(Updated)
I am glad to see the valuable and insightful Mr. George Weigel calling attention (on the insightful, valuable First Things.com) to the powerful (if inadvertent) ministry of the NASA folks at APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day, here). If only all our taxpayer dollars were spent this wisely.
Weigel’s post is entitled “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God.” If that sounds familiar, it is from the often-quoted Psalm 19.
As my faithful readers know, I have been following APOD for years.
As I have said, every new image I see paints a wider, deeper, and more wonderful picture of the universe our Lord has created. And the incomprehensible distance grows between this universe and its beginning in an infinitesimally small seed in the palm of God’s hand barely 14 billion years ago.
Every APOD is a proclamation of the greater glory of God. “When I consider Thy Heavens, the work of Thy hands…” (Psalm 8:3)
Here are some of my favorites (most recent first):
Continue reading →
Today’s featured APOD stunner is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. At a mere 2 million light years away from our own Milky Way, it is our nearest major galactic neighbor. (See Luke 10:29; “And who is my neighbor?”)
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)
It is a cliché to express a sense of human littleness in the face of the unthinkably enormous scope of the universe. But here, as in all things, one must retain a sense of perspective. For this unimaginable immensity is just the grown-up phase of a creation that once was small enough to fit in its creator’s hand (or yours, for that matter.) And we are fashioned in the image of that same creator.
A cliché that is both true and more useful: Biblical religion both humbles us (in the face of the majesty of God) and elevates us (for we are created in the image of that majestic God). This balance of our smallness and our greatness is mirrored in face of our universe, so huge and yet once so small.
By contrast, as theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “Both the majesty and the tragedy of human life exceed the dimension within which modern culture seeks to comprehend human existence.”
O Ben Finiti 