Discovering the Universe to Know More About the Maker of the Universe

I was reading through Mark Knoll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (IVP) this afternoon, and came across this most enlightening point:

It is the nature of God and his loving work, not primarily the practical benefits, that requires cultivation of the mind.

For a Christian, the most important consideration is not pragmatic results, or even the weight of history, but the truth. Learning matters the world matters—the word both as material object and as the accumulated network of human institutions. For a Christian, the most important reason for exercising the life of the mind is the implicit acknowledgment that things do not exist on their own. This acknowledgment is a specifically Christian presupposition; its denial characterizes much of the scholarship that shapes our lives so decisively. But even more, we are learning about the One who made that thing (p. 50).

Knoll’s point struck a chord, for often we simply learn about science, art, and philosophy in hopes of obtaining some pragmatic benefit. We study medicine to learn ways to keep the body healthy. We listen or play music for entertainment or creative release. We learn how to think and reason to become enlightened. Yet there is still something even more important that just the practical application, it is understanding truth, and in the ultimate sense of all things, it is discovering something about the One who made it!


Many times we make the mistake of thinking that learning about the universe around us is wholly separate for our own spiritual life; yet that can never be. Discovering the mysteries of the universe helps us understand more about the God who made it. David sings, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Ps. 19:1). The hosts of heaven sing, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created” (Rev. 4:11)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grappling with the Craziness of an Election Year with the Book of Kings

Image
Well this is another election year, which makes the Tuesday after the first Monday in November the terminus ad quem for all the political madness that comes beforehand in the USA. With all the mudslinging, rioting, and overall incivility, it is hard to believe were still have over five months to go. I am going through the Book of 1-2 Kings at the moment, and the refrain “Only the high places were not taken away” caught my eye, and as I began to meditate upon them, I found them to be a bit helpful in grappling with all that goes on during these turbulent election years. Here a little background is needed. After the days of Solomon there came about a civil war that divided the children of Abraham living in the promise land into two nations—the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. There eventually came about a series of rulers in the kingdom of Judah whose reigns the biblical writer describes this way: Jehoash did right in the sight of the LORD…Only ...
Read more

The Good Thing About God and Judgment

Image
Today, I was continuing my trek through the extensive Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright. There is so much content in this extensive two-volume work, I can only soak in a small percentage of it. Working through Wright is always a work in progress. He is just one of those astute theologians who leaves no stone unturned in developing a point. Wright makes this observation about the way the larger story of the New Testament conveyed in Paul’s works concerns God’s judgment in the world, which is part of the way he has come to setup his rule over the world. On p. 481 Write notes,  The word “judgment” has of course been allowed to slip into negative mode in the contemporary western world, with “judgmentalism” one of the classic postmodern villains. But even a postmodernist whose car has been damaged by a drunk driver wants a court to pass “judgment” against the offender. “Judgment” is in fact a positive thing. It is what restores health to a society, a bala...
Read more

As the Dust Settles in Haiti…

Last Sunday as I was getting my groceries totaled up, the checker asked if I would like to make a donation to Haiti, which I did. The amount was practically nothing, but it did remind me that for the entirety of the previous week, it seemed as if the entire world zeroed in on what was going on that half of the Island of Hispaniola, which was devastated by a massive earthquake on January 12, 2010. News sources consider this the largest earthquake that country had experienced in the last 200 years, and many report an estimated 50,000 lives perished. Events like this always remind me that human life is so precious, yet at the same time, one can never know when life’s flame shall be extinguished. There were lots of voices chiming in on the Haiti situation, and many of them were quite helpful, instructing people on what they could do to help survivors. I even had an acquaintance share his intention to travel to the island to do some aid work. I say Godspeed! I also heard a few disheartening...
Read more