What are the theological implications of modern cosmology?

Until the early twentieth century, astronomers entertained three possible models of the universe:

A) The universe could be static. It might be an infinite splash of stars and planets exhibiting no uniform motion. Even according to this theory, the mutual gravitational attractions of stars and planets might hold these astronomical objects together in the form of solar systems and galaxies. But each of these stellar/terrestrial groups would slide through space along its own random trajectory, unrelated to the courses tracked by other groups of stars and planets. The beauty of the static model is that it works for atheists and believers: Such a universe could have been created by God at some point in history, but it also could have existed forever without God.

(B) The universe could be oscillating. It might be a cosmic balloon alternately expanding and contracting. For a few billion years it would inflate into absolute nothingness. The gravitational attraction of every star and planet pulling on every other would eventually slow this expansion until the whole process would reverse and the balloon would come crashing back in upon itself. All that existed would eventually smash together at the universe's center, releasing huge amounts of heat and light, spewing everything back out in all directions and beginning the expansion phase all over again. Such a universe could also have been created by God or could have existed forever without God.

(C) Or, finally, the universe could be open. It might be a cosmic balloon that never implodes. If the total gravitational attraction of all stars and planets could not halt the initial expansion, the universe would spill out into nothingness forever. Eventually the stars would burn out and a curtain of frozen darkness would enshroud all existence. Such a universe could never bring itself back to life. It would come into existence at a moment in history, blaze gloriously, and then pass into irrevocable night. Crucially, this model proposes that before the one-time explosion, all the universe's matter and energy was contained in a singularity, a tiny dot that sat stable in space for eternity before it detonated. This model proposes a paradox: Objects at rest - like the initial singularity - remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; and yet, since the initial dot contained all matter and energy, nothing (at least, nothing natural) existed outside of this singularity that could have caused it to explode. The simplest resolution of the paradox is to posit that something supernatural kicked the universe into being. The open model of the universe thus implies a supernatural Creator.

In 1916 Albert Einstein released the first drafts of his Theory of General Relativity and the scientific world went wild. It appeared that Einstein had revealed the deepest secrets of the universe. His equations also caused a few problems -- technical dilemmas, mathematical snags -- but not the sort of thing of interest to newspapers or even popular science journals.

Two scientists noticed the glitches. Late in 1917 the Danish astronomer Willem de Sitter reviewed General Relativity and returned a detailed response to Einstein, outlining the problem and proposing a radical solution: General Relativity could work only if the entire universe was exploding, erupting out in all directions from a central point. Einstein never responded to de Sitter's critique. Then, in 1922, Soviet mathematician Alexander Friedmann independently derived de Sitter's solution. If Einstein was right, Friedmann predicted, the universe must be expanding in all directions at high speed.

Meanwhile, across the sea, American astronomer Vesto Slipher actually witnessed the universe's explosive outward movement. Using the powerful telescope at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Slipher discovered that dozens of galaxies were indeed rocketing away from a central point.

At the end of World War I, de Sitter, Friedman and Slipher independently shared their findings with Einstein, but he strangely resisted their solution - as if, in his brilliance, he realized the theological implications of an exploding universe. Einstein even wrote a letter to Zeitschrift fur Physik, a prestigious technical journal, calling Friedmann's suggestions "suspicious;" and to de Sitter Einstein jotted a note, "This circumstance [of an expanding universe] irritates me." In another note, Einstein reassured one of his colleagues, "I have not yet fallen in the hands of priests" -- a veiled reference to de Sitter, Friedmann and Slipher.

In 1925, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, dealt the static model of the universe a fatal blow. Using what was then the largest telescope in the world, Hubble revealed that every galaxy within 6 x 10¹⁷ miles of the Earth was receding. Einstein tenaciously refused to acknowledge Hubble's work. The German genius continued teaching the static model for five more years, until, at Hubble's request, he traveled from Berlin to Pasadena to personally examine the evidence. At the trip's conclusion, Einstein reluctantly admitted, "New observations by Hubble... make it appear likely that the general structure of the universe is not static." Einstein died in 1955, swayed but still not fully convinced that the universe was expanding.

Ten years later, in 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were calibrating a super-sensitive microwave detector at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. No matter where the two scientists aimed the instrument, it picked up the same unidentified background noise -- a steady, three-degree Kelvin ("3K") hum. On a hunch, the two Bell Labs employees looked over an essay on General Relativity by a student of Alexander Friedmann. The essay predicted that the remnants of the universe's most recent explosion should be detectable in the form of weak microwave radiation, "around 5K, or thereabouts." The two scientists realized they had discovered the echo of the biggest explosion in history: "the Big Bang." For this discovery, Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize.

