Physics and The God of Abraham
Seeing such a title - "Physics and the God of Abraham" - I began to wonder a little. Whitworth College and Gonzaga University were coming together for a joint effort to talk about how science and religion are truly integrated (note that is a Presbyterian institution and a Jesuit institution working together!). The series of three lectures was quite interesting, but overall extremely disappointing.
The entire conference was dealing with cosmology - or the physics and astronomy of the universe as a whole. Most of the first lecture was spent giving a scientific background to the Big Bang - what it is, is not, and how we should look a it.
First, the Big Bang was not a specific event, nor a group of accessible events, but the limit of what we know. I think "know" in this context is basically the same as "speculate absurdities without getting called on it." Ironically, we know nothing about the Big Bang, nor can we. According "to our current models", at the moment of the Big Bang, The temperature, density and curvature of everything was infinite, thus space and time probably broke down, of course none of which makes sense. Therefore, since we "know" the hypothesis cannot be wrong, these "scientists" are feverishly working to develop a "new physics" to explain this phenomenon. As a side note, why is it that secular scientists can work to develop "science" that matches their guesses and everyone thinks it is normal, but as soon as Christians attempt to reconcile science with their "guesses", it is the most outrageous and absurd thing we can think of? "Intelligent Design? Oh, they are trying to completely redefine science! Can you believe it! Redefine science! Religious wackos!"
So after the Big Bang, of which we can know nothing, the universe cooled and after it became cool enough, the building blocks of life began to form, biological evolution occured, and now currently we are seeing cultural evolution occuring as well.
So how does this all connect with the God of Abraham? Essentially, God did create the universe - from this perspective - and is continually creating the universe. He defined creation as not an event or even a process, but a relationship. God is continually making the universe "be", but natural laws (the laws of physics) are basically having their way with matter.
At this point we were beginning to get to the heart of the issue, for the connection between science and Christianity/religion is basically the point where science stops. We follow science as far as it will go, then we lean on God to get our origins. Or we look to God for the ultimate cause. God has to work through natural laws, it was said, and it was also acknowledged that this puts severe restrictions on God.
As far as I can tell, it sums up like this: science is the source of true knowledge, but it cannot explain nothing, or the beginning before which nothing existed. Physics always has to start with something, it can't account for nothing (materially speaking - he differentiated between philosophical nothingness and material nothingness). God is what gives physics (i.e. natural law) its start, then he holds it all in a state of being.
That was just the first lecture. I came away thinking two things from this lecture. First, how does God become man and enter the world to redeem it and how do we get souls? Second, how much of a blessing is it for us to have the God-breathed Word? We can start so much further down the road when we are faithful to trust and obey the Lord. (But do we treat God's truths this way? I know I am still working towards this view of Scripture.) This yet further proof that the foolishness of God is better than the wisdom of the world. Why try to invent a science to prove an infinitely hot, dense point is where we started from, when we have it straight from the Creator that he made it in 6 days? Direct from his hand, and even with purpose, goodness and love! Why not start developing our science from there?
Lord have mercy.
The entire conference was dealing with cosmology - or the physics and astronomy of the universe as a whole. Most of the first lecture was spent giving a scientific background to the Big Bang - what it is, is not, and how we should look a it.
First, the Big Bang was not a specific event, nor a group of accessible events, but the limit of what we know. I think "know" in this context is basically the same as "speculate absurdities without getting called on it." Ironically, we know nothing about the Big Bang, nor can we. According "to our current models", at the moment of the Big Bang, The temperature, density and curvature of everything was infinite, thus space and time probably broke down, of course none of which makes sense. Therefore, since we "know" the hypothesis cannot be wrong, these "scientists" are feverishly working to develop a "new physics" to explain this phenomenon. As a side note, why is it that secular scientists can work to develop "science" that matches their guesses and everyone thinks it is normal, but as soon as Christians attempt to reconcile science with their "guesses", it is the most outrageous and absurd thing we can think of? "Intelligent Design? Oh, they are trying to completely redefine science! Can you believe it! Redefine science! Religious wackos!"
So after the Big Bang, of which we can know nothing, the universe cooled and after it became cool enough, the building blocks of life began to form, biological evolution occured, and now currently we are seeing cultural evolution occuring as well.
So how does this all connect with the God of Abraham? Essentially, God did create the universe - from this perspective - and is continually creating the universe. He defined creation as not an event or even a process, but a relationship. God is continually making the universe "be", but natural laws (the laws of physics) are basically having their way with matter.
At this point we were beginning to get to the heart of the issue, for the connection between science and Christianity/religion is basically the point where science stops. We follow science as far as it will go, then we lean on God to get our origins. Or we look to God for the ultimate cause. God has to work through natural laws, it was said, and it was also acknowledged that this puts severe restrictions on God.
As far as I can tell, it sums up like this: science is the source of true knowledge, but it cannot explain nothing, or the beginning before which nothing existed. Physics always has to start with something, it can't account for nothing (materially speaking - he differentiated between philosophical nothingness and material nothingness). God is what gives physics (i.e. natural law) its start, then he holds it all in a state of being.
That was just the first lecture. I came away thinking two things from this lecture. First, how does God become man and enter the world to redeem it and how do we get souls? Second, how much of a blessing is it for us to have the God-breathed Word? We can start so much further down the road when we are faithful to trust and obey the Lord. (But do we treat God's truths this way? I know I am still working towards this view of Scripture.) This yet further proof that the foolishness of God is better than the wisdom of the world. Why try to invent a science to prove an infinitely hot, dense point is where we started from, when we have it straight from the Creator that he made it in 6 days? Direct from his hand, and even with purpose, goodness and love! Why not start developing our science from there?
Lord have mercy.
posted by Charlie at 9:31 PM
1 Comments:
I attended the Annual Petra Fundraising Banquet last night and had the opportunity of listening to Nancy Pearcey speak. She may be a better writer than public speaker, but she had a lot of interesting things to say.
I liked your "religious wackos" statement, and there seems to be a great deal of truth in it. Mrs. Pearcey brought up a number of well known scientists, philosphers, economists, etc. who were even willing to admit that they lived an irrational contradiction between their life at work and their life at home.
One scientists had even written that if he looked at his children hard enough, he could really see them as just little machines . . . but of course he would never treat them that way.
As Christians, we definetly have a long way to go, but at least we have begun to recognize the problem and, I believe, have begun to form some legitimate solutions.
Continue the hard work Charlie!
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