
Day 5
Job 38:31-33, 36;, 42:1-6
COULD THE UNIVERSE HAVE HAPPENED BY CHANCE?
The situation is clearing for the modern man. He sees more and more that he must affirm some "Yes" about the universe, and that "Yes" may be God. For how could this universe come by chance into a cosmic orderliness that stretches from the molecule to the outermost star, and controls everything between? And how could this orderliness just happen to stay by chance through millions of years? That would be a stark materialistic miracle--universal chaos by chance gives birth to universal order! The one who believes that must spell his "chance" with a capital "C" and mean it by--God. How long do you think it would take for you to throw up a font of type into the air and have it come down by chance into a poem of Browning? I asked a printer that question and he replied, "Both you and the type would wear out first."
Someone has figured out how many chances to one it would take for the world to have happened by chance, and the figures go round the world thirty-five times. "A preposterous figure," says Dr. Millikan the scientist. Sir James Jeans has figured out that it would take a hundred million years for a hundred thousand monkeys, pecking at random on a hundred thousand typewriters, to happen by chance upon the plays of Shakespeare. And then, after they had happened upon the arrangements of the letters, they wouldn't know what the letters meant!
When I pick up a book and see that there is intelligence in it--that sometimes does happen!--then I know that behind that intelligence is an intelligent mind expressing itself through the intelligence. When I look at the universe, I find that it responds to intelligence--it can be intelligently studied. Intelligence has gone into it--into its very structure. Then the simple conclusion must be that behind that intelligence, which is built into the structure of things, is an intelligent mind, and since that built-in intelligence seems to be universal, I will have to spell it in capitals--a Universal Mind.
Prayer
O God--I say the word now with more confidence--I begin to see Thee; help me to act as Thou art. Thou art beginning to come into my intelligence. Help me to take Thee into the rest of my life. Amen.