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SUBTLE IS THE LORD

October 13, 1985, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service

John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Romans 1316-20

“Byer since the creation. of the yorld, his invisible nature,
. namely, his eternal power and deity, hasbeen clearly per-.
: ceived in the things-that have. been made." -~ Romans 1:20 -(RSV)~
In Herman Wouk's recent autobiographical novel Inside-Outside, the narrator,
DAVID GOODKIND, is drinking and talking with his old friendly protagonist,
Mark. The conversation: turns to religion. David*is a devout Jew. Mark
is not.so. devout, : a8

In fact, Mark has just declared again that he doesn't believe much.
David says: “You don't believe? Not in anything?"

Mark says: "Believe? I know things. Not much. Not enough, but what I
know, I know."

David asks: "What can you know about God?...You either believe or you don't."

"You're quite mistaken," said Mark..."You can know almost anything about God
providing you put the right questions to him. God will answer a high school
boy. He asks only that you use common sense, pay very close attention, not

be sloppy, count and measure correctly. God ignores sloppy questions...God

is exact. He is marvelously, purely exact." (p.. 567)

There is a fascinating suggestion in that discourse; namely, that God: may be
known in the precision of science -- by asking the right. questions; that the
exactness of science, instead of ruling out the probability of God -- as we
have been assuming for so long, actually points toward and bears witness to
God,

Astronomy, for instance. Robert Jastrow, former Director of the Goddard

Institute. for Space Studies, NASA, and professor-of Astronomy at both Columbia
and Dartmouth, delivered a paper at a symposium at Yale several years. ago under -
the title; Science and Creation. He. began by confessing his: agnosticism, but

Said he was fascinated with recent developments. in astronomy partly ‘because

of the religious implications, and partly because of the peculiar: reactions
of his skeptical colleagues in the field of astronomy +

Listen. for a moment to Jastrow's observations and, if ‘you 1 will, put them in
conversation in your mind with the novelist's fascinating suggestion that you
can know.God if you ask the right questions: ..and then let the entire: dialogue
be informed and. penetrated: bya deceptively simple but stunning assertion. St.

_ Paul dropped into.a: discourse: on the nature. of.God:in-the: first chapter of

-2-

‘Romans. Paul wrote: "Ever since the creation of the world God's invisible
nature, namely God's eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in
what. he has made."

First Jastrow, He said: "In a nutshell, the astronomers, studying the

~universe through their telescopes, have been forced to the conclusion that
the world had a beginning. "Scientists," Jastrow explains, "have always

-been more comfortable with the idea of a universe that has existed forever...
But. the latest astronomical results indicate that at some time.in the past
the chain -of cause and effect terminated abruptly. An important event
occured ~~ the origin of the world -- for which. there is no known cause or
explanation within the realm of science."

-Indulge -your -imagination and: your curiosity a bit, and come with me‘to the
observatory... Two discoveries have raised: theological issues: for’ the astronomers.
First -- the expanding, or exploding, universe. Around 1914 astronomers first
discovered that - all the nebulae and galaxies within reach of their telescopes
were speeding away. from the-earth at an incredible rate, They pondered that

a bit, and because they were scientists, they knew that a receding or exploding
universe means that at some point there was°no universe. The Measurable speed
of those receding galaxies helped them determine that the explosion -- the
moment, of: creation -- was twenty billion years ago, give or take two billion
years. Science did not accept that discovery with much enthusiasm because it
_.-pointed to-the unknown -- the ultimate mystery of creation which I believe

-six year olds understand perfectly clearly when they ask us with their singular

innocence: "OK. Who created God?" Einstein was among those who only reluctantl —

accepted the "big bang" theory precisely because it pointed to what he called
"a singularity in time," a moment of unexplained: and unexplainable creation.

The ‘second: development is: that: the astronomers think they ‘can hear ‘that moment

of creation. In 1965 astonomers ‘at’ Bell Laboratories kept hearing an unex-

plained noise on their radio telescopes. They checked their equipment; they

even looked for pigeons in the antenna. They listened some more;-the hiss was

= coming from the entire 360° spectrum. Slowly, for reasons I can't begin to

understand, they concluded that they were hearing the electronic noise generated
at the instant of. the birth: of the universe... : ae

Now this is not. science fiction. This, to the best of my admitediy limited

. ability. to understand: it, is where the astronomers and: theoretical physicists
-£ind the state of their science today. They are sounding: more and more like
religious mystics, some of them like prophets. Jastrow, the agnostic, talks
‘about the “blank wall of mystery" behind which it doesn't seem we can ever
expect to go... (from: The Papers’ from the Symposium on Creation, the Arena of
“Prime Drama, Yale University, 1979) ae Be EES SS

