We Need Not Fear Curiosity.

On Monday, we witnessed a great feat, the confluence of engineering and science. The probe, Curiosity, landed on Mars. Now, “the red planet,” as many call Mars, has fascinated us for years. It’s the fourth most distant planet from the sun and has a similar atmosphere to which you and I breathe every day. Scientist and other speculators alike have entertained the possibility of life on Mars since before we started sending probes and satellites. Admittedly, we Christians have taken a popular defensive posture toward such possibilities. I suppose this is because the most outspoken advocates for space exploration fall into one of two categories. Some take a Dawinian vantage point. They think that were we to find some stage or sign of life, then we can predict the path of evolutionary development it might take. Other, often speculative paranormalists, like nighttime talkshow host George Noory, think that science will confirm what “they already know”—namely that intelligent in space already exists and that our government is simply concealing its interactions with it from us. The first atheistic strain tweeks many people’s fears. It says that, were life to be found, Darwin’s speculations might be right. We might be just random chance organisms. And, we might as well live it up, eat, sleep, and and kick the bucket. The second strain of speculation tries to fill in mysterious gaps where none really exist. In a way, they are trying rationalize the vast world and dismiss the uniqueness of the Creator whom we love and worship. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Noory, Art bell, and a host of other UFOlogists can martial in their corner. WE Christian do not need to fear our Curiosity. WE need not shrink back from scientific findings or exploration on “the red planet,” in our own world, or anywhere else. The same god who made us and all creatures, who fashions the moon and stars and world in which we live has creatged everything else in our vast universe. Like King David, when writing the Psalms, we see God’s handiwork everywhere. (Psalm 8: 1-3, Ps. 19:1-14, Ps. 104-1-30, and 148. When standing next to a gian telescope or at the foot of a mountain in Colorado, we may ask in wonderment, “What is man that you (Lord) are mindful of him?” Yet, we know that He who made us also redeemed us from our sins through the Son of Man made a little lower than the angels to die in our place. We whom God has created and redeemed study Holy Scripture, even those verses wherein our Lord gives us dominion over the world He has made, to take care of and subdue it. (Gen. 1:28-29) This includes not only things on the “third rock from the sun,” but other discoveries elsewhere. What if we did find some microbial bug or beast on planet Mars? Well, our Lord in providence created it to be found by us. It may hold the key to some helpful cure or a new element in the periodic table. So, more than our curiosity drives us to reach for the stars, or at least set a rover down on Mars. A With all this said, our Lord gives us our reason and sense and stil take care of them for our good and His glory. We still worship the Giver, not the gift. Through the writing of Moses, carried along by the Holy Spirit, we read of the grave consequences post-flood humanity suffered for feeding their own collective ego. They thought they had the solution to escaping a nother natural catastrophe like a flod. Never mind, God already promised Noah that He would not send another flood to blot out all life like the one of which we read in Genesis 6-8. AS our Lord preserves and protects us from all evil, so He upholds the science projects He permits us to perform in His universe. He doesn’t even grade us on them. We find ways of evaluating and criticizing our progress as we uncover samples of the vast creation. How, then, do we pray concerning the scientific advances and people who oversee them? Trustin g in our Savior from sin, we pray for those so called to explore the universe God has already fashioned with His own hand. We pray for scientists’ discernment as they discuss the reason and scope of their missions. After all, the whole earth and everything else is the Lord’s and every thing in it. He reveals it to us as He sees fit in caring for our bodies and life.