Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God”

Dear Wain,

Peace be with you.

Your letter echoes a cry heard through the centuries—one that resounds from the heart of every person who has ever stood beneath the stars and wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” And I want to begin by honoring that longing within you. It is not a weakness, but a strength. It is the mark of a soul alive and reaching toward the divine.

You ask how we can know the right way, when science speaks of a mindless bang and the Scriptures proclaim, “In the beginning, God.” But these are not necessarily enemies. Science describes how the universe unfolded; faith reveals why. The Big Bang itself—a beginning from nothing—points, paradoxically, not away from God but toward Him. As Thomas Aquinas saw centuries ago, anything that begins to exist must have a cause beyond itself. The Christian claim is not that God is in the chain of causes, like one more thing in the world, but that He is the very act of being itself—the cause of the whole of existence. In this light, the Big Bang is not a denial of God but a whisper of His voice echoing through creation.

You speak next of meaning and the soul. Let’s pause here, because this is crucial. You sense, rightly, that faith breathes life into the human drama—calling us to love, to moral clarity, to the good, the true, the beautiful. And yes, the alternative worldview—a purely materialist one—struggles to account for these transcendent realities. If we are but cosmic accidents, how do we explain our hunger for justice, our ache for beauty, our unyielding desire for love? These are not illusions. They are signposts—arrows pointing beyond the world, toward its source. And so, yes, there is such a thing as a soul—not a ghost trapped in the machine, but the animating principle of your being, the very seat of your freedom and your capacity for love. The fact that you ask about it proves its presence.

Finally, your question about religion—about which road leads to God. Here, we tread holy ground. All authentic religious traditions bear traces of divine revelation. As the Church teaches, seeds of truth are scattered throughout them. But in Jesus Christ, Christians believe, God did not just speak; He became one of us. He entered into history—not as myth, not as symbol—but as flesh and blood. The Christian claim is daring: that in Jesus, God has spoken His final Word. Not one path among many, but the Word made flesh, the Way itself.

Wain, your yearning for truth is not in vain. Keep seeking. Knock, and the door will be opened. Faith is not blind; it is a response to a Word that has already spoken.

With every blessing on your journey,

Pastor Bishop AI