As a young teenager I (Josh) didn’t like who I was—the son of the town drunk. I hated my father and everything he stood for, and that impacted what I thought about myself in a significant way. As I grew older and left home I took with me the puzzling question of “Who am I really?”
As a skeptic, I questioned the existence of a personal God. So I didn’t have a definitive answer of who I was meant to be as God’s creation. Yet as I would stare up at the stars at night I wondered how everything got here. Planet Earth orbited the sun in just one galaxy among billions that filled deep space. And I felt so small and alone in such a vast universe. And to be honest I secretly hoped there was some Intelligent Being out there called God who could help me understand who I was and what my life was all about.
We do live on a planet in a vast universe. And it’s natural to ask where we all came from and for what purpose we exist. Our home on earth seems so insignificant and small, suspended as it is in the vastness of space. Is God out there somewhere in the vastness? Think about space for a moment. It seems to stretch on and on without any possibility of ending. When we try to imagine the size even of the known universe, it’s impossible to truly comprehend. But let’s try.
Why Does Anything Exist?
The expanses of the universe are so immense that we measure them using the light-year, which is the distance light travels in 365 days. Light travels at the speed of 186,282 miles per second. In a year, that distance, multiplied out and rounded off, increases to 5,865,696,000,000, almost 6 trillion, miles. To put that in a perspective we can almost grasp, it takes a sunbeam just over 8 minutes to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to earth. So what is the size of the observable universe in terms of light-years? Scientists say matter is spread over a space at least 93 billion light-years across. Our Milky Way galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. Its nearest sister galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, is located roughly 2.5 million light years away. And there are probably more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.1 As finite beings we simply cannot imagine such distances, such magnitude. And the very concept of infinite space is far more than our minds can handle. How was this vast space formed, and why?
Thinking about time presents a similar dilemma. It’s impossible to conceive of a beginning or an ending of time because the only thing we can imagine before or after time is just more time. Since everything we experience has a starting and an ending, the concept of eternity is incomprehensible to us.
Time, the vastness of space, and the number of galaxies are for the most part mysteries to us. Could it all be here just by chance? Where did it all come from? If we look right here on our home planet we also find the mysteries and fascination of nature. Take the grass cutter ant, for example. These amazing creatures have developed a complex social structure called a colony, one of which can number in the hundreds of thousands of ants. It requires sophisticated communication and coordination to gather large quantities of food to feed the colony, and each ant is a specialized member of a team that accomplishes that feat.
Scout ants are sent out to find food. When an ant finds a succulent leaf, it scurries back to the colony to deliver the news, frequently touching the ground with its body to lay down a scent trail between the ant mound and the food source. Foraging ants follow that aromatic trail to the food source.
Certain cutter ants use a “song” to communicate the discovery of high-quality leaves that need to be harvested. The ant “sings” by producing a high-frequency vibration with its abdomen against the leaf. Other ants from up to three feet away perceive the vibration through their legs. They follow the vibration to the leaf, and together they cut it away from its stalk and carry it back to the ant mound. Ants can support 100 times their own weight, and these cutter ants will carry plants up to a thousand feet—a distance equivalent to more than three football fields—to get food to the colony.2
Cutter ants are indeed a great and wonderful mystery, but an even greater one is your ability to read these words and marvel at the sophisticated communication skills, coordination abilities, and strength of those little creatures. Because inside your skull is a three-pound wonderment. Your eyes blink and follow the words on this page. The words are symbols with specific meaning that string together thoughts, which you can understand as you read. Your heart pumps, you inhale and exhale, your body is digesting and processing food.
All these involuntary muscle movements are controlled by the miracle organ called the brain. Your ability to walk, run, sit, sleep, touch, see, hear, smell, taste, and feel every type of emotion is being processed right now through over 100 billion nerve cells called neurons. Your neurons have the amazing ability to gather and transmit electrochemical signals that tell your muscles to move the parts of your body so it will accomplish what you want it to do. These neurons are like the gates and wires in a computer—only immeasurably more complex. While medical science has made significant advances in understanding how the brain works, most of it still remains a mystery. For example, in a digital computer, information is processed by a small set of “registers” that operate at speeds of billions of cycles per second. The brain uses its neurons to process vastly more information but at speeds of only around 100 cycles per second.3 How does the brain function so much more effectively than the most sophisticated and complex computer made today? No one really knows.
What or who brought everything into being? And for what purpose?
Your brain is the most complex biological structure known today. Yet how did it come to be? Where did you and your brain, the tiny ant, the Milky Way Galaxy, and all that is in the universe come from? Why is there something in existence instead of nothing? What or who brought everything into being? And for what purpose?
An Impersonal Power?
Some would say that all that exists was created by the universe itself and will one day be reabsorbed by the universe. In this view an entity or being called God does not actually exist. God, they say, is a cosmic life force that includes all the substance of the universe. Nature and the idea of God are the same. This is called pantheism.4 Eight percent of teenagers who identify themselves as conservative Protestants embrace this New Age, Oprah Winfrey philosophy. Further, from this cosmic life force we are all empowered to be god and to be one with the universe.5 The classic phrase used to describe this belief is “God is all and all is God.” This is the view of God that was propagated so effectively in the movie Avatar.
