Every so often I run across a news article about new discoveries that could reshape our understanding of the universe or how some scientists are proposing new ways of thinking about the questions that continue to confound our best efforts of explanation.
As our knowledge grows and our scientific theories continually shift in response, it’s obvious that our experts are still out of their depth in the mysteries of creation. It often seems that the more we find out about the universe, the more questions we end up having about it.
For all we’ve discovered, we still don’t know some of the fundamental basics about how it works. Yes, we have theories like dark matter to explain anomalies we don’t understand, but we’ve never observed dark matter and we may very well be wrong about it. We theorise about black holes and postulate about the meaning of ripples in the space-time continuum.
At the heart of the physical universe that supports our lives, there are mysteries that still boggle our minds. We know this, and accept it, even as we work to understand more. But while people have learned to live with this tension in our knowledge of the fundamental realities of the universe, they often reject the exact same dynamic when it comes to the One who created the universe. If you think about this, it doesn’t make sense.
The Creator and His Creation
Why should we expect the Creator to be easier to understand than His creation? Wouldn’t we rather expect Him to be even deeper, even broader and more expansive than anything He made? Wouldn’t He, of all things, be the most mind-blowing reality of all?
This is one reason why I find Christianity so compelling. It is not only because of my personal experience of God working in my life (which is undeniable), the historical record, prophecy, and the like. It is also because Christianity presents God to us as a reality that expands far beyond our understanding.
Take the doctrine of the Trinity, for example – who can understand it fully? How can God exist in three persons, with one nature, at the same time? Yes, and how can light be both a particle and a wave? And how can quantum particles exist in multiple states at the same time as long as they aren’t being observed? Why has a unified theory that reconciles the inconsistencies of observable science been so elusive to our best and brightest experts?
Some people use the doctrine of the Trinity to mock Christians with the silliness of believing in mind-bending conundrums. I see it the other way around. Mind-bending conundrums already surround us, and I reckon that a God who can dream up quantum mechanics should logically be more complex than the physics He created. We ought to expect a struggle when we try to get our little minds around the fullness of who God is – just like we struggle to understand the universe He invented. In both cases, the struggle is definitely worth the effort.
Seth Lewis is pastor of Carrigtwohill Baptist Church on the south coast of Ireland. He and his wife Jessica have three children, a turtle, and a small garden. Seth is the author of Dream Small: the Secret Power of the Ordinary Christian Life and The Language of Rivers and Stars: How Nature Speaks of the Glories of God. He also writes weekly at sethlewis.ie.
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