Home / Read / Why So Much Beauty?

Why So Much Beauty?

| | 1 minutes read
<span id=hs_cos_wrapper_name class=hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field hs_cos_wrapper_type_text style= data-hs-cos-general-type=meta_field data-hs-cos-type=text >Why So Much Beauty?</span>

This article was originally authored by Dr. Hugh Ross and is republished here with permission from Reasons to Believe , a ministry dedicated to integrating science and faith. All rights reserved by the original publisher. To explore more resources, visit Reasons to Believe.

Question of the week: Why is our planet so beautiful?

My answer: I like to ask friends and associates who are not yet followers of Jesus Christ these questions. I take them to places of exceptional natural beauty and ask them to explain what they see and why it moves them. Why are flowers so gorgeous, trees so majestic, plants so abundant and diverse, beetles so colorful (If There Is a God, Why So Many Beetles?), and animals so playful?

I ask my fellow astronomers why we describe large spiral galaxies as “grand design” galaxies and why people love to look through telescopes at planets and deep-sky objects. I ask physicists why the equations that govern the universe are elegant and beautiful—why the correct answers in physics are always expressed through the most beautiful mathematical forms.

Evidence of beauty in creation

Everywhere we look, we see an extravagance of beauty in nature. From a naturalistic perspective, there is no sufficient explanation for such abundance and elegance. It all points instead to a Creator for whom love, beauty, and order are essential aspects of His nature.

The testimony of creation’s beauty

The beauty we see now, in this present moment of Earth’s history, especially reflects God’s love for humanity. As explained in Improbable Planet, never before has Earth been so alive with beauty and diversity. Never before has the world’s life been so eager to serve, please, and relate to human beings.

That we humans exist at the most beautiful moment in Earth’s history—and that we are uniquely able to recognize and appreciate that beauty—is yet more evidence of a God who “makes everything beautiful in its time.”

Endnotes

  1. Hugh Ross, “If There Is a God, Why So Many Beetles?” Questions from Social Media (April 3, 2020), reasons.org/explore/publications/tnrtb/read/questions-from-social-media/2020/04/03/if-there-is-a-god-why-so-many-beetles .

Go Deeper
Dr. Hugh Ross
Dr. Hugh Ross

Hugh Ross is the founder and senior scholar of Reasons to Believe, an organization dedicated to communicating the compatibility of science and the Christian faith. While in college, Hugh committed his life to Jesus Christ after his study of cosmology convinced him of the existence of a Creator, specifically the God of the Bible. Hugh holds a degree in physics from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Toronto. After five years on the Caltech faculty, he transitioned to full-time ministry and still serves on the pastoral team at Christ Church Sierra Madre. His writings include journal and magazine articles, hundreds of blogs, and numerous books-Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, Improbable Planet, Designed to the Core, and Rescuing Inerrancy, among others. He has spoken on hundreds of university campuses as well as at conferences and churches around the world and participates in the weekly Stars, Cells, and God podcast.

Leave a comment

Get The Latest

On The John Ankerberg Show