Fascinating Glimpses of God’s Power and Design, by Richard A. Swenson, M.D., 2000
The intricacies of our bodies and the cosmos all point to an amazingly powerful and wonderful Creator. All of the things scientists discover after painstaking research and years and years of study, God spoke into being out of nothing. And it is amazing and the more we know, the more amazing it is.
Here are a few of the many facts presented in this book:
-After digging even deeper and uncovering still more particles, some physicists began to speculate that we are infinite–not only in the eternal direction–but also in the subatomic direction.
-The 120-day life span of a red blood cell isn’t all that glamorous–it runs around in a circle 200,000 times only to be squished by the spleen on its 200,001st trip.
-Red blood cells are tiny but plentiful. We each make over two million RBCs every second.
-Bacteria–such as strep or staph–live only a matter of minutes but reproduce rapidly by the millions. They are the most prolific form of life on the planet “and if allowed to go unchecked for only thirty-six hours they would reproduce in numbers that could cover the entire planet ‘to the thickness of over a foot.'” 15 They are all over us–on the skin, in the gastrointestinal tract, and in the respiratory tract. Many of them are beneficial, and, as a matter of fact, we would not be able to live without them. Others are noxious, while still others can be fatal.
Viruses–such as the cold and flu viruses, measles, and HIV–are different. They are a hundred times smaller than bacteria, averaging one ten-millionth of an inch in diameter. Viruses show no lifelike activity until they occupy a living host cell. They cannot be treated with antibiotics.
-“In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as remembering,” said William James…Forgetting, for example, is an important component of forgiveness. If someone has offended us, do we forgive and forget? Love, the Scriptures teach, “keeps no record of wrongs.” 24
-Never let us think that we accomplished anything on a Sunday morning because we met and exchanged an hour’s worth of words. But rather let us consider this–did we use all our heart to fill those words with our thanksgiving and adoration?
-The brain is the realm of data, information, and knowledge. The spirit, however, is the realm of understanding, wisdom, and Truth….Harvard University, for example, had in its original charter this statement: “Let every student well consider . . . that the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.” 41 …God has ordained from the beginning that worldly learning will never be sufficient to reveal Christ. This does not, of course, mean that the message of Christ is irrational, but only that it is extra-rational. Its meaning is not accessible through neurons and synapses, no matter how exceptional. To see Christ requires that a light be turned on in our understanding, and the light switch is controlled by God and not by the brain.
-Before leaving the topic of DNA as it relates to God’s sovereignty it is important to pay a glancing visit to the future of bioethics, including such issues as the Human Genome Project, gene therapy, stem-cell and germ-cell manipulation, genetic engineering and eugenics cloning, and the attempt to create life. The word sovereign applied to God is not only a label but also a title. His possessing such a title means we need to be careful about invading His DNA turf unless permission is granted beforehand…
First, it is inevitable that as a society, a nation, and a world we will relentlessly pursue biogenetic research and intervention….
Second, these things will be presented to us as a benefit, a promise….
Cloning–The cloning of humans will happen….I don’t know if you can get a sense of the historic nature of it all, but we are playing with an explosive never before touched by human hands, while still not quite sure of God’s opinion on the matter.
-Despite this scientific brush-off of atmospheric tonnage, in another sense we do indeed labor under another enormous weight–namely our own collective fallenness. What will it feel like, on the other side of eternity, to have this exhausting and painful daily weight removed?
-One reason God chose to call the church a body is because it is such a perfect metaphor. But it goes beyond that. Is it possible that somehow, in a spiritually organic way, we indeed are all connected, networked together by a Spirit who has no trouble with such complexity? Is it possible that when one prays, everyone in the body benefits? That when one loves, everyone in the body is mysteriously lifted? That when one sins, everyone in the body takes the hit and feels the wound? I rather suspect so.
He talks about all the subatomic particles like quarks, neutrinos, photons, gravitons, tachyons, bosons, fermions, gluons, hadrons, leptons, muons, pions, and taus. He talkes about antimatter, the most powerful substance in the universe. He talks about the four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. “We can measure them, monitor them, and manipulate them. But we have great trouble explaining them….Yet if even a small change in the strength of one of these forces with respect to another were to occur, life as we know it would not be possible.”
