What makes natural laws work?

Nobody who knew "Ocker" Ferris could forget him; he was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic teacher I ever had. He taught upper-class physics at the school I attended. One memory in particular stands out about Ocker. Whenever he demonstrated any physical phenomenon, even something as simple as a marble "refracting" as it rolled down a series of slopes at varying inclines, he always concluded with the same words: "It's a miracle". He was utterly enraptured with even the simplest laws of nature. I have no idea whether or not he attributed the order and predictability of natural laws to a creator. But he obviously understood one grand truth about the natural world: the operation and very existence of laws governing matter and energy should never be taken for granted.

We don't deserve the life-enabling reliability of physical laws any more than we deserve the life-giving grace of God. Both come to us from His hand, as does every other "good and perfect gift" (Jas. 1:17). Where would we be if so much as one single law ever flickered, no matter how fleetingly? We'd "all be rooned", that's where, as surely as a computer crashes when the flow of electricity to it falters momentarily. Turn off a key law or change a key value for the briefest moment and the universe would unravel irreversibly.

What makes universal laws continue to work instant by instant, eon after eon? Big bangists would shrug their shoulders and respond, "Well, that's just the way the material realm is". The First Cause, the eternal singularity, just happened to contain within it the seeds of the universal laws we have all come to know and love. Don't ask why, don't ask how - just accept and wonder and be grateful. Those who believe in the true First Cause, God, have, by and large, taken the same banal approach to the same question. God spoke, and there they were. Yes, quite true. But if we are willing to go beyond the mere assertion that "God made it that way" and ponder the ongoing operation of the things God has made we will be led, I believe, to a conclusion of the most staggering kind and unimaginable magnitude, a conclusion that leaves us almost reeling with disbelief.

Ask yourself this: did God, through the exercise of His own supreme intellect, happen to discover a set of mathematical

equations that, if only He could figure out a way to implement them, would produce a self-sustaining, smoothly-functioning, reliable universe? Did God discover natural laws, or did He make them? Asking the same questions in different words, could the universe continue to function as it now does if God died? Brains bigger than mine could no doubt philosophize and theorize at considerable length over these questions. I'll take the simple option of believing Scripture. It tells us unequivocally that Jesus "upholds all things by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3). The Arndt and Gingrich lexicon translates the key phrase as "bears up the universe". Nehemiah 9:6 sings God's praises for making all things in heaven and on earth, and then adds, "And You preserve them all." In other words, according to Scripture, the universe (and therefore the laws that govern it) is not self-sustaining. Physical laws continue to operate for one reason only - God is making them operate!

In short, the laws continue to function perfectly predictably and without a hitch because God is making every atom in this universe behave as it should! Every pulse of electromagnetic radiation coursing through space is doing so because God is making it do so. Every bump in the night, every ripple on a pond, every flickering candle flame plies its trade through the ongoing work of God making the tiniest units of matter and energy perform in the manner He has decreed they perform.

I know I'm sticking my neck out here. I can hear the howls of derision coming from those who ridicule far blander notions of divine involvement in the world. Well, let them come up with a better explanation. Yes, this concept is almost unbelievable. It makes one think of David's spontaneous outburst after pondering some of God's capabilities:

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it (Ps. 139:6).

Hard to believe, maybe. Impossible to wrap one's mind around, for sure. But for anybody who says they believe that God has infinite power this explanation must be acceptable. Infinite means without limit. Personally, I see no other way of explaining how the universe and all its laws keep on keeping on. Ocker was right. Everything is a miracle! Small wonder God will not hold guiltless those who treat Him and His name with irreverence.