We’re able to comprehend the natural world because God made human beings in his image (Gen. 1:27). We’re rational beings made in the image of a rational God, able to make sense of the logical structuring of the universe. Johannes Kepler expressed this interconnectedness of the natural order, human reason, and the divine mind when he said, “God wanted us to recognize them [i.e., the laws of mathematics] by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts.”

The natural world exhibits a rational ordering—that is, it follows regular patterns, what we call the “laws of physics” or the “laws of nature”—and humans have the ability to comprehend the world and how it’s structured.

Regarding this, theoretical physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne commented,

We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that, most of the time, we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos, rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality that was inaccessible to us.

Polkinghorne raises important points. Why is it that the natural world is ordered? Why is it that the human mind is able to comprehend the natural world?

The world could have been different. Yet we find ourselves in a world that makes sense to us, that we’re able to grasp. We find ourselves in a world that’s conducive to scientific study and investigation. The natural world exhibits a universal consistency and patterns that allow us to make predictions and to progress in our knowledge. Our world has the key properties that make the success of the scientific enterprise possible. Why?

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies made an interesting observation after asking this question:

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are—they just are.”

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