thirty or forty years ago, I had some Christian friends in the electrical department of Queens, and they took me down in the basement where they got at their experiments, you'll see, and they were going to teach this innocent classicist a lesson that he would never forget. So they faced me with two poles that looked like Belisha beacons with round things on the top and bade me look at them, and all unawares they pulled a switch, and there came a vast thunderous roar o- of thunder and ele- and lightning that would, uh, was calculated to scare this classicist, you'll see. You can see I'm still here, but the point was that this was a scientific explanation of thunder. And of course, true Christians are not against that kind of thing, are they? They welcome every scientific endeavor to understand how this universe works. Do you see? They don't regard it as a form of iniquity or atheism or something, or rebellion against the Almighty, to seek out his works and to try and understand how, uh, they occur. Of course, understanding how a thing occurs is not to understand why it occurs. And if God likes to use thunder and all the physical mechanisms involved in it, in order to rouse the conscience of certain people or to convey the reality of his creatorial power to them, God is not inhibited, and it could be that thunder to some people, on some occasions, becomes the voice of God in that higher sense, you'll see. That said, I want to point out that, uh, uh, uh, as far as I'm concerned, the evidence that I shall quote today is not a question of trying to bring in a God of the gaps. I shall rather be trying to take advantage of the more modern scientific understanding of things. For as I read the literature, the more science advances, the more it seems to me that science confirms, affirms, or supports the Christian view. Now, that said, I, I, I, I repeat the aim of my seminars today would be to get a firmer grasp and a clearer understanding of those great basic facts that underlie our Christian gospel. You will remember that in Paul's letter to the Romans, from chapter three and its second half onwards, Paul expounds the Christian gospel, and through that exposition has caused a revolution in Europe three times over. The glorious message that we can be right with God through simple faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, justified, redeemed, saved, whichever term you like to use, simply through faith. Abraham, the case law that Paul cites, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. And in the decades past, the Christian church in general has frequently preached the gospel in those terms, and rightly so, and should rightly continue to do so. This is the gospel, that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, that he ro- raised from the dead the third day, and that he appeared to a vast host of witnesses, and that he is coming again. That is the gospel. But now, if we should inquire of Paul, why do we need this gospel? Why do we need to be saved? Paul's answer to that, as given us in Romans chapter one, is our first urgent need of salvation is based on this, that we stand without Christ and without salvation, we stand exposed to the wrath of God, and to the wrath of God because of our sins, not only the fact that we are sinners, but that we are guilty sinners and have no excuse for our sinning. That, I beg you to notice, is an important distinction. Of course, we're all sinners, but according to scripture, we're not just sinners. We are guilty sinners, because knowing the facts, knowing the truth, we have rebelled against that truth. So Paul says in chapter one of Romans, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God manifested it to them. God has made it abundantly clear. How? Well, the invisible things, the things you can't see, yet are made manifest since the creation of the world, and they are clearly seen. They are perceived, says Paul. Like looking at a tulip, you can perceive the thing is beautiful. You don't want any, uh, extended argument, philosophic or scientific, to prove to you that a tulip or a rose is beautiful. You jolly well can see it, unless you're colorblind or something. You see? So is the claim of the Christian gospel, that there are certain things evident from creation, and people can see them if they are willing to see them, and will be held responsible for rejecting that evidence. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. This is number one of the basic facts to which I refer as underpinning our Christian gospel. And in our present age, and in our particular country, and in many Western countries, the fact that many people no longer see any need for the gospel that Christians preach stems in part from this, that they no longer think that there is a God there anyway. And therefore it pertains to our basic Christian gospel that we preach creation. Excuse the warmth of my exhortation, but this is a Christian seminar. It is no good and irresponsible of us, of us as believers in Christ to say that matters of creation are irrelevant. We want to get on with preaching the gospel. Our own gospel text, the Epistle to the Romans, will tell us otherwise. And because the evidence is so important, and upon it will depend people's eternal destiny, that is to say, on how they have reacted to the evidence and are without excuse in this regard. Because that is so important, we Christians have a duty, haven't we, to understand as best we can and to preach the evidence of creation. God give us the grace, the mental energy to study the matter, therefore, and not to dismiss it out of hand as irrelevant to the preaching of the gospel. But if we talk today about creation, you may have noticed from the program that, uh, I am not proposing to limit myself simply to a discussion of the six and seven days of Genesis chapter one. How did things start? How things started will indeed concern us, but creation has a wider implication. So you'll see, uh, Paul in denouncing the unnatural sins that abounded in his day and now abound in ours, Witness Clause twenty eight— points not only to the fact that God created, but points to nature's own processes that God created. So that nature herself, in her processes, becomes part of the evidence for which people will be accountable. And in particular, as should be evident without argumentation, that the practice of homosexuality, which Paul here denounces, is contrary, self-evidently contr- contrary to the mechanisms that God has placed in men and women. The evidence, therefore, of God as creator, but also of the processes that God has created. And then, of course, in chapter two of Romans, Paul, uh, expounds our need of salvation from another point of view, namely that we have a conscience. That is to be seen, he says, in the fact that men and women a- accuse each other of having done wrong, and on other times, having done wrong, they try to excuse themselves. And if you ask, where does this moral sense come from, and what is the ultimate authority behind it and the ultimate criteria of ju- of justice, the Christian answer is that it is based on God, who has put by his creatorial wisdom, into the human heart certain laws, the law of God written on the heart. That is part of creation too. And therefore, in the third of our sessions, I shall be wanting to discuss with you this question of the basis of morality. In the West, civilization has lost its way, has it not? It inherited a morality that was based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. And men have vainly thought that they could reject the c- the tradition, the Judeo-Christian position- tradition, the Old Testament and