I recently came across an old Carl Sagan clip that has been circulating online again. In the exchange, Sagan is asked whether he believes in God. Rather than answering directly, he reframes the question as a scientific one about the origin of the universe. Was the universe created, or has it always existed? He notes that science has not yet answered that question. The conversation then shifts to a more philosophical claim. Sagan challenges the idea that the universe exists for humanity. He calls that assumption “a very egocentric point of view that the point of the world is so that we will do good or bad.” To reinforce the point, he describes the immense scale of the cosmos. Earth is a small planet orbiting an ordinary star, in an unremarkable region of a galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars, and that galaxy is only one among hundreds of billions more. In light of that scale, Sagan finds it absurd to think that the universe was made with humanity at its center.
Sagan is responding to a real error, but his answer moves into another ditch. He rejects the idea that the universe exists for us, and in doing so tries to humble the human perspective by emphasizing our smallness. The move sounds modest. Yet it carries its own form of pride.
The Christian view does not claim that the cosmos is centered on humanity. It claims that the cosmos is centered on God. Scripture describes creation as existing from him, through him, and for him. God is the center, not us. In that sense Sagan is right to challenge a shallow form of anthropocentrism. The universe is not a stage built simply to magnify human importance.
From a Christian perspective, however, the vastness of the universe is not a problem to be explained away. It fits naturally with the claim that creation exists for the glory of its Maker. A universe containing billions of galaxies does not diminish God’s purpose. It displays it. There may be planets no human will ever see, colors no human eye will observe, and worlds whose landscapes will never be explored. They are not pointless. They are known by God and exist within the scope of his creation.
The deeper issue lies elsewhere. Sagan calls belief that the universe has meaning connected to humanity egocentric. Yet another form of arrogance may be closer at hand. Human beings find themselves alive on a world with an extraordinary range of finely tuned conditions that make life possible. We breathe, think, love, and wonder. To receive all of this and refuse to acknowledge any giver behind it is its own kind of pride.
Christianity does not claim that the universe revolves around us. It claims that we exist within a universe that revolves around God. Humans are not the center of the cosmos. Yet we are also not meaningless accidents. We are small creatures within a vast creation who nevertheless possess the strange capacity to recognize its source and give thanks to the one who made it.
Why Would God Create Anything at All?
If God lacks nothing, creation cannot exist to fill some deficiency in Him. A needy God would not be God. Christian theology has historically answered this by pointing not to divine need, but to divine fullness.
Imagine someone with extraordinary artistic ability. They possess the skill, the imagination, and the vision to create remarkable works of art. Their talent is real whether or not they ever paint a canvas. Yet when they do create, they are not filling a void in themselves. They are expressing something already present within them. The act of creation displays the beauty that was already there.
Something similar appears in the Christian understanding of creation. God did not create the universe because He needed companionship, validation, or entertainment. In the classical Christian view God is already perfect in Himself. Within the life of the Trinity there is already fullness of life, love, and fellowship. Creation does not complete God.
Instead, creation displays Him. The Reformers often spoke of this in terms of God’s glory. Jonathan Edwards described creation as the overflow or communication of God’s goodness. Calvin spoke of the world as the theater of God’s glory. The idea is not that God was lonely or incomplete, but that His perfection is so abundant that it is fitting for it to be expressed.
Seen this way, the vastness of the universe makes sense rather than posing a problem. There are galaxies no human eye will ever see, planets that will never host human life, and corners of creation that will remain forever unexplored. From a human-centered perspective these things might seem unnecessary. But if creation exists primarily for God’s glory rather than human utility, then their existence is perfectly fitting.
They exist because God delights in creating them. The intricate pattern on a butterfly wing deep in a rainforest. The formation of stars millions of light-years away. The laws of physics that sustain galaxies long before humanity ever appeared. None of these exist because humanity needs them. They exist because God saw the goodness in bringing them into being.
Human beings occupy a distinctive place within this creation, but not because the universe revolves around us. Scripture presents humanity as creatures who are small in scale yet capable of recognizing the Creator. We are not the center of the cosmos. But we are creatures capable of knowing the One who is.
The universe does not exist for us. It exists for God. Yet within that God-centered world, humans are given the remarkable role of being creatures who can recognize, reflect, and give thanks for the glory displayed in it.
Why Does God Continue to Act Within Creation?
Sagan raises a second objection in the aforementioned clip. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why would He need to “meddle” in the universe after creating it? Why not simply design it perfectly from the beginning so it runs on its own?
At first glance, the question sounds reasonable. But it rests on a misunderstanding of what Christians mean by God’s relationship to the world.
In the Christian tradition God is not like an engineer who constructs a machine and then walks away from it. Creation is not a self-sufficient mechanism that operates independently once it begins.
Creation continues to exist because God continues to sustain it. Scripture consistently describes God not only as Creator but also as the one who upholds the world. The universe does not run on its own power. Every moment of its existence depends on the sustaining will of God. In this sense divine “involvement” in the world is not a later adjustment to a flawed design. It is the ongoing condition for creation’s existence at all.
The Reformers emphasized this strongly. Calvin described providence as God’s continual governance of all things. Nothing in creation operates outside His sustaining care.
Seen this way, the question changes. God does not intervene because something went wrong with the original design. Rather, the entire existence of the universe is already an expression of His ongoing activity. The laws of nature themselves are not rivals to divine action. They are simply the ordinary ways God governs the world.
When Scripture speaks of God acting in particular moments, it is not describing a deity who suddenly steps into a previously independent system. It is describing moments when the Creator’s purposes become more visible within the world He is already sustaining.
The Christian story reaches its clearest expression of this in the incarnation. In Jesus Christ, the God who upholds the universe enters the life of His creation personally. This is not divine “meddling.” It is the Creator stepping into His own work to restore what has been broken.
In that sense, God’s continued action in the world is not evidence of a flawed creation. It is evidence that creation was never meant to exist apart from Him. The universe is not a machine that runs by itself. It is a creation continually upheld by the one who made it. And that returns us to the deeper issue raised by Sagan’s argument.