A personal being behind the universe

I read with great interest the correspondence in this paper on the evidence or otherwise for the existence of God to be found in the universe (February 6 and 10). Do the heavens proclaim the greatness of God or has modern science shown the idea of God to be unnecessary?

Science and religion as well as art and philosophy are different ways in which we try to make sense of ourselves and of the universe we inhabit. Each way provides a necessarily partial approach to our understanding of nature and humanity. While science in itself cannot speak of God, our reflections on the method and findings of science can lead us to the idea of God and God's attributes.

Science gives us some explanation of the universe as having developed by a process of cosmic expansion and evolution starting some 15 billion years ago with the "Big Bang". Scientists have also proposed many possible theories to show how primitive life could have arisen on our planet from non-living matter and evolved by a process of natural selection into the countless variety of species we see around us.

Having accepted this, we still have to ask what gave matter these potentialities? What, or rather who, gave matter the ability to evolve and finally to produce self-conscious life? Why is there anything at all? What is behind the whole Universe?

The monotheistic religions say that there is a personal ground of being, whom we call God, who creates and is continually creating the Universe. Science explains how this happens. We can also say that in discovering the laws of nature, science reads the mind of God.

But God also reveals himself in the religious experience of all mankind. Christians believe that God revealed himself in Jesus Christ who spoke to us about God as his father in a unique way and of all men and women as children of God. But Jesus also shows us the need of belief to accept his message. We can always refuse to believe and he will not force us to. In the gospel of John (6: 66-67) we read: "...many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him. Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?'."