the New, and the God it represents, and still keep the morality. But now in, in our, uh, United Kingdom and in Europe, the evidence stares us starkly in the face. What happens to civilizations when they get rid of God as the authority behind morality? So we need to be thinking about that, don't we? In our laissez-faire, if it feels good, do it society. This question of the basis and authority behind morality is a part of a gospel preparation that we also should teach and explain. And from that, we shall, if the time permits and the eyelids keep open, you'll see, deal with what is becoming perhaps the center point of much scientific discussion as far as Christianity is concerned, and that is the tremendous rate and width of interest given to the topic of what man is, what our brain is. There's no mistaking what the Bible says about us. The Bible maintains we are not just matter. We are not just physics, or chemistry either, with a touch of electricity put in. Man has a non-material element in his being. That, of course, in the past centuries or two, has always been challenged and sometimes mocked. But now the whole question is coming to the fore, partly because of the tremendous and exciting developments in the development of computers, and the question whether they will be able at last, uh, to be the equivalent of a human being. And secondly, with all the advanced techniques, marvelous techniques with exciting results, in the investigation of the brain, so that the question whether we have brains, we'll all agree we have, for the moment, we'll not argue about that, Dorsey, uh, but the question is whether we have minds as well as brains. That is a matter to which, as Christians who are concerned with the public stand for Christianity, ought to concern themselves, and guide in particular the up and coming generation before they swallow the completely materialistic view of what a person, a human being is. Very good then, uh, I run the risk today of being shallow, of course, because, uh, uh, uh, of the width of the program. I hope I shall not trivialize the topics. Each of the topics deserves detailed treatment. But in this one day, short day seminars on the topic, I choose to use the time to point us all, or to remind us all, of those directions that we could profitably follow if we will be effective Christian witnesses to our day and generation. So we start with cosmology. And if you say, well, what right have you to talk about science? Well, you have a point. I'm not a scientist. Let me make my second confession. I am a Christian, I'm not a scientist. You'll see. So what right have I to, to speak about science? Well, there is this observation to be made that, of course, um, scientists have a habit these days of writing books for the general im- uh, public, you'll see. Nice glossy books, quite expensive books, uh, you'll see. And many of them repeat what the others have said, but there's, there's no harm, I suppose. Honest money well made. But you see, they write about these things and expect the likes of me to, to buy them and read them. And when the scientists themselves disagree, I claim the right to of an Englishman, or Irishman, if you like, a juryman, you'll see, that in any court of law, it's not the expert witnesses that decide the case, it's the jury. And when the experts disagree and write books for the layman, well, they mustn't complain if the layman take them seriously, try to understand their work, and therefore comment on its relevance to the Christian position. So we're going to start now, uh, uh, uh, to think about cosmology, but before we do that, we're going to look just at a brief summary of what we know by, uh, uh, revelation through reading scripture. Just let me remind you of, of, of some of the leading parts of the Christian position. One, the universe had a beginning. That is told us, Genesis one one, m in the beginning God created the heaven and earth. It is inferred in John one one to four, where we're told, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him. And the Greek very sophisticatedly uses two different verbs. All things were made, literally all things became through him. The universe became. The universe was not always there. All things became through him. In the beginning was the Word, or as Hebrews would put it, we understand by faith that the worlds were made by the Word of God. But when it talks about God himself and his glorious Son, it says as follows, in the beginning, not the word became. Very, very deliberately, it says, in the beginning the word was. He didn't become. He later became, the word became flesh. But at the beginning, he pre-existed the universe, and we hear him in prayer to his father, do we not, saying, the glory which I had with thee before the world was. So that, uh, uh, the universe had a beginning, God didn't. God is other than the universe, not part of it. The word was, the universe became, and so forth and so on. Why is that important? Well, it is in- always has been important because in, uh, the Eastern religions in particular, the idea of pantheism has been very strong. That God is in everything. Everything is God. The mud in the street is God. The stone is God. You are God. The moon is God. God is in everything. That's a hoary old understanding, of course. It is an idolatry that the Old Testament denounces root and branch. To equate God with any of the processes of nature or the matter of nature is sheer idolatry, according to the Old Testament. But also it is important, uh, ladies and gentlemen, in our modern world, because there are many, I shall be quoting one of them, many scientists. The one I shall quote mostly is Paul Davies. And Paul Davies has abandoned the old, rickety, and now collapsed, or collapsible notion that there is no intelligence behind the universe, that the universe is just a freak of chance coming out of nothing, mindless forces. The great and famous Paul Davies now says that there must be an intelligence behind the universe. There is a mind somewhere behind it. That's very interesting because Paul Davies is not a believer in the Lord Jesus. He's not a Christian. He doesn't believe in God as Christians believe in him, or Jews either. But here is a world famous scientist saying that there must be an intelligence behind the universe. Well, where is it located and what is it? And as far as one can deduce from Paul Davies' writings, he is suggesting that the intelligence is part of the stuff of the universe. That again is a historic view. The ancient Stoics with whom Paul argued on Mars Hill, they held that view, that God is part of the universe, part of the stuff of the universe, lies at the heart of the universe, but is part of it. And in our modern days, new age mysticism and Celtic, oh, I, as an Englishman, I have to use that word and, uh, make sure I don't infect it, you see, but, uh, Celtic mysticism, like all other mysticisms, comes down to a worship of creation and the life force or Mother Gaia or something of the sort that is inherent in the universe. It is another form of pantheism, and we must beware of it and take a firmer grip of our Christian belief that will stand against pantheism. And I'm no prophet nor the son of a prophet. I fancy in the coming decades that form of supposed religion, that is virtual pantheism, will become stronger and more widespread as Christendom joins up with Hinduism and Buddhism, and they make one unholy farago of joint religions. So then, yes, the agent in creation was God, no less. No sort of semi-demi quaver of a deity. Someone less than God, as the Jehovah Witnesses would tell us, you'll see, and many Greek philosophers of the ancient