When David saw the stars and the sun, he praised God. What spectacular new beauties we now have on display, through the discoveries of the twentieth century! These things are so wonderful as to surpass the imaginations of previous generations. And so, the twentieth century and onward should be the greatest century ever, in the whole history of mankind. We have so much more than David. One would expect that we would be overwhelmed with the beauty, majesty, and wisdom of God, and offer him the most profound and moving praises. But it has not turned out that way.

What is the meaning of science? Let me begin with a personal reflection.

Beauty

I have been given the unfathomable privilege of sight. I have seen awesome beauties. I have seen Niagara Falls and Yosemite Falls, and tall sequoia trees. I have seen the Grand Canyon, falling snowflakes, and fireflies.

I have also seen the stars. I had the privilege of being out on a farm ten miles from town, on a night with a clear sky. They are beautiful. Piercingly beautiful.

The stars have been there longer than humanity existed. Four thousand years ago, Abraham the son of Terah saw them:

And he [the Lord] brought him [Abraham] outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:5).

Centuries later David saw them:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge. (Ps. 19:1-2)

David saw the same beauty and majesty that I saw. Yet he did not just see it; he saw that it said something. It declares “the glory of God”—His beauty and majesty and power and wisdom and faithfulness.

Do we today have the same reaction that David did? No, not everyone does. Many appreciate beauty and majesty, but they are not paying attention to God. They do not see him.

Working Hard Not to See

The Bible indicates that God created human beings to live in fellowship with him. In the beginning, they could see that the stars declared the glory of God. But the first human beings broke their fellowship with God. They rebelled. They wanted to be like gods themselves. And with that rebellion they put out their spiritual eyes, so to speak. Now we work hard not to see the obvious thing about stars, namely that they declare their Maker. We work hard because we cannot bear to admit our dependence on God. At the same time, we cannot bear not to desire beauty, which reminds us of the beauty of God. We are miserable.

In the Bible, God tells us that the only way back is through his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the Way who brings us back to know God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, eyes formerly blind are opened. They see the stars again, as David saw them.

The Development of Modern Science

The stars have been there as long as human beings have existed. But there are other things about the world, more secret than the stars.

It is hard for me to imagine the excitement that Galileo Galilei experienced. He built telescopes. Through the telescopes he and other viewers saw things that God had prepared from all eternity, but had never before been seen by human eyes. Galileo saw the four brightest moons of Jupiter. Not one, but four! How beautiful! How fascinating! How like the solar system itself, with its planets circling around the sun! Galileo also found that the Milky Way consisted in a huge number of faint stars. There were far more stars than what was visible to the naked eye.

And what of Johannes Kepler? Kepler found that the planets traveled approximately in ellipses—ovals, not circles—around the sun. Kepler was the first in the whole history of the world to see this marvel. Here is his reaction:

It now remains that at last, with my eyes and hands removed from the tablet of demonstrations and lifted up towards the heavens, I should pray, devout and supplicating, to the Father of lights: O Thou Who dost by the light of nature promote in us the desire for the light of grace, that by its means Thou mayest transport us into the light of glory, I give thanks to Thee, O Lord Creator, Who hast delighted me with Thy makings and in the works of Thy hands have I exulted….[1]

Kepler praised God, because he saw that these glories and beauties were from God.

Over the years and centuries, these scientific investigations blossomed and multiplied. It became like a growing snowball, rolling down a slope, and accumulating more and more snow. Sciences grew with more and more insights into secrets hidden from the foundation of the world. There are so many stories; I cannot tell them all (Darwinism deserves a special note; see below).

The Twentieth Century

The twentieth century in many ways outshone all the previous centuries:

Scientists uncovered the secrets in the very small (quantum mechanics), and in the very fast (the role of the speed of light and the theory of relativity).

Scientists uncovered the secrets in the very big. Only in the twentieth century did astronomers firmly establish that some of the lights in the sky came from distant galaxies, galaxies like the Milky Way. The galaxies extended out farther and farther away, to unfathomable distances.

Scientists uncovered the secrets of life. Microbiology and molecular biology found more and more intricate, delicate, fine-tuned, miniature machinery inside cells.

Scientists uncovered mathematical secrets to match the physical secrets. There was awesome beauty in the equations for Einstein’s theory of relativity, in the Schrodinger equation for quantum mechanics, in Dirac’s equation for the electron. The beauty of the equations corresponded to hidden beauties in the world.

Scientists discovered semiconductors and their use for new technology. Semiconductors led to transistors. Transistors led to the miniaturizing of computers, and then better computers, eventually including the computers in our cell phones. The technology we have today is wonderful.

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