Reconciling Genesis with God’s World

[po18guy]

Well, it was nice briefly knowing you…

 

[Aulef]

Science has helped us prove what Genesis teaches us in an ancient type of language.

For instance, when studying the origins of the universe, we learned that probably the universe began as a singularity, extremely hot and dense. Then, after a while, this singularity expanded to something bigger. Finally, once this region cooled down, particles appeared.

This chain of events shows us that first there was a created thing, then time was created (time passed), then space was created (expansion), and finally matter appeared (particles).

In short, there was a summit (singularity), then time was created, then space was created, and matter was created.

This is exactly what Genesis 1,1 teaches us. “In the beginning the Lord God created heaven and earth.” Notice the order of the words: first “in the beginning”, second “heaven”, third “earth”. This is analogous to time, space and matter. Words change, but ideas don’t. This is actually amazing if you think about it.

Regarding the big bang theory, it has one fatal flaw in terms of philosophy. The singularity that originated the universe doesn’t have a cause. People either say it has always been or that it was originated from a previous universe which collapsed into a singularity. Either way, both lack of a primary cause, and this is impossible. If there is no cause, then one thing cannot be in the first place, except an uncaused cause.

Others might say the singularity was the primary cause, however, it is also wrong to say that one thing causes itself. Thus, the big bang theory explained without God, the Eternal First Cause, is flawed.

So, it is possible to reconcile Sacred Scriptures with science as long as theology and philosophy are solid.

 

[rossum]

Regarding the big bang theory, it has one fatal flaw in terms of philosophy. The singularity that originated the universe doesn’t have a cause.

Given the size of the universe at the instant of the Big Bang, the entire universe was on the Planck scale, so quantum mechanics is more appropriate than classical physics. In quantum mechanics, uncaused events are commonly observed. Radioactive decay is an uncaused event for example.

Our normal intuitions from macroscopic observations are often not true at quantum scales. Theories that work on macroscopic scales, like General Relativity, do not always work on quantum scales.

 

[Dovekin]

The Planck Epoch is the earliest stage of the universe, before even quantum mechanics applies. It was shorter than the shortest time we can measure, smaller than the shortest length, emptier than the emptiest space, more dense than the densest star.

The big bang theory describes how expansion from that singularity created the forces that shape our universe: the strong force, the weak force, electric force. Is gravity worked in as well? Those forces are what shape our world, holding matter together and letting different forms and shapes fill the void created by expansion.these forces are the way God’s creatures hold together and are able to communicate and interact.

If uncaused events are commonly seen in quantum mechanics, we know even less about how things happened during the Planck Epoch.

 

[Alyosha1984]

You are arguing Sean Carroll’s assertion, that creation is a giant quantum field equation and that cause and effect is an illusion (because cause and effect aren’t present in the quantum realm). Therefore you are / Sean is attempting to negate the First Cause proof of God.

Leaving aside the fact that this is a giant hypothesis that is based on the assumption that Quantum Mechanics as we understand it today can be extended to encompass Everything. (In reality, we don’t know how/if Quantum mechanics extends to large scales or high masses such as present in the Singularity, since we know quantum is inconsistent with general relativity and that one or both are incomplete or wrong…)

If I take for granted that the universe can be boiled to a Grand Unified Theory Equation for Everything…

Where did the equation and the laws it describes come from?

 

[rossum]

Therefore you are / Sean is attempting to negate the First Cause proof of God.

I use a different argument against the First Cause – and that capitalisation is a dead giveaway of some reification going on.

A cause is a cause because it causes an effect. In the absence of an effect, then there is no cause. Hence the first cause can only exist if there is also a first effect. Cause and effect are mutually conditioned.

Furthermore the “first” in “first cause” is contingent on the prior existence of time; without time we cannot distinguish first from second, third etc.

Hence, any proposed first cause is contingent on both time (for the “first”) and some caused effect (for the “cause”). I suspect that you do not want your deity to be contingent on anything.

I do not need to dig into science for either argument. Besides, science is useless for that purpose. If the Multiverse were shown to have caused the Big Bang, then the argument moves back a step: “What caused the Multiverse?”

 

[gama232]

Halton Arp, who worked with Edwin Hubble, wrote that Hubble was not sure his theory about galaxies moving away from each other was correct. Later, Arp wrote books showing observations where high redshift galaxies were directly connected to low redshift galaxies.

 

[gama232]

Immediately after the Big Bang, what did the resulting energy expand into? Nothing? A zero energy environment? A friend had friends at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he asked them. The result? It doesn’t make sense.

 

[gama232]

Einstein was working on a Unified Field theory. There is a relationship between electricity and magnetism but there is no clear explanation. Atoms were once thought to be the smallest parts of matter. It turns out they are composed of still smaller particles.

Quantum Mechanics partly relies on “spooky actions at a distance,” according to Einstein.

 

[rossum]

Immediately after the Big Bang, what did the resulting energy expand into? Nothing? A zero energy environment? A friend had friends at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he asked them. The result? It doesn’t make sense.

