I’d like to take the approach of simplifying the issue for Lurkers to the thread.
Infinity of space/time is a necessary pre-condition to atheism (metaphysical naturalism). This is because a disbelief in God or someone or something “beyond” seeks to explain away the extraordinary unlikelihood of the physical constants, the beginning of real time and the unreasonableness of math in this universe as happenstance, i.e. that anything that can happen, has (the plentitude argument).
We sometimes seek to avert the concept of infinity by using a reasonable substitute. That does not however change the import of infinity.
Take pi for instance. The decimal expansion of it never repeats or terminates. Yet we use reasonable substitutes in our calculations. Zero is another. It alone is neither positive nor negative. No matter how close to zero a number might be, and no matter how effective it might be in getting a job done – it’ll never be zero. Likewise, the inability to describe a universe at Planck length does not substitute for the fact the universe had a beginning.
Returning to the plentitude argument, there is no number of multi-verses which can substitute for infinity of opportunity where from this universe would have to have arisen by happenstance.
Moreover, the beginning of real time (space/time) in this universe means that this universe is finite, not infinite. That there was a beginning is the most theological statement to ever come out of modern science.
Or to put it another way, the issue is geometry. Space/time transforms (relativity, Lorentz transformation). It is expanding from a beginning. All of the fields, waves, energy, etc. exist within space/time. A field in fact exists at all points in space/time. Thus, no space/time – nothing else in this universe.
The fact of a beginning points to something “beyond” which caused it. The alternative materialistic (metaphysically naturalist or atheist) theories suggest that this universe is the effect of a prior material cause. All that accomplishes is to move the goalpost further back to a prior beginning (multi-verse, epyrotic, imaginary time, etc.).
Theologians, philosophers and radical mathematical Platonists - on the other hand – say there is a “beyond” – a being as compared to a becoming (this universe, etc.).
In the case of the radical mathematical Platonists, that “beyond” consists of mathematical structures as existents. Even if true, there remains the issue of causation – where’d they come from? The causation question remains for those who suggest the “beyond” is a “collective consciousness” of physical existence.
This is why the fact of a beginning (finite v infinite) is such a theological statement. Every case points to an uncaused cause, a Creator, God.
That's the truth! One imagines this is the reason the statement doesn't sit too well with some scientists as, for instance, Stephen Hawking....
A-G, you wrote:
"Space/time transforms (relativity, Lorentz transformation). It is expanding from a beginning. All of the fields, waves, energy, etc. exist within space/time. A field in fact exists at all points in space/time. Thus, no space/time – nothing else in this universe.... The fact of a beginning points to something “beyond” which caused it.
It needs to be said!!! Thank you for this excellent and informative post, Alamo-Girl.