Tom Hanks, Space and Faith

Actor/director/producer Tom Hanks recently co-produced an IMAX film called Magnificent Desolation, which uses NASA footage and gives people a 3D experience of walking on the moon. Reader's Digest published an interview with Hanks about his fascination with outer space (remember Apollo 13?), and I thought one of his comments was particularly interesting.

RD asked, "When you contemplate space, does the complexity, the magnificence, make you think there's some divine hand in this, or that it's all random?"

Hanks replied (emphases mine):

Either one is a tremendous leap of faith, and it could very well be that this is beyond our consciousness. How can you look at it and say this was plotted out on a graph? I think that would cheapen it somehow. At the same time, to say it just happened and is completely random would cheapen it as well. I'm thoroughly delighted by the mystery of it all.

What Hanks has right is what many atheists/agnostics miss: that to believe in the theory of evolution is just as much an act of faith as believing that God created the world. What Hanks has wrong, though, is that believing that God created the world (by a word, no less) somehow cheapens the magnificence of creation. Rather, it exalts the God who created the earth and everything in it. After all, the heavens themselves proclaim God's handiwork (Psalm 19), specifically his invisible power and divine nature (Romans 1:20). In the most incomprehensible way, God remains completely beyond our consciousness AND he has revealed himself to us, including the creation of the galaxies we explore.

The world that our God of wonders has made is truly amazing. Like Hanks, I am also thoroughly delighted by the mystery of it all; I just get to be even more delighted by knowing the One who made it and who also made and cares for me!