It seems that the deeper our level of understanding of our world, the more difficult it becomes to embrace a faith in our God. In effect, it seems that what we see as knowledge pushes us farther and farther away from a strong connection with our spiritual existence.
Humans, it seems, are designed to strive to understand the world around us. The downside is, as we gain the ability to analyze our earthly existence, we lose touch with the “mystery” of that existence. We continually strive to dig deeper and deeper into the mechanics of life. In the process, we distance ourselves from faith in God.
If we look into the past, we would recognize that it was the absence of knowledge that fueled a strong culture of faith. Unfortunately, that same culture of ignorance planted many seeds of superstition which contaminated the minds of the faithful. If we were to be brutally honest, we would probably conclude that many church rituals have their roots in superstitions.
So, where does that leave us today? With all the advances in science, are we losing our ability to believe? Has logic become our new god?
Strangely, the opposite is true. The more we understand about the mechanics of our our world, our universe, our existence, the more we find ourselves confronted with a spiritual reality that defies our ability to understand.
As we explore deeper and deeper into the structure of our world, we eventually arrive at a point that we can no longer explain with the tools that we have developed. We developed a microscope to peer into the structure of cells. When we reached the limits of the microscope, we invented the electron microscope that allowed us to see even deeper into the structure of the atoms that are the building blocks of matter.
We keep inventing instruments that allow us to expand our ability to see the most minute details of matter and the furthest reaches of our universe. Ultimately, we employ our greatest tool – mathematics – to allow us to understand concepts that we cannot grasp with our five senses.
When we reach the limits of our ability to understand distances within our universe on an earthly scale, we invent “light years” to describe the indescribable. Once again, mathematics comes to the rescue.
Again and again, we use our tools of mathematics to grasp concepts that are beyond our ability to visualize or experience on a human scale – until finally, we reach the limits that even mathematics cannot conquer.
It is then that we find ourselves coming full circle – back to a belief and acceptance in a force we can only define as “God.” Cleansed of superstition and the complexities of science, we must finally confront the logical conclusion that there is more to our existence than we will ever be able to understand while we exist in a human form.
Perhaps it is only in the transition we call death that we will ever see and appreciate the truth.