Psalm 19
Sermon Notes by Howard Taylor.
Please note that the first part of these notes contains many scientific facts, opinions and quotations so you may need to be selective.

Ps 19:1-2
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.

The guiding principle behind many of the great scientists was the belief that they were exploring creation for the glory of God.

Here is an excerpt from a letter to the Times from Hugh McGavock (Visiting Professor, Prescribing Science, University of Ulster), published: 9th September 2000: 

Like many scientists, my limited knowledge of a tiny fraction of the observable Universe leads me to a sense of its awesome complexity, perfection and beauty, especially in the revelations of molecular biology. I am reduced to humble admiration in contemplating the Creator's mind. .. . 
Isaac Newton reasoned thus: 
  • There are Laws of nature
  • Therefore there must be a  Law Giver 
  • The force that makes an apple fall is the same force that keeps the moon in orbit
  • Therefore the universe must have one law giver.
James Clerk Maxwell (Einstein said he was the greatest scientist since Newton)
Over the Cambridge Cavendish laboratories he had written a Bible verse: 
Psalm 111:2 Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. (NIV)

Two of present Nobel Prize winners are committed Christians.

Sir Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). English mathematician and philosopher.) said that this was no accident. C. S. Lewis sums Whitehead's position as follows:

Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.
Howard J. Van Till, PhD:
(Either God is needed to intervene in process of development of the universe or He isn't.)
But what if such interventions are not necessary ?  That would raise an even more interesting question, wouldn’t it ?   How did the universe come to possess the abilities for organizing atoms into elephants ?   Science crafts clever theories about how things get formed, but why is the stuff of the universe able to arrange itself into these forms?
Why, for instance, should protons and neutrons be able to combine into the nuclei of a hundred different chemical elements?  And why should the atoms of these elements be inclined to gather into molecules  -  from simple molecules like carbon dioxide to complex coils of DNA molecules essential for life ?  It would be so easy to imagine a universe with elementary constituents that did not have these gifts for forming things.
Questions of this sort are seldom asked in a typical science course.  Having taught physics for many years, I know the usual routine.  We tell students about the basic forces of interaction.  We write down the “laws of physics” that provide us with a cause-and-effect story for what happens when things interact.  That should settle it, right ?
Perhaps.  But it depends on what needs to be settled.  If the question were simply, What happens when things interact ?  then the standard textbook approach would be adequate.  But I want to ask a more profound question.   I want to know why there are such things as interaction forces in the first place, and why things are gifted with the ability to respond to these forces in the particular ways that we observe.
In short, why does the universe work ?   Where do the universe’s “natural” abilities come from? What is the ultimate source of the properties and interactions that we take for granted as ordinary ?
What we call “ordinary” turns out to be truly awesome when you think about it. I want to know where the universe gets its awesome character. Science has no answers to questions like this.
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Einstein: 
The Only thing incomprehensible about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.
Night after night.
We need the night in order to appreciate the vastness of the universe.
Size of the universe - a problem for us?
Our sun (million times bigger than the earth) just one of hundreds of billion stars in our galaxy and our galaxy one of hundreds of billion galaxies in universe.

The scientists tell us that if the universe were not so large - all have collapsed in on itself long ago - never been any stars, therefore no sun and no earth.

If they are right the universe began the size of an atom - not thousands of billions times bigger than us but thousands of billions times smaller than us.

Pagan View.
The stars are gods OR the universe as a whole is part of God. If that were the case we would never really investigate it - irreverent to probe and - science never really get off the ground.

Atheist View. There would be no laws of nature.
Einstein (in his later life he mocked atheism) said that the one thing science can never discover is why the universe is intelligible - where the laws of nature came from.
This, he said, is the weak point in all the atheist arguments.

Fine Tuning.
Have you ever had a problem with a shower that had to be very finely tuned to get the temperature right?

If any of the fundamental forces of nature (eg gravity) were different (stronger or weaker) by a factor of one in many million there would be no stars and therefore no sun nor earth. 
One well known non religious Oxford mathematician says that the chances of finding a universe like ours would be like finding, after an earthquake, a ball point pen standing on its point.

Einstein:

`You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a religious feeling of his own...  His religious feeling takes the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the scientific thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.   This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire.   It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.
Ps 19:2-4
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
3 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. 

Pour forth speech - Bubbling Up.
Scientists never out of work - always more to explore
Nature never stops telling us to look to its Creator.
Richard Dawkins: Religion is like the small pox virus but much more difficult to eradicate.
People can't match Richard Dawkins quick witted rhetoric but deep down they know that what he argues for is absurd.

Pour Forth Speech - another meaning
Language - information everywhere in nature.
Information technology.
Edward Wilson (Non religious prize winning American Scientist):

Cells use very modern technology involving digital logic, analogue-digital conversion and signal integration and this complexity exceeds that of super-computers and space vehicles.
Richard Dawkins describing simplest form of life:
It is information, words, instructions . . .   Think of a billion discrete digital characters . . .   If you want to understand life, think about information technology.
Imagine a factory for making computers that is run from the beginning by computers that it alone can make.
That is one of the mysteries of life in its simplest form.

Douglas Hofstadter (famous non religous AI expert):

"A natural and fundamental question to ask, on learning of these incredibly, intricately interlocking pieces of software and hardware is:  'How did they ever get started in the first place?' . . . from simple molecules to entire cells is almost beyond one's power to imagine.   There are various theories on the origin of life.   They all run aground on this most central of central questions:  'How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for it translation originate?'"
Information is transmitted throughout the world. 
But the information itself is generated by Intelligent beings - humans.
Mind

Even at the foundation of the non living world, quantum physics has uncovered waves of mathematical information which are the source of all matter/energy.

What is everything made of?

  • Molecules, atoms, protons, electrons, quarks, --- on and on forever?
  • Something made of nothing?
  • Waves of information.
Archeology find marks on rock. 
  • Patterns or writing?
  • If it is writing - proof that humans did it.
Mind, Language, Word.
John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:14
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(NIV)

Word of God is the source of the wonderful order of natural world.

A Miracle might be the action of God when He feeds in information. 
Same principle as creation of universe:
He spoke … 

Second part of Psalm 19

Also about Word of God - Bible itself.
Ps 19:7-11 7 he law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring for ever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
11 By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
  • Revives soul.
  • Make wise the simple
  • Joy to the heart
  • Full of light
  • Righteous
  • Precious
  • Warning
  • Reward


Beautiful.
Galaxies, sunsets, underlying biology, physics and mathematics.
Creation and Redemption are beautiful.
(Yet in art, beauty has become for many a shunned word.)

We can contemplate, ponder, think, wonder at beauty, and make decisions.

Unlike computers we are conscious beings.
We can understand a computer from outside looking in.

I can't know you by examining you on operating table.
What it really is like to be you.

You are not just body and brain.

The phrase you and I often use `My body my brain' - imply that your  body and brain belong to you -  but you are more than them.

How do you know me from the Inside looking out? - Not be science.

There is a way of knowing one another that way:
Friendship.
Living in one another's presence and hearing what one another say - Word.
It is a real way of knowing.
1 Cor 2:11-12,
11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no-one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 

Gospel is that God does not just know us from the outside looking in  but from inside looking out.

In our flesh.

Sin and suffering and death - not just as an onlooker but One who has come right to us.

1 Cor 2:16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Through God's Spirit and Word we actually know a little at least of what it is like to be God.

`Mind of Christ'

See in the Cross how God suffers with us for the sins of world.

Because I am not a computer 
- but a being with body and soul, 
- I can really think freely
- therefore my thoughts can be really pleasing or otherwise to God.
Ps 19:14
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

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