How Can You Cross This Enormous Gulf Between Nothing And Something...John Cupdike, 10 Years

#JohnUpdike

John Updike died 10 years ago on January 27 2009


John Updike:
" Ancient religion and modern science agree: we are here to give praise. Or, to slightly tip the expression, to pay attention. Without us, the physicists who have espoused the anthropic principle tell us, the universe would be unwitnessed, and in a real sense not there at all. It exists, incredibly, for us. This formulation (knowing what we know of the universe's ghastly extent) is more incredible, to our sense of things, than the Old Testament hypothesis of a God willing to suffer, coddle, instruct, and even (in the Book of Job) to debate with men, in order to realize the meager benefit of worship, of praise for His Creation. What we beyond doubt do have is our instinctive intellectual curiosity about the universe from the quasars down to the quarks, our wonder at existence itself, and an occasional surge of sheer blind gratitude for being here."

"Science aspires, like theology used to, to explain absolutely everything. But how can you cross this enormous gulf between nothing and something?”

 

Artist:Timothy Leo Taranto, 2014