Is the universe spatially infinite or is it bound by a spatial limit?

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Hatikvah

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So there is an idea going around among various atheist and irreligious scientists and others alike that there is more than one universe. (No, it is not like TV where another universe is the same thing but you didn’t shave this morning; it would be a completely different realm and space.)

When confronted with this theory, we have to think: is ours universe that God created infinitely vast? This is incomprehensible to us, being finite beings, unless if God gives us the knowledge. We’ve only discovered a grain of sand on an entire beach, perhaps.

Then on the other hand, because God is infinite and omnipresent, the universe may have a spatial end (though we know it is somehow expanding). What is outside of the universe? Can there be an outside? Can matter exist out there?

For any Mormons out there who are reading, you may be interested in an eternal progression-based theory that each new deity creates their own universe, so we live in only one of an infinite amount of universes. There’s a blog post on it here: mormonmultiverse.blogspot.com/p/eternal-progression-in-mormon.html\

Post your theories here and discuss this mysterious cosmic matter.
 
I don’t know about a multiverse, the idea of our universe existing in some higher dimensional reality in which other universes are present. I suppose it’s a possibility, but it is all speculation at the moment, so while we can’t discount, I feel like people have been too quick to entertain this view as fact.

I wanted to comment on just our universe itself. It could be finite, but that doesn’t mean it has an edge, no more than the surface of a sphere has an edge. Consider a balloon. It’s quite possible that the universe we live in is like a balloon. We are not in the “inside” space, but existing on the surface, which curves around on itself, even if we can’t perceive this from our 3-dimensional standpoint. There are a number of 4 spatial dimensional possibilities that are closed in this way and which our universe could conceivably be. In this way the universe could be finite, not have an edge, and still be expanding.
 
In the space we know, the universe can’t be infinite. The reason being that there has only been finite time since its creation (“Big Bang”) and you can’t get to infinite distance in finite time.

However, could it be expanding dimensionally as well as spatially?

ICXC NIKA
 
Part of the answer will involve the definition of space.

If space is the void between objects, then it only extends as far as there are objects. Given that premise, if space is infinite, then there must be an infinite number of objects (if not celestial bodies, at least particles). Think about the implications of that.

If space is *not *the void between objects, but “extends beyond” the material universe, then how can we determine, even theoretically, whether it is finite or infinite?
 
Hatikvah said:
So there is an idea going around among various atheist and irreligious scientists and others alike that there is more than one universe. (No, it is not like TV where another universe is the same thing but you didn’t shave this morning; it would be a completely different realm and space.)

When confronted with this theory, we have to think: is ours universe that God created infinitely vast? This is incomprehensible to us, being finite beings, unless if God gives us the knowledge. We’ve only discovered a grain of sand on an entire beach, perhaps.

Then on the other hand, because God is infinite and omnipresent, the universe may have a spatial end (though we know it is somehow expanding). What is outside of the universe? Can there be an outside? Can matter exist out there?

For any Mormons out there who are reading, you may be interested in an eternal progression-based theory that each new deity creates their own universe, so we live in only one of an infinite amount of universes. There’s a blog post on it here: mormonmultiverse.blogspot.com/p/eternal-progression-in-mormon.html\

Post your theories here and discuss this mysterious cosmic matter.
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Not sure it matters to me personally. It is what it is. I don’t have a problem with God creating one universe with or without spatial limits, or multiple universes with or without spatial limits. I have no problem with the possibility of other dimensions, which, again, could be infinite in and of themselves (and why just space, time, matter, energy?). To me, when you have a creator, and you have infinity, the possibilities of what can exist are literally endless, in every possible way man can conceive (or not). God will always surpass the comprehension and knowledge of his creatures, including man. So will his works. This is a good thing.
 
Hatikvah said:
So there is an idea going around among various atheist and irreligious scientists and others alike that there is more than one universe. (No, it is not like TV where another universe is the same thing but you didn’t shave this morning; it would be a completely different realm and space.)

When confronted with this theory, we have to think: is ours universe that God created infinitely vast? This is incomprehensible to us, being finite beings, unless if God gives us the knowledge. We’ve only discovered a grain of sand on an entire beach, perhaps.

Then on the other hand, because God is infinite and omnipresent, the universe may have a spatial end (though we know it is somehow expanding). What is outside of the universe? Can there be an outside? Can matter exist out there?

For any Mormons out there who are reading, you may be interested in an eternal progression-based theory that each new deity creates their own universe, so we live in only one of an infinite amount of universes. There’s a blog post on it here: mormonmultiverse.blogspot.com/p/eternal-progression-in-mormon.html\

Post your theories here and discuss this mysterious cosmic matter.
Click to expand...
It is written “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span?” (Isaiah 40:12). An infinitely spatial universe is contradictory to 'marking off the heavens with a span."

Also, “but thou hast ordered all things in measure, number, and weight.” (Wisdom 11:21). An infinitely spatial universe has no measure or number.

The present science concerning the Big Bang theory and the expanding universe appears to be in conformity with the above scripture passages.

