I’ve been reading about the origin of the universe
again, looking at it from the scientific point of view. I have no problem
accepting science’s theory that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago with
an explosion. I’m amused that the Father of the Big Bang theory is a Catholic
priest, Father George LeMaitre, who believed that Albert Einstein’s theory of
relativity (1917) was not inconsistent with an ever-expanding universe. Einstein,
however, believed that the world was a closed system, in perfect equilibrium
and unchanging.
LeMaitre met
Einstein at a conference on physics in October of 1927 and explained his
conviction that application of the
theory of general relativity to the study of the cosmos would in fact lead to the conclusion that the
universe was dynamic, that it was moving. (A Russian mathematician, Alexander
Friedmann, in 1922 had suggested the same idea but died before following up on
his theory.) Einstein’s response to
LeMaitre was something like, “Father, your calculations are correct, but your
physics is abominable.”
Undismayed by the senior scientist’s rejection of
his theory, Lemaitre continued to look for observable proof. About two years later LeMaitre
had his proof. American astronomer Edwin Hubble published the results of data
he collected by means of telescopic observations of the universe, and confirmed
that most galaxies seem to be withdrawing from one another. The theory of an
initial Big Bang as the origin of the universe seemed more than credible.
Years earlier Einstein had objected to physicists who
proposed that the subatomic world depended not simply on determinable laws of
mechanics (as those of Isaac Newton), but also on chance. He said famously, “God does not play dice with
the universe.” Einstein held out for a grand cohesive design and was dismissive
of the notion that uncertainty was part of the key to exploring and understanding
the world of science.
Tension between science and religion is less intense
today than in past decades, but people of science and religion usually quell conflicts
by happily acknowledging that science and religion are two different and separate
fields in pursuit of the truth and the two should not interfere with each
other. People of religion are less adamant about how God does things; chance
may play a role and chance can be part of God’s plan.
While I believe that God is ultimately responsible
for creating ex nihilo (i.e., God did
not use matter that pre-existed the Creator), I can accept the proposal that the
Big Bang could have been the result of a new phase in a universe which had
known many previous cycles of expansion and collapse.
In truth, however, my own conviction is that the Big
Bang was the explosion of God’s great
love, the creative force which slowly evolved over billions of years to produce
the universe as we know it today, and this explosion of love was charged with
the purpose and intention of making creatures whom God would love so dearly.
Yes, I’m mixing science and religion, but if both lead to truth, I have no
hesitation to own the findings of both, and even allow some melding of the two
into one philosophy of life.
The Bible tells who
made the world; science gives me a clue about how it was made. I see no conflict between the two. The Bible is
not a science book; a science book is not a book of religion. My eyes are not
my ears; my ears are not my eyes, but both sets of organs help me come to
knowledge.
The question that intrigues me is, “What would I
know about God if I assumed the world was created by a divine being and yet
science was the only way I had to draw conclusions about the creator. If I had
no supernatural revelation in the form of Moses, prophets, Jesus the Christ,
St. Paul and the Spirit-alive-in-the-Church what conclusions could I draw about
the deity?”
Isolated from revelation, relying on science I could
easily draw the conclusion that God (the creator) is complex, playful, patient,
colorful, truly transcendent.
You my object that I have already brought religion
into the answer by assuming there was a creator, but apart f the Bible and
Church magisterium, I have to wrestle with the arguments the philosopher Thomas
Aquinas offered on a natural plain for positing the existence of God. I cannot
argue away the notion of an unmoved mover, or an uncaused cause. I do not need
religion to come to acknowledge the existence of a creator-god. I think it a
matter of common sense.
When I read that, based on supercomputer estimates,
there may be 500 billion galaxies, I think how complex the creator must
be. When I read that the most distant
object we know is a stellar explosion called a gamma ray burst which released
as much energy as ten trillion Sun-like stars, I think how playful the creator
must be.
When I read the universe has doubled in size eight
times during the time it has taken for the light of the most distant celestial
object to reach us, I think how patient this creator must be. When I read that
scientists can deduce the chemical composition of the sun by collecting enough
light to pass through a prism which then splits the light into a spectrum, I
think how colorful the creator must be.
When I read this comment of Albert Einstein, “As a
child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew
but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene…No one can read the
Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates
in every word. No myth is filled with such life,” I think how transcendent this
God ours must truly be!
