Last week I read an account of cosmologist Stephen Hawking's address to a group of people at the California Institute of Technology. It truly is hard not to be impressed with the man's brilliant mind, and his very determined battle with the devastating disease of ALS. It came as no surprise to me that when he spoke at Caltech he outlined a concept of creation which does not include a creator. The article from NBC News stated that Hawking believes that, "Time began at the moment of singularity, and this likely occurred only once." It is not clear to me how, "The moment of singularity," and, "In the beginning God created," differ, but I am not a cosmologist, physicist or any type of scientific thinker, so that is to be expected.
Apparently, according to the article, he also discussed something called the M-theory which, "posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing,with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist." Again, mine is not a scientific mind, so I don't pretend to understand it.....but that is apparently what he believes.
One of my earliest memories....and I fully realize that I am not going to be able to put this into words that explain it real well... but, one of my earliest memories is of lying in bed, in the stillness of the night, trying to sense what it was that made me....well....me. Trying to feel what it was that made me different from, say, my brother who was probably in a bed on the other side of the room. What was it that allowed me to be who I was, and not somebody else? Weird, I know. Or, perhaps everyone goes through this phase and have the wisdom not to speak of it.
I knew that as I played with my friends on the playground, that we all looked different, that we all had different levels of ability and inability.....but, as a lay in the quiet darkness, I would try to touch the essence of my individuality. Although I did not realize it at the time, I was trying to grab hold of what made me human. More importantly, I was trying to grasp what made me different than every other human around me. When I say, "different," I don't mean better or worse, I mean unique. What made me unique from the kids next to me, and what made them unique from me? What was it that made us individually unique human beings? One last try. What made them....them? And what made me....me?
Occasionally, in those short moments between wakefulness and sleep, I would grasp the truth that what made me the person I was had to be defined by something more than the physical...something more than what I saw in the mirror. And, at times, I could almost grab onto it....or however a child would describe that sense.....I would come close to grasping it...close to laying hold of it. I would feel, for an instant, the part of me that was really me. But only for an instant. Then I would fall asleep, and get up in the morning to play army in the backyard. Understand, I wasn't trying to comprehend it, for that would not have been possible for a child....but something would well up within me through which I could almost touch that part of my being that made me the individual I was.
I remember the sensation. I remember the feeling. I remember, in the quietness of the night, consciously putting myself in the place to consider the uniqueness of being me. That was over five decades ago, and I have not experienced the feeling since. I can remember reaching a point, as I grew older, where I would try, but other thoughts would enter my mind, and I could never get myself back to a quiet enough state to experience the sensation.
I understand that it is weird, and I warned you that I wasn't going to be able to explain it very well, but there you have it.
I believe children have a much stronger sense of the spiritual than adults. Children in their innocence, without preconceptions , predispositions, or biases, are able to perceive the divine in its absolutely simplest form. They absorb it, without attempting to explain it. They are not afraid of it, so they allow themselves to be drawn to it.
It has been over a half century since I experienced what I have spent several paragraphs trying to explain, and with those years I have grown to understand that in my childhood innocence I had began to lay hold of my soul....to lay hold of my spirit....to lay hold of that which was divinely placed in me. I had begun to grab onto that intangible part of me that made me human. Even more than that, it was the part of me that made me unique as a human being.
I understand now that I have a body, but I am a living soul. "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:7 St. Augustine spoke of the soul as a “rider” on the body, making clear the distinction between the material and the immaterial, with the soul representing the “true” person.
Scholars like Stephen Hawking would maintain with theories like the M-Theory that there are, as I quoted earlier, "Many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist." And that without intelligent design. Without a Creator God.
I, on the other hand, would maintain that humanity exists only by the touch of the Creator. Only through the breath of God.
The problem is, the soul and spirit that gives us life.....that makes the body of clay a living being...cannot be quantified. It cannot be explained by equations on a white board, or dissected in a laboratory. It cannot be calculated with mathematics or formulas, or determined by physics or cosmology. And without grasping what it is that makes humankind human, one cannot begin to comprehend the reasons, purposes or power that spun the rest of creation into existence.
"At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to little children." (Matthew 11:25)
Man can attempt to explain creation, and the Creator has given us minds to explore and question and comprehend. But to do so without. "In the beginning God created," or "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul," is nothing short of folly. String theory, M-Theory, and the moment of singularity may touch on some of the physics and principles the Creator set in place when what we know as the universe flowed from the perfection of the Godhead.....but the knowledge is miniscule. It is as insignificant as a sigh in a hurricane.
I'm rambling, I know. But I do join my Savior in thanking the Father that he has hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to little children. I praise him for breathing into me the breath of life, and making me a living soul. But, more than anything, I praise him for allowing his Spirit to touch mine and allowing me to be a soul that belongs to him. A soul that is sealed by him. And, in eternity, a soul that will continue to grow in the knowledge of the depth of all that took place when, "In the beginning God created...."
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