Letters From Grandpa #532

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 532

Dearest grandchild,

Today’s letter will be about God commanding Abram to “Look up into the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.” (Genesis 15:5)

This command from God came when Abram faced a crisis with his faith. God had promised him so many children that his own personal family would become a nation. Since the time of that promise, however, Abram didn’t have any children at all! In fact, he complained to God that he was going to have to leave his inheritance to his servant Eliezer.

God, however, did not rebuke Abram for his unbelief, but rather gave him an intellectual challenge. He took him outside and told him to look up into the heavens and count the stars if he was able to. Of course, nobody can count the stars. Even today with our sophisticated telescopes we can only “guess” at the number of galaxies and stars. According to Wikipedia we “estimate” that there are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in our universe. In our own galaxy we “estimate” that there are between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. Depending on the weather Abram could count with his naked eye only between 2,600 and 4,500 stars on any given night. This was quite a challenge!

Yet, as a result of this intellectual challenge “Abram believed in the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) Please note that Abram’s faith came through his intellect!

Atheist Richard Dawkins claims: “Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” In a debate with John Lennox he quoted the words of Jesus to “Doubting Thomas.” (Thomas was a twin who doubted the resurrection of Jesus until he personally examined His resurrected body). When Jesus appeared to him in person, however, Thomas was completely convinced and said: “My Lord and my God! Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’” (John 20:28-29)

This, however, in no way proves that faith is belief without evidence. There are many kinds of evidence besides what we can personally see. Consider, for example, the very next verses: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31) John recorded evidence so that those not privileged to see and touch Jesus in person could still believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

We believe in the historical Jesus based upon written historical evidence. This is the same kind of evidence that compels us to believe in a historical Caesar or any other person in history!

Sixty years ago elephant jokes were much in vogue. Their humor came from their absurdity. For example, “How do you put 5 elephants in a Volkswagen Beetle? Answer - That’s easy! You put 3 in the back and 2 in the front.”

Such humor comes to mind when the atheist explains the origin of the universe. For centuries scientists “believed” with Aristotle that the universe had no beginning and was eternal. Now, however, science seems to “believe” that the universe originated with a “Big Bang”. Here is the way Britannica explains this theory: “The universe is formed of an incalculable number of stars contained within billions of galaxies. This enormous amount of matter and energy originated a little less than 15 billion

years ago, when a powerful explosion occurred, the big bang. This primordial explosion released an immeasurable amount of energy, which very rapidly was transformed into grains of matter. The matter gradually became organized as the universe cooled. After 300,000 years, the first hydrogen and helium atoms appeared. It took another billion years for the atoms to group together and form clouds of gas, stars, and galaxies. Nine billion years later, billions of galaxies existed in the universe. Within one of these galaxies, our solar system was born.” In other words you put 3 in the back and 2 in the front!

The origin of life is just as complex as the origin of the universe. Darwin, however, never theorized “how” life began as he assumed the “simple” cell was so simple that a lightening strike on pond water could easily produce it. Michael Denton, in his book entitled Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, explains the complexity of a living cell with this example: "To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... (a complexity) beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man..." In other words, in order to produce life from non life you put 3 in the back and 2 in the front.

Please consider that when you try to count the stars as Abram did, your honest intellectual efforts will compel you to believe in God! Like Thomas examining the resurrected body of Jesus, we will cry out - “My Lord and my God”.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce