GOOD QUESTION
IF GOD IS SO GREAT, WHY WOULD HE CARE ABOUT US?
Question: I’ve read that scientists estimate that the number of stars in the universe is 10 to the 24th power (10 with 24 zeros after it). I’m told that finding the earth amidst all these stars would be like finding one particular grain of sand in a sand pile the size of the United States piled 25 feet deep! Plus, the universe has been around for 13.5 billion years, while humans have only existed the last 10,000 years or so. This is a mere nanosecond of the cosmic clock. If this is all created by God, it seems far beneath him to care about us little — and very recent — humans on this little planet.
Answer: The question presupposes a dichotomy between greatness, on the one hand, and caring for little people, on the other. I would argue in the opposite direction, however. Rather than saying God is too great to care about us little humans, I’d say God is great precisely because he cares about us little humans. For the essence of God’s greatness is love, and love between unequals is greater than a love between equals. A story of a prince who willingly sacrifices his whole kingdom out of love for a peasant girl demonstrates a greater love than a story of a prince who marries the daughter of a king. In this light, the story of God caring about us little humans, to the point of becoming one of us and dying for us, despite the fact that we didn’t deserve it, must be seen as the greatest love story ever told. Calvary reveals the greatest, most beautiful, most loving conception of God humans have ever dreamed of.
In fact, I don’t believe humans dreamed this story up. It’s beyond what we are capable of dreaming. And, in any case, there’s a wealth of historical evidence that it’s actually true. (See P. Eddy and G. Boyd, The Jesus Legend [Baker, 2007]). Our most poignant love stories are faint echoes of the love story given us in the Gospels.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
hey hey - been awhile. im back in the US and was looking forward to some discussion of Sarah Palin. Clearly religious… why no thread there?
a link for those with interest:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
Discuss…?
- ID
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Interesting link, ID, but I don’t judge candidates based on religious (or non-religious) views. That’s their freedom, and mine. What I want to know is how they plan on getting us out of these wars, and re-building our economy (if it’s not too late).
September 6th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Not a good answer.
What the asker means by grate is not love, it is the knowledge and ability to create the universe that is at least 93 billion light years across with an estimated 125 billion Galaxy’s and an estimated 10 to the 21 stars and yet it cares about us. To say that this god is to us as we are to viruses is a drastic understatement and yet it supposedly not only cares about us but what we believe and do in our every day lives. To me that is the height of arrogance.
If theres a god, it doesn’t care about me, I’m just a human who live in Georgia of the continental United States of the North American Continent of the north west hemispheres of the third planet of the Solar System of the Local Interstellar Cloud of the Local Bubble of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way of the Local Group of the Virgo Supercluster of the Observable universe of the Universe and probably of a (potently infinite) multiverse.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I respect your opinion, Lone Wolf, but certainly you don’t pretend to know for sure one way or the other. THAT would be arrogance.
No one knows for sure if a Creator exists, or whether that Creator cares about us individually. I believe that a Creator exists, and that this Creator cares about us, but my belief is based on faith, not certainty.
Jesus Christ said that if you see Him, you have seen the Creator. I believe those words.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:04 am
No, I don’t literately know, and I do not know if there was creator of the universe, I don’t think there is but I don’t think there isn’t ether. But I am fairly certain that if there is one that it does not care about us. I could be wrong and I am wrong about things (I just don’t know what) but in the grand scheme of things, where not important.
I may sound like I’m a nihilist who thinks nothing matters but I’m not. There are things that are important to us and even though in the grand scheme of things there not important that doesn’t change the fact that they matter to us.