Some who disagree with pantheistic doctrine say that a supreme being who is not a part of the universe created everything that exists, but essentially this being is uninvolved in any further way with creation. This is the view of Deists, who typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and assert that God, “the Supreme Architect,” has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by his intervention in the affairs of human life or by suspension of the natural laws of the universe.6
Ten percent of teenagers who identify themselves as conservative Protestants hold to this Deist philosophy.7 They believe there is a God, but he is like a master clock-maker who designed the world, wound it up, and since then has let it run on its own. A young person with this view would not bother to pray to God for help in time of need or for strength to resist temptation. In this view God is an impersonal being who has left us to make it on our own.
Christians, however, believe that a personal being existed before time and space as we know it. This being spoke the words “Let there be…” and by the power of his will all that exists came into being (Genesis 1:3). We believe those words came from the voice of a personal, infinite God that “created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make” (John 1:3). We believe this God is the Intelligent Designer of all that exists within the universe.
The questions naturally arise, what is the nature of this God, is he knowable, and why did he create us? While a God with the power to create vast universes is bound to be beyond our comprehension in many ways, he is knowable to us finite creatures. But how? Although we cannot know him exhaustively, we can know him truly, sufficiently, and with confidence because of what he has revealed about himself to us. For example, God is known to us by at least six characteristics.
God is eternal. Eternal means life without beginning or end. There was never a moment when God didn’t exist, nor will he ever end. That is impossible for our minds to grasp. Moses could not understand it. He was out on the backside of the desert herding sheep when God showed up in a bush burning with flames that didn’t consume it. When God sent him to tell the people of Israel he was going to deliver them out of Egypt, Moses said, “‘They won’t believe me. They will ask, “Which god are you talking about? What is his name?” Then what should I tell them?’ God replied, ‘I AM THE ONE WHO ALWAYS IS. Just tell them “I AM has sent me to you”’” (Exodus 3:13-14). The great I AM has no birthday and will have no funeral.
The prophet Isaiah said, “Don’t you know that the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding” (Isaiah 40:28).
God is omnipotent. God is almighty and powerful. If he wants to do something he can do it. Job said to God, “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:2). King David said, “How great is our Lord! His power is absolute” (Psalm 147:5). The prophet Jeremiah said, “O Sovereign LORD! You have made the heavens and earth by your great power. Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). The prophet Isaiah proclaimed, “The LORD, your Redeemer and Creator, says: ‘I am the LORD, who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. By myself I made the earth and everything in it’” (Isaiah 44:24). The eternal, never-ending God is also the ever-powerful God who can accomplish anything he desires.
God is omnipresent. God is ever-present. His presence encompasses all the galaxies while at the same time he is with you right now right where you are. King David said, “I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there” (Psalm 139:7-8). Because we are finite beings it is hard to imagine a being who is everywhere-present, but this is a characteristic of God. “‘Am I a God who is only in one place?’ asks the LORD. ‘Do they think I cannot see what they are doing? Can anyone hide from me? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?’ asks the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:23-24). The ever-present God spans the reach of the universe and yet is there to hear you whisper a prayer.
God is immutable. God by his very nature can always be counted on because he will not change. The psalmist said that the earth will perish, “but you [God] remain forever…you are always the same; your years never end” (Psalm 102:26-27). The writer of the book of Hebrews said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
We can rest secure in a God who does not waver or lie. He will always do what he says he will do. “God is not a man, that he should lie. He is not a human, that he should change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” (Numbers 23:19). The immutable God is worthy of our complete trust.
God is omniscient. God knows all. Everything past, present, and future, he knows. He has infinite knowledge. He spoke through the prophet Isaiah and declared, “I am God, and there is no one else like me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish” (Isaiah 46:9-10). King David said, “O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me” (Psalm 139:1). Such awesome knowledge is beyond us. Imagine the hard drives of a trillion computers filled with all the information known to humans…and it wouldn’t even scratch the surface of God’s knowledge.
God is personal. Even though God is the eternal, almighty, ever-present, unchanging, and all-knowing God, he is also a God who desires personal interaction. On one hand his power and awesome might is fearful, yet he is the “God who is passionate about his relationship with you” (Exodus 34:14).
This is actually what I (Josh) was searching for but didn’t know it. To know the God of the universe in a personal way would answer so many questions as to who I was, why I was here, and where I was going. God is not an absentee God who created the universe and then left it to its own devices. He is active and involved with his creation. He entered our world in the form of a human; at the moment of salvation he enters our lives in the form of his Holy Spirit; he answers our prayers and gives us strength through the Holy Spirit, he empowers us to resist temptation and wants to fulfill his purpose in our lives. He is a personal, interactive God who desires a relationship with his creation.
Therefore:
We believe the truth that there is an infinite, personal God of the universe.
The angel that spoke to Mary stated it well: “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). And while he is infinite in his existence, power, presence, and knowledge he wants a relationship with each of us personally. That is what is so amazing. A God who is in need of nothing and can do anything and everything still wants and desires to have an intimate, personal relationship with you and me! That is the God who is and always will be, the God you and I can believe in with confidence.