world would want to tell us. No, the create, uh, the agent in creation, the one through whom all things were made, was God, no less than God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What God was, the Word was. The universe, however, was made in stages. That is an integral part of our Christian belief. Genesis one tells us that, surprisingly, because if you believe in an omnipotent God, well, he could do anything, couldn't he? And we might have expected that, uh, if you open the first page of the Bible, the Bible would say, and God spoke, and the whole universe, from ants to animals, from monkeys to men, from stars to galaxies, all happened at once. That isn't what the Bible says, is it? It says it was done in stages. And those stages were not automatic developments. Those stages, each one had to be introduced by another input of information from God. And God said, and God said, and God said. God had to, so to speak, to intervene with new information and new commands in each stage of the developing creation. Joel say each stage was initiated by the word of God. The universe is upheld by God's powerful word. I think it's a thing we should remember. We should ask ourselves, when scripture says that, um, uh, creation was made by the, uh, word of God and now upheld by his powerful word, what does that mean, powerful word? Does that mean that some words are spoken in a whisper and they're enough? But like a father trying to control a, a, a, a obstreperous child has to shout at it now and again, and God has to use a very powerful voice to talk to the universe to get it to behave. Well, hardly that is it. It means by his word of power, that is his powerful word, not only of command but of information, the tremendous input into creation. He doesn't just hold it up. He upholds it by the input of energy. And the most spectacular example of God's intervention in our world in that connection, of course, is the resurrection of Christ. That colossal input of energy, according to Ephesians chapter one, according to the strength of the power of his might that he wrought in Christ, and by that colossal input of divine energy, he raised him from the dead. So, yes, we believe that. Uh, could we have it up a bit? Now, when we look at not only creation, but also creation plus history, we can observe what the Bible indicates, that creation is not just going round in circles, it is making progress. One of the objections that some scientists have to a Christian position is they imagine that Christians hold that God made the universe, full stop, and the universe just goes round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round, getting nowhere in particular until God stops it. That is not the biblical view, is it? The world history is going places. If you take history, human history, look at this tremendous progress in the history of mankind. Starting from the Garden of Eden, making all kinds of moral and spiritual progress through God's revelation to the patriarchs, then the revelation of his full law to Moses and through the prophets. So making moral and spiritual progress, what has been called the progress of doctrine, but man learning his lessons in morality, progress, as God kept revealing himself in the course of history through the prophets, and then this immeasurable bit of progress that we Christians hold. Let us get hold of it again today, in all the splendor and inexpressible wonder of it. The progress of humanity, that the Word, who was none less than God, became human. Human race will never be the same again. Genuinely human. Not coming to our world appearing to be human, but genuinely human. That's some progress, that is. And if you ask what the Creator is doing in, in a, in, in this kind of scheme and purpose, the answer that the New Testament will give, that God has had this in mind all the way along the line, that not only should his son become human without ceasing to be God, but we in receiving him, become children of God, ceasing to be mere creatures, we are upstaged in the universe and become children of God, not simply creatures of God created by his power, but begotten of his very life. That is an astonishing thing in hu- human history. Your atheist has to prattle to you about his bankrupt theory of evolution. Trying to interpret the progress of humanity in terms originally of blind processes, a universe that didn't really have any purpose to its beginning or existence, and is going along by the twin processes of accidental, uh, mutation and natural selection. And plus man trying thereafter, now he has understood some of the laws of nature, to mold the future of mankind. And that has all sorts of sinister implications, actually. Leaving that aside. Don't let's just be negative and say, no, that interpretation of evolution is wrong. Let us preach what the right thing is. The right thing. You wouldn't call it evolution. You would call it the unfolding purposes of God. And they are magnificent, aren't they? The phenomenon in the universe that has been already created, called in the New Testament the body of Christ, through the resurrection of Christ, firstborn of the dead, now head of the body, the church, who is, who are linked with him as a body is to a head, an utterly new phenomenon in the whole of the universe since Pentecost. No need to be ashamed of the right kind of progress for humanity that the New Testament talks of, you'll see. And of course, we do believe that one day the present, uh, universe will come to its end. Even so, God will not have, uh, given up on matter. There will be not only a new heaven, but a new earth as well. We believe, therefore, in the rightness of matter. So let's come now to the question, what can cosmology tell us in, uh, as modern scientists understand it? Let's look at some of the pictures. Sorry, could we, uh, the lights off here. I'm sorry you can't see that. I was just going to, uh, I was just going to put, give you a picture of your home address, so to speak, where you live in the universe. If you want on your internet to contact somebody, uh, you'll see out there in the Andromeda Galaxy and ask them to tea or something, you'll have to give your website address, won't you? That's where we are here. This is part of the Milky Way with its hundreds of thousands and millions of stars, and here are some of the interstellar gas clouds and the marvelous mystery of what lies at the center of our own galaxy. There are those who say that at the center of our own galaxy is the Great Attractor, some mighty force or other generated that eventually is pulling the whole thing towards itself. Be that as it may, here is a picture of part of our galaxy, uh, i- i- in which we live. Let's look at one or two other, uh, pictures just to cheer our hearts up. There are a few stars, you know, sort of God's pepper pot when he peppers his toast, uh, and the pepper coming out is a few stars, do you see? Marvelous, aren't they? Count the stars, says God. You know, some Christians I have met are afraid of astronomy. They don't like looking at it. It sort of gives them chills down the spine. It's all too big, you see, and they get afraid of it. You shouldn't do, should you, as a Christian? Can I, let's leave the science for a moment. You remember what God did for Job when Job was going through his terrible troubles of ill health and mental confusion? God spoke to him very kindly, very graciously. And one of the things God calls his attention to was astronomy, wasn't it? Can you bind, uh, uh, uh, the parties? Can you loose the vines of Orion? You say, what's relevant is that? Oh, my good Christian friend, if one of these days you'll come very