As we stood on the brink of the South Rim and looked out over the magnificence of the Grand Canyon, I was reminded of an observation by Albert Einstein. He is quoted quite frequently now, as a figure who offers a bridge between science and religion. He did not have a doctrinal or dogmatic view of God, but he did deeply appreciate the mystery and the miracle between what the mind can see and figure out, and what lies beyond human comprehension. To him, man was NOT the measure of all things.
"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand in rapt awe, is as good as dead, snuffed out like a candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
Harvey Cox takes this quote one step further: "Faith starts with awe. It begins with the mixture of wonder and fear all human beings feel toward the mystery that envelops us. But awe becomes faith only as it ascribes meaning to that mystery." -- "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to Him."
Psalm 24:1
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