Visible with Different Eyes: What the Unseen Universe Teaches Us About Faith
I came across a recently published work on the unseen world around us, and I decided to write a few things about it and offer someone either an encouragement or a challenge, a challenge for more, to look for and demand more from our life on this earth. We navigate the world with a quiet confidence in our senses. We trust our eyes to define the boundaries of reality, our ears to interpret its sounds, our touch to confirm its substance. Yet, one of the most profound and humbling discoveries of modern science is the revelation of just how little our senses actually perceive. The reality we experience is not the whole picture; it is a mere sliver, a fraction of a percentage of the vast, complex, and deeply mysterious cosmos that surrounds us. Before we can even begin to speak of faith, we must first sit with the staggering, scientifically-established fact that we are living in a world that is almost entirely invisible.
The Overwhelming Prominence of the Invisible
Consider the world of light. Our eyes, as remarkable as they are, are tuned to a laughably narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum. As NASA explains, the human eye can typically only detect wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometers 1. This range, which we call “visible light,” constitutes a mere 0.0035% of the total spectrum. This means that we are functionally blind to over 99.99% of the light that permeates the universe. The radio waves that carry broadcasts through the very walls of our homes, the microwaves that cook our food, the infrared radiation that emanates as heat, and the ultraviolet light that can burn our skin all move around and through us, completely undetected by the eyes we so implicitly trust. This sensory limitation is not just confined to light. Our ears are similarly constrained, able to perceive sound only between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. The low-frequency, infrasonic calls of whales that travel for hundreds of miles through the ocean and the high-frequency, ultrasonic chirps of a bat navigating in the dark are completely silent to us. We are deaf to the vast majority of the acoustic world. However, the most startling revelation comes from cosmology. When astronomers tally up everything we can see and measure, all the stars, galaxies, planets, and gas clouds, they arrive at a shocking conclusion. All of it, everything we have ever observed, makes up less than 5% of the universe. According to NASA, the other 95% is composed of two mysterious, invisible entities: dark matter (about 27%) and dark energy (about 68%) 2. These are not just empty spaces; they are the foundational components that govern the structure and expansion of our universe. Dark matter provides the invisible gravitational scaffolding that holds galaxies together, according to science, preventing them from flying apart. Dark energy is the even more enigmatic force that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. The overwhelming majority of the cosmos is not just unseen; it is, for now, fundamentally beyond our comprehension. Please remember this statement that I am copying from scientific discovery. It is not just unseen, it is beyond our current comprehension. Even on a subatomic level, the invisible reigns. As you read this sentence, you are being silently bombarded by what scientists call “ghost particles.” Approximately 100 trillion neutrinos, born from nuclear reactions in the sun and distant stars, pass through your body every single second 3. They stream through the entire planet as if it were empty space, interacting with virtually nothing. They are a constant, invisible river flowing through all of creation, a testament to a layer of reality that exists completely independent of our awareness. Let this sink in: the invisible is not a small, fringe element of our world. It is the dominant, foundational reality. We are the exception, living in a tiny bubble of perception, surrounded by an ocean of existence we cannot see, hear, or touch. This is not a philosophical proposition or a spiritual metaphor; it is the consensus of modern science.
The Bridge from Humility to Faith
To truly grapple with these facts is to be profoundly humbled. It forces us to admit that our perception of reality is not reality itself, but a filtered, incomplete, and highly edited version. This scientific humility is the perfect bridge to spiritual humility. If we are so limited in our ability to perceive the physical universe, why would we assume we are fully equipped to perceive the spiritual one? If 95% of the cosmos is physically invisible, it should not surprise us that the Author of that cosmos is also spiritually invisible. This is where the journey of faith begins. It is not a leap into irrationality, but a logical step from what we know to be true about the physical world to what we believe to be true about the spiritual one. It is the process of developing what the Bible calls the “spiritual realm”, a transformed perception that allows us to see reality as God sees it. This is not about conjuring illusions, but about awakening to a world that is more real, more substantial, and more eternal than the fleeting images our physical eyes can offer.
The Grace of a Hidden God
It can be tempting to wish that God were more obvious, more physically present and undeniable. Yet, as theologian Richard J. Foster notes, God’s invisibility is a profound act of grace. “God is so big,” Foster writes, “that we could not hide from him unless he hid from us” 4. A reality where we awoke each morning staring into the raw face of Omnipotence would leave no room for choice, no space for the heart to yearn, no possibility for the tender and tentative movements of faith. God’s hiddenness is not an absence, but an invitation. He has arranged spiritual reality so that we cannot see it until we want to see it, until our souls, like the deer panting for water, thirst for the living God (Psalm 42:1). This is the essence of walking “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). It is a deliberate choice to trust that the unseen is more determinative than the seen. It is a courageous bet that the invisible realities of God’s Kingdom hold the ultimate truth of our existence.
What We See with New Eyes
It is interesting that the Bible calls Jesus Christ the “visible image of the invisible God”. When our spiritual eyes are opened, we begin to see the invisible fingerprints of God on our visible reality. We see His protection not as an absence of trouble, but as the unseen army that surrounds us in the midst of it (2 Kings 6:17). We see His provision not in the abundance of our resources, but in the well of water that appears in our desert, a testament to His faithfulness when we have nothing left (Genesis 21:19). Most profoundly, we see His presence. The inexplicable peace, the timely word of encouragement from a friend, the sudden clarity in a moment of confusion, these are no longer coincidences, but encounters with the living God who walks with us. This new sight does not remove us from the world of suffering, but it changes how we endure it. It gives us the ability to persevere, like Moses, because we “saw him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). Our pain and our struggles are not diminished, but they are contextualized within the vast, unseen landscape of God’s eternal purposes. The things that are seen become transient, and the things that are unseen are revealed as eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
The Invitation to See
Living with spiritual vision is a constant tension. It is the art of navigating a world that screams for our attention with its tangible demands, while holding fast to a reality that whispers to our souls. It requires courage, persistence, and a community of fellow travelers who can remind us of what is true when our own vision grows dim. This journey is not for a select few mystics, but is an open invitation to every person who has ever suspected there is more to reality than meets the eye. It begins with a simple, humble prayer, whispered from the depths of a longing heart: “Lord, I want to see.” It is a prayer God is always eager to answer, an invitation to a life of wonder, where the most profound truths are not those seen with our eyes, but those that become visible with a heart transformed by Him.
References
[1] National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2010). Visible Light.
[2] National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2024, March 29 ). What Is Dark Matter?. NASA Space Place.
[3] Fermilab. (n.d. ). Why study neutrinos?. MINERvA.
[4] Foster, R. J. (1993, July ). The Invisible Nature of the Spiritual. Renovaré.