low in health and doubt the wisdom of God and become self-absorbed internally on your own self. Oh, what a therapy that would be to listen to God and look outside of yourself. Come now, says God to Abram, and look at the stars, Abram. Yes. It's exceedingly good psychology to look out of our tiny little cells and our tiny dimensions of our tiny lives and look at God's dimensions. And Israel, who had founded after centuries of endless mistakes, founded on the rock of idolatry and been put out to Babylon, and were called to listen to God as he re-promised to restore them. And almost at once, when the comforting message came to Israel, God appeals to himself as creator. The great saving power from idolatry is an ever increased view of the glory and the majesty and the size and the dominion of the Creator. Lose sight of the Creator, and the ideal of having a jaguar in life before you go home to heaven might slip into being a little idolatry. Jaguars are too small, you know. I've only got four wheels, one at each corner, and a wheel inside to guide the thing with. And here is some of our Father's handiwork. Was made for the glory of Christ, made, it had its origin in the mind of him whom we call the Word of God, that is Christ. It was made through him, made for him. My dear fellow believers, do rejoice in it. Count the stars if you can, have a go, because they're yours. All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God. It's difficult to be persuaded that that doesn't come from the excitement of a preacher. Difficult to think that it hasn't taken leave of reality, but it's true. Yes. Rejoice in the greatness of God, the objective greatness of God in creation, will provoke our worship. And we can't turn around to the Lord Jesus when he made it all, can we, and say, well, I'm not interested in that Lord. But when he made it for us, have a put another one on. Ha. If this, you can see it, uh, this is a, a, a, a whole lot of not stars, these are galaxies. One of the more recent discoveries in this last fifteen years, perhaps, through the Hubble telescope, is the vast number of galaxies, not just stars. Each one of these is a galaxy, they're different shapes. A billions of stars. You say, what are they for? I don't know. God made them. I hope one day when there's time enough off in heaven to, you know, to leave singing for a while, that to ask the Lord why he made them. You can rest assured they're not there for nothing. You say, but what has it got to do with me? Well, have you thought, in order for you to live and breathe and have the chance of being saved and going to heaven at last, you had to have a planet to live on, didn't you? I'm tempted to say you can't get to heaven without eating Kellogg's cornflakes, but what I mean is, we have to be humans first and creatures first that have to be fed with our daily life and and all the rest of the things that are necessary, and a stage to live on. If we're going to take the next step of progress, and that is to receive Christ and become children of God, and then to be trained in the school of Christ, ready for our part in the new world that shall be. How would you run a world? That's what God said to Job, didn't he, when Job got a bit querulous. All right, Job, you have a go at running the universe, my boy. Could you do it? We mustn't dismiss it as being irrelevant and not interesting, for if we're not interested in this, we're not interested in what Christ has done. This is pertains to his majesty as the agent in creation and the goal of creation. And this thing here, supernova rings, it's called, because some stars explode, and that will be relevant when we come later on in our study. Some stars explode. And here, seventeen years on, is, uh, the results of a big star that exploded, spewing out its material for thousands of light years, and this is the result as the camera picks it up. Let's go on to the next thing. Yes. Now, some people get, uh, worried about this, uh, looking too much at, uh, telescopes and and uh pictures of the universe that makes them feel so small and insignificant. Even some philosophers have said, how could you think, if you're right, that the God of the universe could possibly be interested in you? Is that credible? Well, I could ask another question. Is it even credible that the God of that universe would die for you? So let's remember when we talk of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, just exactly who Jesus is. What an astounding thing, verging on the incredible. The creator and sustainer of that vast universe should be interested in us. But then, when it comes to size and time, the great mathematician Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford has called our attention to this. Our notion of the size and age of the universe i- is conditioned, of course, by which kind of measurement we use, and not merely whether you use inches or centimeters either, but whether you use, uh, different kinds of enumeration. I am not mathematician enough to to explain it to you, but there are mathematicians here, I I perceive them, and if you want information of who they are, I'll tell you if you come to me in the break, and you can question the mathematicians, you see. But there we are. On that method, on his method of measuring space in meters and time in seconds, according to this calculation, you'll notice that human size comes in the middle. We are not insignificant nothings in the universe, for all its vast size and vast time. Depends what scale you're, what, what method of counting you're using, but on this, uh, measurement scale, humans are in the middle. Yeah. It makes sense of the fact that when God made the universe, he made it and made man in the image of God. We needn't be afraid of the dimensions of the universe. But now, as we move on, let's come to what is a very significant question about our relationship to the universe. What are we? We human beings, born and live seventy years, perhaps eighty or so, what are we in relation to this vast universe? One student I heard of said we were an eczema on the face of the earth, that's all. Insignificant disease. A certain amount of evidence to support it. Yeah, you'll see. Ha. But, uh, uh, look at this, you'll see. Here is a thoroughgoing atheistic evolutionist. What significance has man? Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms. People shrink from that. Understandably, they shrink from it. That seems to be the message of evolution. Utterly without hope. Believe evolution if you must, in the atheistic sense of evolution, like Futuma, this is Futuma. Believe it if you like, but face the fact. Uh, and, and, and they, this one says the intelligibility of the universe. The more we study the universe, said Sir James Jeans, the more it seems to be less, uh, the less and less it seems like a great achievement, and more and more like a great thought. There's thinking behind the universe, said Sir James Jean. That's very significant, isn't it? And Sir Fred Hoyle, not known for his belief in God, he says intellectual input is the obvious thing we deduce from looking at the world. Fred Hoyle was an astronomer. Let's look on to to what, um, uh, Paul Davies, that I've already referred to, said some ten years ago, maybe, in his book The Mind of God. He quotes, first of all, Freeman Dyson. I do not feel like an alien in this universe. Now he talks about other possible views. Does the frank admission of hopelessness discussed in the previous section mean that all metaphysical reasoning is valueless? Should we adopt the approach of the pragmatic atheist who is content to take the universe as given and get on simply with