The world's most eminent astronomers and physicists gathered in Poland in the fall of 1973 to commemorate the 500th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy. Present were notables such as Stephen W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, Joseph Silk and John Wheeler. Decades later, one scientific lecture is remembered as being revolutionary in significance. Brandon Carter, astrophysicist and cosmologist from Cambridge University delivered a lecture titled, "The Large Number of Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology."

His address challenged the popularized post-Darwinian theory that human existence is the result of blind mechanism, a series of random events occurring by chance, over a period of time. He said that the examination of all laws of physics indicate that the universe we inhabit appears to be expressly designed for the emergence of human beings.

For years science was taken down the road towards an increasingly mechanistic, impersonal, and random view of the cosmos. Twentieth century intellectuals commonly spoke of a "random universe." Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection was taken to be the exhaustive explanation of human origins. The whole process of the universe coming into being was reduced to a sequence of chance events.

But Carter points out that "Physicists had never been able to explain why the values of the so called fundamental constants, for example, the value for the gravitational force or the electromagnetic force were as they were. They were just constants."

All of the constants are perfect for the sustaining of human life on this planet. All laws of probability indicate that this is not merely a coincidence or an accident.

At the Copernican Symposium, Brandon Carter said, "The interpretation that was given to Copernicus' theories was that man no longer had a privileged central place in the universe. This interpretation must be corrected. Even if our position in the universe was not central, it was inevitably privileged to some extent."

The implication of scientific cosmology today is that the universe has been directed towards the creation of human life. The processes are not blind. This has been called "The Anthropic Principle." (Anthropos-Greek for humankind.) There is an intelligent purpose behind creation that has humankind in mind.

This Anthropic Principle was stated thousands of years ago, by David, the Shepherd-King: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalms 8:3-4 NIV)

Your existence is not a bizarre accident, but one purposed by an Intelligent God who cares for you and knows all your needs.