Jan Dunlap's Blog - Posts Tagged "galaxies"

Being a closet science nerd, I love reading about cutting-edge research in any field: quantum mechanics, neurobiology, nutrition, veterinary medicine, geology, astrophysics, genetics. As a former college English major turned college English instructor, I also love Shakespeare and classic literature. So it was with great delight that I combined these two loves in my latest suspense novel titled “Heaven's Gate: Archangels Book One,” giving two of my characters a scientific profession, and another two an intimate familiarity with the Bard and other great writers. In fact, one of my favorite lines in the book is a direct quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and comes during a heated discussion about the possibility/reality of life after death: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I think that is a fitting description of much of today’s scientific discoveries – hard-working researchers are teasing out the secrets of life that surpass even what we might have imagined or predicted in theory. Every new development leads to more inquiry and speculation – a hundred years ago, who could have imagined that MRIs or angiograms would become such common procedures in the medical practice of diagnosis? Or who would have thought that we’d be gawking at photos of galaxies light years away at the touch of a few keys on a tablet-sized computer?

As a committed Christian, I also think Shakespeare’s line is an insightful expression of the omniscience and omnipotence of our wondrous God. There’s a reason that Paul poses this question in I Corinthians 2:16: For, "Who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?" God alone knows everything, and even the most dedicated scientist’s efforts to see into the mind of God will fall short. No human can possibly instruct the Lord who created all things in heaven and earth and even beyond! Personally, I get annoyed with anyone who claims to have all the answers, or even THE answer to any one riddle of life. Our God is infinite and full of infinite possibility, which means, to me, that His imagination has no boundaries. All any researcher can do is explore a small piece of creation in hopes he might learn something about it and be able to add it to the store of human knowledge about life. And that’s not a bad thing, because wisdom grows from knowledge, especially when it is tempered with the love of Jesus Christ.

Likewise, to think that science has nothing to do with God is, for me, ludicrous. God gave us intellects to know Him and His creation. Why wouldn’t we use the awesome gift of our thought processes to discover more about our Maker and his work? Doesn’t the Lord charge us to use the gifts He gave us? And don’t we know God and each other through our works? Whether it is through service, or science, or simple obedience, God has blessed us with many avenues for approaching Him, and I, for one, am grateful for them all. May each of us reach beyond our philosophies to seek, and ultimately find, our God.Jan Dunlap