With the advent of Charles Darwin, the belief in a divine Creator was given a severe blow. Science today, to a large extent, has dismissed the idea. There are people in our own government who are even considering taking “In God We Trust” off our coins and bills, thus tacitly casting their vote against God also.
The great Albert Einstein, who was without question one of the greatest scientists ever, concluded that our universe was so orderly, rational, and logical that it demanded a Creator or God. To Einstein, to think that random, blind chance was the cause of the creation of our universe was an insult to his intelligence. Einstein believed that the most amazing thing about our universe was not that we couldn’t comprehend all of it, but that we could in fact comprehend a tiny portion of it.
Dr. Gustaf Stromberg, staff astronomer of Mount Wilson observatory, concluded: “I believe that behind the physical world we see with our eyes and study in our microscopes and telescopes, and measure with instruments of various kinds, is another, more fundamental realm which cannot be described in physical terms. In this non-physical realm lies the ultimate origin of all things, of energy, matter, organization and life, and even of consciousness itself.”1
Frank Borman, commander of the first manned space flight, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon, in 1968, added: “The more we learn about the wonders of our universe, the more clearly we are going to perceive the hand of God.”2
The agnostic and the atheist, who live their lives without a belief in a divine Creator, must indeed lead a lonely life. By definition they must believe that they have no soul and no immortality. Since they came into existence by chance, and not divine design, any meaning they find in life is but a by-product of random occurrences. Even the great mysteries of our universe that cause us to ponder just who we are and why we are here, are a closed corridor of thought, to those who place God as something that exists only in one’s imagination.
The struggle of life for all of us, without the existence of a rational creative force in the background, makes our journey here on earth a mere exercise in futility. The only reality we all can count on is physical death. For the atheist, he will die, sadly without ever knowing why he was born in the first place.
1 Russell V. DeLong, So You Don’t Believe in God? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 70.
2 Ibid., p. 71.