Following is the second in a series of Scriptural Science Segues. It highlights God’s infinite ability to design and care for Creation:
Biosphere 2.
In the 1972 movie, “Silent Running” a spacecraft carries the last ecosystems from Earth in biochambers, which sustain life with no outside input but sunlight. Scientists have attempted a terrarium on Earth in which people lived called Biosphere 2. The experiment was run twice, once for two years and two months beginning in 1991, and then again for seven months in 1994. The sealed enclosures included sophisticated designs for self-sufficient living. Filters, recyclers, and energy manipulators of every sort were necessary. The design closely copied many things we know about nutrient, waste and energy cycles of Biosphere 1, that is, Earth. For all of the inputs of design, energy, and monthly corrective supplies, the experiment was shut down because cockroaches proliferated, soil bacteria robbed the air of oxygen, which had to be supplied, and birds and bees died so that there were no longer any pollinators.
Biosphere 1.
God’s design for the self-sustaining life zone of Earth is wonderful by comparison. It has cycled nutrients (food, gases, and water), wastes, and energy for centuries without failure. When catastrophes occur in various locales, it regenerates to a steady state of tremendous diversity, multi-function, and beauty. Even when poisoned by our pollution, it isolates and purifies the pollutants and adjusts. It may have limits which we seem determined to push, but its ability to renew is phenomenal and without parallel.
He Is Able.
When God answers Job’s challenge to His justice in Job’s suffering, God asks Job a series of questions to test Job’s knowledge of Creation. God is pointing Job to His superior and infinite knowledge and power so that Job can know that his suffering has not slipped by God’s notice nor overcome His control. God is an Intelligent and Powerful Designer, Creator far beyond anything we may hope to know or do. As it says in Romans 1:20, “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
The Downfall of Our Understanding.
Herein is a danger of modern science. God has enabled us to understand many things about His Creation. We certainly know the gestational period of the Mountain Goat and Deer (Job 39:1-2) and many of the laws governing the heavens (38:33). But we cannot command the morning (38:12) and were certainly not present when God created it all (38:4). There is much we still do not know, cannot control, and were not present to observe. In the case of many modern scientists, it is similar to the plight of Edom who felt secure in their rock refuges: “The arrogance of your heart has deceived you.” Obadiah 1:3
Humility, Acknowledgement, Praise.
We cannot even copy what God has done in nature to set-up a self-sustaining biosphere, let alone explain how God brought it into existence and sustains it on any meaningful level. We need to be humble in our knowledge. Believe God’s Word; He knows but we do not. And we should render praise and be forever fascinated by God’s creative and sustaining ability. He provides seed and bread (2 Corinthians 9:10), food for the birds (Luke 12:24) and beasts (Psalm 147:9), grass and trees (Psalms 104:14,16), refuge for animals (104:17,18,21), the Moon for marking seasons and the Sun for day and night (104:19), and so much more.
“Oh Lord, how many are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
The earth is full of Your possessions.”
Psalm 104:24
CreatorWorship 