Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)
In case you haven’t
noticed, I’m struggling with my attitude, which is contentious. This time, I hope it will work toward your benefit. According
to an article on the Internet, “The Universe might well be older than 14
billion years, and we should stop putting a limit on it every time something
new is discovered…In theory, the star HD 140283, or the Methuselah star, seems
to be older than our Universe, but that would be an impossibility. It is either
an error of calculus or an error of our Univers’s (sic) estimated age.”[1]
Scientists also calculate
that the universe will cease to exist in 22 billion to 225 trillion years. But
while putting a number or a name to it, that doesn’t tell us much. We
confidently throw these numbers around, proud that we can state the limits of
time and thus “prove” something. But what is the effective difference in the
human mind between a universe lasting 34 billion to 225.034 trillion years and
“everlasting to everlasting”? What, that
is, beyond the ego-satisfaction of being able to give an answer, no matter how
meaningless it is.
Let’s try to put these
numbers into perspective. A million seconds is 11.5 days. A billion seconds is
32 years. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years. I’m sure that these scientists
have done a lot of work and used up lots of computer time extrapolating all
this, but when they make these claims, can we really have any more confidence
in them than we can have in the child who says “I love you a thousand billion
kajillion times more!”? The numbers, while seemingly definite, have no
effective meaning.
This doesn’t mean that
God exists from everlasting to everlasting. I believe He does, but that’s not
what I’ve said in the paragraphs above. I’ve only argued that for scientists to
throw around such numbers - even if they are true - is no different from saying
“from everlasting to everlasting.” Neither fits into our very limited minds.
The same scientists who make these claims and those who believe them scoff at the notion of a spiritual being who exists outside of time (unaffected by time) who exists from “everlasting to everlasting.” I can’t avoid asking, “Really?”
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