Was there nothing before the Big bang?

[dmwessel]

There was nothing physical (dark matter) before the Big Bang, unless of course there’s something to parallel universes.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There was nothing physical (dark matter) before the Big Bang, unless of course there’s something to parallel universes.

Twilight Zone?

 

[dmwessel]

There was no big bang.

God was always there and He created the world Himself.

Now that just shows an alarming lack of intelligence!!

 

[dmwessel]

Twilight Zone?

Who knows. We don’t even know what dark matter is at this point!!:

 

[dmwessel]

There is no reason to reject the Big Bang. It is well established as a scientific phenomenon, even more so than evolution, because we can see the continuing expansion of the universe.

The main aspect of the theory that is still hotly disputed is whether the Big Bang is only one in an infinite series of universes being born and destined to die. No proof at all for this. But the atheists favor it. Anything but a Creator God!

great post

 

[dmwessel]

Yes, an expansion from a point of a singularity.

antimatter??

 

[yppop]

There is sufficient observable evidence to make the big bang theory plausible.

One of those observations is that the space that defines the dimensions of the universe (let’s call it universal space) is expanding, which means that the galaxies are not moving through universal space, instead the distance between galaxies is getting larger.

There are two very important facts to be derived from the observation of expanding universal space.

1. Running the expanding universe backward in time, i.e., shrinking universal space by decreasing the distance between discrete points, means that all of the universal space was compressed into the infinitesimal object we call the singularity. In addition to matter, energy and time, universal space also emerged with the big bang.
2. Since the universe expanded from the singularity to a beyond-imaginable size in 13.7 billion years, it at one time was the size of a pumpkin. Because the universe was finite when it was pumpkin size , it must still be finite because nothing can expand to infinity.

So what came before the singularity? and what still lies beyond the immense but finite universe? In other words, what is the before/beyond?

I contend that because the universe is finite and thus bounded, there is a boundary that separates the universe from the before/beyond, a boundary like a finely delineated perception of two forms of blackness. One form of the blackness is the space of our universe; the other form of blackness is infinite nothingness, the only thing we can imagine the before/beyond to be. This means that total reality is bifurcated by two kinds of space - discrete and continuous at the boundary.

Since the points that form discrete space (which is defined by the rational numbers) are separated from one another, the gaps that are present must be filled with continuous space (which is defined by the real numbers). This a spatial duality provides the way to explain a reality that is both material and spiritual.

The discrete space that emerged from the singularity must be the foundation of the material aspect of reality. And, the infinite nothingness, that has the characteristics of continuous space, and is omnipresent in filling the gaps in discrete space, must be the spiritual aspect of reality.

Infinite nothingness, that is essentially pure existence and can be modeled by continuous space, extends to infinity and eternity in the before/beyond, and permeates everywhere within the universe. This omnipresence can only be the Mind of God and that is what came before and exists beyond the universe.

Yppop

 

[raikou]

To “cause to exist” logically requires that the universe could not exist simultaneously with God through all God’s eternity.

What I mean by “cause to exist” is that the universe still owes its existence to God, not that there was a time when the universe did not exist, then God caused it to exist.

St. Thomas seems to suggest that this is possible in Summa Theologica, Question 46, Article 2, Reply to Objection 1.

newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm

 

[Kaega]

What evidence do we Catholics have that there was nothing at some point?

I’m sorry, but do you Catholics have any evidence of the Big Bang? I don’t.

 

[yppop]

I’m sorry, but do you Catholics have any evidence of the Big Bang? I don’t.

Here is what I posted (#96) a couple of years ago on a thread in this forum called “The Big Bang Myth”, now found on page 125.

The development of the Big Bang Theory

1814 – Joseph Fraunhofer invented the spectroscope and discovered dark lines in the sun’s spectrum

1859 – Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen found that the frequencies of the dark spectral lines found in sunlight corresponded to the frequencies of bright lines produced when chemical elements are activated to glow in the laboratory. When a spectroscope is attached to a telescope astronomers are able to tell what stars are made of.

1900 - The universe at the turn of the century was thought to have consisted of a single galaxy (our Milky Way Galaxy) consisting of planets, moons, stars and clouds of gases called nebulae.

1912 – Henrietta Leavett discovered a method for determining the distance to stars called Cepheid variables

1914 – Vesto Slipher announced that characteristic spectral lines observed in the light from nebulae were not at frequencies one would expect; instead they were shift toward the red side of the spectrum.

1915 – Einstein introduced the General Theory of Relativity. When Einstein solved the equation for the universe he found the solution predicted an expanding universe. In order to conform to the existing paradigm that held that the universe was static, he introduced a constant, since referred to as the cosmological constant.

