Whatever Happened to Wonder? 
 

      With Copernicus we humans supposedly experienced yet another one of those major watersheds, so dear to the heart of the modern historian – a revolution.  “The Copernican Revolution,” we are informed.  As I have studied it, it seems, rather, that a profound advancement in scientific knowledge was made:  the sun, not the earth, is the center of our solar system.  And out of this more precise understanding of the status and movements of the earth and its revolving around the sun a revolution was made.  Earth, we are told, was dethroned… and man with it.  So we are not the center of things, as we had thought! 

      Indeed, as more and more facts about the universe began to be ascertained, earthlings diminished proportionately:  the universe is immense, expanding rapidly, and not at all physically centered around the abode of human beings.  In the all-but-infinite cosmos, the earth was put in its tiny place – in a remote corner, a minuscule orb, a pathetically small island of life suspended in a universe unimaginably extended. And therefore, unimportant?  Yes, if size is the measure.  But is it?  By that logic, an exquisitely cut diamond would be less valuable than a huge pile of dirt; an empty, abandoned and soot-grimed, factory warehouse more estimable than a Sistine Chapel. 

      Whether the sun revolves around the earth, or the earth the sun, is immaterial to the surprising and stupendous reality that the earth is the abode of intelligent life.  I find it remarkable that whatever the movements of earth in relation to the sun, the earth is at the precisely appropriate distance from the sun so that you and I might enjoy the sunshine without being fried in an instant or frozen in a moment of contemplation.  It is astounding that there is such a creature – the only one we know of – in the universe who can be impressed with the size of the cosmos, with the marvelous fact that the vision of the “stars” we behold on a clear night is really their light that has traveled millions of light-years to resonate their glory on our optic nerves, and that it is we alone who comment on this extravagant beauty. 

      The modern natural sciences are all about quantity.  Fine:  let scientists then mark, measure and manipulate (within certain limits).  But may they relieve us of their modern bad habit of making magisterial pronouncements about quality:  the earth is small in relation to the universe and is thus insignificant.  And this claim made, when we humans alone in the visible world can make judgments about significance or the lack thereof!  No, the earth is significant by the very fact that it is inhabited by intelligent creatures who can speak of the significance of anything, whether the immensity of the universe or the beauty made evident in the elegant complexity of the microcosm of life; creatures – human beings – who paint, compose, sculpt, and in myriads of other ways mimic the making of the artifact we call nature, our world, our cosmos. Or, rather God’s:  for really now, do not the heavens declare His glory and the firmament show forth His handiwork?  And should not, then, our response to all this be wonder, instead of a rather shallow charade of “humility” – that, on the one hand, we can measure the astounding height and depth of the world, and then, on the other, declare, with a non sequitur that in the face of such immensity, of such terrifying beauty, that we, because we are “small” are nothing? 

      Where has all the wonder gone?  The physical sciences have turned it on its head and emptied it of all meaning.  For wonder is simply this:  the human passion one experiences when he becomes conscious of his ignorance of a great matter, a consciousness that then opens up to him the desire for intelligent inquiry.  Science has reversed this, and that against overwhelming human experience, and has proclaimed that wonder can only occur as a result of knowing (and, of course, of manipulating nature to serve some practical end).  And so, from the very early days of the modern development of the physical sciences, its practitioners have laid down that really only the scientist can wonder, because only he can “see” with clear eye what he is about to conquer.  Modern man “wonders” at the works of his hands, instead of being deeply moved to rationally inquire into the mystery that all life is. 

      The children of the Copernican Revolution have tried to convince us that the Christian faith was absolutely dependent on the geocentric view, and that with the demolishing of that erroneous view, the very foundations of the mythology of the Catholic Church were destroyed.  But the very opposite happened.  In the light of what occurred in that tiny little town of Bethlehem, in a remote corner of the “cosmos” that was the Roman world; and later, in this most “unimportant” village in backward Judea, to where star-gazers from the Orient made their way to pay homage to a Child, whose mother was a humble Jewish maid, unknown to the great and mighty – in the light of these wondrous events, it should not surprise us that the earth, our little oasis of pilgrimage in the midst of the gigantic display of the universe, is small, remote, seemingly inconsequential in its very being.  It should not surprise us that this earth is the obscure stage that God chose to be the means of His entrance into our world. 

      We should not be humiliated by the grandeur of the universe (and then mesmerized by our ability to manipulate it), but rather humbled by the glorious vision with which we have been entrusted.  The God of all greatness, Creator of this material display of His might, chose to create this very small earth and then make it His home… with us.  He came to us after the manner of the home He designed for us – in smallness, silence, and humility.  “For unto us a Child is born….”  Here is the wonder, and only those ready to wonder will see the reason of it.