The question is completely different. The question is why the insignificance of the Earth, known to all Christian poets, philosophers and theologians fifteen hundred years ago, did not interfere with them in the least, and now suddenly made a dizzying career as an argument against miracles. I think I understand what is going on here, and now I will tell you about it. For now, let's consider the misunderstanding itself.

When a doctor examines the deceased and ascertains poisoning, he knows what the organs would be like in a natural death. If the insignificance of the earth and the vastness of the universe are evidence against Christianity, we must know what universe would testify for it. But do we know? Whatever space is, our senses perceive it as three-dimensional. You can't apply boundaries to three-dimensional space, and compared to infinity, a planet of any size is negligible. Infinite space may or may not be empty. If it were empty, it would be evidence against God—why would He create one grain of sand and leave everything else to nothingness? If there are innumerable bodies in it (as it is), they may or may not be inhabited. Strange as it may seem, both are used against Christianity: if the universe is teeming with life, it is ridiculous to think that God will bother with the human race; If life is only here, with us, it is clear that it is accidental. In general, it is similar to a story where a police officer tells the arrested person that any of his actions "will be used against him." Such arguments are not at all based on observation. Any Universe will do. The doctor boldly admits poisoning without looking at the corpse - no changes in the organs will shake his views.

We can't imagine a suitable universe, and here's why. Man is a finite creature and intelligent enough to understand this. Thus, any picture of the Universe suppresses him. Moreover, he is a created being: the reason for his existence lies not in him or in his parents, but either in nature, or (if there is God) in God. In the face of this absolute force, it is inevitably small, insignificant, almost accidental. Believers do not think at all that everything was created for man; Scientists prove that this is really not the case. Whatever we call the ultimate, inexplicable being, that which simply is, whether God or "everything in the world," it certainly does not exist "for us." Whatever we believe in as an absolute, it is independent of us, and we are quite dependent on it. I don't know if there was a madman in the world who believed that man fills the Mind of God. If we are small before space and time, then they themselves are incomparably smaller before God. Christianity has never tried to dispel the wonder, horror, and sense of insignificance that overwhelm us when we think of the universe. On the contrary, it strengthened them, for without them there is no faith. When a person brought up in a false Christian spirit, who has taken up astronomy, realizes how majestically indifferent almost all reality is to man, and perhaps loses faith, it is then that he can experience for the first time a truly religious feeling.

Christianity does not teach that everything is created for us humans. It teaches that God loves us, for our sake He became man and died. I do not understand how the long-known truths of astronomy can shake this belief.

Skeptics wonder that God would condescend to our tiny planet. This would make sense if we knew for certain that (1) there are intelligent beings living on other celestial bodies, (2) they have fallen and need redemption, (3) they must be redeemed in the same way as we are, and (4) they have been denied redemption. We don't know any of this. Perhaps the universe is teeming with happy creatures that do not need redemption; perhaps they have long since been redeemed in a way unknown to us; perhaps they were redeemed in the same way as we are; perhaps, finally, there are things besides life that are pleasing and known to God, but not to men.

If we are told that such an insignificant planet does not deserve God's love, then we will answer that no Christian claims to do so, nor has he ever claimed. The Savior died for us, not because it is worth dying for us, but because He is Love.

Of course, it is not easy for all of us to imagine that a small Earth is more important than, say, the Andromeda nebula. On the other hand, no normal person believes that a horse is more important than a child or a leg is more important than a brain. In short, size is combined with importance for us when it is very large. Thus, it is clear what the mistake is here. If this connection were true, it would remain the same. But the fact is that it is not the mind that tells us, but the imagination.

We are all poets, in fact. When the size is too large, it ceases to be a size, imaginative thinking comes into play – we no longer see quantity, but a new quality. Without this, information about the size of the galaxy would remain as dry as an accounting report. A person without imagination will not comprehend the above argument against faith. It is us, we ourselves, who give the universe greatness. Subtle people look at the night sky with reverence or horror, but coarse people will not notice it. The silence of the great spaces frightened Pascal, because Pascal himself was great. When we are afraid of the universe, we are frightened by our own shadow in the full sense of the word; After all, light years and geological eras will remain empty numbers until the shadow of a human myth-maker falls on them. As a Christian, I myself am afraid of this shadow, for it is the shadow of the image of God.

Now I will try to answer a recent question: why has the long-known vastness of the universe only recently become an argument against us? Perhaps the modern imagination is more sensitive to large sizes? Then this argument can be considered a by-product of romanticism. In addition, other aspects of the imagination have noticeably dulled. Anyone who has read the old poets knows that brightness and sparkle meant much more to them than to us. Medieval thinkers believed that the stars were more important than the earth because they sparkled. The present ones, as we see, put forward a magnitude. Both can give rise to good poems and useful feelings – horror, humility, joy. But they cannot be philosophical arguments. The atheist's reasoning about the size of the universe is simply an example of what we call the "primitive perception of the world."

VIII. ЧУДО И ЗАКОНЫ ПРИРОДЫ

Это очень странно — так,

Что и не понять никак:

То, что съела миссис Т.,