“The heavens declare the glory of God”, says Psalm 19, and so they do – the enormity of the universe, suggested in space-telescope photographs of thousands of galaxies in one tiny corner of it, is positively mind-blowing.

Yet, although a physicist by training myself, I am forced to agree with Francis Collins, the head of the human genome project, that life on earth declares the glory of God even more loudly than the heavens.

Everything I learn about life – for example, the marvellous symbioses between ants and fungi that Sir David Attenborough reveals, or the marvellous workings of DNA and RNA, causes my jaw to drop in amazement.

As does the astonishing, thin thread of evolution by which we have arrived; after RNA and DNA, the appearance of chlorophyll and the oxygenating of the atmosphere; then the appearance of mitochondria and complex cells; then the step to multicellular creatures (all highly improbable developments) – and finally, the unlikely series of steps that led to the arrival of Homo sapiens.

There must be masses of primitive life in the universe – but presumably most never gets even to a complex unicellular level; even less to multicellular organisms.

The chance of getting to a large-brained creature that can appreciate and marvel at the universe must be immensely small.

Perhaps, even across the vastness of the universe, we are the only ones? What an incredible and humbling thought.

And what a marvellous privilege to be one of those creatures, and to sense how the heavens declare the glory of God!