“I feel I am missing something.” So said world-renowned astronomer and physicist Robert Jastrow (1925-2008, pictured above), a most interesting man. Jastrow was a scientist, through and through, and he had no room for God in his philosophy of scientific-materialism. However, the more he learned from science about the origin of the universe, the more he became convinced that the universe could not have come into existence without a Creator. But still, he could not believe in God. Now what? “I find it unsatisfactory,” he said, adding, “In fact, it makes me uneasy. I feel I am missing something.”
In previous Emailmeditations I have referred to “The John 10:10 Project,” and I have posted some of their terrific videos. I receive their occasional promotional emails, and this week featured one of the first videos they produced when they began their project in 2018. Several years before that, they had recorded an interview with Robert Jastrow. Jastrow had written a best-selling book in which he described the scientific evidence for a Creator. Jastrow knew that to even suggest the possibility of a Creator was an unpopular view in the scientific community; but he had the courage to proclaim that inevitable conclusion to which the evidence pointed.
The interviewer wasn’t sure if he should bring up the question of religion, but when he asked Jastrow about his spiritual beliefs, the famous scientist was more than happy to describe his inner struggle. You can view a portion of that interview in the below video, entitled “God and the Astronomer:
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“And I stay there,” Jastrow said of his dilemma. Did he ever discover what he was missing? The above interview was near the end of his life. There is no indication that he ever resolved his inner conflict between his acknowledgement of the evidence for the existence of God and his disbelief in God.
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MORE QUOTES FROM ROBERT JASTROW:
“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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AND A BIT MORE:
“You may find it hard to believe that God made everything out of nothing, but it takes a lot more faith to believe that nothing turned itself into everything.”
–Mark Cahill
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“I felt in my bones that this universe does not explain itself.”
–C. S. Lewis (when still an agnostic, but moving toward faith in God)
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As children often ask, “But who made God?” That is an interesting question, but not one a Christian is required to answer. It is the atheist whose explanation of the universe must be limited to the observable laws of nature. Christians believe there is more to reality than can ever be explained. Christians believe in a God who we cannot see, whose power is unlimited, who is not bound by any natural laws we have observed, and whose kingdom is bigger than the universe that we observe, test, and measure. With such a God and that view of reality, anything is possible. We will know something about that God only if He chooses to reveal Himself, and then confirms such revelations by miracles that defy natural explanation– such as a man rising from the dead.
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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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