The discovery of the "3K hum" undermined the static model of the universe. There were only two models left: one worked without God and one did not. The last issue to be settled was: Had the primordial universe exploded an infinite number of times (the oscillating model)? Or only once (the open model)? Researchers knew that the issue could be settled by determining the average density of the universe. If the universe contained the equivalent of about one Hydrogen atom per ten cubic feet of space, then the gravitational attraction among all the universe's particles would be strong enough to stop and reverse the expansion. Eventually there would be a "Big Crunch" which would lead to another Big Bang (and then another Big Crunch, etc.). If, on the other hand, the universe contained less than this density, then the Big Bang's explosive force would overcome all the gravitational pulls, and everything would sail out into nothingness forever.

Curiously, the death of the static model inspired panic in many quarters of the scientific world. Mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers joined forces to prove the eternity of the universe. Dr. Robert Jastrow, arguably the greatest astrophysicist of the time and director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Center for Space Studies, was named head of the research project. For fifteen years Jastrow and his team tried to demonstrate the validity of the oscillating model, but the data told a different story. In 1978 Jastrow released NASA's definitive report, shocking the public with his announcement that the open model was probably correct. On June 25 of that year, Jastrow released his findings to the New York Times Magazine:

Dr. James Trefil, a physicist at the University of Virginia, independently confirmed Jastrow's discovery in 1983. Drs. John Barrow (an astronomer at the University of Sussex) and Frank Tipler (a mathematician and physicist at Tulane University) published similar results in 1986. At the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Professor John Mather of Columbia University, an astrophysicist who also serves on the staff of NASA's Goddard Center, presented "the most dramatic support ever" for an open universe. According to the Boston Globe reporter covering the conference, Mather's keynote address was greeted with thunderous applause, which led the meeting's chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Burbridge, to comment: "It seems clear that the audience is in favor of the book of Genesis - at least the first verse or so, which seems to have been confirmed." In 1998, Drs. Ruth Daly, Erick Guerra and Lin Wan of Princeton University announced to the American Astronomical Society, "We can state with 97.5 percent confidence that the universe will continue to expand forever." Later that year, Dr. Allan Sandage, a world-renowned astrophysicist on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was quoted in The New Republic saying, "The Big Bang is best understood as a miracle triggered by some kind of transcendent power." Newsweek columnist George Will began his November 9, 1998 column with this quip: "Soon the American Civil Liberties Union, or People for the American Way, or some similar faction of litigious secularism will file suit against NASA, charging that the Hubble Space Telescope unconstitutionally gives comfort to the religiously inclined." The same year, Newsweek reported a recent and unexpected swing of opinion among the once passionately agnostic: "Forty percent of American scientists now believe in a personal God -- not merely an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a deity to whom they can pray."

There are, of course, mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists who choose not to believe in God today. For a variety of reasons, they choose instead to have faith that new natural laws will be discovered or that new evidence will appear and overturn the current model of an open, created universe. But for many in the scientific community, the evidence is persuasive. For many, modern cosmology offers permission to believe.

This essay presents an extremely abbreviated version of the cosmological argument. For a more detailed presentation see the author's essay in Permission to Believe (Jerusalem: Targum/Feldheim, 1990).

Author Biography:
Lawrence Kelemen is Professor of Education at Neve Yerushalayim College of Jewish Studies for Women in Jerusalem. He is the author of Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive; and his most recent book, To Kindle a Soul: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Parents and Teachers, was recently ranked the 48th best-selling book in the United States. His website is www.lawrencekelemen.com

This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth... [But] for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; [and] as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

There is, however, ample proof that scientists learn very little about theology yet assume the know it all.

Objects at rest - like the initial singularity - remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force

This proves nothing. The net inertia of the system has to remain the same, under Newton's First Law of Motion. Assuming an isotropic distribution of matter and energy after the instant of the Big Bang, this law is not violated and yet no outside force is necessarily involved.

We see things every day that contradict this author's premise. For example, the positron-electron annihilation reaction occurs at rest or nearly so, and yet two photons are released and travel away from the site of the annihilation at the speed of light. No outside force is needed to explain this; the energy comes from within, via conversion of matter (electron) and antimatter (positron) into pure energy. Because they exit anti-parallel to each other, the overall inertia of the system remains stable and Newton's First Law is not violated.

We have no way of knowing with certainty that Newton's laws of motion, or indeed any of the laws of physics, were applicable before or even during the Big Bang. One can imagine alternative possible outcomes in which Newton's laws or the gravitational constant or Planck's constant or the inverse-square law turn out different than in our universe. The fact that they did not is sometimes used as an argument for intelligent design, but that is a different argument and has its own failings.

