Pre-Big Bang Activity

[Orangebookbag]

I remember reading a few weeks ago that mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose and his colleagues found evidence (obtained from NASA’s WMAP satellite) for cosmic radiation activity BEFORE the big bang. Penrose, who has never been a fan of the standard Big Bang model, jumped on these findings and concluded that our universe has gone through an infinite number of births and deaths - cycles, if you will.

universetoday.com/79750/penrose-wmap-shows-evidence-of-%E2%80%98activity%E2%80%99-before-big-bang/

Not that our faith should ever be shaken by scientific findings (even if this one does come dangerously close to challenging Thomas Aquinas’ first cause proof), I’d just like to note that three new studies are refuting those claims and it looks like, once again, the Big Bang reigns supreme.

scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=no-evidence-of-time-before-big

any thoughts?

 

[JimG]

Most people think of the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe, as well as the beginning of space and time.

But it’s also been suggested that the Big Bang was preceded by a Big Crush, and that the cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe might in fact be an infinite temporal series.

And it’s been awhile since I’ve read Aquinas, but I don’t think his idea of First Cause necessarily relates to a temporal First Cause. An infinite series of temporal causes is possible, but that doesn’t vitiate the need for a Creator, who is just as necessary to the existence of an infinite series as he is to the existence of a single Big Bang.