A few years ago, the US government authorized the expenditure of billions of dollars in public funds to build and put in space the most spectacular telescope ever devised. But, alas, it didn’t work. The first trouble with Hubble was that it was out of focus.
What Hubble’s builders did not realize was that the mission of the telescope was even more out of focus than the instrument itself. Beyond all else, this vast project–this huge expenditure–was sent aloft to answer three great questions:
How was the universe made?
When was the universe created?
What is it made of?
These are questions that haunt the intellect of man. For at the root of them lies the question of God: who He is, and man’s relationship to Him. In fact, in a recent book, Joseph Silk, University of California astronomer, has put the whole issue in perspective. He says these are “ultimate questions about the creation of the universe, our place in it, and indeed, the existence of God.”
But what the great intellectuals of our day forget is that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God. God laughs at man’s foremost reach to grasp by reason the very truth that his own faithlessness denies. For God had long since provided–at no expense to the US Treasury–straightforward answers to the very questions Hubble was sent aloft to find.
1. When was the universe created?–“In the beginning…” (Gen. 1:1). Man needs to read and believe (there is the key) only the first three words of the Bible to get the answer to his first multibillion dollar question.
2. How was the universe created?–“God created (made out of nothing) the heavens and the earth.” The second multi-billion dollar question also is fully answered; and we are still in the first sentence of God’s message to man!
3. What is it made of?–Hubble was sent up there to confirm ideas the best minds had formed as to the composition of the universe. You see, man thinks he knows the total mass of the universe. But when he gathers up all the materials he knows of, their combined mass is much less than is required to explain the gravitational forces in the universe. Hence they conclude, there must be other material man is unaware of, that comprise much of the universe. But one of the messages Hubble has sent back is that man’s ideas about the “missing mass” are all wrong. The “dark matter” of man’s theories doesn’t exist! There must be something else. But God says that eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor has it even come into man’s imagination, the things that God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). No wonder there are components the astronomers cannot identify!
The simple reality is that the humblest Christian has gained by faith (that is: unquestioning belief in what God says) a more profound knowledge of the universe than the greatest human minds have gained after emptying the US Treasury.
But double trouble came down from Hubble–because the answers this corrected telescope are now sending home are destroying the pet theories of those that sent it up.
There is man’s theory about when it all began. Eight to twelve billion years ago, they say. God simply tells us He created it in the beginning. That is all we need to know; in fact, so long as we are in this life where our ability to absorb tangible reality is limited to the physical tools of measurement we can comprehend, that is all we can know. But humans who do not believe God aspire to be gods themselves. It is a basic teaching of New Age philosophy that men are, or can become, gods. So, they must fill in this great gap in their knowledge. If–the mind reasons–God has not told us when He created the universe, but if we can pin this time down for ourselves, does that not help to make us equal with God Himself? So, several theories and hypothetical means of measurement were devised, to enable mankind to calculate the age of the universe. The basic assumption has been that, originally, all mass of which the universe is composed was in one place. The combined energy of this accumulation was greater than could be contained in it. So, the theory goes, there was a “Big Bang” that sent all components flying outward ever since in all directions. If that outward motion has been at constant speed and if we can now measure the velocity of the components outward from the center, then–the theory goes–we can calculate backward and determine the age of the universe.
Now, there are all sorts of things potentially wrong with this notion–problems the cosmic scientists choose to ignore. For example, who says that finite tools of measurement apply in the celestia? Certainly God never told us that. Moreover, are must not assume that time and the speed of light are constant.
Nevertheless, the human who walks by reason and not by faith must make such questionable assumptions upon which to base his theories. So, Hubble was sent up partly to prove that the Big Bang idea was correct. Now Hubble has responded–and the response has shattered man’s theory. For, using man’s methods of measurement, it must now be concluded that many heavenly bodies which are basic components of the universe are older than the universe itself. That is impossible in earthly terms. Man’s theory collapses. God laughs at the creature’s “wisdom.”
And what about mass and matter? What and where is all the stuff the intellectuals think the universe is largely composed of, but have never been able to identify? So we get another theory from the great minds of time: It is Dark Matter; a great amount of sub-molecular particles randomly scattered throughout interstellar space. Hubble will find it. Hubbel will identify it! But now there is more trouble with Hubbel. Hubble says it is not there. Dark Matter doesn’t exist. Another precious theory, which, could it be proved, would expand man’s knowledge toward godlike proportions, lies in ashes.
Man gropes on in his darkness. God laughs, for the answer was long since given (see Eph. 1:23). The Church fills Him and He fills all in all. This is one of the most glorious and most startling truths of the Christian faith. But of course, the Hubble and theories of man can never comprehend God. So, while God fills all, Hubble sees nothing; because God is seen at present only in and through His Son, Jesus Christ. Unless one knows Him, one cannot know God. And the Hubble crowd obviously put their faith in their instrument–not in the Saviour. So they come up empty-handed once again.
It is not God’s wish that His creatures should be kept ignorant. In fact, God has given man the ability to reason, explore, remember, and learn. And, God has given to us facts which are keys to true wisdom. It all begins with knowing Him. He has told us all we need to be made wise unto salvation. It is from our Creator we hear the lament: “O that they were wise; that they understood this; that they would consider their latter end!” Indeed, a reverential respect for God is the beginning of true wisdom.
Hubble has turned some of man’s pet theories to rubble. As always, the biblical record stands true. Every theory is wrong if it contradicts the Word of God. Surveying the wreckage of human theory that Hubble has wrought, astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, of Mount Wilson Observatory, recently wrote: “It seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain of the mystery of creation.” How right Mr. Jastrow is, and yet how wrong. Science can never raise that curtain; but God has long since raised it for us in His eternal Word.