St. Aquinas's Causality and Modern Quantum Physics

[Mike_O]

I have always found the 3rd of St. Thomas’s proofs for God’s existence to be the most intriguing and the most logical. I read something from a physicist not too long ago that cast doubts on this proof, which states that because the temporal universe is composed of a finite (or, perhaps, infinite) series of causes and effects, there must necessarily be a logical beginning to the chain, or an Uncaused cause.

The physicist put forth that certain subatomic particles “create themselves” and I believe that Stephen Hawking, in his work with black holes, postulated the existence of self-creating entitities.

I am always skeptical when reading of so-called “challenges” science foists on religion, having seen the abject mess that is evolutionary theory, but I am wondering if a physicist can comment on this and what it implies for St. Thomas’s proof? I am not a physicist, but I hope not to be misled by Hawking just because his brain is 8 times as large as mine.

 

[JimG]

I’m not a physicist, but if I’m wrong perhaps a physicist can correct me.

In physics, particle pairs which are created from ‘nothing’ are not really created from no-thing. They come from the underlying fabric of space-time.

Look at it as simply the reversal of particle -antiparticle ‘anhiliation.’ Lets say an equal and opposite matter and anti-matter particle come together. They anhiliate each other and produce some energy in the process. Particle / antiparticle creation simply reverses that process.

(Astronomer Fred Hoyle’s long defunct “steady state” or “continuous creation” theory of the universe was something else entirely. It was intended as a counter argument to the big bang theory when it was originally proposed. He hypothesized that, in order for the universe to retain its same average density as it expanded, that matter was being continuously created throughout empty space. Thus, no matter how much time elapsed, the universe would look pretty much the same.)

 

[zian]

Well, Steve Hawking is a bright guy, but just because he postulates something, doesn’t necessarily make it so.

I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying that tenets of science might be the main reason for difficulties you perceive in your religious understanding. The frontiers of science are full of speculations that have fallen by the wayside.