Today we are living at the near end of several centuries of misunderstanding,
hostility between religion and science. It began when Copernicus and Galileo
-. taught..science that. conflicted with the way the church-saw the world. The
~hostility:deepened as: science learned more and: more about. the world: we live
“in andthe church found itself threatened and unable to adapt. © Science
suggested that. the earth revolved around the sun. The way the: church read

-3-

the Bible, the sun revolves around the earth. The scientists suggested that
the earth was round. But the Bible seems to believe that the earth is flat

as a pancake, with a cup~like dome called a firmament holding the stars in
place and keeping the sun and moon on course, and holding out the primal water,
allowing” in just enough to drink and water the plants.

The division deepened tragically. Both science’ and religion saw an’ opponent
in each other. . The fundamentalist -~ modernist ‘debates and, of course,’ the
Scopes. trial proved to each side that its’ stereotype of the other was true:
scientists saw religionists as mindless, anti-intellectuals, trapped in
superstition and. ignorance. “Religionists saw scientists as godless skeptics,
destroyers of everything the civilization held dear, The conflict continues.
Until a few weeks ago, high school textbook publishers in California had to~-
give space in science books to creationism. Creationism maintains that the
Genesis account of creation is, in fact, a scientific description, incompatible
with what science has come to know as the process of evolution. The good news
is that the provision was struck down. Textbook ‘publishers are free to teach
science without religious censorship. I am convinced that we are seeing the ©
closing of the gap between religion and science. I am convinced that God is
not threatened by the pursuit of truth. “eee .

I am convinced that in God's scheme of things the skeptics, agnostics and even
the atheists have a role to play. They keep us’ on our toes -- theologically.

and sometimes ethically... Sometimes religious people are so sure of themselves.
they are inclined to lose the ability to hear anyone else speaking, The —
agnostics remind us that religion; by definition, is: about that which is larger
than our humanity, including our human capacity to understand...And'as we ponder -
that we meet the scientists coming from the opposite direction, pursuing the
unknown -~ right up to the blank wall of mystery” where all of us are agnostics
because we can know no more. :

Of course the healing is not complete. The creationists keep. ‘wanting us to learn ae

our science from the Bible -- which is ‘not’ only very bad science, but also a
tragic misuse of scripture. ‘The Book of Genesis” contains deep, profound, life
saving truth, particularly when we free it~ from the” responsibility of teaching
us. botany, zoology, anthropolgy.: "In the beginning, God created..." Genesis
announced, BS ; ae

Albert Einstein was a deist, not ina traditional - ‘teligious sense, | “but his
biographers conclude that a theology of God as ‘designer of the amazing laws
and systems by which the world operates was important to him. One biographer
borrowed for a book title, and-I have appropriated as sermon title, something
Einstein once said on the subject. "Subtle is the: Lord, but malicious: he is
‘not.".. He wrote once, "A legitimate conflict between: science and ‘religion:
cannot exist. Science without religion is lame: Religion without ‘science is.
blind." “(See Subtle is the Lord, the Science and Life of Albert Einstein,
Abraham Pais) eas i. DOES SS pte eh

What the. Bible says first about creation is that God is the Creator... The first
word is one of wonder and amazement, akin to what each of us has felt in the
presence-of wonderful natural phenomena...sunséts and sunrises at’ the ocean.

or over Lake Michigan, strong mountains and tall silent trees, the gorgeous
smells of each season and the feel of garden dirt. in our hands.» We:know in

-4—

..those experiences the mystery of being, what the philosopher Wittgenstein

~expressed this way: "It is not how the world is that is mystical, but that
it is at all." ,

Dr. Lewis Thomas, of the Sloane Kettering Clinic, speaks a prophetic
word: that religion needs to hear from the perspective of his scientific spec-—
~ falty, micro-biology. -Writing about.all the public interest several years
- ago. around. conception in a lab dish, Thomas writes, "For real amazement, if
“you want to be amazed » is the process itself. You start out as a single cell

derived from the coupling. of a sperm and an egg...the mere existence of that

-- cell. should be. one.of the great astonishments of the earth. People ought to

be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each
other in endless wonderment , talking of. nothing but that cell. m (The Medussa
and = the Snail, Pe 130).

- That. is. the. elemental religious impulse -~.that wonder at my own being.
2D. H. _Lawrence. wrote. a poem. about it using heavily theological language.