cataloging its properties? There is no doubt that many scientists are opposed temperamentally to any form of metaphysical, let alone mystical, argument. They are scornful of the notion that there might exist a God, or even an impersonal creative principle or ground of being that would underpin reality and render its contingent aspects this starkly arbitrary. But now listen to Davies. Personally, I do not share their scorn. There might be a God, Davies says. And certainly there's intelligence behind the universe. The central theme I've explored in this book, through sign, we human beings are able to grasp at least some of nature's secrets. We have cracked part of the cosmic code. Why should this be? Why should just, why that Homo sapiens should carry the spark of rationality that provides the key to the universe? It's extraordinary, isn't it? Hope you admire modern science and its discovery through the use of the old brain box and all the instrumentation of many of the fundamental laws of the universe, and are able to to understand to the remotest galaxy sometimes what is happening and the laws according to which it works. How has it come about that we bits of clay walking on two legs have an intelligence that can turn round on the universe and understand how it works? How has that come about? He says it's a mystery. It ain't a mystery to any Christian, of course. No. The sons of the living God, made in the image of God, made to grow up and enjoy the universe along with our Father. What does it mean? What is man that we might be parties to such a privilege of having an intellect that can understand the way the universe works? I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accidental, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is sh- surely a fact of fundamental significance. It is indeed, isn't it, when you start to ponder it. Yeah. Uh, through conscious beings, the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor pro- byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We're truly meant to be here. He don't believe in God. He's an evolutionist. But science, as you'll notice, has forced him to the belief. He openly admits it. He cannot any longer be an old unconstructed atheist in that sense. He will tell you in his writings, in the most recent interview with him, he says, well, of course he doesn't believe in a God from the outside, but the universe is like a mental event. There's intelligence in it, there's mind in it, and the wonder of it is that we have minds that can understand it. Yes, all that notion that this universe has no purpose nor meaning, propounded by so many atheists and taught to kids at school that science has destroyed belief in God, surely is on its way out on the basis of science. Yes. And you say, what does that mean to me when I'm stirring the coffee, getting the breakfast ready for a husband, and even having to get his cornflakes in the dish for him and getting ready for work? What, what does all this mean? Oh, well, yes. Well, it means, of course, your significance. What are you? The universe is colossal size, but size isn't the criterion of importance, is it? You can get a load of hay going on the back of a farmyard lorry, enormous great load of hay, and then you can get one little ingot of gold. Which would you choose? Wouldn't choose according to size, would you? You might feel your little brain is rather small. Oh, as you think, sorry, yeah, doubtless think it big. My little brain is rather small. Well, so it is, you see, occupying a very small skull. More significant than the sun up in the sky, and a colossal size. It's just a lot of old gas. The sun doesn't understand how it works itself. I understand how it works, thanks to the scientists. The sun doesn't know I'm here. Couldn't care less. I know the sun is there. Wish it would be there a bit more in Northern Ireland. We'll see. The fact that we can understand it, evidence of this glorious thing, that we're not made to cringe at the size of the universe. We're going to be its master one day. Your blessed Savior is Lord of it all. He not only made it, he's Lord of it. It's an expression of his mind. And he loves the likes of you and me and has died for us that we might be forgiven and regenerate and part of his body and shall reign with him. Glorious, isn't it? We're truly meant to be here. Yeah? Very good. But, uh, let's look at other, uh, ideas that might suggest we are truly meant to be here. And, uh, here is one of them. Yes, let's stay there for a moment. Here are the dear planets. Nice, aren't they? Eh, do you see? And now we come to not only the intelligibility of the universe, but the fine tuning of the universe. This last twenty years, we've heard a lot from the scientists on the so-called anthropic principle and the fine tuning of the universe. And what exactly, uh, does that all mean? Well, the about, uh, increasing, always increasing evidence that the universe seems to have been tuned to make human life on this planet possible. So it's no accident we're here. In Paul Davies' words, we're truly meant to be here. Here's another bit of evidence that, uh, the universe seems to have been fine-tuned to make life on Earth possible. Let's look at the next sheet. Just before we go, uh, you'll see here's the sun down here, just a bit of it. Here are the old planets, Mercury, Venus, then Earth here. Notice where it is, Earth. Then Mars and the asteroid belt here, and then Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and, uh, Neptune and Pluto. There they are, and any more that they happen to breed when scientists look at them. But look at this now. Doctor Who Ross, uh, in his book The Creator and the Cosmos, has listed no end of such parameters, as they call them. As far as our planet is concerned, he, eh, lists thirty three examples of how things have been precisely tuned to make life on our planet, uh, possible. Uh, let me take just a few of them. Uh, the sun up in the sky. You see, we wouldn't exist, could we, on this planet without the sun. Life would be impossible. We are dependent, therefore, for light and and heat, warmth, and for life. Life could not survive unless we were, uh, near a sun. Yes? The big question is how near. Uh, let's look at a picture of the sun just to remind us of the importance of the matter. Oh, upside down, put that there, that's right. Picture of the sun. Look at this thing coming out here. It is ginormous, that flare. Ginormous. It'd swallow up Earth millions of times. Good job we're not too near it. Wallow. Ha. We are, as far as we know, the only planet in the whole system that is capable of advanced life. They're looking for microbes on Mars. We'll not talk about that yet because, uh, most of us here are not microbes, uh, you'll see. It- Earth is the only planet that can maintain advanced forms of life. So this question, we must have a sun for the warmth and the input of energy that makes life and growth possible. We, uh, can't be too near it. What is more, the sun must be a particular kind of sun. This isn't party politics when I say for a sun that should make life possible on Earth, it has to be not just any old sun, but a middle-aged bachelor sun. You'll see. What do you mean by that? Well, a bachelor, because some suns come in pairs, don't they? They're binaries, they're called, and they twizzle around each other, you'll see. Very much like a married couple, I suppose. They twizzle around each other, you'll see. And if an irrelevant planet got in the way, it could get swiped very easily and pulled off course, you see, if there were two things going around. So it can't be a binary, it has to be a single sun. Then it's got