Years ago, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg, and a very vocal atheist, too, wrote a book about the origins of the universe. Toward the end of the book, he wrote the following words, which caused quite the stir: “The more the universe seems comprehensible,” he wrote, “the more it also seems pointless.”
Of course, one could argue that there sure seems to be a lot going on in the universe to deem it all pointless. And though made by a scientist, this sentiment was not a scientific statement; it was a philosophical one, and not a particular perspicacious one either (how could Weinberg possibly know that the universe was pointless?)
Responding to the hoopla over Weinberg’s words about the universe being pointless, Harvard astronomer Martha Geller asked. “Why should it have a point? What point? It’s just a physical system, what point is there? I’ve always been puzzled by that statement.”
Just a physical system? And a pointless one at that? However seemingly cold these ideas are, they are also the logical outcome of any atheistic materialistic cosmology. If one believes what many scientists teach about the origins of the universe, purely a chance creation, no god, no intentions, and, indeed, no purpose in mind, then, well, it’s hard to argue with these sentiments, no matter how unsatisfying.
And with good reason, too, because Scripture points to something more. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1:1-3.
So, far from being an accident, the universe was made by Jesus, the one who also went to the cross for us. That is, the God who made the creation, suffered on the cross for us, a tiny part of the creation.
In contrast to the Weinberg-Geller cosmos, there is at least one point to it (among surely many more): to reveal the love of the God who created it.
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