1922 – Alexander Friedman found that Einstein made a mathematical mistake; but even with the cosmological constant, the relativity equation predicted an expanding universe.

1924 - Edwin Hubble focused the new 100 inch Mt. Wilson reflecting telescope on the nebulae and was able to resolve individual stars. He found Cepheid variables and used Leavitt’s technique to measure the distance to the nebulae and found them to be outside our Milky Way galaxy. They were separate galaxies; the Universe was much bigger than previously assumed.

1929 – Hubble analyzed the red shifts in the spectral lines from distant galaxies and noticed that the more distant a galaxy from our own, the larger the red shift. This meant that the farther away the receding galaxies were from our galaxy, the higher the velocity of recession. This could only mean that the universe was expanding.

1931 – Father Georges Lemaitre independently recreated the Freidman model, realized that expansion was real and proposed that the universe expanded from an infinitely small object called the ‘primeval atom’.

1948 – George Gamow and his student Ralph Alpher applied classical thermodynamics and nuclear physics to the primeval atom and predicted that the remnants of the expansion would be a background of energy measuring about 5 degrees Kelvin. In addition, this work also predicted the relative abundance of lithium and beryllium by a process of nucleosynthesis.

1948 – Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Herman Biondi argued against the Big Bang theory’s implication of a beginning to the universe by proposing the Steady State Theory; the theory postulated that the expansion of the universe was the result of the continuous creation of matter and the universe had no beginning, thus no need for God. Hoyle facetiously gave the hypothesis the name “big bang theory” during a radio broadcast.

1964 - Jim Peeples, Robert Dicke, et.al. at Princeton University, apparently without knowledge of Gamow’s prediction, offered their own prediction that there should be a detectable remnant of the big bang; the remnant has since become known as the cosmic background radiation (CBR). They were constructing an instrument to search for such a signal from space; when they were informed that two BTL engineers at Holmdel, NJ, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were troubled by a noise from all parts of the sky while setting up a radio telescope to be used for wireless communication. The Princeton group realized that the remnant that they and Gamow’s group predicted was the signal observed by Penzias and Wilson, thus verifying the big bang theory. The State State theory was abandoned.

Subsequently the prediction of the distribution of light elements was also verified by observation adding additional validation of the theory,

Also the observed distribution of galaxies in the various stages of evolution provides additional support for the BB theory.

This evidence is as good as the evidence for much of what is accepted as science, which, of course, is always subject to change. I, in the meantime, find the big bang theory to be a powerful argument for the existence of God. Many materialistic scientists, in order to dismiss the possibility of God’s existence, have derived highly speculative hypotheses based on things other than the “nothingness” I argued for in my previous post.
If science is based on Occam’s razor that states that in the choice between competing hypotheses, the simplest must be chosen and there is nothing simpler than “nothingness”!

Yppop

 

[Della]

I’m sorry, but do you Catholics have any evidence of the Big Bang? I don’t.

You seem to think that Catholics in particular have some dog in this hunt. We don’t. It hardly matters how the universe came into existence from the physical evidence because no matter how it happened it was still an act of creation by our Creator. Learning how it physically happened may be interesting and may even prove useful to humanity in some way, but it hardly matters to us regarding matters of faith and morals, which is what the Church primarily concerned with. It’s all very well to understand how the heavens go but it is even more important to know how to go to heaven.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

This evidence is as good as the evidence for much of what is accepted as science, which, of course, is always subject to change. I, in the meantime, find the big bang theory to be a powerful argument for the existence of God.

Einstein, initially opposed to the Big Bang, finally came to accept it. He sometimes referred to God in his writings. Though he denied the existence of a personal God, he recognized the need to assert the principle of a foundation for the law and order of the universe, much as Newton did. The Big Bang must have also impressed him, since he had in his early days assumed the universe to be infinite and eternal (uncreated). That assumption seems to have been the reason for introducing the cosmological constant, which he later referred to as the “biggest blunder of my career.”

 

[Anselm33]

There is sufficient observable evidence to make the big bang theory plausible.

…

1. Running the expanding universe backward in time, i.e., shrinking universal space by decreasing the distance between discrete points, means that all of the universal space was compressed into the infinitesimal object we call the singularity. In addition to matter, energy and time, universal space also emerged with the big bang.
2. Since the universe expanded from the singularity to a beyond-imaginable size in 13.7 billion years, it at one time was the size of a pumpkin. Because the universe was finite when it was pumpkin size , it must still be finite because nothing can expand to infinity.

So what came before the singularity? and what still lies beyond the immense but finite universe? In other words, what is the before/beyond?

I contend that because the universe is finite and thus bounded, there is a boundary that separates the universe from the before/beyond, a boundary like a finely delineated perception of two forms of blackness. One form of the blackness is the space of our universe; the other form of blackness is infinite nothingness, the only thing we can imagine the before/beyond to be. This means that total reality is bifurcated by two kinds of space - discrete and continuous at the boundary.

