Whether it is the climate, mathematics, physics, social interaction, neuroscience, biology, astronomy—our culture has largely accepted the notion that our collective knowledge has grown to near completion. We use phrases like “settled science” to avoid questioning various hypotheses and viewpoints on any number of topics. And we selectively push down ideas that don’t fit with mob thinking. Of course we are destroying the planet. And common core curriculum is better. And there are an infinite number of genders. No longer conjectures to be debated, but “facts” to be defended.
We’re losing our awe and wonder at God’s amazing creation. And creation is literally packed with questions we don’t know the answer to. So much so, that if you begin to think about it, you’ll soon realize we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do. Consider:
We don’t know why the universe came into existence, or if there’s only one. Until very recently we conjectured that the universe began with a “big bang” and has been constantly expanding over billions of years. However, in 2022 the James Webb Space Telescope brought into question two pieces of evidence we had relied on for this theory.[1] Where did the matter that makes up everything come from in the first place, and why has it manifested itself in the way it has? You can believe that God indeed created it. If you don’t, then you’re left with the question of why is it here? And there is evidence that there may be more than one universe—a multiverse that our math doesn’t yet have terms for. “We cannot explain all the features of our universe if there’s only one of them,” says science journalist Tom Siegfried. We know it’s a possibility because we can see nearly to the edge of our own universe and can’t figure out what’s beyond that.[2]
We don’t know what most matter is. About 5% of everything in space is matter and energy. But then there’s the 80% that is “dark”. We know it’s there because of how stars and other phenomenon move about in a way that’s unpredictable. Observation shows the “existence of vast amounts of slow-moving gravitating ‘stuff’ that never turns into stars or planets or anything, just stays as diffuse, invisible, incredibly antisocial particles.”[3] So we know something is there because of the way the cosmos behaves, but we don’t know what it is, or how it works, or where it came from, or how it affects us—and keep in mind now we’re talking about 80% of everything.
We don’t understand our own biology. If we fully understood life, we would be able to eliminate disease, or customize people with DNA engineering. But we don’t even know why our cells stay together in our bodies, even though they are being replaced constantly—some in days, others over years. We don’t know how the neurons in our brains store information. We don’t know why we need sleep or why we dream. We don’t know why consciousness happens. And we carry around pounds of bacteria in our guts, lungs, noses and elsewhere that we need to function but we haven’t figured out why.
Let’s not forget, we don’t know precisely how life begins. We can see cells divide and grow, but don’t know why they do, or what triggers them. The website thignswedontknow.com has published 65 specialist blogs featuring 632 unanswered questions about the biological universe—and they have a further 230 research areas they haven’t even tackled yet.[4]
We don’t know how the earth works. Scientific American writes, “It took us a ridiculously long time to figure out that the outer planetary skin is moving and sliding around; plate tectonics was not generally accepted until the mid-20th century. We’re still not sure how the inner dynamo works, how rolls of convecting, conducting material in the outer core generate our planetary magnetic field.”[5] Though we’d like to say that the earth’s temperature is rising dangerously, we actually don’t know whether it’s dangerous or not. Evidence suggests the earth was both considerably hotter and colder in the past. But we don’t know how hot or cold because we’ve only been taking temperature readings for around 140 years.[6]
We don’t know why water is abundant on earth and yet absent in nearly all of the rest of the known universe. Or what caused oxygen to stabilize our atmosphere. Or why there is such a diversity of life on our planet. And what happened to the dinosaurs is still a best guess as there is no incontrovertible evidence to support an asteroid explosion or any other popular theory.[7]
Our science is also incomplete. Here are a few mysteries we have yet to solve: first, how to reliably cure hiccups. Or the reason that Tylenol kills pain. Or why only certain thunderstorms produce tornadoes. Or why we itch. Or how we age—numerous contributors to aging have been discovered, but no single factor explains all or even most of the aging process, making this a difficult question to answer. We don’t understand why we laugh, or why some animals migrate back to their birthplaces, or how turbulence happens.
This one might scare you if you’re about to have surgery: We don’t know how general anesthesia really works. Nicole Haloupek writes for Mental Floss, “The molecular basis of general anesthesia is a mystery. These drugs seem to interfere with the functions of a variety of proteins on nerve cells in the central nervous system, but how they accomplish this is not well understood.” Then there are big questions, like what’s at the bottom of the oceans (95% of the oceans are unexplored), or what’s inside a black hole, or is time travel possible?
We don’t know nearly as much as we let on. If we look at just total available knowledge, in the year 1900 we were doubling our knowledge as the human race every 100 years. Today with the advent of the Internet we may be doubling knowledge every 12 months, and within a few years we may be doubling every 12 hours.[8] We understand terms like gigabytes and terabytes. One petabyte of data (a thousand terabytes) would be equivalent to all US academic research libraries—about 20 million filing cabinets, our 500 billion pages of printed text. Despite all we know, however, it pales in comparison to what we don’t know. In fact, some researchers acknowledge that some fields of research do and will continue to lie beyond the bounds of human understanding. Scientist Marcus du Sautoy of the Royal Institution says that not only will we never know it all, but we also don’t know the extent of what we cannot know.[9]
The Bible teaches us that God knows everything (1 John 3:20) and understands everything (Psalm 147:5). In fact, Scripture further explains that the universe is a wonderous work of God (Job 37, Psalm 139), and that God sees everything (Hebrews 4:13). A tremendous promise from our all-knowing God is found in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” If we follow God, then, we can trust that He is aware of the things we don’t know, and is working every facet of the known and unknown for our good and for His glory. Indeed, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
Stand in awe. When we take a moment to consider creation, the knowns and the unknowns, it is humbling and inspiring. It reminds us of the greatness of God, which Psalm 145:3 tells us is a “greatness no one can fathom”. We cannot begin to comprehend the full extent of what God created, or Who He is. We know Him as Creator, King, Savior, Lord, who is loving, merciful, powerful, forgiving and awesome. Hebrews 12:28-29 says, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’”
As we learn more about our universe, science often puts humanity on a pedestal. Rather, we should consider all that we do not know, and humble ourselves as new knowledge is revealed to us. We should consider the vast questions of biology, physics, mechanics, mathematics, neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and other disciplines that are as yet unaswered. How incredible to serve a God who made all of this. Creator God is not to be categorized and contained. Rather, Scripture teaches us to stand in awe. The universe with each new discovery doesn’t get smaller in scope, but greater in depth and more mysterious in our understanding. Oh the things we simply do not know, and what a mighty God that we serve!
[1] https://www.inverse.com/science/the-latest-webb-observations-dont-disprove-the-big-bang-but-they-are-interesting
[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/what-is-the-multiverse
[3] https://www.space.com/20930-dark-matter.html
[4] https://www.thingswedontknow.com/biology/?show_all
[5] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/this-is-what-we-done28099t-know-about-the-universe/
[6] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been
[7] https://www.rd.com/list/unsolved-mysteries-planet-earth/
[8] https://lodestarsolutions.com/keeping-up-with-the-surge-of-information-and-human-knowledge/
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reeU09R4TIA
Prayer is a tremendous spiritual discipline for leaders. It is a fundamental practice for abiding and growing as a Christian. As a leader, think about how you might pray for those in your sphere of influence.