I spent 25 years running a genetics lab … the great joy of the lab for me was the excitement and exhilaration of research and the moments of sheer ecstasy when a new discovery or insight was gained. Yet when we wrote experiments up for publication, all of that joy and emotion were expunged. We would never get a work published if we included a description of the “breathtaking beauty of the vivid scarlet sheen of exquisitely arranged rows of ommatidia” of a fly’s eye or the exhilaration upon recovering a mutation inducing paralysis at different temperatures. Yet that’s why we were hooked on the work.
– David Suzuki
“if we were rightly ordered in our service to God, there is no doubt that all the elements of the earth would sing to us like an angelic choir.”
– John Calvin [1]
Awe and Science
In my last post I talked about the effects of awe on people. We looked briefly at some studies that show the tendency of awe to make people think that the world is designed or ordered. I also noted that the scientists who have observed this pattern believe that it’s a bad thing—that it makes people less “scientific.”
One irony with this complaint however is that it is frequently a sense of awe or wonder that motivates scientific endeavour. Einstein speaks of the “rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law,” which points to a superior intelligence and which for the “profounder” scientist is “the guiding principle of his life and work.”[2]
Richard Dawkins also bears witness to the significance of awe. In Unweaving the Rainbow he argues that it is the same “spirit of wonder,” that motivates both mystics and “great scientists.” [3]
Of course neither Einstein nor Dawkins (!) mean to endorse orthodox religion with these statements. For Dawkins awe is just a natural response to natural phenomena; for Einstein it is a sense of numinous that points to something Unknowable expressed in science. But both are clear that awe is a vital motivator for science; and that it feels something like religion.
Losing Awe
But if, as I suggested in my last post, awe has to do with what Paul talks about in Romans 1:20—God’s “eternal power and divine nature” made visible in the things created, then we should expect it to be fragile. We should expect it to turn to darkness and folly if we fail to “honor him as God or give thanks to him.” To put it more strongly, we should expect God to judge us by “handing us over” to the deadening effect of our practical atheism.
In his autobiography, Charles Darwin seems to provide some evidence for this, recalling how once:
I wrote that, whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, “it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.” I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind.
Awe, along with divine intuitions it brings, is something that can easily fade away—especially if it isn’t answered with thanks and praise.
When Awe Returns
And yet sometimes it comes back.
A few years ago I noticed a pattern in Christian testimonies. People who had begun to respond to Jesus (either tentatively or in actual conversion) often reported having a transformed perception of the world around them. I think of:
…Mary Karr’s comment that when she started saying thankyou for her life (she didn’t yet know to Whom) it was if the world “bloomed into life.”
…William Lane Craig’s testimony concerning the moment of his conversion: “it was a clear, mid-western, summer night, and you could see the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon. As I looked up at the stars, I thought, ‘God! I’ve come to know God!’”
…Francis Collins’ recollection of how the spectacle of a frozen waterfall acted as the catalyst for his decision to follow Christ: that was the moment in which “I felt my resistance leave me.”
…A. N. Wilson’s complaint that before his return to faith he would “listen to the music of Bach and realize that his [Bach’s] perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own.”
Divine Glory and Sweetness
And I especially think of Jonathan Edwards as he reflects on his youthful life of faith:
I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. … The appearance of everything was altered: there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost everything. God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything…I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.[3]
For Edwards, the experience of God in creation was both different from, and yet connected to, the encounter with God in Christ that he really wanted. Later he would notice that those touched by the revival sometimes experienced a similarly transformed appreciation of the world:
The [spiritual] light and comfort which some of them enjoy, give a new relish to their common blessings, and cause all things about them to appear as it were beautiful, sweet, and pleasant. All things abroad, the sun, moon, and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were with a divine glory and sweetness upon them. [4]
Conversion and Awe
Is all this just emotionalism? The spiritual equivalent of a lover’s infatuation which casts a soft focus over the world?
It’s difficult to prove that it isn’t at least partly that. And yet, doesn’t it make perfect sense that a new relationship with Jesus, “in whom all things hold together,” should change our perception of the world that exists “for him” (Col 1:16-17)? Doesn’t it makes sense that we, who have been saved from God’s wrath; and for God’s glory (e.g. Eph 1:5-13); and taught to “abound in thanksgiving” (Col 2:7), should experience some reversal of the darkening that followed our failure to give God thanks and glory (c.f. Romans 1:21)? [5]
Seeking Awe
None of these experiences, I hasten to add, are promised or necessary. A faith in Christ that leaves the world grey is no less genuine; nor is an experience of awe in creation a guarantee that our faith is real.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t welcome or desire such inner testimonies. I suggested in my last post that we should cultivate awe, by looking to creation with praise for the Creator on our lips. As I conclude this post, I want to suggest that an even better thing to do is to meditate on the wonders we see around us as parts of a world created for Christ and redeemed by Christ.
This is the world for which Christ died.
This is the creation that will be liberated when the sons of God are revealed.
This is the beauty and glory that Christ gives us along with himself—but which must be tragically surrendered unless we belong to him.
These are faint echoes of the new heavens and the new earth which will shine with light of God and the Lamb.
Heaven and earth are full of the glory of God. But in Christ we encounter the very radiance of God’s glory. He’s the one in whom we rediscover the world and can rediscover awe.
Photos: Niccolò Ubalducci, flickr; Opo Terser, wikipedia (inset)
[1] Lecture on Jeremiah 5 (verse 25) in Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Wilhelm Baum, Edward Cunitz, and Edward Reuss (Brunswick: Schwetschke and Son, 1888), vol 37, 635. Thanks to Peter Adam for drawing my attention to this quote.
[2] A. Einstein, The World as I See It (New Jersey: The Citadel Press, 1999) 24-29. Cited here fromhttp://www.stephenjaygould.org…
[3] R. Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998) 27
[4] J. Edwards, The Works of President Edwards in Four Volumes. A Reprint of the Worcester Edition., 4 volumes, 9th edition (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1856), 1.16.
[5] Ibid. 3.255.
