“He is the Light and the Life of the World Yea a Light That is . . .”

Alan C. Miner

According to Bart J. Kowallis, there are perhaps 400 billion stars in just our own Milky Way Galaxy, with an estimated 300 billion planets that could support some type of life. The number of total galaxies is not known but has been estimated to be at least 100 billion, and in each galaxy, on average, there are 100 billion stars. This gives us a rough estimate of 10 billion trillion stars--or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars! Can the mind of man comprehend such numbers? It is certainly beyond my capabilities. But in attempting to understand these numbers, I think I begin to understand something about God. I begin to understand what he means when he says that his works are "innumerable . . . unto man" (Moses 1:35) and that his name is "Endless" (see also Mosiah 16:19) for he is "without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?" (Moses 1:3). [Bart J. Kowalis, "Things of the Earth," in Of Heaven and Earth: Reconciling Scientific Thought with LDS Theology, p. 38]

Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon: A Cultural Commentary

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