Keith Wilson
Not much of a picture, is it? Just a collection of dots and blobs on a black background. Nevertheless, the first time I saw it, it stopped me in my tracks.
For those who don’t know and haven’t guessed, it’s a photograph produced from images captured by the Hubble telescope. For me at least, the truly amazing thing is that the dots and blobs aren’t stars: each of them, with very few exceptions, is a galaxy.
Some Friends may be thinking “So what?” or “What has this to do with Forty-Three?” Indulge me a little longer and all will, I hope, become clear. Crucially, each of the galaxies in that picture contains a lot of stars. The number of stars in an ‘average’ galaxy (if there is such a thing) is usually estimated at somewhere between 100 million and 100 billion. Even at the lowest estimate, that really is a lot of stars!
My immediate reaction was that, given these numbers, it seems to me impossible to believe that we could be alone in the universe. It really would be the epitome of arrogance to assume that with all those stars, our world orbiting our sun is the only one on which life has evolved. I find it rather comforting to think that we are not alone, and – possibly even more comforting if other ‘civilisations’ are as perverse as ours – to know that interstellar distances are vast and probably unbridgeable.
The picture also made me think about my belief in God. (Incidentally, I do have concerns about the word ‘God’ with all its entailments, but I’ll use it here for convenience.) I had been unsure about whether I believed in a creator God, especially as I remember Jocelyn Bell-Burnell saying she didn’t because she knew enough about astrophysics to be convinced that the hand of God wasn’t needed for creation. The picture has, however, tipped me the other way. I can’t believe that that wonder and complexity on such a scale ‘just happened’.
While my belief in a creator has been uncertain, for as long as I can remember I have believed in a God, hopefully benevolent, who takes an interest in us and what we do. The picture colours even this belief. What manner of entity, if entity is the right word, could be attentive to all that’s going on in a universe with an estimated billion trillion stars and God knows (literally!) how many planets? Even if God didn’t create the universe, that’s a mighty big management project, especially remembering that Matthew 10:29 assures us that the oversight extends even to sparrows!
Possibly the answer is in Isiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. That seems very apposite – even if it is one of the biggest understatements of all time!
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 510 • October 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW