SEARCH FOR REALITY
In the early 17th century, with his simple telescope, the Italian scientist Galileo could see only the front face of the moon. Today, with the help of telescopic cameras installed in spaceships, man can see the reverse side of the moon, too.
This is a simple example of how much difference has come about between ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ in intellectual terms. But the price, in material terms, for arriving at the knowledge we now have of the known universe has been enormous. Vast sums of money have been spent in different countries to explore the mysteries of the universe, such as on research, observatories, and space missions.
In the field of astronomy, the results of research often come out after many years of effort. Because of the expenditure of large sums of money on what may appear to some to be a useless cause, many people criticize research plans that seek to enable us to know more about the universe. Answering them, Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose (b. 1931) asks:
“Do economists not share the thrill accompanying each new piece of understanding? Do they not care to know where we have come from, how we are constituted, or why we are here? Are they not driven to understand, entirely independent of economic gain? Do they not appreciate the beauty in ideas?”
Penrose adds:
“A civilization that stopped inquiring about the universe might also stop asking about other things. A lot else might then die besides particle physics.” (SUNDAY Weekly, Calcutta, November 30, 1980)
From these words, we can gauge how important and necessary the issue of understanding the reality of life is. Even someone who does not want to interpret the universe based on God is restless to find something else based on which he can try to explain and make sense of himself, his existence, and the universe. For a creature like man to exist, the visible universe and inside it is so unique that man cannot remain without wondering about its essence or reality. Not even ‘big’ material successes can make him indifferent to such a question.
Man finds himself within a limitless universe. This universe contains approximately a billion galaxies. Each galaxy contains roughly a billion stars, and each star is so far apart from the others, like ships sailing far apart in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. The number of spread-out stars in the immense universe is so vast that if each star were given a one-word name, and someone began to speak these names, it would take over 30 trillion years to finish reciting them. (Plain Truth, January 1981)
In this inconceivably vast universe, man is an insignificant creature in size. But despite this insignificance, this same man is measuring distances in the universe. He studies various aspects of the universe, from physical particles to galaxies. He possesses a mind that can conceive both the past and the future. Why and how is all this happening, and what will be the outcome of this extraordinary drama? These questions whirl around in every thinking person’s mind. He wants to arrive at their reality. But it is man’s misfortune that he is searching for their answers in telescopic observations and laboratory experiments, although the answers to these questions are not present anywhere other than in the revelations given to God’s Messengers.
How can man, who is a limited being, who lives only for 50-100 years and then dies, understand the reality of a universe with so many stars that to take their names merely requires more than 30 trillion years? The Creator alone can unravel the secret of the reality of the universe—and He has done so through His Messengers.