Zero energy? It makes perfect sense. Here is Stephen Hawking on zero energy:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

– A Brief History of Time

Both cosmology and quantum mechanics can get very strange. When the two combine, as in the Big Bang…

 

[gama232]

Mr. Hawking, a brilliant man, can be mistaken.

 

[Freddy]

Immediately after the Big Bang, what did the resulting energy expand into? Nothing?

Space is expanding as you read this. To ask what it is exapnding into is a meaningless question. It expands from all points.

Did you catch that question directed to you earlier about the age of the planet?

 

[rossum]

Mr. Hawking, a brilliant man, can be mistaken.

Theologians, many of whom are brilliant men, can also be mistaken. Your point being?

 

[gama232]

Quite wrong. What is space expanding into right now? Nothing? Hardly credible. More like wishful thinking.

 

[EndTimes]

I totally agree with your first comment.

I really believe that anyone can believe whatever they want

• as long as it doesn’t negatively impact others. I have no problem with it.

But as regards whether it matters or not, it does if you are involved in discussions that involve evolution for example. It’s a complete waste of time arguing some esoteric point regarding genetic functions for example if the other person thinks there’s only been a few thousand years for the process to work. We’d both be wasting our time. So in that regard it’s a need-to-know position.

RE: *"I really believe that anyone can believe whatever they want *
- as long as it doesn’t negatively impact others. I have no problem with it "

Sounds so simple - however, arguably uber ‘simplistic’ when set upon the backdrop of Human History…

WRT ‘days’ …

Frankly, Freddy,
I’ve much more important concerns

• than e.g., involving in never-ending disputes on matters of which as I’d just said,
  are far less weighty…

 

[Freddy]

Quite wrong. What is space expanding into right now? Nothing? Hardly credible. More like wishful thinking.

I’m not sure that you are grasping the concept. There is nothing ‘outside’ the universe for it to expand into. The distances between objects are increasing. And not from a single point. They are moving apart at the same rate wherever you would be in the universe.

Nothing is moving ‘outwards’. It’s not like a sphere getting bigger around a central point. But everything is moving apart.

 

[gama232]

“everything is moving apart” in a defined space. The latest Hubble deep space image shows very faint galaxies in the background. Where are they? How far away are they?

Galaxies are not moving apart at the same rate. Read some articles about redshift. At present, there are galaxies with low redshift and those with high redshift. There are reports of galaxies moving away from us at superluminal - faster than light - speeds. This indicates the theory of redshifts does not describe the speed of things moving away from us.

 

[Freddy]

“everything is moving apart” in a defined space.

There are reports of galaxies moving away from us at superluminal - faster than light - speeds.

The only ‘defined space’ is the edge of the observable universe. And it’s not an edge as such. It’s simply the limit that we can see (like standing in a huge field on a very foggy day). And it’s the limit to what we can see because…the space near galaxies at that limit is expanding faster than light can traverse it. The galaxies are almost certainly moving. But they ain’t moving at superluminal speeds.

If you were in a galaxy at the edge of the observable universe then the size of the observable universe would be exactly the same (just the same as if you stood somewhere else in that foggy field). And our universe would appear to be moving faster than light. But obviously we’re not.

I’m not sure why you’re arguing the point anyway. We’re talking distances of billions of light years and hence billions of years. There’s no such length of time as far as you are concerned.

 

[John_Martin]

I also believe that God created the world and granted us reason to understand it. I believe the world itself is another glorious and beautiful thing God has given us, along with the Bible.

I struggle to reconcile Genesis 1 with the world which God gave us. The Big Bang happened and there’s no explanation other than God started it. But Big Bang cosmology seems very different from the Genesis 1 account. How can we reconcile these two divine gifts- the Bible and the world?

1. If you accept “reason” then you certainly agree that truth cannot negate truth if both are correct.
2. Since Genesis 1 is revelation, its truth is authoritatively posited.
3. Any human finding concerning the “who, what, where, when, how, and why” of creaturely reality cannot contradict truth if it is also to be known as true.
4. Science and philosophy have not gone far enough in their work unless and until their findings do not contradict known truth.
   (Of course, only a Catholic scientist and philosopher realizes the answers have not yet been shown since others accept no revealed authority).

BTW: Genesis is not a history. Genesis is part of a religious service, a kind of “creed” recited by (or recited in the hearing of) the Holy people of God.

When we confess and declare the creed at mass, we are asserting “creation”, our own “living Book of Genesis”, to stand out as a “peculiar people” dwelling in the middle of a world that does not know where we are from (nor actually does it know its own origin).

 

[rossum]

Since Genesis 1 is revelation, its truth is authoritatively posited.

But human interpretations of Genesis 1 are not guaranteed to be true. There are different human interpretations around, and at most one of them can be true.

As well as Genesis being revealed, the world is made by God. The world is therefore as much from God as Genesis is, and so has an equal authority. For example, Isaiah 55:12 talks of trees having hands. The world shows us that trees do not have hands. The world of God overrules the word of God, and we interpret this verse as poetic, not literal. We may use the evidence of the world to guide us to the correct interpretation of the word.