Cosmology For Everybody

“Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?”   (Isaiah 40:26a)

When I looked into the mirror yesterday morning I was more horrified than usual by my appearance.  Not only had my face gathered several days of stubble.  My hair length which I had thought the day before was acceptable, I now judged to be out of control.  A pastor must have standards!  Though I was awkwardly hobbling about the house on crutches following my recent foot surgery, I determined to make my way out to our car and drive to my hair stylist to get the needed haircut.  Well I made it, safely.  As always she did a great job!  Indeed my hair stylist is so skilled working with the mop on the top of my head, she is recognized in her vocation as a trained cosmetologist.

Have you wondered why the technical term for a hairdresser, “cosmetologist,” is similar to the term for a scientist who studies stars and galaxies, namely a “cosmologist?”  The reason is because both terms are derived from the ancient Greek word, “cosmos,” which means “an orderly arrangement.”  Now people from across all ages and cultures have appreciated beauty, whether in the natural order or in human beings who go to certain lengths to manage and beautify themselves.  A survey of ancient Greek art (consider the Venus de Milo) shows that their civilization was especially renowned for their consideration of beauty.  And they recognized that the order they perceived looking up into in the heavens was somehow related to the sight of a “heavenly body” (human figure) right here on the ground.  The opposite word for “cosmos” is “chaos.”  And the Greeks knew that when they whether looking upward to the heavens or outward (to the human form), they were not seeing chaos, but intentional orderly arrangements.

The interest of ancient peoples in the heavens involved more than the appreciation of its beauty.  In order to journey outside of one’s homeland, a traveler depended on the arrangement of a starry night since, without the consistent arrangement of the thousands of points of light above, there was no way to fix (or even devise) the compass points.   Consequently, absent landmarks, there would have been no means for a traveler to maintain a constant direction over great distances.  Fred Hoyle wrote in his book, Astronomy: A History of Man's Investigation of the Universe. ((Crescent, 1962), p.10f) that the very study of the natural order (scientific investigation across the disciplines) had its beginning with the study of the movements of the stars above.  It appears a fair statement that had there been no “cosmos” to ponder above (Hoyle has readers imagine a world perpetually wrapped in clouds), there would have been too little foundation for any scientific investigation to gain a foot hold. 

Most importantly, this sense of an “orderly arrangement” is not imaginary.  The progress of scientific study increasingly clarifies the truth that nature is not chaos, but a realm of profound order.  Einstein put it this way, “the harmony of natural law…reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection” (Albert Einstein. Ideas and Opinions - The World As I See it. (Bonanza, 1974), p.1994).  Stephen Hawking similarly states, “If the universe is governed by natural laws, which I believe it is, these shouldn’t be arbitrary patchwork, but should fit together into some unified framework” (Stephen Hawking. A Brief History of Time. (Bantam, 1988), p.125). 

References to such noted scientists is not intended to diminish the reflections of the rest of us,  It is to instead encourage our own reflective thinking with the confidence that there is an arranger of all things who is God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and Earth who has revealed His handiwork in the things that He has made (Psalm 19).