Scientific creationism seems to me a contradiction in terms. It is not convincing for creationists to dismiss mountains of scientific evidence for natural selection or the age of the Earth on the one hand, and then on the other hand to use a tortured, erroneous interpretation of Newton's laws of motion to "prove" that which ultimately cannot be proven. Science is not a cafeteria from which one picks and chooses.

Creation is a matter of faith and lies completely ouside the province of science. I happen to believe in God, but I am not able to use any of the tools of science to "prove" the fundamentalist interpretation of the Creation, nor do I believe anyone will ever be able to do so.

-ccm

Saint Peter said we are willingly ignorant of the fact that we don't live in the same world that Adam and Eve up until the time of Noah lived in. A world in which the earth was watered by a mist that rose from the ground, a world in which it had never rained, a world whose atmosphere did not support the observation of a rainbow. That world overflowed and perished. This world, that we live in now, is reserved for fire, and the judgement of ungodly men.

The bible goes into great detail about how this world will end. The earth will reel to and fro like a drunkard, the stars will appear to fall or fall, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not be visible, the sea and everything in it will die, culminating in the very foundations of the universe in upheaval and the elements melting in a ferverent heat.

Man survives all this, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did in the furnace, as God makes all things new. God takes up residence over Jerusalem, where His holy city will always remain and which will provide all the light neccessary to support life. We will not need the sun, we will not need to be in orbit around a star, we can move freely through space with no fear of colliding with an astroid. That's what the bible says and I believe it.

Why stop with just three options, the universe may for instance divide at every point producing parallell universes in finitum, or the interior of a black whole is connected to a "white burst" in another universe. You may put anything into a theory and make some calculations.

The sky is the limit!

Experiments will in the end exclude some of the most weird theories. God is in the mind, not in the physical reality. The implication is that humans will struggle with religious questions as long as we are around. For some the existance of God is very important for many it is not so important and for others it is unimportant. Importance of a subject is here measured as a percentage of the time they think about it, it is not a dichomoty.

God is in the mind, not in the physical reality.

Is this just a cute way of saying that there is no real God? Or am I missing something here?

For some the existance of God is very important for many it is not so important and for others it is unimportant. Importance of a subject is here measured as a percentage of the time they think about it, it is not a dichomoty.

That is one measure of importance, I suppose.

Another measure of importance is the potential for making a difference. For example, if scientists were on the verge of discovering an inexpensive and easy treatment to reverse all of the processes of senescence in humans, that would perpetually maintain every body in the prime of health and fitness, this would be of great importance to everyone. It would change the way we live. It would change the way we view the world. It would be important to me whether I believed it or not.

Similarly, if God exists, if there is a heaven and a hell, and if all of our lives will continue forever in one state or the other, this conjunction of facts would be the highest priority in the universe for each of us. Whether we believed it or not.

Once you realize that, the questions of whether or not God exists, whether there is a heaven and a hell, and whether our lives are eternal becomes important in its own right. Only those who have already decided that the answers are definitely "no" can dismiss their importance flippantly.

(C) Or, finally, the universe could be open. It might be a cosmic balloon that never implodes. ... This model proposes a paradox: Objects at rest - like the initial singularity - remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; and yet, since the initial dot contained all matter and energy, nothing (at least, nothing natural) existed outside of this singularity that could have caused it to explode. The simplest resolution of the paradox is to posit that something supernatural kicked the universe into being. The open model of the universe thus implies a supernatural Creator.

I think there's a problem with this interpretation even if (C) does violate Newton's 1st Law of Motion. It's the assumption that this supernatural world (from whence the external push came) must be inhabited by people of some kind ("God"). But all it really would require is that there is some "place" outside of our universe that contained its own complement of massive or energetic things which could bump into our singularity & cause it to expand into the universe we know & love today.

I say it was a supernatural rock that fell off a supernatural cliff & landed on a singularity. The importation of supernatural energy is what got our Big Bang going. As much as some people would like to believe there was a supernatural person who intentionally blew on the singularity, in fact there are no supernatural people in supernatural-world at all, and it was the kind of mindless accident that sometimes just happens.

IOW, assuming there are people in supernatural-world, and specifically a certain person of some kind who intentionally smacked the singularity to force it to expand into a universe, is an anthropomorphic assumption that's simply not necessary.

p.s. I'd think the oscillating universe hypothesis would also beg the question: "What started the process going in the first place?" I don't understand why the final question between (B) & (C) would resolve any question of theism vs. atheism.

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