–How much mass-energy did God create out of nothing?… The universe contains approximately 100 billion galaxies….In all the laboratories, all the universities, all the military installations, by all the scientists with all their sophisticated expensive equipment and Ph.D. degrees–how much mass-energy have they created out of nothing? Zero. Not one joule, not one gram….
For the unbelieving scientist, to explain how something as massive as the universe popped into being out of nothing is a formidable task….
What does this teach us about God?
-That He is powerful at a level beyond human comprehension.
-That He alone has the ability to create mass-energy out of nothing.
-That He formed us with the ability to observe mass-energy–but not to create it.
-That if we need a source of energy, it is better to connect to God’s energy source (infinite) than to humanity’s energy source (nonexistent).
He discusses Einstein’s Relativity: “Why is light such a central concept in physics? Does this at all tie in with God calling Himself light?8 Why is there a “light barrier” at the speed of light? If an object were accelerated to the speed of light, its dimension would go to zero, its mass to infinity, and time would stand still….” Then he discusses Quantum Mechanics, then Superstrings: “If our visible world has three spatial dimensions plus time, and the superstring world has nine spatial dimensions plus at least one or two time dimensions, how many dimensions will we experience in Heaven?…”
“As a religious person, I strongly sense . . . the presence and actions of a creative being far beyond myself and yet always personal and close by,” says Nobel laureate physicist Charles Townes. Townes believes that scientific discoveries reveal “a universe that fits religious views”–specifically, that “somehow intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe.”10
Similarly, noted astronomer Allan Sandage, who began his scientific journey as an atheist, was overwhelmed by the data to accept the existence of God. “It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science,”he says. “We can’t understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural.”12
In “The Galaxies,” he talks about Great Voids, the Great Wall, and the Great Attractor, dark matter. In discussing the planets, the Earth: “A change in distance from the sun by a mere 2 percent would void our planet of life…If the moon did not exist, neither would we. The earth would rotate three times faster, subjecting us to continuous gale force winds.”
He also talks about black holes, quasars, wormholes, warp drives.
The universe is a vast, rich and beautiful place…Partly the hand of God is seen through beauty…Partly the hand of God is seen through power–whether the extensive power of gravity that holds it all together; the concentrated power of nuclear fusion that fuels the stars and gives us life; or the awesome power of supernovas, quasars, and gamma ray bursts….Partly the hand of God is seen through precision…”Scientists have identified 109 characteristics of our galaxy and solar system that require exquisite fine-tuning for life’s existence and sustenance,” explains astrophysicist Hugh Ross…
When God eliminates the time, light, and speed barriers, it will be very interesting to see what kind of existence such a reality will afford us.
Life as a vapor–The Scriptures often refer to the brevity of life…David then joins in the discussion, pointing out that our life is merely a “breath”: “The span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.”7 Paul contributes as well by calling our afflictions “momentary”: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”8 “Momentary?” I ask God. “Why did You choose that word? These troubles seem anything but momentary. As a matter of act, they seem interminable.”
God replies, “I understand. But I am trying to tell you something about the temporary nature of suffering. I am doing this for your encouragement, to help you get through a fallen world. It might seem to you like a long struggle. But here is a secret: even though it feels to you that your perceptions about suffering are correct, in fact they are not. Troubles are momentary, fleeting, vaporous. You need only hang on for a vapor’s length of time, and then you’ll be Home. A vapor’s length of time is not too long to do what’s right.Trust Me.”
Those who walked with Christ were consistently amazed and overwhelmed. Their hearts burned. It was surely an incomparable experience. Here was powerful, almost irresistible, evidence of the nature of God–a deity who could cure illness, conquer death, and rule time, space, and matter. He was unjustly accused, wrongly condemned, and brutally crucified. Yet when He climbed back out of the grave, He wasn’t even mad!