God, the universe and all that: Part 1

Note: this is the first instalment of a five-part series.

I’m a fan of space. I don’t actually know much about the details of astronomy or cosmology or astrophysics; I just think that the space is really cool.

If there are any real scientists reading this, I want to say thanks. I know that most of your work involves boring and tedious searching, collating and number crunching. Thanks for doing all that stuff so that I can see those fantastic pictures of nebulas on the internet and wonder at it all.

For example, I’m a fan of millisecond pulsars. A gigantic star, millions of light years away, explodes in a huge supernova. It creates a fireball ten million billion billion times bigger than Hiroshima. In its ashes, it leaves behind a neutron star made of dense atomic nuclei, squashed together at a density 10 trillion times greater than steel. A teaspoon full of neutron star weighs about the same as Sydney Harbour. Sometimes this neutron star will steal stuff from a nearby star and start spinning. Some neutron stars spin hundreds of times a second—a whole star rotating as fast as an idling car engine. Many of these super-dense, revving stars send out pulses of electromagnetic radiation, milliseconds apart. And we might be able to use these millisecond pulsars as standard cosmological clocks to help us detect gravitational waves, explore space-time bending, and understand more about the tiniest particles in the universe.

But apart from the wow factor, what’s the point of learning about space?

Some people might say that, in the end, astronomy is a complete waste of time. Sherlock Holmes, that fictional epitome of scientific rationalism, cared nothing for astronomy. When his friend Dr Watson scolded him for being ignorant even of the basic facts of the solar system, he interrupted and said, “What the deuce is it to me? … you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”1

Is Mr Holmes correct? Is stargazing a completely useless exercise?

Well, you could point out that weather and tide and climate predictions need detailed solar, lunar and planetary modelling. You could also point out that car engines need modern mechanics, which is all based on the laws of motion formulated by Isaac Newton, who used the orbits of planets to calculate and build his theories. Or you could point to the humble GPS satellite navigator, which relies on Einstein’s theory of relativity and orbiting satellites. Of course, astronomy is useful; after all, it helps us to work out whether it’s raining, and how to drive quickly to the cricket and back without taking a wrong turn!

But I want to suggest that stargazing is far more important than all this. In fact, the Bible itself gives us a very good reason for considering the stars. There is a song in the Bible about the stars—a song composed thousands of years ago in ancient Israel. This is how the song begins:

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

(Ps 8:1-2)

You’ll notice that this poet believes in God (just like many of the astronomers down through the ages). In fact, this whole song is a prayer to the creator of the universe. We’ll come back to this shortly. But for the moment, let’s look at his exercise in stargazing. Do you see what he says in the third verse of the song?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place …

When you think about it, stargazing is something that would have been easier and more natural for an ancient Israelite than for us. Yes, we can use our light, radio and gamma ray telescopes to penetrate vast distances, and we can use our complex mathematical and cosmological theories to make determinations and predictions. Of course, the ancients couldn’t do that. But on the other hand, they had a very big advantage over us: they had a clear, unpolluted sky in their backyards. We have so many lights on earth—especially in our cities—that the lights of the stars and the moons are drowned out. When I go into my backyard on a clear night, all I can see are a few pinpricks. But this biblical songwriter could step into his own backyard and see far more than you or I. He could see the glory of it all—the heavens, the Milky Way, the wandering planets.

We don’t tend to look up very much at all, do we. We don’t use the night time to look at the heavens; we use the night time to look down—to watch TV, to immerse ourselves in virtual worlds online. We know cyberspace very well, but this ancient poet sees real space with his naked eyes. We know the intimate details of the lives of rock stars and football stars, but this song is about the real stars. At this point, this biblical poet is far more in touch with the reality of the universe than we are. And knowing these stars—seeing them there before him—what does this do for the poet? How does it make him feel? Look at verse 4:

what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

What does astronomy do for this poet? What is the use of astronomy for all of us? Astronomy is very useful. It does something very negative for us, but it’s still very worthwhile: it reminds us how very very very small and insignificant we really are. In case you’re wondering, the words translated ‘man’ here mean ‘all humanity’. The question “What is man?” is an expression of amazement that human beings have any importance at all in the face of the evidence of the stars.

To be continued …

1 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Study in Scarlet’ in Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Long Stories, John Murray, London, 1929, p. 17.

7 thoughts on “God, the universe and all that: Part 1

  1. That great astronomer, Johannes Kepler, who worked out planetary motion, is supposed to have described science as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him”—what a privilege it is to do so!

  2. Hi Michael: I think you’ve mistaken my intention in speaking of “usefulness”. I was actually attempting to subvert the utilitarian paradigm.

  3. Is it astronomy that teaches us that we are very small or the Word of God that interprets those observations for us? Ps 8 gives us the ‘spectacles’ to see the significance (both smallness and greatness) of our place in the amazing universe. Thoughts?

  4. Hi James,

    A good question; I’m not really sure if it’s possible to separate the two out, because the bloke in the Psalm is already a believer in God; and the entire astronomical enterprise itself has been deeply influenced by Biblical thought.

    Having said that, there are plenty of non-Christians who will assert that astronomy teaches us how small we are. Maybe they’re all unconsciously influenced by the word of God when they say that? Well, maybe, but I reckon it’s just kind of obvious. It’s not a huge spiritual leap to look at the data about how massive the universe is and conclude that we’re small and insignificant. Of course, it’s quite another thing to understand this insignificance as a positive thing, and then to find our true significance / greatness in the right place. At this point (verses 5 onwards), the Psalmist is clearly referring to the biblical view of creation, not to his own observations (e.g. observations about zoology wouldn’t have taught him that “everything that passes along the paths of the seas” is under human dominion).

  5. Thanks Lionel,
    Just been thinking about this issue after we had a lecture on revelation (Special vs General) and looked at Calvin, Barth and Brunner’s views.
    How do you think they impact Ps 8? (I agree though, Ps 8 is very majestic and humbles us)

  6. Hi James,

    I would say that Psalm 8 is a good example of special revelation (of God as creator and YHWH as Lord of Israel) properly interpreting general revelation (of God’s majesty displayed in the heavens). I.e. Calvin’s “spectacles” are at work here:

    Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it t of be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.
    John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.vi.1

    Do you think so?

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