Written by Dr John Whitehall, Professor of Paediatrics at University of Western Sydney and Associate Professor of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University.
The Psalmist proclaimed “The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth show eth forth His handiwork”, but, poor fellow , w hat praises might he have sung had he our know ledge of the human brain? How would he have compared the sparkling but fixed and lifeless stars with the electronic scintillations that comprise our nervous system so that we can see and hear, and feel and move, and remember and possess personality? What if he had know n that our incomprehensible computer had begun from the union of only two cells and was but a specialised part of the human body w hose trillions of cells w ere orchestrated by a living blue-print we call the genome, but which is invisible? That from those two cells, billions of nerve cells would emerge, would migrate the equivalent of a space journey to the periphery of the brain, establish up to 10,000 physical communications between each cell, and institute a system of checks and balances in which imperfect cells would willingly destroy themselves to be replaced by the more perfect? That an equally complex system of supporting cells would develop and be served by blood vessels whose delivery of nutrients would match changing needs?
Had the Psalmist know ledge of the complexity of the human brain, perhaps his accusation that a man is foolish if he says in his heart there is no God would have been based on sheer incredulity that anyone could conclude such development w as the matter of chance.
But, as the Psalmist observed, the problem with ideas in the heart is that they have consequences: Godlessness results in ‘abomination’. The Psalmist w ell understand the ‘quality’ of human suffering due to godlessness that, but was spared the quantity of the problem that is before our eyes.
He was spared, for example, from observing the current onslaught on the unborn baby’s brain (let alone body in terminations) which is surely a kind of godlessness. In his years, there were no cigarettes, or drugs, and it would appear unlikely the consumption of alcohol was as overwhelming as today.
Cigarettes damage the developing brain in many ways: nicotine is a direct poison and also causes blood vessels carrying nutrients to constrict. Carbon monoxide competes with one of those nutrients, oxygen. Drugs interfere with the complex maturation of the cell communication. Alcohol dissolves lipids that comprise the outer wall of the brain cells as well as the walls of the internal components. The end result is destruction of brain potential and restriction of cognitive development, the ability to concentrate and learn, and damage to ‘executive function’ which comprises ambition, self control, endurance, selflessness and the ability to sacrifice for longer term goals, or the w ell being of others. Abominations if the word has any meaning.
The Psalmist declares God knows the number of the stars and their individual names. How many stars are there? Many trillions, they say. How many neurones would there be in the heads of six billion humans alive today? Billions of billions. As many neurones as there are stars? Maybe. Is this line of reasoning as useless as wondering how many angels can dance on the end of a pin? Perhaps not.
Though the Psalmist w as not blessed with a microscope, he did proclaim the Lord ‘made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb’, and that every moment of his life w as laid out before birth. If God has not named every neurone like the stars, surely it can be concluded he, at least, has His name for every unborn baby and, if so, is aw are of the damage of chemicals and the destruction by steel or suction. He must be aw are of damage to His handiwork. What would the Psalmist have said had he observed human behaviour destroying the stars?