Texas Tragedy

 This post is dedicated to the memory of several hundred lives lost in the Texas flash flood over the July 4, 2025 weekend. We submit to the omniscient Creator of All Things, confessing our weakness, frailty, and lack of ability to explain tragic events beyond our control. We read in scripture a detailed account of the righteous Old Testament figure Job who experienced incomprehensible fatal tragedies relating to his large family. Job 1:22 states, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

After searching through our blog archive, we uncovered a past post that deals in much greater depth with the issues raised in the above paragraph. We link it here:

https://jasscience.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-we-dont-know.html

The subject of this post is appropriate with respect to our inability to comprehend such a horrific disaster. As of this writing, about 300 people have perished or are missing. Several dozen were young children at Camp Mystic, inundated along the Guadalupe River in an area known as “flash flood alley.” We cite several excerpts from the above linked post:

“The Book of Job deals with natural tragedies—what they mean, why they occur, and perhaps broader questions of why discomfort, grief, tragedy, and sin could even exist at all.

“Job confessed he did not understand many of the wonders described and could not answer the questions posed.

“These (tragic) events were permitted by the Lord. If God, the Creator, is in sovereign control of our universe, we must acknowledge that any event is under his purview. 

“Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and floods have occurred….. along with the far more common tranquil events. The latter outnumber the violent, tragic events by orders of magnitude…..The events of Job 1-2 could now be said to have led to fulfilling God’s higher purpose. We may speculate on what that higher purpose was, but we may never understand it from a human standpoint. Job was not vindicated by his righteousness, but by his recognition of God’s sovereignty. God triumphs over Satan. God triumphs over evil. At the end of time, the triumph is not only in the hearts of believers, but also in an ultimate sense as outlined in the Book of Revelation 21-22.”

The Old Testament Book of Job is a favorite for many Christians. It has many science and faith commentaries and insights. In its final chapter, the author confesses and repents: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:1-6 NIV).

The Texas tragedy reminds us that our Sovereign God’s ways are not our ways. We may say that a “just” God should do this, or shouldn’t do that. Old Testament prophet Isaiah states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isa. 55:8).

  

     

   

 

Time Scale of the Universe

 Our recent post dealing with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) launched in 1990 and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched in 2021 help clarify our beliefs about when our universe was created. Cosmologists have dated the beginning of the universe at about 13.7 billion years.

Theologians have discussed the time scale of the creation event for many years. Creationists are categorized as “Old Earth Creationists” (OEC) or “Young Earth Creationists” (YEC). Young Earth Creationists experienced a revival since the mid-20th century. Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb authored a popular book entitled “The Genesis Flood” in 1961. It was followed by other volumes, such as “Scientific Creationism” by Henry Morris in 1974. Morris and Whitcomb were staunch believers in a young universe, not a 13.7 billion year old universe. Their scientific interpretations were substantially different from mainstream scientists of the 21st century with respect to the age of the universe and Planet Earth. 

It is our view that the telescopes mentioned in our opening paragraph reveal scientific proof that God’s initial creative act occurred 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the “Big Bang.” This event marked the beginning of time, space, matter, and energy. It was a true beginning of all things. We have used the following description of God: THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS. One of the four dimensions mentioned above—time—is mentioned several times in scripture: I Cor. 2:7, II Tim. 1:9, Titus 1:2, and Eph. 1:4. These passages contain phrases such as before time began, before the beginning of time, or before the ages began.

For Young Earth Creationists (YEC) the age of Planet Earth is only six to ten thousand years based on their interpretations of both science and Hebrew scripture. It is our belief that science discoveries concerning the enormous age of our universe are correct beyond any doubt. Exegesis of the Hebrew word “YOM” (day) permits various time scales. 

God could have produced our universe in a brief instant. Instead, astrophysicists have discovered the extended timeline of many events which took place in our vast universe since time began to produce the unique life-plentiful planet we enjoy today. cThe JWST is able to look back in time even farther than the HST. We look back in time when we view distant objects through the JWST, HST, and other telescopes. We are able to visually perceive events from the past and calculate how long ago the events occurred in Earth years. For example, Andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy patch in the heavens. It is visible through a fine telescope as a beautiful spiral galaxy. It is roughly 2.5 million light years away and is composed of billions of stars. When we view Andromeda Galaxy we see an event that happened 2.5 million years ago. Therefore, we conclude that the universe existed 2.5 million years ago.

The Creator is not confined to human time frames. He creates, however, within human time frames. We may better understand verses such as II Peter 3:8b: “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This passage suggests that the Creator of All Things acts creatively over long time scales. Our post of 11/13/17 entitled “Our Miracle Immersed Planet” listed three types of miracles—transcendent, transformational, and sustaining. We copy our definition of transformational miracles here:

“…(Transformational miracles involve) God’s direct action to refashion a particular aspect of his created realm to produce something of much higher complexity and functionality. These miracles took place within the laws of physics and space-time dimensions of the universe.”

The HST and JWST telescopes are able to look back in time to dozens of past events where transformational miracles occurred.   

    

     

     

     

 

   

Deep Space Telescopy

 When my granddaughter was two or three years old she once observed the night sky at our home in rural Illinois. Her family lived in an urban area near Chicago. When she first observed our dark skies, she inquired, “Grandpa, are those stars?” In our modern day it is sometimes difficult to observe the wonders of the sky by looking overhead at night. A minority of our population lives in rural areas and might be able to perceive the full panoply of visible stars at night. However, a majority of our urban residents have seldom been able to view the wonder of the nighttime heavens owing to the problem of “light pollution.” Illumination from street lights or even from outdoor house lights may be a benefit for security and safety issues in the suburbs, but a detriment to folks interested in astronomical wonders. 

Treasured memories from my science teaching experience were “star watches” we offered to students. These observational sessions took place several hours after the sun had set. We made sure the students arrived for the event after astronomical twilight arrived—the darkest time of the day. Observations of the night sky were made when the sky was darkest in order that stars and planets appeared at their brightest.

After our naked eye observations and a few telescopic views of the night sky, our students were sent home and instructed to return to the school’s soccer field, our observational venue, in total darkness after a few hours of sleep. While students slept the earth continued to rotate. The stars they observed the following morning had apparently moved to a different position in the sky. Thoughtful students were startled by what happened in the sky overnight. Each star moved in a circular path around Polaris, also called the North Star. The circular star paths traced out a sort of mirror image of Earth’s rotation. We hoped our public school students would contemplate the beauty of creation as manifest in the sky. 

The Bible refers to human emotions of worship when we observe the glory of creation in the skies above us. Many Old Testament Scripture writers were observers of the sky. Psalm 8:3-4 exults, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of him?” Or Isaiah 40:26: “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name.” Old Testament observers were some of the earliest naked eye astronomers as well as believers in a divine Intelligent Designer. Telescopic astronomy would not be instituted for another two thousand years. For many years scientists had speculated that other planets orbited around distant stars. 

In the early 17th century, the first primitive telescopes were developed. Since then telescope technology has advanced significantly, but we still appreciate the naked eye astronomy of divinely inspired scripture authors. Modern cosmology focuses on the entire universe in its totality. We close with a discussion of two of the most famous modern telescopes of hundreds of instruments produced since World War II.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched on April 4, 1990. The HST was launched into low earth orbit about 360 miles above Earth’s surface. It was a public relations boon for people interested in astronomy. One of its finest achievements came in 1995—the discovery of the first proven exoplanet—a planet orbiting a star similar to our sun. The telescope revealed startling images of the distant universe. Some pictures revealed what became known as the “pillars of creation,” attractive plumes of hydrogen gas and dust enhanced by color filters. Objects in deep space such as galaxies are clearly visible. Proof of the expanding, accelerating universe is evident. Its achievements, however spectacular, were overshadowed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). 

The recent JWST was launched December 25, 2021. Its cost was $9.7 billion and took 25 years to complete with some assistance from international agencies. It does not replace the HST. Rather, it exponentially amplifies the mission of the Hubble telescope. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross explains: “The JWST has already provided evidence of the structure and history of the early universe that carries big bang implications.

