n e w c h u r c h l i f e : j u ly / au g u s t 2 0 1 6
Bryson points out, for example, that the human body is made up of
trillions of atoms and that when we die those atoms “just go off to be other
things.” True enough. But science cannot explain the soul, which has no atoms
and moves on to a spiritual, eternal and indestructible plane.
Within all the fascinating discoveries of science – and we still have so
much more to learn – what we really are seeing is the breathtaking intricacy,
efficiency and order of God’s creation.
Start with the almost unfathomable extent of the universe – at least the
little we know of it – and the equally unfathomable protons, the building
block of everything in the universe. (Just try this for perspective: there are
approximately 500 billion protons in the space of the period at the end of this
sentence.)
What Bryson calls the “visible universe” – all that we can detect with our
most sophisticated telescopes and educated guesses – is a million-millionmillion-million miles across. The number of light years to the edge of the larger
unseen universe is written not with tens of zeroes but millions. The average
distance between the stars we see is 20 million-million miles. And nobody
knows how many stars are in just our Milky Way; it is estimated between 100
billion and 400 billion. And the Milky Way is just one of 140 billion or so other
galaxies. This is all part of God’s natural kingdom.
Now shift the perspective from the telescope to the microscope. Bryson
writes: “It starts with a single cell. The first cell splits to become two and the
two become four and so on. After just 47 doublings, you have ten thousand
trillion cells in your body and are ready to spring forth as a human being.”
When you look in the mirror you are seeing trillions of cells, all arranged
into you: each with a specific job to do, each carrying your complete genetic
code, and each constantly being used up and replaced. “Every cell in nature,”
he says, “is a thing of wonder. Even the simplest are beyond the limits of
human ingenuity.”
This is mind boggling enough, but every cell contains an estimated 100
million protein molecules – the driving force behind our natural lives.
Bryson says, “Such a staggering figure gives some idea of the swarming
immensity of biochemical activity within us. And “never forget,” he says, that
“every living thing is a wonder of atomic engineering.”
But it is all so much more than physics and engineering. The more we
learn and understand about the symbiotic order of creation, the harder it is
for science “purists” to deny God and ascribe all this wonder upon wonder to
random serendipity.
The real wonder of it all is that everything in nature – everything – no
matter how impossibly large or unbelievably small, was created by God for use.
(“What is marvelous is that every individual thing, even to the most minute, is
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