Since the points that form discrete space (which is defined by the rational numbers) are separated from one another, the gaps that are present must be filled with continuous space (which is defined by the real numbers). This a spatial duality provides the way to explain a reality that is both material and spiritual.

The discrete space that emerged from the singularity must be the foundation of the material aspect of reality. And, the infinite nothingness, that has the characteristics of continuous space, and is omnipresent in filling the gaps in discrete space, must be the spiritual aspect of reality.

Infinite nothingness, that is essentially pure existence and can be modeled by continuous space, extends to infinity and eternity in the before/beyond, and permeates everywhere within the universe. This omnipresence can only be the Mind of God and that is what came before and exists beyond the universe.

Yppop

You have presented some interesting ideas. You might be interested in a discussion of the non-physical reality of infinity by the eminent cosmologist/philosopher, George F.R. Ellis, recipient of the Templeton prize. See his Cambridge Lecture on YouTube.

 

[ProVobis]

There was nothing physical (dark matter) before the Big Bang, unless of course there’s something to parallel universes.

Perhaps a vast amount of energy (one called it God’s love) which got converted to Mass at the Big Bang?

 

[DaveBj]

Perhaps a vast amount of energy (one called it God’s love) which got converted to Mass at the Big Bang?

The Big Bang was Catholic? Who knew?!

 

[Frankenfurter]

What evidence do we Catholics have that there was nothing at some point?

None

Your question implies that something about Catholic faith requires this pre-big bang nothingness. I am not aware of anything in the Catholic faith that requires that there was nothing before the ‘big bang’.

It is the joy of God to hide himself from man. It is the joy of man to find God in Christ, one another, and creation itself.

 

[ProVobis]

The Big Bang was Catholic? Who knew?!

Yep, got baptized in the first recorded trillionth of a second.

 

[aragonjohn1]

John, a suggestion to help you in argumentation/discussion. If you assert something more or less controversial, such as disputing the validity of the Big Bang explanation for the expanding universe, the COBE microwave radiation, etc., then it helps the discussion for you to give references to back up your claim–web sites, names of books, scientists, etc.
That enables the discussion to go beyond a " 'tis, 'tisn’t " type of argument. I know of arguments for cyclic universes and for continuing multiverses that counter a Creation; if this is what you’re thinking of, I can argue against them.

i usually do site reliable sources since am a Catholic who believes in semi-creationism but, this time since have cited before many sources in one post thought could try to be succint. thank You since you ask will give you some of the context of what am speaking.
some E.G.

" Unlike as with Darwinism, big bang cosmology is relatively insulated from real-world feedback because millions of professionals do not work in related fields as with biology. If hundreds of thousands of professionals received actual astronomical feedback in the same way that farmers, veterinarians, and physicians do daily while working with biological systems, then surveys might show a picture similar to that regarding Darwinism. That is, if professionals interacted daily with all the astronomical data that challenges and undermines the expectations of big bang theory, then the world would likely see a similar percentage of professionals in related scientific fields rejecting the big bang too. Cosmological dogma, further removed from human observation than are theories on anatomy, “benefits” in a backward sense, from the herd mentality that reinforces the tendency to believe authorities because most people lack daily experience with first-hand evidence that may contradicting (or support) the received account. "

• " In the exact solutions constructed in this article, the expanding FRW universe emerges behind a subluminous blast wave that explodes outward from the origin r̄ = 0 at the instant of the big bang t = 0, at a distance beyond one Hubble length.¶ The shock wave then continues to weaken as it expands outward until the Hubble length eventually catches up to the shock, and this marks the event horizon of a black hole in the TOV metric beyond the shock. From this time onward "
• some of the many varying views on the big bang first propesed by Fr. lemaitrie.

they couldn’t figure out—what nobody has yet figured out—is where those original hydrogen atoms came from.

• theoretical science on origins

• red-shift, most common elements of the universe including; helium, deuterium, and lithium; “even-ness”/“dots,” problems with time, etc … ( part of the problems addressed )

God bless

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Your question implies that something about Catholic faith requires this pre-big bang nothingness. I am not aware of anything in the Catholic faith that requires that there was nothing before the ‘big bang’.

The word “before” indicates a moment in time.

Since time was created with the Big Bang, there was no “nothing before” the BB.

 

[meltzerboy]

The word “before” indicates a moment in time.

Since time was created with the Big Bang, there was no “nothing before” the BB.

So the concept of “nothing” is defined according to Big Bang theory not only as no-thing (matter, dark matter, energy) in space but also as no-thing in regard to time? Isn’t the concept of time still considered dubious and unclear by many physicists?