“The JWST is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court. The diameter of its main mirror is 6.5 meters (21 feet). The JWST’s main mirror has more than seven times the light collecting area as the HST…..Unlike the HST the JWST is designed to detect the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hence, it is ideally suited to explore…that part of the universe that reveals the first few billion years of cosmic history.”

 

The huge telescope was not placed in orbit around our Earth. It was launched to remain almost one million miles from the Earth at what is known as the L2 Lagrange point. At this point several natural forces balance each other and very little energy is needed to keep the huge telescope in an ideal location. The L2 Lagrange point is a region of space which revolves around the sun in one year in tandem with Planet Earth. At this location the JWST is shielded from extremely hot or cold temperatures which would disable the telescope.

There are a number of YouTube videos available dealing with the astonishing capabilities of the JWST. In our opinion the building and successful launch of this telescope may have been a divine miracle enabled by the Creator of All Things to instruct humanity concerning the divine creative act described in Genesis 1:1. God has enabled scientists to invent telescopic means of looking back into the distant past to view creation events close to the “Beginning of Time.” 

 

 

    

    

Sensory Awareness

 Our post title refers to our knowledge of the sensory systems of the human body. There are five traditional senses—visual, auditory, olfactory (odor), gustatory (taste), and touch. Several others are considered a subset of our traditional senses. The five traditional senses connect us to our environment in the most profound ways. Sight and sound may be considered the most treasured sensory gifts from the Creator.

When we focus initially on this pair of senses we are overwhelmed at God’s creative ability. Our visual and auditory systems are exceptional transducers. A transducer is a device converting energy from one form to another. Human eyes and ears are marvelous transducers. The energy of electromagnetic waves (visible light) first enters our eyes, carrying with it detailed information about our environment. Without our organ of sight the environmental information carried by electromagnetic light waves would be meaningless to us. Our eyes convert electromagnetic energy to a different form of energy. In this case the electromagnetic energy is converted to discrete digital electrical pulses traveling through our optic nerve to visual centers in the brain. Our brains translate the billions of digital electrical pulses into a mental picture implanted within our human consciousness. Therefore, it is not really our eyes doing the “seeing.” It is our brain! 

As a transducer our ears may be in second place. Human sense organs are transducers  converting data from the physical world to the world of our conscious mind where people interpret the information. This enables conscious perception of the surrounding world. We link posts from 2012 and 2014 where we discuss the sense of vision and audition:

https://jasscience.blogspot.com/2012/12/getting-picture.html

https://jasscience.blogspot.com/2014/07/astounding-transducers.html

In the link entitled “astounding transducers,” we discuss sound waves. Sound waves travel through air at about 1100 feet/second. Sound waves of a certain pitch, middle C on the piano, for example, are composed of 256 regions of air molecule compressions separated by 256 regions of air molecule rarefactions. These regions of compression and rarefaction strike your ear drum at 1100 feet/second—the speed of sound. Our physical ear mechanism then converts these regions of compression and rarefaction to electrical impulses transmitted to auditory regions of our brain through millions of neural circuits. Therefore, it is not really our ears doing the “hearing.” It is our brain! The complexities of vision and audition supply an opportunity to worship the God of Creation. He created the visual and auditory sensory systems of humans as well as all living creatures.

Human visual and auditory systems are joined by three other sensory systems which detect odor, taste, and balance. All sensory systems are transducers. The chemical signals of odor and taste have been studied by thousands of bioscientists. Our understanding of how these senses function increases continually.

There are many other sensory systems enabling humanity to be aware of their environment. The five major sensory systems are termed special senses. They are supplemented by the somatosensory system, a subset of the familiar sensory system. These senses are termed general senses. They provide information on temperature, pain, and body positioning, sometimes called muscle sense. These receptors are also transducers able to convert energy from one form to another. Our brain receives a storm of electrical impulses from our sensory receptor cells.

When we search for information on human sensory systems we become aware of the recent proliferation of knowledge of human body function, especially our sensory systems. For instance, the last several decades of visual research have resulted in a greater understanding of cellular signal transduction processes in the eye than in any other organ of the human body. Similar statements could be made concerning research in many other fields of human physiology.

