Isaiah 40:28 – “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”
An atheist said he rejects divine creation because of the size of the universe. Why would God care about people on one insignificant planet around one small star among 400 billion stars in one galaxy among over two trillion galaxies in the universe? Why would God make a universe this big and complex to waste it on some plan on a speck with people who are made of dust?
This isn’t the first time that someone asked, “What is man that You are mindful of Him? And the son of man, that You visit him?” (Ps 8:4). It’s a question rooted in who and what God is, and why He would be interested in man.
The atheist’s objection shows ignorance of what the Bible and the universe is saying about God. The problem with the immense size of the universe argument is that God isn’t big; that is, He isn’t measurable in literally any way. God is eternal and limitless. The entire universe isn’t big to God because God isn’t big; God is immeasurable. The universe is of a different kind than God because it is big, measurable, quantifiable—and God is not. So, it doesn’t use up or somehow waste God’s resources or power in literally any way to create or maintain what we see as a big universe!
When the heavens declare the glory of God (Psa 19:1), they are declaring more than just that God can make something amazing and big. The things that are made are clearly showing “His invisible attributes…His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom 1:20). His eternal power is seen in His creation! Not just super-super human power. The universe is so big that it declares that God isn’t big; He is infinite, immeasurable, and eternal. God is not just bigger than our universe; He is outside of it and isn’t limited in any way.
I recognize that even the Bible uses physical and anthropomorphic terms as it grapples to help us understand what we cannot fully understand about God. But the looming danger is what I’ll call the Super-Superman god mentality. Amplifying human capabilities to unimaginable levels creates an idol god, not the God who is not man, not material, not limited in any sense.
Nothing is hard for God. Nothing is big or complex for God. A single drop of water contains about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms (10 sextillion – more than all the stars in our galaxy). Now try to wrap your thinking around the fact that God is capable of knowing the exact position of every atom in the entire universe at all times – without taxing His power, attention, or abilities. It’s impossible for us to imagine anyone like this because we can only think in terms of big and small. But God isn’t big.
Instead of disproving God, a big and complex universe is what we would expect from an eternal God. A minimalist universe might suggest a limited god with limited resources and abilities. A big universe isn’t somehow a waste as skeptics might charge. Let science show us God’s amazing creation—both big and small. But remember, our creation is not a waste because of God’s unlimited resources and power; and it also is not a waste because what it says about God causes us to believe in and glorify Him for Who He really is.
“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim 1:17).
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