“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13, NIV).

One of my colleagues popped into the office this morning as clinic was starting to tell me a story about his precocious daughter:

“Yesterday, my 8-year-old daughter Audrey asked me a question.”

“Dad, everything has a beginning, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then, what about God, does He have a beginning?”

Isn’t it great there are questions our human logic cannot answer—questions we are brave enough to ask as children but then hide from our thoughts when we grow old and tired of thinking that hard? Our inability to answer does not invalidate the questions, but our minds reach their limit in trying to solve them.

If I, or even artificial intelligence, could someday answer my colleague’s daughter’s question, would I still need a God who is omniscient?

We need to be careful that we don’t worship a God of the gaps (as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Letters and Papers from Prison), One who only matters when we cannot answer the questions of life. There was a time in our history when God was the only One who knew that the earth orbited the sun, the only One who knew that bacteria caused sickness, the only One who had seen the other side of the moon. Did God lose His importance when mankind uncovered His truth in each of these? Our God is more than a God of the gaps.

Nevertheless, I’m convinced there will always be gaps in knowing for humanity. No matter how much knowledge we uncover regarding the natural world, without God I will never logically answer the questions that make live worth living: where did I come from, why I am here, how should I live and where am I going?

Someday mankind will uncover most of the truth that lies in the natural world. God created us as discoverers, and I praise Him for it. However, there will be little lasting value in our discoveries unless we share them with, and surrender them to, the God who loves us and created us.

Dear Father,

Thank you for letting us learn more and more about your creation and for the good that knowledge provides. Help me always know that Jesus is the foundational truth upon which all knowledge must stand or lose its significance.

Amen