Specially made, after all?
- Nov 7, 2008 - comment
Christians have been told since the days of Copernicus, who correctly theorized the earth was not the center of the universe or even the center of the solar system, that there’s really nothing special about our earthly existence. There was no creation, there was no Creator, and we are all just biological curiosities that crawled out of a mud pit some two or three billion years ago—nothing particularly noteworthy about it all.
The concept really picked up speed when English naturalist Charles Darwin published Origin of the Species in 1859, in which he detailed his argument that life on earth evolved from common ancestors through natural selection. The theory of evolution—that life on earth, including mankind, arose from lower forms that were simply evolving/adapting to conditions—has long been accepted as factual in most quarters of the modern scientific community.
Whether supporters of the theory (yes, it’s just a theory) of evolution want to admit it, their promotion of evolution as the all-encompassing, debate-ending explanation for life on earth has in part led to some of the greatest atrocities ever committed. If there’s nothing special about life, if we owe our existence to the ingenuity of lower life forms’ ability to adapt, then there’s really no higher meaning to life.
If we are nothing more than soul-less creatures of natural selection, then what is the value of an individual human life? If an individual human life is worthless, then why not put the sword to people, or gas them, or abort them, if we don’t like them or find them pesky and inconvenient?
After all, there’s nothing special about us, right? Well, maybe there is.
The web site space.com recently published an article written by Clara Moskowitz in which scientists announced their observation that the planet earth may exist in “an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly devoid of matter.”
What that means was summarized by Timothy Clifton, a researcher at Oxford University in England. “This idea that we live in a void would really be a statement that we live in a special place. The regular cosmological model is based on the idea that where we live is a typical place in the universe. This would be a contradiction to the Copernican principle,” he told Moskowitz.
Of course, there is a much more complex explanation for this bubble theory, but it really boils down to the debate about whether we are special or just biological accidents that could have and probably have occurred in other places in the universe. Could there be a God who put together this place in the universe just for us? We don’t have to understand every aspect of the cosmological model to figure that out.
We can search our hearts, and we can search God’s Word. Psalm 139:13-16 provides us with insight into God’s own “bubble theory” for every one of us:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Now, don’t you feel better? We can be certain that there was a creation, there is a Creator, and that each of us are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” All the theories in the world can’t take away that simple truth.
We are special in God’s eyes, and we should fight for that principle until we draw our last breaths on this orb. After what Jesus did for us, it’s the least we can do for Him.
This article is reprinted from the October 23, 2008, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Further Learning
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