What is outside the universe or is there an outside? I would say there is nothing outside the universe but God. The universe is God’s creation which includes the angelic world. Nothing has being or exists outside of God but what he has created and beyond this is just simply God’s being. One of the attributes of God is his infinite immensity but I don’t think this should be conceived if we consider God’s very being as spatial immensity as space is something He created, I mean God is not made out of space. However large the universe is God fills it as it is written “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” and God’s being is infinite, he is measureless, he is everywhere. The scriptures mention God’s glory as being above the heavens and that he looks down upon heaven and earth so beyond the created universe, the heavens and the earth, is God and there is nothing beyond God. Beyond the visible heavens there may be an invisible heaven which God created for the proper abode or place of the good angels and the blessed souls in heaven of which some fathers of the Church termed the empyrean heaven and which the scholastic theologians commented on and theorized about. This is not to say that at least some of the good angels ever leave this highest heaven for some of the good angels’ ministrations involve human affairs here on earth such as our guardian angels.
 
Richca said:
It is written “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span?” (Isaiah 40:12). An infinitely spatial universe is contradictory to 'marking off the heavens with a span."

Also, “but thou hast ordered all things in measure, number, and weight.” (Wisdom 11:21). An infinitely spatial universe has no measure or number.

The present science concerning the Big Bang theory and the expanding universe appears to be in conformity with the above scripture passages.

What is outside the universe or is there an outside? I would say there is nothing outside the universe but God. The universe is God’s creation which includes the angelic world. Nothing has being or exists outside of God but what he has created and beyond this is just simply God’s being. One of the attributes of God is his infinite immensity but I don’t think this should be conceived if we consider God’s very being as spatial immensity as space is something He created, I mean God is not made out of space. However large the universe is God fills it as it is written “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” and God’s being is infinite, he is measureless, he is everywhere. The scriptures mention God’s glory as being above the heavens and that he looks down upon heaven and earth so beyond the created universe, the heavens and the earth, is God and there is nothing beyond God. Beyond the visible heavens there may be an invisible heaven which God created for the proper abode or place of the good angels and the blessed souls in heaven of which some fathers of the Church termed the empyrean heaven and which the scholastic theologians commented on and theorized about. This is not to say that at least some of the good angels ever leave this highest heaven for some of the good angels’ ministrations involve human affairs here on earth such as our guardian angels.
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I would just like to add in clarification that spatial immensity whether limited or unlimited is not applicable to God as he is a pure spirit. The spatial dimensions of length, breadth, and height or depth have no place in God. These dimensions pertain to quantity and bodies which is inapplicable to God. In reality, God infinitely transcends space, even unlimited space if there was/is one. Accordingly, in the words of Fr. Garrigou Lagrange, it is “a gross error to picture the divine immensity as unlimited space.” He further remarks that it was in attributing spatial immensity to God where Spinoza erred which entails attributing a body to God when He is a pure spirit. Fr. Lagrange says that when we say "God is immense, we mean that he is immeasurable and able to be in every place and that he is actually present everywhere (this last is actually called ubiquity). “Before creation God was immense, but he was not actually present in all things, since things as yet did not exist.”
 
Space is simply a locus for the location of material being, and a measure of the magnitude of that being, just as time is a locus for relative measurement of change from before to after.
Where there is no material being to relate to, there is no space (yet if you were to travel to the farthest star from the big bang and venture past it, you would be bringing space with you because you are located and have material dimensions). And where there is no change or alteration of being, there is no time, since there is no before and no after.

Material in being defines space, just as change in material being defines time.
 
Another interesting thought:
If you were the farthest body out beyond the farthest star from the big bang, and looking away from the stars, you would not be looking into space, because space implies distance, but there is no distance beyond you, since distance requires a starting point and an end point, but there is no point (no material body) to measure to, therefore no space between points; you are the only point in the direction you are looking.
 
Spacetime itself appears to operate as a fabric that can be warped and stretched. When people say that the universe is expanding, they don’t just mean that matter as a whole is drifting further apart. They literally mean that the “fabric” of spacetime is expanding. So space in a physics sense is not just the distance between objects or emptiness, but a real, stretching fabric.

Consider the surface of a balloon. Put two dots an inch apart. Now put more air in the balloon. The fabric between the points literally stretches out. It’s not that the points have any actual movement themselves across the surface of the balloon, it’s that the literal space between them is expanding.

Now, there is certainly actual motion of matter in the universe. The Andromeda galaxy and Milky Way galaxy are moving towards each other becayse of their own velocities. But, in addition to this, space itself is expanding, stretching, and this expansion is accelerating.

So when we ask if space is finite, we’re not talking about the limits of matter. We are talking about a real fabric/manifold. So the question is whether this is infinite or finite, closed or open? As I said in my last post, it could be a closed surface, like the surface of a balloon. Speaking of sailing out beyond all matter is kind of like speaking of sailing off the edge of the world. The universe may actually wrap around on itself, the way the surface of the world wraps around on itself.

Now, it’s been awhile since I took theoretical physics and what not, but this fabric itself, if we wish to refer to it as that, is something, not nothing or emptiness.
 
GEddie said:
In the space we know, the universe can’t be infinite. The reason being that there has only been finite time since its creation (“Big Bang”) and you can’t get to infinite distance in finite time.
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I don’t think this reflects the modern understanding of the big bang.

the big bang theory is simply that everything used to be a LOT closer together, and the OBSERVABLE universe was once in a very small, though not necessarily infinitesimally small, area. The ENTIRE universe (including what is beyond the cosmic horizon) may well be infinite.
 
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