As a physician, I find it quite disconcerting that academia has not only attempted to silence the voices of scientists that recognize a Designer in the world, but also has the chutzpah to silence the voice of nature itself. Uncomfortable, when the heavens declare they jump up to the podium, become nature’s press secretary, and put a materialistic spin on every transcendent feeling the human press corps brings to their attention. Asked to respond to rumors of a Signature In The Cell they tell us that their organization has been hacked by Christian terrorists and the creational texts that pour out day after day and night after night only concern survival of the fittest classes and random species planning. Hoping to silence nature by telling it to speak only when spoken to, they are confronted by obnoxious stones that cry out and are forced to scold them and instruct them to use their inside laboratory voices. Every transcendent encounter with nature then becomes a scientific amber alert, warning the community that another person’s mind has been abducted by divine discourse.

A recent study published in the journal, Emotion, investigated the influence of awe inducing video clips of nature (Planet Earth) on the attitude of theists and non-theists towards science. The study found that those videos that inspired awe, bolstered the faith of the believer, but prompted atheists and agnostics to entertain the idea that the world was purposefully ordered. According to the researchers, the factor responsible for diverting the audience away from the cold hard facts of a materialistic view of the universe was awe, which the investigators defined as an, “immediate failure to assimilate information into existing mental structures,” (2) or as Doug Axe so nicely translates for us, “Awe is nothing more than mental panic.” (1) The study concluded that this drift towards an ordered understanding of the world was a threat to “those interested in promoting an accurate understanding of evolution.” (2) Sadly, they have tried to reduce awe to a mind-altering drug. Our vacations into the great outdoors become nothing more than clandestine visits to a divine crack house to experience beatific hallucinations and the only remedy for our Rocky Mountain High is to check into scientific rehab and sober up.

The Bible makes it clear that the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, this fear, however, is not trembling panic, but rather the awe we experience when we are confronted by God’s beautifully ordered world. While the authors of this study may find it horrifying, it appears that they have just independently verified this Biblical truth. Fearful that they have just played into God’s hands, they are forced to downgrade awe to a misfiring of reason, which in the end, only exchanges the truth for a lie.

Scientists have been listening to God’s voice for decades, but it is only recently that hearing, they do not hear.  They have become so enamored with the sound of their own voice that they have become deaf to the divine discourse that surrounds them. Ironically, the more scientists discover about the world, the louder God’s voice becomes. Understanding the world as designed and beautiful is not just a ruse to fill an awkward scientific silence with divine small talk, but rather reassurance that every beautiful note we uncover in the laboratory has a heavenly composer.

Nature has been arrested as an evolutionary dissident and shipped off to a scientific gulag.  It has been ushered into an interrogation room and made to confess that it is not designed even though all evidence points to the contrary. We cannot quietly stand by as nature’s voice is silenced, we must be the liberation force that restores its right to free speech and allows it to peacefully assemble in the halls of academia. Contrary to the opinion of scientific materialists, nature has never been a dissident, but rather an awe-inspiring scientific recruiter that invites us to enter into the research laboratory to hear every microscopic nuance of the words God spoke into creation.

The imperative of awe is its certificate of evidence, a universal certificate, which we all witness and seal with tremor and spasm, not because we desire to, but because we are stunned and cannot brave it…When we stand in awe, our lips do not demand speech, knowing that if we spoke, we would deprave ourselves. In such moments talk is an abomination. (Abraham Joshua Heschel)

1. The Stream

2. Awe and Scientific explanation