En route to the planet Cassius, 2149
"It's hard to believe that we are actually going to another solar system!" Aric remarked to Garvin on the bridge. The transports had already stopped over at Mars for refueling, and last preparations were being made for the two-month trip to the Proxima Centauri system.
Garvin grunted in response to Aric’s remark as he looked over reports from the ships on their states of readiness.
"I mean, I've lived all my life knowing that there were colonies out there, but I was never in space. Now I'm not only in space, but I will be living light-years away!"
"It gets kind of old after a while, traveling through space," the captain replied.
"Old!" Aric looked surprised. "I don't think I ever would get tired of viewing God's creation on such a magnified scale."
Dwight Garvin abruptly turned his attention from the computer screen to the conversation. "Aw, come on!" he scoffed, "There is no God. Scientists proved that long ago."
"Aside from the fact that science can't prove the non-existence of a being, if you look at all the beauty out there in the galaxy, there is no rational way that it could have gotten there by chaos and chance."
"How so?" Garvin asked skeptically.
"If there was a big bang throwing matter all across space," Aric explained, "the laws of physics say that those objects would continue on their original courses and never come together. Logically, since they could not come together, life could not 'evolve' on Earth, and the whole question of creation would be moot because there would be no one to ask it.
"We could also look at the issue from a different angle. If someone planted explosives in a garbage dump and blew it up, would the junk come together and create this transport? Or even something simpler like a child’s wagon?"
"No," the now quite attentive man answered.
"Then neither could an explosion in space produce solar systems, galaxies, or nebulas."
There was a short silence as Dwight Garvin contemplated these words, then started nodding slightly and said quietly, "True."
Just then, Garvin's first mate came up and asked, "Are we going to get going? All the other transports have been ready for a while."
"Yes! ...Yes." Captain Garvin answered, then to Aric, "...I'll see you more on this."
He issued the orders to all the transports to make the jump to lightspeed, and the two-month trip started.
During the voyage to Proxima Centauri, Dwight and Aric had much time to talk about things. Aric explained to him about how at every step of the evolutionary model of origins, what was supposed to happen defied many laws of physics, thermodynamics, and even the philosophy of evolution itself. He shared the creation account from the Bible. Dwight eventually came to a realization:
"Okay, so God created everything. Now what?" he asked Aric.
"God created everything perfect and good. But anyone can see that creation no longer is good. Because Adam, the first man sinned, all men sin. God, being a good and just God must punish sin."
"What is the punishment?"
"Death, which leads to eternal torment and separation from God. But God loved man, sinful though he was and is. So God sent His son, Jesus into the world as the only perfect man, to die and pay the penalty for all our sins."
"Is there anything I have to do?" Dwight asked.
"Only what the Bible says in Acts sixteen, verse thirty-one: 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.' Just tell God that you believe Jesus died for you and took away your sins."
Then Captain Dwight Garvin prayed and told God that he could not deny His existence, and that his only recourse was to believe in Jesus' death.
"Welcome to God's family, Captain!" Aric said joyfully, giving Dwight a slap on the back.
"Thanks. You know, it’s funny," Dwight said, "all my life I used the name Jesus and God as exclamations. Now I know who they are."
For the rest of the voyage, Dwight Garvin was a different man. He was often talking to his crew about God and the creation. The same crewman who had said the captain was a beast with whips now said, "The beast threw away his whips and became a saint." Little did he know exactly how true that was.
When the time came that the convoy was ready to return to sub-light speed, Captain Garvin called Aric to the bridge. "I figured you would want to see your new home, " he said. The first view they saw when they dropped to sub-light was a star in the distance and a beautiful blue-green planet with a wide ring around it and a red moon orbiting it.
"Hello Cassius!" Aric said, remembering his conversation with Warner Brooks.
"Isn't God's creation beautiful?" Garvin exclaimed. "Three months ago, I would not have even noticed!"
"It's amazing what God can do," Aric said, referring half to the vista before them and half to the change in the man standing beside him.
"It sure is, Aric. It sure is."
[back to top] [Go on to Chapter 3-->]