God is not only the Creator of time, space, matter, and energy, but also He designed interlocking bodily sensory systems to provide enjoyment of our environment. One of our favorite personal scripture passages is Psalm 139:14 (NIV): I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. A study of human sensory systems spectacularly affirms the truth of this passage. 

      

  

Localized Weather Disasters

 Natural evil is a difficult concept to define and difficult to explain. The GotQuestions.org website defines natural evil as follows: “Natural evil is that which causes pain and suffering to humanity but which is NOT due to direct human involvement. Congenital diseases, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, and famine are all  outcomes of natural evil.”

In the past year there have been increasing instances of natural evil publicized in the media. For this post our focus will be on tornadoes and hurricanes. Tragically, these violent weather events have caused fatalities. The danger of tornadoes in the United States frequently occurs in springtime when tornadoes are generated on the Great Plains of the United States while hurricanes are generated over warm oceans from early summer to late autumn. 

This country has a geographic region sometimes dubbed “tornado alley” where  tornadoes commonly occur from March to June.  Cold, dry air masses from the north funnel south and collide with warm, moist air masses from southern water bodies producing conditions favorable to tornado formation. This happens on the Great Plains, a broad flatland area generally between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. More tornadoes occur in this region than in all other countries of the world combined.

There is a caveat to the nickname “tornado alley.” The Great Plains region of the United States is  known as the “breadbasket of the United States” sometimes even the “breadbasket of the world.” Grain crops thrive better in Great Plains alternating warm and cold seasons. Crops are widely exported to other countries of the world. The Ice Age left behind rich glacial soils when the thick layer of ice melted—ideal for agricultural production.

Planet Earth is the only satellite in the universe known to possess life. Therefore, it is the only satellite where death occurs. The implications of this fact are far-reaching in terms of the existence of natural evil. We conclude that natural evil is most meaningful in relation to the ability of living creatures to experience death, suffering, or pain. In this respect Earth is a unique planet in our universe. There are many reasons why Earth is unique as a home for humanity. A few science authors have offered plentiful justification that there may be no other planet on which human life could possibly exist, in spite of their boundless optimism that other locations in our universe provide the necessary environment for sentient humanity.

Scientists have used a humorous phrase to describe vital planetary physical conditions for human life. The conditions must be in the just right “Goldilocks Zone,” not too much, not too little: (1) just right temperature, not too hot, not too cold (2) just right quantity and phase of water, and (3) just right atmospheric composition. Our list is incomplete—many other conditions must be “fine-tuned.”

Our planetary weather system functions because heat is its driving force:

https://jasscience.blogspot.com/2019/03/weather-is-all-about-heat.html

Heat energy arrives from the sun by infrared radiation. When it arrives on Earth the thermal energy is transferred from one location to another. Conduction, convection, and radiation are methods of heat travel. Planet Earth is a water world. Without an adequate supply of water, life would not be present on our planet. When liquid water evaporates or water vapor condenses, an enormous quantity of heat is generated. Latent heat of evaporation and latent heat of condensation are terms to describe such heat transfer. Thermal heat energy fuels the formation of tornadoes and hurricanes in our atmosphere. Likewise, if we did not have an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen in plentiful supply, life as we know it would not exist.

In many past posts we have stated that Earth is “a place to thrive,” not “a place of brokenness and despair.” However, the operating system designed by Our Creator for the present created world allows for events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and many other weather tragedies. Skeptics have inquired why God does not eliminate every instance of natural evil if He is the omnibenevolent Divine Creator. A statistical study of human fatalities caused by natural evil reveal that human fatalities from tornadoes and hurricanes and other tragedies are actually quite rare—a tiny fraction of 1%. We do not trivialize any human death but the description of Planet Earth as “a place to thrive” is still appropriate. Humanity is gifted with the ability to avoid many destructive outcomes of natural evil.    

Tornadoes, hurricanes, and all other manifestations of natural evil will not be evident in the New Creation described in the last two chapters of scripture—Revelation 21 and 22.