Matthew Pinson SJ explores what the extraordinary scale and intricate order of our universe might reveal to us about God and the goodness of creation.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the universe is incredibly big. We don’t know exactly how big, because we can only see as far as light has had time to travel since the beginning of the universe almost 14 billion years ago. That still gives us access to a region that contains something like a trillion galaxies, each containing anything from a few hundred to a few trillion stars. As for the universe outside what is observable, current measurements suggest it could well be infinite, though we cannot say this with any certainty.

Why would God create a universe so inconceivably immense? One approach to answering this question draws on the tradition of St Thomas Aquinas. Thomas argued that no single creature can adequately represent God, but the whole array of creation, each creature good in its own way, better reflects God’s goodness (Summa Theologiae, first part, question 47).

But Thomas warns us that we cannot simply say that more creation reveals God more, as if God’s glory would be less manifest if there were only a million or a billion instead of a trillion galaxies. It is not size alone that makes the universe reveal God’s glory, but its design according to an order intended by God and oriented towards God.

We now understand this order not as a hierarchy of different ranks of creatures, but as a physical system whose simple laws give rise to all sorts of complex order. Different generations of stars, producing successively heavier elements, and eventually rocky planets suitable for life to arise. Each part having its own place, and making possible the eventual existence of creatures capable not just of reflecting God’s goodness but of freely relating with God.

No wonder the author of Genesis described God as looking at this creation, and finding it very good.