One of the key aspects of the Big Bang theory is the discovery of eternity.
Not everyone would use that language of course, but the facts are still irrefutable. There was nothing and then, there was something.
When we say that there was “nothing”, we are stating that energy and matter did not exist. Therefore, space and time did not exist. By space, we refer to the universal experience of height, length and depth – our three dimensional experience. By time, we refer to that dimension in which cause-and-effect take place, in which the laws of physics are at work, and which continues at a set pace and is not reversible.
Of course, we are talking about time and space in the real world of observable phenomena and experience.
In essence, general relativity theory refers only to matter and energy and postulates that the universe began in an explosion of energy producing matter with the resulting formation of galaxies and planets. Then, in the late 1960´s, came the space-time theorem of general relativity.
Astrophysicist Hugh Ross, explains what happened.
In a series of papers appearing from 1966 to 1970, three British astrophysicists, Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose, extended the solution of the equations of general relativity to include space and time. The result was called the space-time theorem of general relativity. This theorem demonstrated that if general relativity is valid for the universe, then, under very general conditions, space and time must have originated in the same cosmic bang that brought matter and energy into existence. In Hawking´s words, time itself must have a beginning.
The validity of the space-time theorem is directly related to the validity of the principles of general relativity as proposed by Einstein. He, himself, proposed tests that would either validate his theories or not.
Other tests have been added and much work has been done to validate the theory of general relativity with observational evidence. Tests began within the context of the gravity fields of our solar system and were found to be consistent with Einstein’s theory.
But what about further into space?
Perhaps general relativity might not apply in much stronger gravitational fields such as a binary pulsar. But, by 1992, these concerns were also laid to rest. The shrinking of errors and the confirmation of multiple tests reduced the possibility of inaccuracy in the general relativity equations practically to nil.
If time and space, matter and energy all had a beginning, what started it all?
Quantum physicists and particle theory scientists may want to study the dynamics of that initial split second of released energy in what we call the Big Bang, but what about “before”?
What was before the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang? Was it a spontaneous event of chance? How?
Even blind chance must have something to work with, some power (energy), some thing (matter), which, if it existed pre-Big Bang, must be outside of our concept and experience of time and space.
That is the key to our dilemma.
There must be another dimension of time and of space, another source of power (or energy) that can create matter. Whether that source of energy, existing in another dimension of space and time, is a person or simply an amoral, unthinking, force of pre-nature, still needs to be determined.
The implication is that the universe, as we experience it, did not actually come from “nothing” but rather “something.” Better said, our universe, with its four dimensions of time and space and it’s interaction of matter and energy, was certainly created out of “nothing” but it was created by “something.”
Something was there.
At the same time, that “something” is by definition and in relation to us, transcendent (existing outside of our space-time continuum and not made up of any matter or energy that we are familiar with or that exists in our universe). It can also, logically, be called the “creator” or, if you like, the “causer” (or First Cause) of our universe.
Whether this is merely an extra-dimensional “force” or a “personal being” of some sort, can be determined by a study of the incredible precision necessary in the releasing of the energies and forces at the beginning so that life, especially human life, became possible in the universe that was created.
Noted journalist and former atheist, Lee Strobel, sums up the scientific evidence this way:
The Big Bang was actually a highly ordered event… An infinitesimal difference in the rate of the universe’s initial expansion, the strength of gravity or the weak force, or dozens of other constants and quantities would have created a life-prohibiting rather than a life-sustaining universe.
Even Einstein believed in “the presence of a superior reasoning power” present at that initial moment of time. He believed that this transcendent cause was intelligent and creative but not necessarily personal. Not for scientific reasons, as he himself readily admits, but rather because he simply could not accept the personal God of the Bible in a world full of pain, suffering and evil. He could not resolve, philosophically, the paradox of God’s predestination and man’s free choice.
However we resolve the secular or religious problem of evil or the paradox of free choice, there seems to be no rational argument to hold that a being who is both intelligent and creative is not also personal.
Einstein did not live to see the incredible accumulation of scientific evidence that strongly indicates that the universe was created with the purpose of providing a habitat for human life.
Intelligence and care in the initial moments of the universe have been supplemented with incredible design and other, subsequent “out of nothing” creative moments as the universe expanded, as our solar system was formed and, especially, as our planet became populated with life.
Creation may have begun with the Big Bang but it did not end there. The out of nothing creational “days” apparently continued until the dawn of human life on earth.
In other words, subsequent scientific inquiry has shown that the Big Bang event did not merely set in motion certain “evolutionary” processes that resulted in life the way we experience it today.
There were, apparently, other “out of nothing” creative moments that were vital to the development of life as we know it.
Eternity at work.
*****
Click here to read more…….
Whispers of the Desert Warrior by Bert A. Amsing
Copyright © 2012 by vanKregten Publishers. All rights reserved.
www.desertwarrior.net info@desertwarrior.net
Footnotes and references included in the original manuscript.
