Universe

Q. What does creation consist of?

A. Creation consists firstly of the creation of matter and secondly of the creation of life. The creation of matter was the creation of atoms of hydrogen from subatomic particles: protons and electrons. The creation of hydrogen brought the universe into existence as galaxies and stars are made of hydrogen.

Subatomic particles such as protons and electrons are the stuff of matter, the basic units whose components are not divisible. In the quantum world the difference between some subatomic particles and nothing is very subtle; some types of particle exist only for split seconds, while others are stable. It is here, at the atomic level, that a seam exists between what exists and what does not exist.

Creatio ex nihilo has been a fundamental belief of the Christian Church for at least 800 years. God created the world out of nothing. Matter was brought forth from nothing via subatomic particles. God did not reorganize a pre-existing world bringing order to chaos; God made the stuff of it in a way described as ‘good’, maybe excellent.

Creation from nothing occurred in Biblical terms on the first day. On the five other days of creation, creatures were created from something i.e. from existing matter.

Cosmic Evolution

The transformations that the universe has undergone since its beginning constitute what is known as cosmic evolution.  Cosmic evolution comprises the formation of galaxies in clusters and stars within the molecular clouds of galaxies.  Cosmic evolution also comprises the stages that stars go through before ending their lives in supernova explosions becoming stellar corpses and black holes. There is also the formation of planets which orbit stars in planetary systems.

There is only one universe known to science and this universe is free.  The universe was created according to a purpose hidden in God, but it is not guided in all of its details. It is not a puppet theatre.  The natural processes of cosmic evolution follow a natural course: galaxies, stars and planets are formed by natural processes. Galaxies may end their existence by being cannibalized by other galaxies; stars explode and end as dark corpses; and planets may smash into each other. Even in the heavens stuff happens. 

The universe itself has undergone change as a whole, and the structures within it undergo modification over time.  The universe will run down, ‘wear out’ and ‘grow old’. This could be the Heat Death end to it all, but Christians generally believe in a destiny and a purpose for the created order i.e. something new happens before the depressing natural end.

Laws of Physics

The laws of physics are descriptions of how matter interacts with other matter; or how subatomic particles of which matter is composed interact with each other.

The creation of matter brought into existence the laws of physics. Many Atheists talk about these laws as if the laws themselves were forces that created the entities they describe. This is to reify what is only a description.

The amount of matter in the universe is set such that the laws of physics function perfectly to maintain an orderly universe. This is often referred to as the ‘fine tuning’ of the universe in which we live; it is as if it were made to harbour life billions of years before life appeared.

KEY WORDS

  • Subatomic particles
  • Creation from nothing / creatio ex nihilo
  • Cosmic Evolution
  • Laws of physics
  • Let there be light / Fiat lux

Genesis

“Let there be light” are God’s opening words in Genesis 1:3 on the first day of creation.

People have scoffed that the Sun and Moon were only created on the 4th day saying this means there could not have been light on the first day. What a crude error they say!

But think again: the Sun only gives light to our Earth and the Solar System. On the other hand, the first light of the universe was released at the formation of atoms when the universe began! The fossil of this light has been found by scientists. It is called the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). Due to the expansion of the universe, this light is now in the microwave part of the spectrum, but it initially burst forth as highly energetic ultraviolet light.

The photons of light found everywhere in the universe as the CBR again uphold what was stated by Genesis – that light was created at the beginning of creation.

The light on the first day burst forth from the creation of matter. It came from the beginning, from the first tick of time. It lit the tiny early universe with intense ultraviolet light, then as the universe expanded it passed through all the colours of the rainbow until it glowed only as microwave radiation. It would have been a truly cosmic firework display. Much later came the Solar System with the Earth orbiting its star.

In Genesis, creation of the Sun, Moon and stars on the fourth day is to show that these heavenly bodies are not gods, but part of physical creation. Genesis is a de-mythologizing of previous ancient myths about the origin of the world. God set in place the starry host of the heavens.

The seven day scheme of creation shows two things: firstly, creation had a beginning. In the 20th century science confirmed this to be true. Secondly, the seventh day when God rested from his work of creation shows that creation was completed and complete.

ARTICLES

Spacetime

Article written by Clare Merry in 2017, edited in December 2022

  1. Introduction

Spacetime is something that only became known in the 20th century.  Its dimensions were perceived first in theory, but later its dynamics were confirmed by observation.  Surprises were in store; some that appalled Atheists, while rejoicing the hearts of Theists.  But facts are ultimately facts, whatever your beliefs.

I became interested in investigating the facets of spacetime when I got interested in the history of clocks. The pendulum clock invented in the 17th century was the first harmonic oscillator.

The pendulum of one of these mechanical clocks swings due to the force of gravity.  It was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) who first noted the regularity of swinging back and forth of a chandelier in Pisa cathedral in 1581.  The time period of each swing is independent of the amplitude of the swing – it always takes the same amount of time – this is isochronism.  Harmonic oscillation indicates that there is a relationship between mass, motion and time.

Pendulum clocks run faster where gravity is stronger.  Gravity is stronger at the North and South Poles than at the equator.  Travellers taking their pendulum clocks around the globe was the first indication that the Earth has an oblate shape squashed in at the poles.  The poles are closer to the Earth’s core than the equator so this makes gravity stronger and time go quicker.

The pendulum clock ticks regularly by the universal harmony of gravity.  This simple harmonic motion didn’t have to be this way.  But in an ordered universe it is this way.

2. An Expanding Universe

Atheists of the 19th and early 20th century believed in Materialism – that matter has always existed as a brute fact.  There was no need of a Creator to create matter.  There was no beginning or end to time.

Albert Einstein proposed the Theory of General Relativity in 1915.  This showed for the first time that the three dimensions of space and the 4th dimension of time are linked.  In General Relativity, gravity is characterized as the curvature of spacetime in the presence of mass.  This means that massive objects such as galaxies, stars and planets create gravity wells that draw matter in.  Even light waves are bent by strong gravity fields causing gravitational lensing.

Einstein introduced a cosmological constant into his equations to make them describe a static universe.  However, Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966) a Belgian Catholic priest and cosmologist corrected Einstein telling him that his theory implied that the universe is expanding.  This was the first break with the idea that the material universe is static.  The new physics that emerged was of a dynamic universe.

Observational evidence confirmed that the universe is indeed expanding.  In the 1920s, American astronomer Edwin Hubble, using a more powerful telescope than had been used before, discovered galaxies beyond our galaxy, and that all of these galaxies were receding away from us and away from each other.  In 1931 Lemaitre summarized and published his ideas on the initial “creation-like” event and his “hypothesis of the primeval atom”.

Other cosmologists, while acknowledging universal expansion, were keen to maintain belief in a universe infinite in time and space.  With this in mind, Fred Hoyle with H. Bondi and T. Gold put forward the Steady State Theory in 1948, after a similar idea had been proposed by James Jeans in the 1920s.  This theory proposed the continuous creation of matter within an expanding universe such that matter always remains at the same density. 

There was no beginning and no end to the Steady State universe.  They invented the notion of the ‘Perfect Cosmological Principle’.  This principle states that the universe is homogeneous spatially and throughout all time.  But this was not so, and in the end the Steady State Theory with its principle had to be dropped due to it not being supported by the facts.

At the rate the universe is expanding now, all the matter of the universe must have been amassed in one place, maybe the size of our solar system some 15 thousand million years ago.  The concept that the universe had a beginning gave birth to modern cosmology.  The universe started with a bang now known as the Big Bang.

The universe has undergone a cosmic evolution through time.  It was born, opened out and developed through stages, until it reached the way we observe it now.  The universe has undergone cooling, expansion and the formation of large-scale structures such as galaxies and stars.  These are the facets of a dynamic, expanding universe.

3. “Let There Be Light”

When looking very far out in the universe, it is necessary to formulate a hypothesis of what you expect to find, before finding it, in order to see it when you actually find it.  Observation is, in fact, theory-driven.  For example, particular ideas about the Big Bang, lead to particular ways of interpreting the observations made in support of these ideas.

Seeing the past happen now

The universe in its vast spatial dimensions has a strange property – to look out into intergalactic space at distant galaxies with the aid of a telescope is to look back in time.  Far-away galaxies are seen as they were thousands of millions of years ago.  This is because the light entering a telescope from these galaxies set out thousands of millions of years ago from stars in these galaxies, and has been travelling through intergalactic space at the speed of light ever since, until it entered the telescope.  The outermost observable objects existed in the early universe and are thought to no longer exist now.  Astronomers are blessed with the ability to look into, and see the past happening now!

