The Artemis II mission was a bit troubling for me. Nine years ago, I all but officially subscribed to Flat Earth theory. I thought it was interesting and provocative, and I enjoyed “knowing” I had insider knowledge (much the same mentality that drove me to Calvinism sixteen years ago).
In today’s article, I want to share a reflection on our great God, but in order to get there, I need to explain why flat earth theory appealed to me, which will in turn demonstrate why Artemis II was troubling. Then I will discuss the biblical reasons why flat earth theory ultimately falls flat (pun intended), before concluding with my reflection on our awe-full God.
- The theological appeal of flat earth theory
- Artemis II reveals troubling theological truths
- Dismantling the theological flat earth theory
- Artemis II proves our God is an awe-full God
The theological appeal of flat earth theory
There are several theological reasons why flat earth theory used to appeal to me—reasons that the Artemis II mission challenged.
Theological flat earth theory depends on a wooden, literalistic reading of the Bible. For instance, look at this post I wrote on Psalm 19 back in 2017, or this exposition of Joshua 10 that I wrote in 2018. For people who have not been trained in the genres of Scripture and the culture of the time (not to mention any thorough discussion of what the Bible actually is), this sort of reading is understandable. Especially for people who have been trained to distrust science.
I had no excuse for it.
Theological flat earth theory also makes a big deal out of the earth as the center of God’s work in the world. It sees space travel—if not impossible—as rebellious against God.
Theological flat earthers would argue that the earth is the center of the universe, that the sun floats above the earth, and that this is proof—because of an overly literalistic understanding of the Bible’s portrayal of Hebrew cosmology—that the earth is where God’s special care resides.
This last isn’t a bad thing. It reiterates that the creation of humankind was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). It reiterates that God’s dealings with humanity take center stage in the universe. It reiterates that we are loved by God with a special kind of love.
But the Artemis II mission disproves flat earth theory and forces us to reckon with some very important questions.
Artemis II reveals troubling theological truths
Artemis II made it around the moon and took some brand new pictures that prove the earth is not flat.
As such, the universe is as big as science claims.
This means that the earth is incredibly small in the grand scheme of things. It also means that God is immensely huge. HUGE!
The children’s song, “He has the whole world in his hands,” must naturally include the whole universe. That’s vast. And that’s just his hands!
How do we compare to such an immense being?
The Old Testament reference to us as “worms” (Isaiah 41:14), makes us far too big. For scale, we’re smaller than atoms compared to God.
God is no comparable being we can push around. He1 is incomprehensible. There is none greater than him.
Our complaints against him are murmurings and mumblings (Psalm 2:1–4). But he is so far removed from us by virtue of creating the whole universe, that our complaints against him can easily grow stronger teeth in our minds (Psalm 73).
In the midst of our vast universe, why would he concern himself with puny, arrogant, destructive humans?
Perhaps even more direct: Why hasn’t he snapped his fingers and done away with us yet?
If this raises other theological conundrums for you, I’d love to see your questions. Click the link below to post a comment:
Dismantling the theological flat earth theory
I will come back to those questions below, but first I need to more directly address the problems of flat earth theory. (There is plenty of math and science to back this up, but I will contain my comments to theological points.) I have hinted at some of this already, but if we understand what the Bible is, we won’t use it to do things that it was never intended to do.
Flat earth theory makes God a liar
We call the Bible the Word of God. When we preach from it, we claim that God is speaking. But if we claim God said something that he never actually said, nor intended to say—things that never entered his mind to say (Jeremiah 19:5)—we become guilty of taking his name in vain, by making God a liar (Numbers 23:19).
A great preventative for this is learning about the Bible, understanding how we came to have it, and familiarizing ourselves with the culture in which it was written.
Flat earth theory misunderstands the point of the Bible
In order to understand what something is, sometimes it is helpful to delineate what it is not first. The Bible is not a science textbook, or a history book, or a psychology book.
The Bible is a record of God’s dealings with Israel, culminating in the incarnation of God himself in the person of Jesus. It is a book of God’s peoples’ historical wrestling with that identity in an ever changing world. The Bible records what is lamentably wrong with our world and what God chose to do to heal us all.
The Bible is a product of its culture, and as such, it reflects the worldview of its authors (see picture below for an example). The biblical authors were not scientists, so they conceived of the earth as a closed system, conducive to a “flat earth” understanding. However, since this wasn’t what the authors were intending to communicate—being merely a consequence of their cosmological understanding—it shouldn’t cast doubt on our confidence in Scripture.
Flat earth theory costs Christians credibility with our secular, scientific culture
In fact, because this was how the ancient world understood cosmology, it would have sounded ridiculous if the ancient Israelites took our modern scientific, Artemis II justified, understanding of the universe and tried to explain it to the surrounding culture that had a flat earth perspective.
They would have lost all credibility with the surrounding culture.
In much the same way, if we insist on disagreeing with science in the name of “God and Scripture,” then we are doing irreparable damage to our credibility before a watching world.
Artemis II proves our God is an awe-full God
I’ve said it before. Awesome is the word we chose to use in place of aweful when the meaning of aweful shifted to the negative connotations that come with awful.
But our God does not only have some awe. He is full of awe. He is awe-inspiring. And he should inspire all the awe, not just some of it.
Here’s why this is important.
Artemis II disproved flat earth theory, demonstrating that God is incomprehensibly vast. That, in itself, is incredible, and it should inspire wonder and curiosity.
But what should leave us awestruck and utterly full of awe is that our vast, incomprehensibly huge God condescends to know and love us.
Our God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and while his love is complete and perfect within himself (as Trinity), his nature (as love) also led him to create. And he loves his world. It grieves him when we destroy it.
But the pinnacle of his creation is humanity. We are the ones created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). Because we bear the image of God, we have an insider track to the love of our triune God.
Despite his vastness, and despite our inconsequential size, God chooses to set us above planets and galaxies, above mountains and oceans, above lions and sheep.
This should inspire awe. Again—all the awe, not just some of it.
Listen to the psalmist:
When I observe Your heavens,
Psalms 8:3-5 HCSB
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You set in place,
what is man that You remember him,
the son of man that You look after him?
You made him little less than God
and crowned him with glory and honor.
Conclusion
The Artemis II mission disproved flat earth theory. It also demonstrated the vastness of our God.
While this could lead us to wonder if God cares, the awe-inspiring fact of the matter is that God cares about us more than we can even comprehend.
Just think about it: Our universe-holding God loves us so much that he took our form in order to rescue us from our sin.
If anything should lead us to worship God, it is this!
In this with you!
Thanks for reading.
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Notes and References
- I refer to God as “he” intentionally. The fact of the matter is that God is a genderless Spirit (John 4:24). Regardless, the Bible overwhelmingly uses masculine pronouns for God, even though he sometimes refers to himself with feminine metaphors (e.g., Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 49:15; Matthew 23:37). However, given that there were plenty of female deities in the Ancient Near East, the preponderance of masculine pronouns for Yahweh should be taken seriously, especially since he incarnated as a Jewish male. ↩︎