to be what they call a middle-aged sun. We saw a photograph just uh, earlier on of a thing that had exploded. It's no good saying that stars don't explode, you can take photographs of them doing it and what the result is. Supernovas, they're called. So suns in the course of their, uh, uh, lives on Earth, there's the result of a supernova explosion. This one here. There we are. You'll see, they do explode. And we can photograph, uh, years later what has happened to them. You'll see. If our sun was of the kind and at the stage in all the great processes going on in the sun, the atomic furnaces and what have you. If it were at a stage where it's liable to explode, that would be pretty rough on us on the planet, wouldn't it? Do you see? So it must be, uh, uh, uh, uh, not too cold either, do you see? It must be nice and fiery, but not too. That's putting it in layman's terminology. Our distance from the sun, therefore, uh, is going to affect our temperature. We mustn't be, uh, too, uh, far away, must we? Because if we're too far, it would be too cold for life. If we're too near, it would, uh, uh, water would evaporate anyway, and that would be the end of us. Then, of course, there is the question of, uh, uh, our rotation speed. Not all the planets twizzle round at the same speed, do they? Old Jupiter, he goes round like one oh, does Jupiter, you'll see. Colossal great speed it goes at. Uh, if that were to happen to us, and we went at the speed of Jupiter, life would be impossible. Let's go down these slides a bit and look at some of these planets, how they behave. Well, there's Venus. Dear old Venus. But you notice this, this, uh, picture of Venus is a Magellan radar image of Venus. Because normally you can't see the surface of Venus because it has such a thick atmosphere of such poisonous gases that life on it is absolutely impossible, do you see? And all sorts of things determine what kind of an atmosphere a planet's going to have, do you see? That we have an atmosphere suited to life is an exceedingly important thing. Secondly, the speed of the rotation of our Earth is a thing that helps to control the climate. The recent thinking coming out of Denmark is that it's not merely how near we are to the sun or how far that determines climate, but the speed at which we rotate, because it is the angular momentum, that's the way it twizzles round and round and round and round like this, that, uh, controls part of the cloud system, and the speed at the equator begins to distribute the clouds around in a certain pattern, and they control the temperature. It's a temperature device for keeping the Earth becoming too hot or too cold. That is the most recent thing I heard, the lecture thereof in the Academy just last year, on that very topic, the new thinking, that not only the s- distance from the sun, but the speed at which we rotate is important for maintaining our temperature, yeah? Now here comes dear old Jupiter. Uh, look at that. You can't see from where you sit, I have pity, but here is a mighty great red spot, you'll see, so called. If you've got a decent pair of binoculars, you could see it on a clear night, that red spot on Jupiter. What it is, is a vast hurricane that's been going for I don't know how many hundred years. The reason is because Jupiter trizzles around at such an enormous rate that it produces violent winds all the way around the surface of it. Do you see? And if our planet trizzled around at that rate, of course, again, life would be impossible. There's dear old Saturn. We don't spend much time on him, uh, or her, that's what she likes to be called, uh, you'll see. But to come back to Jupiter, there are some of the facts. This great spot, here we are, enlarged and under an artist's impression, caused by the violence of the winds because of the speed of Jupiter's rotation. Life impossible, therefore. But now another interesting thing is that Jupiter serves the whole lot of us, because being the colossal size Jupiter is, and at its particular distance from us, Jupiter serves as one of our protections against comets. The other year we saw a comet come in, didn't we, to the planetary system, and they tracked it as it plunged down into the gases on Jupiter. And Jupiter, with its enormous gravitational pull, where it is, is one of the protective mechanisms of life on Earth. So we could go on, but you have the point of it, and I needn't, uh, uh, uh, emphasize it again and again and again. Eh, the Earth does seem to have been fine-tuned to make human life possible. But here comes Sir Roger Penrose once more, uh, the mathematician, physicist, but mathematician basically, and he's talking about one of the basic laws, uh, that control physics and what have you, and biology and everything else on our planet. We call it the second law of thermodynamics, without which, again, life would be impossible. You'll see. And he says that if you take the point of view of the creator beginning the whole universe from scratch, what he would have to aim at to get a world as it is now, consonant with the law of thermodynamics, second law, and making life possible. What would have to be the accuracy of his engineering, the creator's engineering? Do see. And he says that it has to be, must have been accurate to one part in ten to the power of ten to the hundred and twenty third. That is one followed by ten to the hundred and twenty third successive zeros. Can you imagine it? Well, don't try, because he he he he he says as follows, you see. That number, one in so many. Accuracy, one in so many. He says this is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down. Why couldn't you? Well, we couldn't write it down in full in the ordinary denary, that's decimal, uh, uh, notation. Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe, and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure. We should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. How is that? I don't know if you do the lottery or hoping for, uh, something from the lottery, as well as the, the dome, uh, you'll see what the likelihood of your is of getting a hate me out of the lottery is so remote, I shouldn't try it over you. I'll give you money to the missionaries. You'll see. Ha! You think of this kind of one in such a vast, vast number. You couldn't possibly write it down, not if you wrote one zero on every neutron and proton in the whole universe and took in all the other particles as well. The chances against this being an accident. Oh no, ladies and gentlemen, you needn't be afraid to stand in your circle for the fact that the universes were created by the word of God. The idea that it should have happened by an accident is a gigantic, enormous, anti-intellectual fancy. It's important, isn't it? Uh, let's move on then. It's a universe that has, um, uh, uh, is intelligible. We're at home in it. Our minds can understand it. Universe created by an intelligence who has given us of his intelligence that we might understand it. It's a universe that has been fine-tuned to make life possible on our planet. Uh, thirdly, well, this is just an additional comment by Andrew Arnold Penzias, a Nobel Prize winner in seventy eight. Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with a very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan. Yes. Good, now let's think, uh, uh, uh, uh, on this score to the other third thing. Uh, no, we won't take that now, thank you, we'll take it later. A universe that had a beginning. A universe that had a beginning. Uh, we'll leave it like that, you'll see if you like, yes. Uh, just let me make a comment. When we talk about the fine tuning of the universe, of course, there are a lot of folks who object and say that's not so. It is just an accident or a whole lot of accidents, thousands of millions of accidents that have brought us about, and you shouldn't try to argue that the universe has been designed. And they say, you'll see it's a funny argument when you first see it. You'll see what they argue is this, that if the conditions hadn't been what they are on Earth, you wouldn't be here to see it. So they say there's no wonder, there's no surprise in it, I mean, uh, that the universe appears to be tuned to your existence. That's just one of those sort of appearances. That's not really true. If it had been anyhow else, you wouldn't have been here to see it. Well, if you're puzzled by that, so am I, because it's absolute nonsense. Um, uh, Professor Leslie doesn't believe in God either. But as you see him saying there, my, uh, uh, uh, uh, it's high time we philosophers took the design argument seriously. My argument has been that the fine tuning is evidence, genuine evidence, as the following fact, that God is real, and or there are many and varied universes. What does that mean? Well, to get round the notion that the universe is fine-tuned, the scientists will say, no, that's a false impression you have. You see, the fact is there could be millions and millions and millions of universes, for all you know, and if there are millions and millions and millions of universes, for all you know, and if there are millions and millions and millions of universes, it's statistically inevitable that one of them should have a condition suitable for human life. Yeah? So there are millions of people that do the lottery, but because there are millions of people that do it, it's statistically inevitable most weeks that somebody will win the jackpot. Extraordinary event, but it's statistical likely, you'll see. And if there are millions of universes, then it is statistically likely that one of them would by accident turn out to be a universe with all the conditions necessary for human life. And Leslie says, you'll see, well, all right, imagine that some dictator and some dictator country has condemned you to death by firing squad, yeah? And they put a blindfold on you, and they put you back up against the wall, and here are fifty marksmen, absolute trained, accurate, sharp shooter marksmen, and they're told to level their rifles at you, your heart indeed, and uh, shoot you. So there is you, standing up against the wall, blindfolded. You know there's fifty chaps out there, each with a rifle, aiming, absolute experts. And you hear the fifty shots go off, and to your astonishment, you're still alive. Uh, what would you conclude? Oh, well, that's just an accident, you know. It's just an accident that they, all fifty of them missed. Of course, if they hadn't missed, I shouldn't be here to notice it. Of course you wouldn't. To say it was an accident that all fifty missed. Nonsense. Let us hear what some scientists say about it. Here's John Pockenhorn, head of the Royal Society, an Ang- Anglican Parson. Let us recognize these speculations for what they are, but multi-universes. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense, metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes. And Richard Swindon, the Oxford philosopher, in his book The Existence of God, says to postulate a trillion, trillion other universes rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe seems the height of irrationality. Final thing for us to notice is that the, um, universe had a beginning. That, of course, the, uh, New Testament tells us, and the Old Testament too. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. It had a beginning. It wasn't always there. And one of the reason- oh, the universe has disappeared. Well, that is also fuel to my argument, you see. You won't always be here anyway. Mm-hmm. Uh, uh, one of the reasons that show us, of course, the universe must have had a beginning is this famous so-called law, second law of thermodynamics. It's a law that basically says that energy in our universe is becoming less and less and less available for use. You say, what do you mean? Well, in the days when you were allowed to have a coal fire i- i- i- in in your, uh, homes first. Man. And you heaped on the wood and then the coal, and the coal, being a fossil fuel, had all a tremendous potential of energy inside it. If you could get the energy out of the old coal, it could warm your toes, you'll see, and toast your bread if you wanted it to. So the energy locked up in the coal had got to be released. So you set a fire to it, and that released the energy, and it warmed your toes, but... went out. And left you with a horrible lot of ashes in the grate. Dead as a doornail. Have you ever known, when you came down in the morning, that the ashes that were as cold, as cold as ice, and dead and dusty and no fire in them, by the morning had had gone back again and formed into a bit of coal. You've never noticed that, have you? No, of course you hadn't. It doesn't happen. That's how it is in the universe. Energy is being dissipated. Not destroyed, but dissipated. So it no longer becomes available for use. You want some more heat, you'll have to get some more coal, that's all. That's happening everywhere. Happens to the sun up in the sky, of course. It's putting out thousands of millions of tons of energy every day. It will grow less. Some stars, as we have seen it, now we come back again, they get to a point where they begin, uh, by cause of their internal mechanisms, first of all, to ex- uh, explode to an enormous size and become what they call giant stars, red stars, red giants. And then they can explode. There's one of them there doing it, look, or the remnants of it. Because there is this principle noticed in all creation. You build your lovely house, leave it for seventy years, well, it's become dilapidated. Yes? You have a nice fine cut glass, tiram crystal on your table, the baby knocks it off onto the, onto the tiled floor, smashes. Do you ever find smashed up glasses coming back overnight and coming into old glasses? You don't, do you? No. The arrow of development in the universe is going one way, they say. The arrow of time, if you like, the arrow of change, the change is in one way. You say, yes, yes, yes, yes, but what about plants? They grow. You put a funny looking bulb in the garden, and lo and behold, it develops into a marvelous array of stalk and leaf and petals and flowers that are delightful. That's going against the old decay business, isn't it? Yes, it is. How's that? Because it's dependent on the input of energy from the sun. And that energy supplied locally to that plant makes it grow, of course. And so you were once a, a six-inch-long inch long or something, spookling pit of stuff, and uh, you see, the energy from the sun that made the porridge grow and the milk and everything else, and shining on you, made you grow to the great aristocratic figure that you are now, do you see? Yes. That's a local supply of the energy, but by that same token, the old sun that supplies the energy is going down. Like all fire and the great. Universe not only had a beginning, it's going to end, says God. Now comes the interesting thing. If the universe is in that sense is running down, energy is running down. Can't have been running down eternally, can it? How could it be running down eternally? Must have had a beginning then, so it could start running down. Huh. I'm running down at the advanced age of I shan't tell you what. I've been running down for this last seventy four years. I haven't been running down for all eternity, although I should be a Methuselah already, shouldn't