If you were asked to tell someone what life is, what would you say? It seems a bit absurd, doesn’t it? This should be easy…if it breathes and moves around, it’s living. Right? I guess I’m just too much of a simpleton, or really just not that technical about it, because scientists say there’s much more to ‘life’ that I had not even considered. At the risk of boring you, Wikipedia says that life has seven necessary elements, so here they are: 1.homeostasis, or an organism’s ability to regulate its internal environment to maintain stability (like perspiring to keep cool); 2. having one or more cells; 3. metabolism, or otherwise known as having an energetic nature; 4. growth…something gets bigger; 5. adaptation…over time, something can change in response to its surroundings; 6. response to stimulus…I yank my finger off the hot stove – ouch!; 7. reproductive ability. I don’t know if Aaron Wesley Dicus considered the scientific method when he wrote “Our God, He Is Alive”, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise if he did.
A.W. Dicus was a scientist in the field of physics during the early and mid-1900’s in Tennessee and Florida. So, he no doubt spent some considerable time studying phenomena in the world that most of us tend to ignore and take for granted. He trained several students who eventually worked at Oak Ridge Laboratories, and whose mission was to decipher the basic building block of life – the atom. Prior to his career in physics, Dicus also preached God’s message in Bloomington, Indiana and, strangely enough, also invented the turn signal for the automobile. This guy evidently wasn’t content to theorize about our existence…he tried to practically improve his own environment and get others in touch with the ultimate Life-Giver. His song’s words hint that God was more to him than mere thought waves of speculation. Dicus had apparently made a pledge to his Lord many years before, promising to work for Him in exchange for a formal education. If you look carefully, it seems like the song is something like a culmination of this promise, and a combination of Dicus’ professional and spiritual acumen. According to Dicus (a scientist), God controls the ‘germ’ of life (verse 3), a fact that we may never fully understand in a scientific sense. Maybe Dicus had reached such a conclusion after his own study. The first verse of Dicus’ song also may tell us something about his faith, in the face of human struggle. The physicist-turned-composer is said to have suffered from cataracts and glaucoma, a condition leaving him nearly blind in his retirement years when he wrote the song.
If you read TIME magazine in 1966, when Dicus wrote the song, you might have wondered if he was also responding to the magazine’s readers. The April 8, 1966 issue of TIME featured a cover story entitled “Is God Dead?”, in which some pundits proposed that God is lifeless. Dicus’ song can be seen as a response to that national debate, telling others that God, though ‘concealed’ to him, was still real. Cataracts and Glaucoma had taken their toll, dimming Discus’ vision of God’s creation. Yet, this man had seen enough, studied and experienced enough, to declare with vigor that God was indeed true, believable. In our time, perhaps like none other, it’s in vogue to acquire knowledge, to have information at our fingertips. Dicus’ song is proof that the intellect doesn’t have to shut down to believe in the Divine Being. In fact, the more we know, the more God makes perfect sense.
The biography of Aaron Wesley Dicus and the song ‘Our God, He Is Alive’ is available at: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1968 .
The story also may be available by finding the following book: Finley, Gene, ed. (1980) Our Garden of Song (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co.)
A.W. Dicus was a scientist in the field of physics during the early and mid-1900’s in Tennessee and Florida. So, he no doubt spent some considerable time studying phenomena in the world that most of us tend to ignore and take for granted. He trained several students who eventually worked at Oak Ridge Laboratories, and whose mission was to decipher the basic building block of life – the atom. Prior to his career in physics, Dicus also preached God’s message in Bloomington, Indiana and, strangely enough, also invented the turn signal for the automobile. This guy evidently wasn’t content to theorize about our existence…he tried to practically improve his own environment and get others in touch with the ultimate Life-Giver. His song’s words hint that God was more to him than mere thought waves of speculation. Dicus had apparently made a pledge to his Lord many years before, promising to work for Him in exchange for a formal education. If you look carefully, it seems like the song is something like a culmination of this promise, and a combination of Dicus’ professional and spiritual acumen. According to Dicus (a scientist), God controls the ‘germ’ of life (verse 3), a fact that we may never fully understand in a scientific sense. Maybe Dicus had reached such a conclusion after his own study. The first verse of Dicus’ song also may tell us something about his faith, in the face of human struggle. The physicist-turned-composer is said to have suffered from cataracts and glaucoma, a condition leaving him nearly blind in his retirement years when he wrote the song.
If you read TIME magazine in 1966, when Dicus wrote the song, you might have wondered if he was also responding to the magazine’s readers. The April 8, 1966 issue of TIME featured a cover story entitled “Is God Dead?”, in which some pundits proposed that God is lifeless. Dicus’ song can be seen as a response to that national debate, telling others that God, though ‘concealed’ to him, was still real. Cataracts and Glaucoma had taken their toll, dimming Discus’ vision of God’s creation. Yet, this man had seen enough, studied and experienced enough, to declare with vigor that God was indeed true, believable. In our time, perhaps like none other, it’s in vogue to acquire knowledge, to have information at our fingertips. Dicus’ song is proof that the intellect doesn’t have to shut down to believe in the Divine Being. In fact, the more we know, the more God makes perfect sense.
The biography of Aaron Wesley Dicus and the song ‘Our God, He Is Alive’ is available at: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1968 .
The story also may be available by finding the following book: Finley, Gene, ed. (1980) Our Garden of Song (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co.)
See also the April 8, 1966 Time Magazine cover story (“Is God Dead?”) at the following site: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19660408,00.html
I went to church at the Church of Christ in Florida where A.W. Dicus was an elder for years. My parents were good friends. He was even at my wedding in 1971. I did not know, however, about his secular accomplishments until just recently. He was a very humble man. I had always thought he wrote the hymn in response to the Beatles saying God is dead. He was truly inspiring.
ReplyDeleteJanelle peabody
I do not think A. W. Dicus ever served as an elder. He was a member of the Temple Terrace church of Christ from 1957, when he moved back to Temple Terrace from Miami, until his death in 1978, but never served as an elder there.
ReplyDeleteHe was an elder there when I was in college at FC 1966-1968
ReplyDeleteA truly beloved hymn by A W Dicus is “Our God,
ReplyDeleteHe is ALIVE”.