Since distance in the universe is measured in light-years – the distance that light can travel in one year at the speed of light in a vacuum – the observation of very distant objects in the universe indicates that the universe is, at least, as old as these objects.  With spacetime there is a link between size of the universe and age of the universe.

Fiat Lux

These scientific advances were embraced by the Christian Church since the Bible clearly states that there was a beginning to creation.  Pope Pius XII pronounced in 1951 that science and religion are ‘heavenly sisters’.  He encouraged further investigation into the possible compatibility of Georges Lemaitre’s idea of the explosive beginning to the universe and the primordial ‘Fiat Lux’ or ‘Let there be light’ opening to the book of Genesis.

Christians generally adopted the belief of seeing the Creator’s hand in the cosmological event that brought the universe into being thousands of millions of years ago.

Time is created

Time came into being with the creation of matter – this cannot be disputed; it is a fundamental fact of the way things are.

The expansion of space created time.  Space is created by matter in motion.  Space is only what is in between clumps of matter that are galaxies and stars.  There cannot be any space beyond the extension of matter since this is a non-sense.  The space between stars is interstellar space, and the space between galaxies is intergalactic space.  Before matter was created there was no motion, no light and no time. 

Galaxies have been moving apart for over 13.7 thousand million years in a universal expansion.  The stars within galaxies revolve around galactic centres as if caught up in eddies, and planets revolve around stars. 

Each planet orbiting a star has its own length of year and length of day.  The orbit of planet Earth around the Sun takes one Earth year of 365 days.  The spinning of the Earth on its axis takes 24 hours – one Earth day.  On Venus, one Venus year takes 225 days and is shorter than one Venus day that takes 243 Earth days.  Thus, the time we experience comes from the motion of our planet in the solar system.

E = mc2

Expansion of the universe has been demonstrated not only theoretically, but also through  observation using telescopes and calculating red shifts in light coming from distant stars.  This means that the universe had a beginning.  This has been calculated to have occurred 13.7 thousand million years ago.

The current theory to explain this is the Big Bang Model in which matter condenses out of a fireball of energy.  This matter, mainly hydrogen, forms the galaxies and stars of the universe. 

The equation E = mc2 shows the equivalence between energy (E) and mass (m) times (c) the speed of light. 

Physics, as it exists in this universe now, shows that energy does indeed come out of matter (mass) – this energy fires up the universe – but there is no energy powerful enough now to create matter. i.e. scientists can split the atom, but they cannot create an atom.  The atom bomb can blow matter apart, it cannot set it in place.

It is my belief that God created matter, in contrast to the belief that matter condensed out of energy.

The first atoms of the universe released bursts of light when they came into being – like a firework display millions of times brighter than the firework displays of the New Year.  With the sudden expansion of the, at first, tiny universe, this light would pass through all the colours of the rainbow until it only glowed as infrared.  When God played fireworks he was celebrating his own glory.  This light still exists everywhere in the universe as microwave radiation named the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR).

4. Singularity and the Multiverse

Secular physicists and cosmologists were quick to veer away from a beginning to the universe.  Speculations started up on what happened before the beginning.  They also veered away from what seemed to be creation by speculation on how to derive a universe out of pure energy or even out of nothing by natural processes.  

Black holes and Singularity

Working on the theorem that black holes undergo gravitational collapse until they reach zero volume, Stephen Hawking realized that if this idea were reversed from collapse to expansion, that this presented a new picture of the origin of the universe.  He proposed in 1965 that the universe had expanded from a region of zero volume and infinite density that he called a Singularity.  Singularity is where the laws of physics break down because science does not deal with infinities. 

In the 1970s it became generally accepted that the universe began as a Big Bang Singularity.  The ‘break down’ in laws of physics has now become a ‘thing’, to derive a universe from.  This is a modified form of the previous Big Bang theory. It is also to be noted that real ‘black holes’ are stellar corpses that measure at least 3 km across – they do not have zero volume.

Universe the Size of a Proton?

It is now claimed that the universe started out the size of a proton.  The Standard Big Bang Model proposes what happened to this universe in the first second of its existence.  Time is taken back to ‘ten to the minus 43 second’ (10-43) which equals the Planck time.  Beyond this equations cannot go.  At this point the tiny universe is purported to have a temperature of 1033 degrees C, that is ten thousand million, million, million, million, million degrees, and to consist only of photons or energy.