- The name of the poem is The Wild Common.

"Show splendid it is to be substance here!..._
all that. is. right, all that is good;
all: that. is.God takes. substance}...
In confirmation, I hear sevenfold _lark-songs pealing.’
(Selected Poems, pp. .26- 27)

The Bible points to ‘the fundamental mystery of life: the sheer astonishing
fact. that: we are...This basic religious impulse may have been easier to exper-
lence. in the past when people lived closer to the natural world and held the

~., good earth in their hands with regularity, We are well- removed from elemental

things... We are urban, “Roughing it" means putting on an.L. L. Bean Flannel
Shirt to walk to the drugstore. The society we live in is obsessive about
= ssanitizing- the. natural with deoderants and cosmetics, and in the process
somehow turns the. gift. of secuality. into. leering pornography, and so insulates
. us. from:both birth and. death that most peopie see neither. Our. alienation
from. creation, is expressed in the traditional view of wilderness as a place
_of. foreboding, full of danger. That.is.a theological issue at heart. It
may be too late to learn that wolves, for instance, never approached. the
fearful character human imagination assigned them. It may be too-late for
them, for the whales, the eagles, the tigers. Our only option may be to try
to remember what the fullness of God's creation used to be like,

The. Biblical position is that God is the Creator;. ‘that creation is God's and

that. it is good. Ancient: Eastern. religion generally regarded the world as--

evil... In the context of human history, with all its stumbling and tragedy,
«the. Biblical statement, "God saw what he had made and it was good, "is ab-

-_solutely stunning. .Even in the face of human ‘sin creation is. good; humanity

-is good; our physical humanness is intended by God and loved by God and
celebrated by God.

But the ‘Bible holds out for more than this elemental deism which acknowledges
_ the existence of God.as Creator. God, the mysterious source of all being,
- the. unseen creator, is more than a principle. This God relates personally
- to. what-he. has created. The Hebrew word. translated "create" can also, in
most instances -~ I am told -- be translated in the present-perfect tense ~-
“creating.” God is still at it.. God has not yet finished creating the world.

~5-

In an even more immediate sense God is not yet finished with the process of
creating you and me. You are not yet what you can be. ae

And because of that there is no need, no emptiness, as real as ours -- for God.
There is no hunger and thirst as real as ours for a relationship with the liv-
ing God who created us. From the first page to the last the Bible points to a
God who not only conceives the world, imagines it, fashions it and births it,
but a God who relates to the world, a God who continues the mysterious process
of creating and who loves the world and each of its people so much that he

acts to give fullness of life, joy, salvation, by being intimately a part of it.

That is our deepest need, ultimately. When I hurt, is there anyone who cares?
When I'm frightened, is there comfort? When I'm alienated, cut off from my
spouse, my children, my friends, even from myself, when I feel wretchedly out
of sync with the whole universe, is there a healing balm, a reconciling, for-
giving power, to save me? When I have to say good-bye, and let go of ail that
is precious: my dearest loves, my life itself, is there anything there but the
darkness? Is there anybody there except the electronic hiss?

On the subject of creation the most astonishing thing the Bible says, and the
most profound thing we believe, is that the subtle Lord of creation, became
part of the creation. The heart of the matter is that. in the fullness of
time, God dwelt among us. The ancient, mysterious word became flesh; Jesus
the Christ was born and lived and died as part of the magnificent drama of
creation. And that is both a mystery more profound than anything the astrono-
mers have confronted and a love deeper than anything we can imagine.

"How splendid to be substance," the poet declared. In Christ, we are invited
to affirm and to love the creation, the world our home, the miracle of our
lives and the greater miracle of the lives of those we love and who love us.
In Christ we are invited to trust the magnificant God of creation: the God
who so loves it all, and so loves us each, to send a son to be part of it, to
live in it and die for it. We are invited, not to better science, but to
stronger trust in that God, whose love will not let us go.

"From the beginning," St. Paul wrote, "God has been perceived in the. things

that have been made," including...and supremely, his Son, Jesus Christ, who
is our Lord. Amen.

Let us Pray:

Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor to you, our God, for ever
and ever...

Praise to you for the magnificence of the created order.
Glory to you for life; mysterious, rich, abundant...

Thanksgiving to you for human love and friendship, for aspiration and joy
and passion.

Honor to you. our God, for Jesus Christ —-. who lived ‘among us and died for
us -- and in whom we continue to know you and: your love for us.

Anen