Thought for the Week – 29th January 2023

Published 27th January 2023 | By webdev

The James Webb Telescope

There has been considerable discussion in recent weeks in the popular scientific press about the new discoveries coming from the James Webb telescope. This is a space telescope that uses special techniques (infra-red detection) to obtain images from objects that would be invisible from earth. It was launched in December 2021 and despite some problems, pictures are now flooding in; these can be seen by anyone with access to the internet (ESA – Webb). It has the ability to advance our understanding of the origins of the universe and to shed light on many other questions in astronomy. Very recently it has sent back pictures of a planet from another galaxy; this is the same size as our earth, although it is not clear if it has an atmosphere. As more earth-like planets are discovered, it becomes more and more likely that we are not the only life in the universe.

Some people may feel that their faith is threatened by new discoveries such as those made by the James Webb telescope; personally I am excited by them. There is no point in looking in the Bible for answers about the physical formation of the universe; scientific enquiry was not something that its writers would have known about and even if they had, I doubt it would have been much interest. They were curious about the relationship between God and ourselves, not beings on other planets. But they did grasp that God was, in some sense, creator and Lord of all the universe, even if they did not see any need to speculate how that actually worked out. It is more recent writers who have started to address this question. As we are still technically in the church season of epiphany until this coming Thursday, this gives me an excuse to reproduce the words of the late Sydney Carter’s carol, “Every star shall sing a carol”, which beautifully capture my response to the discoveries coming from James Webb.

Every star shall sing a carol!
Every creature, high or low,
come and praise the King of heaven by whatever name you know.