Robert Jastow (1925-2008) was an American astronomer and physicist. He was a leading NASA scientist, popular author, and futurist. He said that although he was an agnostic and not a believer, he believed the accepted scientific theory of the big bang origin of the universe supported the Biblical view of a creation by something beyond nature as we know it. He knew that was an unpopular view in the scientific community, but he had the courage to proclaim that inevitable conclusion to which the evidence pointed. Below are some quotes by Robert Jastrow.
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“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.“
–“A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths,” An interview in Christianity Today, August 6, 1982
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“Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
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“There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause… This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.”
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“Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion.”
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“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
–Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, (1981), p. 19.
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Genesis 1:1 — In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Psalm 8:1…3-4 — Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens… When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
Psalm 19:1 — The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
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I thank you, my Creator and Lord, that you have given me these joys in your creation, this ecstasy over the deeds of your hands. I have made known the glory of your deeds to people as far as my finite spirit was able to understand your infinity. If I have said anything unworthy of you, or have aspired after my own glory, graciously forgive me.
–Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), German mathematician and astronomer; a key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution; best known for his laws of planetary motion
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