As the creator of the universe, God knows more about it than anyone else. This superior knowledge should be evident in His revelation to man, and it is! In scripture, two great features of the universe are alluded to as if they are points of common understanding — galaxies and the super-force. However, until recently, man was ignorant of both features.
What are galaxies?
Galaxies are large, associated star clusters. Our sun is one small star on the outlying fringe of the Milky Way galaxy. Galatic groups are separated by immense distances. The average galaxy has 40 to 100 billion stars in it and there are probably as many billions of galaxies in the entire universe as there are stars in any one galaxy. The vastness and majesty of the night sky, when viewed through a telescope, staggered Galileo and has continued to awe physicists to this day. But the Psalmist David anticipated their thoughts by almost 3000 years, when he recorded the words:
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork” (Psa. 19:1).
God revealed 4,000 years ago
Even more startling are the words spoken to Abraham almost 4000 years ago, when the LORD said:
“Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (Gen. 15:5).
We could dismiss this as poetic license on the part of Moses when he recorded God’s word. After all, the approximately 2,000 stars that he could see with the naked eye might have seemed a large number to Abraham.
However, God leaves no doubt precisely what he had in mind when he confirmed the promises again to Abraham:
“That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Gen. 22:17).
Numbers like the sand
The allusion to “sand on the sea shore” is extraordinary. No human being prior to Galileo could have possibly guessed the scientific exactitude of the statement. As a literary allusion, the similarity between the observed stars that Abraham could see in his day and the sand on the sea shore made no quantitative sense. Far better to have compared the sand with the drops of rain or all the water in the sea. The comparison only makes sense if some far greater intelligence actually gave the message, one knowing the true state of the heavens. Perhaps, one wishing to convey a message to our own age.
Search for the super force
Physics started as a branch of philosophy and in a sense it still has roots in this realm. The study of the natural world in order to find out how it works has been the foremost vocation of the physicist. Finding fundamental causes and effects and then describing them as simply as possible has been one of the crowning achievements of physics.
Nearly everyone who has a passing knowledge of secondary school mathematics can appreciate the profound implications of the straightforward equation E=mc² (where E is the energy, m the mass and c the velocity of light). Since the velocity of light is a large number, when we square it, we obtain an extremely large number. Thus, if we convert even a relatively small mass into energy, an extraordinary amount of energy is obtained. This physical law explains the basic physical principle that led to the atomic bomb.
Despite discovering this relationship, Einstein was not satisfied. He was convinced there is one super-force which lies behind the other known forces.
Four forces discovered
The first force physicists discovered was gravitation discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. It was nearly two centuries before physicists could isolate other forces. This occurred when electricity and magnetism were revealed.
At first, scientists thought these were two new and independent forces. However, in what was to be the first successful attempt at a unification theory, physicist Clerk Maxwell showed both forces could be described in a single self-consistent set of equations. Rather than being different forces, electricity and magnetism were merely different manifestations of a single underlying cause. Gravitation was then understood to govern the interaction between bodies because of their mass, while electromagnetism governed the interactions due to their electrical charge. Einstein sought to unify these two forces in his first attempt at a general field theory.
Then in the 1930’s, two new forces were discovered. These were the weak force, which controls atomic radioactive decay, and the strong force, which in a sense binds the quarks into nucleons such as the proton. These two forces act at incredibly short distances and hence, were undetected for a long time.
Seeking the one force
Now physicists believe that these four forces are all manifestations of one single force called the super-force. Progress in describing this super force has been made and there is a single tensor equation that unifies the weak, strong and electromagnetic forces. How gravity fits into this Grand Unification Theory is not yet clear, but theoretical physicists think they see the path that will lead to fitting this last piece into the puzzle.
Nevertheless, the process of formulating a grand unification theory has provided the most complete model of the universe that physicists have ever had. Physicists are so sure of the basic premises of these ideas that they are proclaimed as the “standard model.”
Things which do not appear
An almost certain conclusion of this standard model is that the four known forces (gravity, strong, weak and electromagnetic) really are the result of the cooling down of the universe. The standard model predicts that at the beginning, the universe was confined to one extremely small region of space, far smaller than an atom, and of extremely large energy. At that initial time, these four fundamental forces were merged into one force called the super force. Everything we see in the universe today has condensed out of the cooling down and expansion of this almost infinitely small, infinitely energetic singularity.
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. 11:3).
Superforce in scripture
The findings of modern physics have given new meaning to the words of scripture. The above text from Hebrews speaks more plainly in a modern version:
“By faith we understand that the universe was created at God’s command, so that what we see was made out of what cannot be seen” (Berkley Modern Language Bible).
The world was made of things unseen formed from pure energy which condensed into quarks, and from this all atomic matter came — that’s precisely the view of modern physics. The Spirit in Hebrews presents an argument that we accepted purely on faith; now, the findings of modern physics make it evident to all that this verse is scientifically accurate. Today, there are more reasons for our faith than ever before.
Belief in God is the critical first step in our lives that must occur if we are to have hope beyond the grave. Hebrews 11 continues in verse 6:
“But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
Acceptance of God inevitably leads us to ask the question: why? While science has made huge strides in understanding how the universe works, only the revealed word of God can tell us why He created it. The Bible reveals that God created it for His glory:
“But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Num. 14:21).
It remains for us to seek Him diligently that we may be rewarded by sharing in that glory.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One