St. Joseph Church
Bristol, Connecticut

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti
Pastoral Minister

This session of our series will focus on the intriguing religious questions raised by modern scientific discoveries concerning the origins of the universe. The last one hundred years of the study of the universe have yielded a number of important discoveries that have provoked questions among scientists that reflect religious concerns among some of the scientific community. It is the task of this session to explore some of these discoveries and their possible relevance for a religious understanding of the world.

On Christmas Eve 1968, the first astronauts in orbit around the moon appeared live on TV in millions of American homes. Frank Borman read the opening verses of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water. And God said, "Let there be light", and there was light.

Borman’s message concluded: "Greetings from the crew of Apollo 8. God bless you all on the good earth." Those astronauts were the first people to see the beauty of the earth as a blue and white gem spinning in the vastness of space, and the reading from Genesis story be reconciled with the findings of twentieth-century astronomy? 1

Introduction

In the early part of the twentieth century (1929) Karl Hubble was looking through his telescope and noticed something rather peculiar happening in space. He began to make a study of what he was seeing and came to the conclusion that the galaxies in space are moving away from each other at about one million miles per hour. He sent his findings to Albert Einstein, who at first rejected his findings. However, Hubble would not be dissuaded from the findings of his study. He invited Einstein to meet with him and to see for himself. Einstein did just that and upon observation and discussion with Hubble concurred with the findings. This implication of the meaning of these finding was and is momentous. Such findings confirm the theory that we live in an expanding universe set into motion by the "Big Bang" that occurred about fifteen billion years ago. What’s more, time and space also began with the "Big Bang" so that space is expanding! Such a finding revealed that we live in a dynamic, changing and yet stabilizing universe. There is continuity and predictability, as well as novelty and spontaneous creation.

For many years scientists argued whether or not we live in an expanding or "steady-state" universe. The steady-state universe always existed, no beginning and no end. Such a scientific position would maintain that no creation was necessary. But in 1965 two scientists from Bell Laboratories named Penzias and Wilson discovered a uniform hiss of radiation that is uniform in every part of the universe which is evidence of the "Big Bang" that occurred some fifteen billion years ago. This was one of many other discoveries that suggest that our universe had a moment of creation.

The religious implications of the "Big Bang" provoked questions from some members of the scientific community. Who or what is responsible for the "Big Bang"? The notion of a Creator, or intelligence behind the creation of the universe began to impose itself on the scientific community, as a result of a series of discoveries that seemed to suggest the intelligent design of the universe. As time has passed scientists have discovered that there are a balance of forces in the universe that are so fine that any variation would have meant a very different type of universe—or none at all! In the words of Stephen Hawking:

If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size.1

With these new discoveries a number of cosmologists have proposed a theory known as the anthropic cosmological principle. The anthropic principle is one that states that there is a design to the universe that has life, especially human life, as a part of its plan written into creation by the Creator. This theory has two variations: the strong anthropic principle and the weak anthropic principle. 2

The strong anthropic principle maintains that the universe was created for the emergence of mind and especially the spiritual and self-reflective creatures—humanity. In this version of the anthropic principle all creation was designed for the emergence of those created in the image of God.

The weak anthropic principle maintains that conditions in the universe are just right for the emergence of life and human life. It does not hold that all creation was designed specifically for the emergence of human life but that such an emergence was written into the universe as a distinct and probable possibility.

The argument for God’s existence from "design" has witnessed resurgence not so much from theologians but from some scientists. Recent discoveries have provoked philosophical and religious questions among scientists. The new argument from design have emerged as a result of the discovery that even small changes in the physical properties and constants in the universe would have resulted in an uninhabitable universe—as suggested by Dr. Steven Hawking when he described the rate of expansion.3

There are other intriguing aspects of the universe as well. For instance, if the strong nuclear force were even slightly weaker we would have only hydrogen in the universe. If it were slightly stronger, all the hydrogen would have been converted to helium.

In either case, stable stars and compounds such as water could not have been formed. Again, the nuclear force is only barely sufficient for carbon to form; yet if it had been slightly stronger, the carbon would all have been converted to oxygen. Particular elements, such as carbon have many other special properties that are crucial to the later development of organic life as we know it.4

Another extraordinary condition of the universe is the "particle/anti-particle ratio". That is, for every billion antiprotons in the early universe, there were one billion one protons. The billion pairs annihilated each other to produce radiation, with just one proton left over. A greater or smaller number of survivors—or none at all would have made our universe impossible. Such discoveries have provoked a number of scientists to point to some religious implications to the universe.

The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implication. 5

The physicist Freeman Dyson writes:

The Argument from Design, gives a number of examples of "numerical accidents" that seem to conspire to make the universe habitable… The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe is some sense must have known we were coming. 6

Some Theological Implications

It is necessary to state before exploring the theological implications of modern cosmology that God is not to be understood as a mere explanation for creation or as One who fill the gaps in the human understanding, i.e., "the God of the gaps". God is not to be used to fill in the things that human reason has not discovered about the universe. This being said, we will deal with the theological implications of modern cosmology under four headings suggested by Ian Barbour which are as follows.

