Imperishable Inheritance

“But on closer reflec­tion it seems more rea­son­able to say that the post-Galilean pic­ture of the uni­verse calls for a revi­sion, indeed an enlarge­ment, of the tra­di­tional reli­gious world­view, rather than for its com­plete renun­ci­a­tion. For any­one who believes in a cre­ator God can affirm that the cos­mos is cre­ated so that God can enjoy its beauty. After all, the­ists believe that the cos­mos is a prod­uct of the divine mind, so its cre­ation can be com­pared to the work of a supreme artist, enjoy­able and worth­while for its own sake, with­out any ref­er­ence to pos­si­ble finite per­sons at all. It would not mat­ter if there were never any human beings at all. The uni­verse would could still have a point, and that point would be its expres­sion of the power and wis­dom of the cre­ator, and God’s enjoy­ment both of the process of cre­at­ing and of the cre­ated uni­verse itself. That is part of the tra­di­tional view–the Hebrew Bible depicts the divine Wis­dom as ‘rejoic­ing in his [God’s] inhab­ited world, and delight­ing in the human race’ (Proverbs 8:30). And if Wis­dom delights in the human race, it surely also delights in the beauty of the stars. If there is a God, the uni­verse has a point, as the cre­ative expres­sion of the mas­ter cre­ator, and the object of divine delight.“
Keith Ward, Pascal’s Fire: Sci­en­tific Faith and Reli­gious Under­stand­ing (pgs. 15–16)