The Slow Accident of The Universe

"My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove that He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care." - Donald Miller

Every once in a while if it is brought up, I will get in a debate over the origins of the universe and what science does and doesn't imply, much less prove. I've studied both sides enough in the past to feel pretty competent in debating the issues with the average person. But truly I don't care. God's Presence is more real to me than the hand in front of me and the truth is that no amount of academia has every regenerated a person's heart. As Leonard Ravenhill used to point out, if someone can be argued into the faith, they can be argued out of the faith. It is a genuine encounter with God that will change someone forever. And until the day this world comes to an end, there will be a multitude of men and women smarter than you and smarter than me who will look at the exact same data and come to completely different conclusions. For the sake of entertainment, however, I wanted to share with you a couple of paragraphs from G.K. Chesterton's famous work "The Everlasting Man." This is the book that actually led then-agnostic C.S. Lewis to the Lord. Writing prolificly and extensively on philosophy, politics, ontology, art, biographies and more, it has been said often of Chesterton that his works alone are an education in itself and that he was the greatest writer and thinker of the twentieth century. Even his famous atheistic opponents bowed to his intelligence and wit. George Bernard Shaw confessed that "he was a man of colossal genius." It his startling wit and paradoxes that make me laugh out loud. In his review of historic perspective on the origins of man and the universe, here is one of his many entertaining analyses:

"Most modern histories of man begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy explanation of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing can turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how nothing can turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species. But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of a wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, til he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something dilatory in the processes of things. There will be something to be said upon particular examples elsewhere; the question here is the false atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going slow; the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman travelling for the first time in a motor-car."

Hope you enjoyed this excerpt. If you ever get a chance to read Chesterton, I highly recommend it. Until the next post, goodnight!

"A common-sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a super intelligence." - Owen Gingerich (Senior astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)

"The most beautiful thing one can experience is the Mysterious. It is truly the basis of all Arts and Sciences."
- Albert Einstein