So, I was watching Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking on the Discovery Channel tonight. It's actually part of a series of looks at the universe by Stephen Hawking. Pretty interesting stuff actually. When you get right down to it, to study how our universe began and postulate the beginnings of life is a noble feat. However, no matter how hard we search and probe and discover; no matter how much knowledge and understanding we gain, there is still no "scientific" way to explain how all of this great and vast universe came into existence. All our great theories and hypothesis only scratch the surface of reality.
As I watched this show, I was fascinated by two things.
First, there was a line in the show about halfway through that discussed how we as humans came into being. He said, "the most likely way that life came to be, is that we are an accident." He went further to say that we (life) are most miraculous in that "by merely chance, the basic building blocks of life came to be, given enough time and the right conditions to happen". Now think about that for a moment. You and me, and all of life as we know it, an accident. That by some mere chance, with enough time and the right conditions, you and I were born into being? This is a WIDELY accepted view too! Let's consider two things for a moment, shall we? Take a simple remote control for your TV. Let's look at the parts of the remote. There are buttons, lights (if it's backlit), a circuit board that governs its actions, the casing, circuit connectors, wires, and batteries. (I might have missed a few parts, but just follow along with me.) Now, we take all those parts separately, put them into a box, put the lid on it, and shake it. For a really long time. We pass it down to our children, and their children, and their children's children, and so on for generations. Let's say we do this for 1,000 years. Now, let's open that box up and see what we find. Would we find a fully functional remote? NO! More than likely we would find dust and rubbish after shaking that box up for all those years, if anything was still recognizable it would be a feat into itself, but it would not be a functioning, highly organized tool that we could use. And that is just a simple remote. You and I are made up of so much more than that! Consider for a moment that even the world's fastest computer can not even come close to the computing power of the human mind! And yet we are an accident? A pure freak of chance? Even the Laws of Thermodynamics show us otherwise. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters of leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." Huh? Basically, the Second Law says that the universe is constantly using losing usable energy and never gaining. So if that's the case, how is it that some random chemicals and building blocks of life, swimming around in some primordial pool of ooze gave birth to life, by chance? Well, some may say, "You are forgetting about the spark that started the chain reaction? That came from outside of the pool of energy." Well, ok. How about this. Take a wind up clock. It will progressively begin to wind down until it eventually reaches the end. Can it restart on its own? Can it begin to count up from where it is? It takes something to spur it into action. It takes someone to wind it up again before it can do what it was created to do. So the question then is, who wound the clock? Genesis 1:1 says in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Genesis 1 in fact tells us how the world and everything in our universe for that matter was created! In fact, it's in verse 3 where God says let there be light and the start of life as we know it. Whether you are a new earth believer or an old earth believer, I think will be a point that we can discuss when we get to meet our Creator face to face. But I also believe that when we see our wonderful and amazing God, the one who created all that we see and are still discovering, the one who made us from the dust of the earth, I think we are going to have a lot better things on our minds than the wonder of how he spoke everything into existence. But it is a noble thing to study. Let's look at the second insight....
The second thing that impressed me was Stephen Hawking himself. Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known here as Lou Gehrig's disease. This disease progressively destroys the neuro-muscular functions of the body. This disease has left Hawking mostly paralyzed, and how most of us know him. However, this was not always the case. When Hawking was 21, he started to develop symptoms which led to his ultimate diagnosis that he was in fact affected by ALS. Hawking's disease is unique in some ways as most individuals diagnosed with ALS will only survive a few years before succumbing to the aggressive attacks from the disease. Stephen Hawking will be 70 in 5 months from today. But here's what really affected me about this man. Despite his afflictions, God has given this man a tremendous gift in the wonder, curiosity and function of his brain. While his body can no longer move, his 500lb brain is sharp and active in its exploration of our universe. What an amazing opportunity he has to expound on all the wonders of God's existence in the world. And yet, when asked about God, Hawking says that he does "not believe in a personal God." Hawking adds, "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing." And it saddens me that while all his knowledge and understanding of the beginnings of the universe, what is postulated as fact and touted as reality is nothing more than just a theory in itself. Not one, even Hawking for all his work in theoretical physics, has even come close to fully explaining how it happened. How it all came into existence. How we are even here today. It's all just his best guess at how life and the universe was formed.
So, are we merely an accident that happened by chance, by some freak spark that put the wheels of life into motion and formed all the varied species of life as we know it today? Did we come from nothing? Did the world form itself out of an unseen force that finally snapped? Genesis 1:26-28 says "Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” I refuse to believe that I am an accident! I refuse to believe that I am merely just a collection of cells and amino acids that somehow came together by chance! I refuse to believe that the only thing this life has for me is time! God created me for a purpose! He created us all for a purpose! We are here to tell of His glories! To look at the world and all He created and marvel at the God who spoke it all into being! I am a child of God, and that means that I am unique and set apart for something more than just to pass the time away here on the earth. And whether Mr. Hawking wants to believe it or not, we all will face the truth when we come to the end of our life. Each and every one of us will stand before the throne of God and worship His Holy name!
Ephesians 2:10 says that "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." I am HIS WORKMANSHIP! I am created, unique, prepared beforehand, to do the work that he has called me to do! This is my purpose and this is my goal, that the world will know Christ, because of his love and his life shining through me! I choose to walk in that knowledge and in that truth. Do you? The story of everything? It begins and ends with God.
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