Even monotheistic religions such as Islam typically emphasize the sovereignty and distance of God over his personal engagement with humans. And none but Christianity dares to suggest that the God who made the universe then entered it so he could enter our lives today. But this is just what the New Testament assures us.

Astrology astronomy outer space big bang solar system planet galaxy creation. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. By nikonomad/stock.adobe.com

The funerals for those who died at Camp Mystic and other Central Texas flood locations are being held and are breaking the hearts of everyone who attends and many who are praying for those who attend. Not to mention those grieving for more than one hundred flood victims who are still missing at this writing.

Many of us are struggling with the perennial question: Since God created the natural world and can intervene whenever he wishes, why didn’t he prevent this tragedy? However, I’d like to take a moment to look at the natural world from a different perspective, one that I hope can offer hope for our hurting hearts.

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Planets

My thoughts are prompted by this headline in today’s news: “Astronomers discover giant alien planet 35 times more massive than Earth hiding in a known star system.”

They named the newly found exoplanet Kepler-139f. Despite its giant size, it had evaded detection until now. One of the co-authors of the study reporting the discovery added, “It is likely that many planetary systems host unseen worlds, especially in their outer regions.”

Scientists now estimate that there are 100 sextillion planets in the universe. To put that number in numeric terms, they believe there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets like ours, many of them many times larger than Earth.

But they are only a small part of the galaxies in which they reside. And scientists estimate that there are between six and twenty trillion galaxies in the universe. (Let’s not pass over “trillion”—there are one thousand millions in a billion and one thousand billions in a trillion.)

If all of this “boggles your mind,” so to speak, that’s my intent.

Why the Greeks Had So Many Gods

Like you, I am frustrated and grieved whenever God does not intervene in the natural world to prevent natural disasters and tragedies. But let’s not overlook the fact that he can.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is unique among world religions in its emphasis on a single deity who not only created the universe but also interacts with it today. Most religions known to history are polytheistic, comprised of deities limited to specific realms or locations. The Greeks and Romans had their god of the sea, for example, but he had limited agency in wartime over their god of war.

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