Intelligibility and Contingency

Ex Nihilo and Continuing Creation

The Significance of Humanity

Eschatology and the Future

Intelligibility and Contingency

The scientific search for a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) for the universe is partly motivated by the conviction that the cosmos is rationally intelligible, Einstein once stated that the only thing that incomprehensible about the world id that it is comprehensible.6 The Greek view of the world as cosmos and not chaos combined with the biblical view if the universe as rational and contingent. If God is the source of reason, the world is orderly; but if God is also free, then the world did not have to have the particular order that it has. Furthermore, such a God makes possible the reality of novelty and spontaneous creation that we see reflected in the theory of quantum mechanics. In our universe there exists dependability and novelty. The physicist James Trefil sees it this way:

But who created those laws?…Who made the laws of logic?…No matter how far the boundaries are pushed back, there will always be room for both religious faith and a religious interpretation of the physical world. For myself, I feel much more comfortable with the concept of God who is clever enough to devise the laws of physics that make the existence of our marvelous universe inevitable than I do with the old-fashioned God who had to make it all, laboriously, piece by piece.7

Such a view of creation understands the first creation account of Genesis 1:1-29 as a story recognizing God as creator, the order and the basic goodness of creation, and humanity at the pinnacle of creation. Such did not happen in six solar days but over aeons of time. To read the Genesis text in any other fashion is to impose a literal meaning that was not intended. 8

Contingent Existence

The concern about the contingency of the universe is best captured by the question: "why is there anything at all?" The existence of the universe, of anything, is the most surprising of all things that provokes an explanation.

The existence of the cosmos as a whole is not self-explanatory, regardless of whether it is finite or infinite in time. 9

Such a fundamental fact of the existence of the universe quickly moved to why anything exists at all. Furthermore, if there was a beginning, it was a "singularity" to which the laws of physics do not apply. That is, we cannot get behind the Big Bang. All of the clues were destroyed in the primal explosion. What we have as a universe is the effect of that explosion. What'’ more, we know that we live in a universe of order and uncertainty. The indeterminacy in the world reflected in quantum physics tells us new things can occur. Also, we know that there is an irreversible character to event and time. So we are left with the fact that the universe need not have been and still is unfolding. What or "Who" set things in motion provokes questions outside of science’s ability to answer them. 10

The Significance of Humanity

Upon initial observation of the immensity of the universe one would be tempted to conclude that in the large scope of things humanity occupies a very small and insignificant place in the universe. Certainly, one can be humbles by such an observation, but one must exercise some caution in taking such a view to the extreme. Protestant theologian, Sally McFague refers to such an extreme attitude toward humanity as a form of decadent asceticism. Such a view undermines human dignity and human stewardship for one another and the world. Telling people they are worthless or insignificant does not serve the purpose of creating a sense of humility but in seeing human life as not worth much.

Today the immensities of time and space seem to favor the notion that the universe we live in was waiting for us. For instance, it is known that it takes about fifteen billion years for heavy elements to be cooked in the interior of stars and eventually for the evolution of consciousness. Fr. Teilhard de Chardin pointed out that we should not measure significance by size and duration, but by such criteria as complexity and consciousness. It is clear that a higher level or organization and a greater richness of experience occur in a human being than in a thousand lifeless galaxies. It is humanity itself that reaches out to understand, and seems capable of understanding itself and the universe.

Eschatology and the Future

For the scientist the future of the universe and the individual are profoundly connected. One theory holds that the expansion of the universe will continue until the universe runs down so that the universe experiences heat death. Another theory holds that the universe will continue to expand until it reaches a point when it begins to slow down, and stop. Eventually the force of gravity with caused the universe to slow down and stop will begin to cause the universe to contract—in which case the universe will suffer from the "Big Crunch". Or we might put it into the words of scientist Steven Weinberg when he says, "It going to get pretty unpleasant."

Such forecasts for the universe would lead to the eventual demise of all life—a view of things that could easily lead to despair. The Christian view is that God is involved with the universe through its laws and properties and is working to bring it to a glorious consummation (Romans 8). 12 Such a view is consistent with St. Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus and the future of humanity and the rest of creation (I. Cor. 15) In this case the universe is filled with meaning and a cause of joy and hope.

Footnotes

Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, (San Francisco: Harper Publishing, 1990), p.13.

Ibid., p.128

Ibid., p. 128, 135-136

Ibid., p.136

Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), p. 250

Barbour, op. cit. P. 141

John Trefil, Moment of Creation (New York: Collier Books, 1983), p. 233

Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

Barbour, op. cit. P.142

Ibid. p. 145

Compiled by Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Created 10/02/2000