An Infinity of Universes?

Before this Big Bang explosion thought to have given rise to our universe, it is fashionable to believe that there could have been an infinite number of previous universes existing chronologically, or that our universe is only one among an infinity of coexisting parallel universes that have popped up like bubbles.

The many theories that have popped up involving multiple universes now come under the heading Multiverse.  Belief in the Multiverse is not based on any scientific fact, any experiment or any observation.  By definition we can only observe what exists in this universe.  Belief in the Multiverse is simply belief.  However, it is coupled to science because it springs from the currently popular Philosophy of Naturalism which dominates the sciences today.  

The Philosophy of Naturalism admits only natural explanations for all phenomena.  It asserts that there is no God, and therefore God cannot be the explanation of anything.  It is to not even consider that God as Creator could have created the universe.

I suggest that this scientifico-philosophical speculation – the Multiverse –  is an impasse and ultimately will prove only to be a waste of time.

Fine-Tuning

The total quantity of matter in the universe was set very precisely such that the universe would have duration through time.  A tiny universe exists for a flash.  A very large universe expands and then collapses back onto itself, and ceases to exist.

It is now not thought that our universe will undergo a ‘Big Crunch’ collapsing back onto itself, but will continue to expand for a long time yet.  There is time for it to continue to develop.

Maybe God is the guarantor of time by the way the universe was set up in the first place – as the total mass in the universe is linked to its duration.  It was made to last.

Fine-tuning is a popular phrase amongst Christians.  All the constants of physics have been found to have been set very precisely to allow this universe to exist.  For example, one constant of physics is the strength of the force of gravity.  The observation of ‘fine-tuning’ is a way of saying that you believe that God created the universe with a purpose in mind.  I believe not only in the fine-tuning of this universe, but that this created universe may be the only universe possible.

5. Questions of infinity

Time in the universe has existed for a long time, and will continue to exist for a long time, but this is not forever.  So far, time has been running for an estimated 13.7 000 million years universally.  Globally, Earth time has been running for about 4000 million years.

Our universe is finite in the sense of having a beginning.  But could the universe be infinite in the sense of future extension?

I think that the answer is that the universe cannot last indefinitely, at least not in its present state.  There is no perpetual motion.  The processes of this universe cannot go on forever.  The law of entropy shows that the universe must run down.

Stars are born, they light up as thermonuclear furnaces, and they burn out and explode in nova or supernova explosions, leaving dark stellar corpses that cool down emitting no further light.  The galaxy will eventually become littered with stellar corpses, the black hole remains of stars.  When this happens, the stars shining in the night sky will go out.  Our Sun has now lived half its life and is 4.6 000 million years old.

When processes stop and motion stops, time will stop.  However, that is not to say that matter will cease to exist.  The matter may be cold and dark, but it will still be there. 

There is no infinity in the extent of the universe, even though the universe is vast.  There is no infinity in the length of time the universe has existed or will exist in its present form, even though it is very old.  But infinity can be conceived abstractly.

Mathematical Infinity

Modern science is based on the investigation of what exists in the world, and the establishing of agreed facts.  One of the main instruments of science is mathematics – to quantify, measure, and calculate is to know.  Modern science is underpinned by mathematics.

There is a theoretical, abstract infinity of numbers.  The mind can conceive of infinity by a projection of thought using pure rational logic.  Yes, you could keep counting forever in theory.  But this rational thought is not embodied within the universe.  Even the number of atoms in the universe is finite, and known to physicists.

There is something divine about mathematics, just as there is something divine about order and logic.  The Gospel of John claims that the whole creation took place via logic, the logos or the Word of God.

The human mind can, with much application, understand something of this logic, and capture something of what infinity is, as if approaching the divine.  The mind fathoming the mysteries of nature, often feels a mystical closeness to God.  It’s as if by seeking to understand the creation of this world, the mind touches the other realm – the unseen, that which is beyond all time.

Infinity is a quality of God

Time is not infinite.  Abstract infinity in numbers is possible, and yet it does not exist in the world we know.  God alone is eternal.  He is known as ‘The Eternal’ in Judaism.  Infinity is a trait of God, not shared by his creatures.  God is outside time, and not contained by space.  God can enter time and space, but he is not bound by it. 

