October 22, 2024
In the Beginning - Part 2
Genesis 1:1-3
10/22/2024
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness
was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, ``Let there be light,'' and there
was light. (ESV)
In 1802, the French philosopher and scientist Pierre Laplace
published a monumental work on the mathematical operation of the
universe. When he was questioned by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte,
``You have written this book on the universe but never mentioned
the Creator,'' Laplace replied, ``Sire, I had no need of that
hypothesis.''[1]
The Bible begins:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. The earth was without form and void, and
darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And
God said, ``Let there be light,'' and there was light.
At the time that Pierre Laplace dismissed the Creator as
irrelevant to science, the established scientific community
believed the universe was eternal. Edwin Hubble discovered that
the universe is expanding in 1929. Arlo Penzias, a researcher at
Bell Telephone Laboratories, won the Nobel Prize for his work in
1965 which further showed the universe had a beginning.
Modern science can't explain what caused the universe to
begin. They have a very good idea of what may have happened
within the first second of time, but that first instant, the
cause, the mechanism, remains out of their grasp. The first
chapter of Genesis is looking more and more plausible. The
prophet Isaiah was correct, ``The word of our God will stand
forever.''[2]
May our Lord give us the wisdom to see Him in creation, and
to trust His Word. Amen.
____________________
1. Drawn from: Meyer, S. C. (2021). Return of the God
hypothesis. New York: HarperOne, p. 86 (Kindle edition).
2. Isaiah 40:8