I? What? If the universe had a beginning, it will have an end. Yeah. Let's have a look at the thing. It's a picture of a few stars. They're nice, aren't they? Count them if you can. This thing here is the remnants of a super nu- nova. They exploded and spewed out some of its stuff across the face of the universe. Here it is, look. This is not a star, it's the remains of one. The universe is running down. Scripture. They shall all wax old as a garment, and as a vesture. Thou shalt roll them up, and they shall be changed. No need, my good Christian friend, to get pessimistic about it if you, like me, are getting old. It's part of the plan. You too, one day, will be changed. With a spiritual body like unto the glorious body of our risen Lord. And there shall come a new heavens and a new earth. Of course, there's a very big lesson to be learned, isn't there? From the fact that the universe had a beginning, our earth had a beginning, and it isn't going to last forever. And that is the lesson taught us by two Peter in his, uh, second Peter chapter one, That, uh, life is temporary in the form we know it now. Our universe is temporary. The decisions that we make here in this temporary world are going to af- if a- affect our eternal destiny. And Peter, in his old life, soon to put off the tabernacle and go into eternity, tells us that his major concern is to get his fellow believers to grasp it and realize it. Life is temporary. God help us not to te- treat temporary things as though they were eternal. It is the significance of this life that it is the preparation for the eternity to come. So, the universe had a beginning. That raises another big question, doesn't it? What is it for? You'll see, if the universe had always been there eternally, you could treat it like a brute lump of matter, but it was always there. Nobody knows how, it was just there. You'll see. But if it had a beginning, then we naturally ask, well, who started it and what for? It is here, of course, that science is bankrupt. Science can tell us, and God be thanked for science, how the old universe works. We're enormously grateful to, for it. What science cannot tell you is why the universe is there to start with. They can explain how it works, not why it's there. And that is why we need not merely the evidence of creation around us, we need God's self-revelation in his word to tell us what it's for. You go into a physics laboratory or chemistry lab, uh, in the university somewhere, and you'll find these learned looking folks in their white whatnots, and there are machines going blip and blop and blap, and lights are coming out here, and other things going buzzing, and uh, test tubes, and ooh, you'll see. And there's over here, uh, another vessel, it's sort of round with a spout on here and a handle over the top, it's got water in it, it's being obviously heated up. So what is that for? How would you decide what it was for? You said, well, let's start measuring it. The thing is made of, let's see now, that looks like aluminium, or it could be stainless steel, who knows? And the water inside is composed of hydrogen and oxygen in due proportion, yeah? And the stuff underneath is gas. We can explain what it is and what it costs, rather a lot, uh, you'll see. And the water is being the the gases in it are getting excited, you see? That's what boiling is. And then they get to such excited they start to go away into steam, you see. You have all the scientific explanations in the world. What they couldn't tell you is why the scientists are boiling the water. How it boils, they can tell you, but why they're boiling it? What part of, what experiment is that part of? Well, if you ask them bluntly, no, it's not, then they, lunchtime has come and they're boiling it to make a cup of tea. You wouldn't know that, would you, unless you could consult the scientists themselves, why they're doing it. So it is with the vast universe around us. Science can tell us how it works. Why is it there at all? And that would involve asking, why are we here at all? How should we know, unless God had shown it to us? Of him, and through him, and unto him are all things made. This world makes sense. It has a purpose. Every human being has a reason for existence and a purpose. The charge of scripture is this, whereas God made us to do his will, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to our own way. Not necessarily vicious, but living without regard for the purpose of the creator who made us. That is why we as believers, let alone the unconverted, need to listen to our Lord's exhortation on how we should pray. The very first thing we pray for, surely. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. With all the otherness, with all the holiness, with all the majesty and glory of it, God forbid we should ever get little ideas about God. And be confined to our narrow little interests. Or even in that sense, merely interested in our personal salvation and a ticket to heaven. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. In earth as it is in heaven. Let us not pray it as though we were imposing on ourselves some heroic discipline. It's a marvel, isn't it? You're not a accidental mite in cheese. You are God's idea, God's thought, and he created each one of us with a destiny far more glorious than we can possibly imagine. And he will be loyal to us as our creator, with the loyalty expressed in the death of his dear son. Some people don't want a universe, do they, that's made by God. Let's look at our final, uh, uh, uh, overheads. Let us observe it as we go out to preach the gospel of the creator and redeemer. Is Stephen Hawking, Short History of Time. Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. Here was Arthur Eddington in his day. Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant. I should like to find a genuine loophole. Why? Oh, listen to John Maddox, until recently editor of Nature, the high prestigious scientific magazine Nature. This is not a birdwatching thing, this is the, the highest magazine in the world, perhaps for, for scientific, announcing scientific experiments and their results. He did, that, he pronounced the idea of a beginning thoroughly unacceptable. What an adjective to use. Because it implied an ultimate origin for our world. And look at this terrible thing. And gave creationists ample justification for their belief. So here's the editor of the foremost scientific me- uh, journal in the world saying that we must rule out a beginning, for one reason amongst others, that it gives creationists ample justification for their beliefs. Romans is true. The evidence of creation is manifest to them, says Paul, and men will be held accountable for it. God holds the view that they are without excuse. And to say the universe had no beginning and there's no plan, no purpose, no God, no creator, is to hold down the truth in unrighteousness. I, ladies and gentlemen, my contention is therefore that we Christians, particularly in our modern age, cannot afford to neglect this aspect of our basic Christian gospel. The beliefs of our children in the schools, our students in the universities, the workers in every technological lab in the country, the teachers anyway, and the pulpits, need to hear not only the voice of the word of God, but the strength of the evidence coming from science and our understanding of the universe that confirms our belief in what God says. There is evidence from the universe that there is a God to whom we are responsible. We shall be held to account for it because the attempt to suppress that evidence is culpable and indictable before God. So may the Lord bless our studies.