6. Permanency of matter

Elementary particles are the backbone of reality.  Subatomic particles are the stuff of the universe and the stuff of creation.  They constitute matter.  The universe is matter.

No proton has ever decayed

When a neutron decays, it turns back into one proton and one electron and it emits one anti-neutrino.  Thus, neutrons both form out of protons and electrons, and they decay back again, but nobody has ever seen a proton decay. 

Protons are composed of two Up quarks and one Down quark.  It is impossible to get a single quark; they always appear in threes and remain in threes no matter what happens.  Even the hydrogen protons accelerated and blasted into each other in the Large Hadron Collider by CERN are split apart for split seconds (between 10-8 to 10-22 second) and then recombine as Up and Down quarks back into protons again.

Positively charged protons made from Up and Down quarks, and negatively charged electrons are fundamental subatomic particles that are not permanently divisible and not destructible.  Hydrogen atoms made of one proton and one electron form a stable universe. 

This points in the direction of the permanency of matter, and a future destiny to matter.  The idea that the matter of this universe will become the matter of the realm of life after death was first suggested by the theoretical physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne (1930-2021).  It seems to me that matter once created does and will remain in existence forever.

Photons do not decay

Albert Einstein presented the Theory of Special Relativity in 1905.  Special Relativity states that no wave or particle can travel faster than the speed of light.  Having this speed as an absolute that cannot be added to by moving at speed towards a light source or slowed down by moving away from the light source, means that the fabric of space behaves in odd ways and time becomes relative.

High velocity causes time dilation.  According to the Theory of Special Relativity, time dilation occurs when something moves at over one tenth the speed of light; thus it starts at around 30 000 km/second since light travels at 300 000 km/second.  Time dilation is intrinsic to spacetime; it is not to do with clocks not functioning properly.

Time slows down as you approach the speed of light.  This sounds like a good formula for staying young; however, the energy that would be required to cause matter to move this fast no longer exists in the universe. 

Light, however, moves at the speed of light.  The implication of Special Relativity, in my estimation, is that photons, which are energy packages called quanta, do not experience time.  This would be the reason why they never decay. 

The non-aging and non-decay of photons gives rise to the phenomenon already mentioned – that to look far out into space with a telescope is to see the past.  Ancient light from distant galaxies only stops travelling when it hits an atom and is absorbed by it – in this case the telescope collecting light from stars or your eye seeing the star light.

The first observation of the stability of elementary particles in this universe – the protons and electrons of which atoms are composed; the second observation that light when it travels, continues to travel without decay for any length of time; and the third observation that at high velocity time passes slower.  These facets of the reality we live under, but which are little known, lead one to reflect that there may be other realities, which while perfectly logical, are far beyond our present comprehension.

Conclusion

The relationship between space and time long known to ancient astronomers, perceived by Galileo in his contribution to the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens in 1656, finally became scientific theory in the mind of Albert Einstein with his theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity written in 1905 and 1915 respectively.

The universe was thought to be infinite in size and infinitely old.  Science proves this to be false: infinity exists as a concept in the imagination and in mathematics, but not in the real world.  The universe is vast, but it is finite – for this reason it is measurable.

Time had a beginning.  This is when this sciency stuff starts to sound like Christian stuff.  The Bible proclaims that creation had a beginning.  It was created by God who himself existed from eternity.

We now have telescopes so powerful that they can capture light from galaxies billions of light years away from us.  The objects we observe far out in the universe – within our Earth time – are objects that existed in the past.  We see the light from these galaxies because photons travelling at the speed of light do not experience time, and with powerful scientific instruments we can now observe the past in real time.

The permanency of subatomic particles, protons and electrons of which atoms are made are what make a stable universe. 

Photons never decay; they can only be absorbed by atoms.  Thus, light waves travel on and light never dies.  Light has a perpetual quality.

These reflections on the science of spacetime open up glimpses into another realm – that of eternity – which while being totally different to this realm, would also be ordered by knowable laws of physics.

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Bibliography

Wikipedia:

Albert Einstein; General relativity / Special relativity; Gravimeter; Harmonic oscillator; Georges Lemaitre; Pendulum clock; Theology of Pope Pius XII; Time dilation