Black Holes and Belief

Today’s USA Today has a brief article that references a NASA announcement that the “smallest known black hole [has been] discovered.” The article caught my eye this morning primarily because I said in my sermon last night (I’m preaching a series of revival services outside Chicago, by the way) that black holes are only theoretical. In other words, scientists believe they must exist but actually observing a black hole is an altogether different issue.

I was preaching on the issue of doubt’s relationship to faith, and I concluded my message with an observation on Carl Sagan. He was a world-famous American astronomer and astrobiologist who died in December, 1996. Sagan was fascinated with educated adults, with all the wonders of science around them, who held to religious beliefs. He never wavered in his agnosticism.

Newsweek carried a story about Sagan in March of ‘97 in which his wife, Ann Druyan, said about his last hours: “There was no deathbed conversion. No appeals to God, no hope for an afterlife.” She was asked, “Did he want to believe?” to which she replied, “Carl never wanted to believe. He wanted to know.”

The interesting thing about Druyan’s comment is the theoretical nature of black holes, especially in 1996. It is true that NASA released a report this past fall that they had “unmasked hundreds of black holes hiding deep inside dusty galaxies” using their Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes. Incidentally, what they’ve “seen” are nine to eleven billion light-years away. A light-year, of course, is the distance that light travels in one year in a vacuum or about 5.88 trillion miles.

Caveat—think about this. Pluto, which was classified as a planet more than 75 years ago, has lost its planetary status. Do you know how far from earth Pluto is? A mere 2.66 billion miles (minimum). Compare 2.66 billion miles with a single light-year. Then compare 2.66 billion miles with nine to eleven billion light-years. What’re you saying, Larry? I’m saying that scientists can’t even agree on what they observe at a minuscule fraction of the distance away from us that these latest reports are discussing. To make definitive, irrefutable claims about objects observed nine to eleven billion light-years away isn’t as easy as writing and publishing papers in academic journals.

Personally, I believe that black holes do exist and that we’ll continue to discover ways to prove their existence. Up to this point, however, the sciences of astronomy, physics, and quantum mechanics are limited to educated guesses. This was especially true in Sagan’s lifetime. So Carl Sagan, who “never wanted to believe” but only “wanted to know,” chose to place his faith in black holes even though he couldn’t see them and couldn’t prove them.

The Christian life is one of faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Carl Sagan had faith…just not in God…and that grieves my heart.

“Well, are black holes only theoretical or have they been proved?!?”

That’s a great question....Scientists operate with confidence that black holes exist, but they still haven’t actually seen a black hole. They’ve seen what must be the effects of black holes through complex computer imaging using infrared and X-ray technologies. But the black holes themselves are still yet to be observed.

One of the reasons that “seeing” a black hole is difficult, to say the least, is that light itself can’t escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. And without light, we’re blind.

May I repeat—I believe in the existence of black holes, but I must do so by faith because I’ve never actually seen one. People often say that God doesn’t exist because they’ve never seen Him. But, as I’ve said before, an atheist doesn’t want to find God any more than a thief wants to find a police officer. If God does indeed exist, then He is the final Authority and deserves our absolute allegiance. That, my friend, means life-change…and most people don’t want Someone else calling the shots.

Until next time…