Big Universe,
Uncaring
God?
Luke 4:1-13

Gratitude
For what are you grateful?

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the LORD are sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
Psalm 19:1-4, 7-8a

The Psalm
• What strikes you about the
psalm?
• What sort of world does the
psalmist inhabit?
• Would you be able to say the
same things (if I wasn’t
literally making you do it)?

Personal Universe
• There is a unity between
human life, the universe, and
God
• God (and other spiritual
influences) are very present
to people
• Enchanted universe

Impersonal
Cosmos
• The universe of objects and
impersonal laws
• Human “values” have no
obvious relationship to
natural “laws”

Our Cultural Story
We have a strong cultural story
that explains how we got from
the personal, “enchanted”
universe to the impersonal
“disenchanted” cosmos

The Subtraction Story
In the "olden days" (or perhaps "days of yore", which might have
come even earlier) humanity laboured under gross superstition. The
rise of Christianity might have helped (or, depending on who is
telling the story, clearly made everything worse), but certainly by the
Middle Ages, where those naughty Catholics persecuted that nice
Galileo, Progress was being prevented by the superstitious pieties
of Catholicism. Then came the Reformation, helping us escape
(yay!), but followed by the wars of religion (boo!). However, this
opened the door to the Enlightenment (yay!) where a complete
break with the past was finally made (double yay!) All the
superstition and bad faith thinking was finally scraped away, and
what was left, which had been there all along waiting to be
discovered, not unlike gravity, was the Progressive Person,
empowered by Reason and Empirical Science and motivated by
Rational Self Interest.

The Short Version
• The claim: the rise of Science
inevitably = the fall of Faith.
• But is it true? Are there
properly scientific reasons to
abandon religious faith?
• And what does that mean
about the “inevitability” idea?

One Take
The universe is enormous, and
crazily old. It simply doesn’t
make sense that God (if such a
being existed) would care about
humanity

Size
Which is more important to me –
my laptop or the screen?

The Sublime
Human beings are
inveterate mythmakers. At a
certain point size moves
from mere quantity to a
quality – the sublime
Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis

Prior Assumptions
Just because the universe is big it
does not necessarily follow that God
does not care about us. It all
depends on the vision of reality you
bring to the question. Perhaps this is
the smallest possible universe
required to create humans.
In any event there is no scientific
proof which one can point to.

Escaping One’s Childhood
• Growing up means
abandoning childish beliefs
• But one can abandon childish
beliefs without abandoning
faith in God

Adulting?
I think that the notion that we are all in the bosom of
Abraham or are in God's embracing love is - look, it's a tough
life and if you can delude yourself into thinking that there's all
some warm fuzzy meaning to it all, it's enormously
comforting. But I do think that it's just a story we tell
ourselves.
Steven Gould

What is Going On?
• There is a strong sense at
work in our culture that an
impersonal system is more
adult than a personal one.
• It’s a sense of fit, or lack of fit,
rather than any particular
theory that is at issue
• The Modern Social Imaginary

The Subtraction Story
• Claims that Science inevitably
replaces Faith.
• But that is not the case
• The Modern Moral Order
• Not waiting to be “discovered” like
gravity
• One Social Imaginary among others

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.

Go in peace;
may you carry God’s Wisdom,
speak forth God’s Word,
and embody God’s Presence
wherever you are.
In the name of Christ. Amen.