Who Made The Laws That Govern Our Universe?

[Bible Speaks]

Who Made the Laws That Govern Our Universe?
“HAVE you grasped the celestial laws?” (Job 38:33, The New Jerusalem Bible) 

About a century after the writing of the Old Testament—the Hebrew portion of the Bible—was completed. At that time, the Greek philosopher Aristotle was teaching the leading scholars of his day about the physical heavens. Today, he is still ranked among the most influential scientists who ever lived. 

Aristotle carefully worked out a model for the cosmos. He proposed a system in which the earth was at the center of a universe made of over 50 crystalline spheres, one nestled inside the other. The stars were affixed to the outermost sphere, the planets to spheres nearer the earth. Everything beyond earth was eternal, changeless. Those ideas may sound fanciful to us today, but they influenced men of science for some 2,000 years.

1. Is the Universe Rigid?
Aristotle reasoned that the celestial spheres were rigid. The one holding the stars in place, like the others, could neither shrink nor expand.
Does the Bible offer a similar conjecture? No; it states nothing dogmatically on this point. However, note the interesting word picture that it presents: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell.”—Isaiah 40:22.*

2. What Holds the Heavenly Bodies in Place?
To Aristotle, the universe was packed full. He saw the earth and its atmosphere as composed of four elements—earth, water, air, and fire. The universe beyond was filled with crystalline spheres, all composed of an eternal substance he called ether. The heavenly bodies were attached to the invisible spheres. Aristotle’s idea long appealed to most men of science, for it seemed to fit a basic assumption: An object must rest on or be attached to something, or else it will fall.

What about the Bible? It contains a record of the words of a faithful man named Job, who said about Jehovah: “He is . . . hanging the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:7) Such a notion would surely have struck Aristotle as preposterous.

3. Eternal or Subject to Decay?
Aristotle believed that there was an enormous distinction between the heavens and the earth. The earth, he said, is subject to change, decay, and deterioration, whereas the ether of which the starry heavens are made is utterly changeless, eternal. Aristotle’s crystalline spheres and the heavenly bodies attached to them could never change, wear out, or die.

Is that what the Bible teaches? Psalm 102:25-27 reads: “Long ago you laid the foundations of the earth itself, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They themselves will perish, but you yourself will keep standing; and just like a garment they will all of them wear out. Just like clothing you will replace them, and they will finish their turn. But you are the same, and your own years will not be completed.”

Does the Bible teach that the earth or the starry heavens as a whole will one day come to an end or need replacing?’ 

No, the Bible promises that they will last forever. (Psalm 104:5; 119:90) But that is not because such creations are eternal in themselves; rather, the God who created them promises to sustain them. (Psalm 148:4-6) 

Who Should Get the Glory and the Honor? Without question, then, we have all the reasons in the universe to give Jehovah “the glory and the honor.”—Revelation 4:11. jw.org

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