Creation Worldviews Part 5. Views from Space: Astronaut Faith

Creation Worldviews Part 5

Views from Space: Astronaut Faith

Despite all the prophecies about Jesus the Messiah that have been fulfilled, and the infinitesimal probabilities that anyone but Jesus could have fulfilled them, still many do not believe in Him. Why?  Let’s try to address that question.

First, to give you an example of the complexity of man’s reasoning, let’s take a few samples from an extraordinary group of human beings, the astronauts.  We will start with the first man into space, Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, then America’s first man in space, John Glenn, and also astronauts who went to the moon, Edgar Mitchell, and James Irwin.

On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, launching to orbit aboard the Vostok 3KA-3. Some sources claimed that Gagarin, during his space flight, had made the comment, “I don’t see any God up here.” However, no such words appear in the verbatim record of Gagarin’s conversations with the Earth during the spaceflight. In a 2006 interview a close friend of Gagarin, Colonel Valentin Petrov, stated that Gagarin never said such words, and that the phrase originated from Nikita Khrushchev who said, “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any God there”.  Another report states Gagarin was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church.  We do not have any verified quotes from Gagarin, however Khrushchev openly avowed his atheism, and his communist regime publically denounced any form of religion and persecuted anyone who professed faith in God.  If Gagarin had said anything positive about feeling the presence of God in space, it would have surely been suppressed.

Richard Korthals said in the 1974 Bible-Science Association, Second Creation Convention, “On the 6th of May, 1962, the Christian world was somewhat taken aback to hear the Communist cosmonaut, Gherman Stepanovich Titov, arrogantly inform a Sabbath news conference held at the Seattle World’s Fair that, ‘In my travels around the earth I saw no God or angels.'”

So we see that an atheist will conclude there is no God either on the earth or in outer space.  They have a presuppositional bias or worldview, and when they do not encounter God, it reinforces their belief system.  However, the fact they did not see God is not proof He does not exist.  You would have to search the entire universe and beyond to be sure God was not out there somewhere.  He is God and He can reveal Himself to whomsoever He pleases.

Another astronaut, Edgar Mitchell was inspired to make the following quote:

“My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.”

But we have to be careful how we interpret Edgar Mitchell’s statement.  I was informed by a scientist who works with NASA that Mitchell is a new-ager, so he sees god as one with the universe, and all of us are part of the divine.  The fancy term for this belief system is pantheism.  Again, we see one’s worldview is reinforced by one’s experiences as they are interpreted through their own worldview lens.

Now let’s look at the quote from the first American astronaut in space, John Glenn:

“To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible, … It just strengthens my faith. I wish there were words to describe what it’s like.”

Note John Glenn does not say he saw God, but that his experience in space reinforced his belief in God.  He hit the nail squarely on the head.

As a final example, I had the honor of meeting astronaut Jim Irwin, and receiving an autographed copy of his book entitled  To Rule the Night.  Jim writes,

“that the hand of God has been in my life as far back as I am able to remember.” Also,
“As we flew into space we had a sense of ourselves, of the earth, and of the nearness of God.  I sensed the beginning of some sort of deep change taking place inside of me.”
We read from Jim Irwin’s testimony that he was a true believer in God, the God of the Bible.

So we have seen that the astronauts that went into space were of diverse belief systems including Christians, atheists, and new age pantheists, etc.  Their experiences appear to reinforce their individual presuppositions about God or the denial thereof. 

My purpose in this article is to show that we can try to bedazzle people with all sorts of prophecies, probabilities, or scientific evidence for the existence of God, but ultimately it comes down to faith on the individual’s part.  You cannot prove a universal negative such as “there is no God”  …  or you cannot prove to the unbeliever that God exists.  God must reveal Himself to that person as real.  You may not be an astronaut, but have you had what you would consider a God encounter here on earth?  What do you know about your God?

Finally we ask the very important question, “If God does exist, how we know for sure the God of the Bible is the One and Only True God?”   This will be the subject of my next Faith-Contenders article.

Larry Kisner