Though not exactly the Transfiguration, what I experienced from these words (by astrophysicist John Gribbin in Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality) was, nevertheless, almost epiphany: "In very round terms, the quantum world operates on a scale as much smaller than a sugar cube as a sugar cube is compared with the entire observable universe. To put it another way, people are about midway in size, on this logarithmic scale, between the quantum world and the whole universe . . . . "

While hardly De Teum (or even the Kyrie Elisium), what moved me about Gribbin's text was its relationship to this one, penned by a different author in another work (intellectual historian Richard Tarnas in The Passion of the Western Mind): "In an era so unprecedently illuminated by science and reason, the 'good news' of Christianity became less and less a convincing metaphysical structure, less secure a foundation upon which to build one's life, and less psychologically necessary. The sheer improbability of the whole nexus of events was becoming painfully obvious–that an infinite, eternal God would have suddenly become a particular human being in a specific historical time and place only to be ignomiously executed. That a single brief life taking place two millennia earlier in an obscure primitive nation, on a planet now known to be a relatively insignificant piece of matter revolving about one star among billions in an inconceivably vast and impersonal universe–that such an undistinguished event should have any overwhelming cosmic or eternal meaning could no longer be a compelling belief for reasonable men."

Dr. Gribbin's lines don't exactly nullify Dr. Tarnas', but they do impair the punch. Looking outward, one can, indeed, be humiliated by what Pascal called "those frightful spaces of the universe," so degrading in their immensity. In contrast, inwardly, in the quantum world, the realm of sub-atomic particles–things are so infinitesimally small that we humans are, in fact, Brobdingnagian in contrast. Tarnas's argument, ghastly in its parochialness, works when he looks in only one direction; the phenomenal world, however, contains at least two directions (if not more)–and in the inward one of the quantum realm, with its vast and frightful ratios and perspectives, the argument for nihilism-from-size-alone loses credibility, especially when (according to some physicists) matter might be infinitely divisible–which, if true, makes any attempt at making value-judgments from quantity absurd. If infinity goes in both directions, ratio doesn't matter.

Nevertheless, in the present scheme of things, our ratios ("midway" writes Dr. Gribbin) should give some comfort to those tending toward ontological fear and existentialist angst regarding their place in the vast and cold acreage of the cosmos. The good news is that we're not, after all, so small and meaningless–which means, therefore, the notion that "an infinite, eternal God would . . . suddenly became a particular human being in a specific historical time and place only to be ignomiously executed" in order to save us from oblivion isn't so unreasonable after all. In fact, that's exactly what Christianity teaches, and it's also why this editorial will be my final one as Liberty editor.

By the time you read this, yours truly will be one floor below the Liberty offices, firmly ensconced in a new job as editor of the Adult Sabbath School Study Guides. If that doesn't sound particularly "sexy"–it's not, nor is it meant to be. As the Bible-teaching tools for the world-wide Seventh-day Adventist Church, these quarterly Bible Study Guides are designed to teach members in about 180 countries (the lessons are translated into many languages on every continent) the wonderful truths we believe regarding the "infinite, eternal God" who did, indeed, become "a particular human being in a specific historical time and place only to be ignomiously executed." Given the nature of the Guides, which are intended to teach Bible truths to church members everywhere–from Rwanda to Iceland, from New Zealand to Serbia–my slash-and-burn-in-your-face journalism, which was so much fun in Liberty, and which got me so many endearing and affirming letters (see Op. Cit.), will have to stop. Sooner or later, we all have to grow up. I'm 43 years old; it's about time (plus, this new job will allow me to use my formal training, which was in Ancient Northwest Semitic Languages–not the most handy tool for the editor of a magazine dealing with separation of church and state).

As of this writing, I don't know who my successor will be. Whoever it is, I trust they will continue to work for the God-given principle of religious freedom (unless, because the principle is "God-given," they decide that its implementation into public policy would violate the Establishment Clause). I hope, also, to continue writing for the magazine as I did for years prior to becoming editor.

The bottom line: however much I believe in religious freedom, religious liberty, and church-state separation–these are all only partial and temporary manifestations of a deeper truth, the truth that we are all beings created by a powerful loving God who has, through the death of Jesus, linked Himself to humanity and to its ultimate fate with bonds that can never be broken. My new job will give me an opportunity to spread this truth in ways that my previous one didn't.

Quantum and cosmic ratios and distances aside, because I believe the Gospel of the God who was "ignomiously executed" is the seminal Truth of all human existence (of all existence in fact), the Truth from which all other truth emanates, the Truth upon which all that is real rests, the Truth into which all else can be resolved and which itself cannot be resolved into anything else–and because I believe all this with all my heart, when the door opened for me to promote it as I never could before–what else could I do but step through?