In the most simple interpretation, to me, the meaning of the song is clear:
He's talking about faith in the midst of evil. We have all these theories of god, yet sometimes things get so awful in this world we find anything hard to believe. We need god the most in these times, but he's absent. The speaker is clearly struggling with this. At first, the speaker tries to imagine what an ideal world would look like ("I make plans for a city laid down...), but knows that this could never exist ("Its hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance"). However, in the last verse, he realizes that, the world, despite all the evil, can still have true beauty. He stops imagining his perfect world ("royal cities"), because he is able to see the good in reality ("heaven's so big there ain't no need to look up"). Perhaps he does not understand if god does exist -- but, it seems to me that he does believe that there must be a higher being because of the wonderful creation around him.
In the most simple interpretation, to me, the meaning of the song is clear:
He's talking about faith in the midst of evil. We have all these theories of god, yet sometimes things get so awful in this world we find anything hard to believe. We need god the most in these times, but he's absent. The speaker is clearly struggling with this. At first, the speaker tries to imagine what an ideal world would look like ("I make plans for a city laid down...), but knows that this could never exist ("Its hell to believe there ain't a hell of a chance"). However, in the last verse, he realizes that, the world, despite all the evil, can still have true beauty. He stops imagining his perfect world ("royal cities"), because he is able to see the good in reality ("heaven's so big there ain't no need to look up"). Perhaps he does not understand if god does exist -- but, it seems to me that he does believe that there must be a higher being because of the wonderful creation around him.