What is the purpose of such a large universe?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ltravis
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
ltravis said:
I don’t have trouble with many philosohical questions, but this one I have a hard time with. What could God’s purpose be for creating such a massive universe? My normal answer to such a question would be that he made if for us. However, the universe is so huge that I can’t imagine humanity ever being able to make use of it all. Indeed, it is so massive that I don’t imagine people ever even being able to even know everything that is out there. So how, then, could it be for us? Or, is my premise flawed? Did God create some things for a purpose other than us. Or is there more than just us, and those other beings are what some of creation is for? Finally, maybe humanity will live for billions of years and eventually be able to appreciate or make use of all of the universe? What do you all think is the reason for such a large universe?

Larry
Click to expand...
I know this won’t answer your question (or maybe it will) but when I read the Title, a line from a movie jumped to mind.
It was in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood and there was an exchange between Morgan Freeman and a small Girl. Morgan Freeman Played Azeem, a Muslim man. Obviously this small English girl has never seen a “Black” man before. The exchange goes:

Azeem: Salaam, little one.
Small Girl: Did God paint you?
Azeem: Did God paint me?
[laughs]
Azeem: For certain.
Small Girl: Why?
Azeem: Because Allah loves wondrous variety.

So God created the huge, wide universe for this simple reason. He loves Wondrous variety.

Peace
James
 
Isaacsdad said:
I’ve often wondered the same, especially considering how insignificantly small the earth seems in relativity to the rest of the universe. That God would incarnate himself on this small planet in a human body? My brain is way to small to comprehend this.
Click to expand...
And that’s the rub, isn’t it. That the author of this vast universe would not only join us on this measly dust speck, but would for all of eternity take our form. Trapped in a human body forever, all because of something WE did in defiance of his law. It’s just too humbling to even try to ponder.
 
ltravis said:
I don’t have trouble with many philosohical questions, but this one I have a hard time with. What could God’s purpose be for creating such a massive universe?
Click to expand...
Size is relative. To God, the universe no doubt seems quite tiny.

Who knows what joy God may get out of contemplating a few billion little galaxies? Perhaps they are toys to Him.

Edwin
 
Grateful4mercy said:
And that’s the rub, isn’t it. That the author of this vast universe would not only join us on this measly dust speck, but would for all of eternity take our form. Trapped in a human body forever, all because of something WE did in defiance of his law. It’s just too humbling to even try to ponder.
Click to expand...

*Unless *the Incarnation was intended, even without the Fall: on this view (which is associated with Blessed John Duns Scotus), the Incarnation “would have been” a sort of royal visit to an unfallen race; the Fall changes it to a rescue operation - but only from our POV is there any change. 😛​

 
Thanks all, for providing such interesting reading to my question. I really had no good answer. I consider if I were God, and creation was for ants (to return to that example). I give them an entire yard, which is their world, and to show my magesty I let them ponder the possibility of all the other yards around them, and to really blow their minds, the idea that there might even be other neighborhoods of yards. They can’t ever imagine visiting them all, even if they are correct and that they exist. That pretty well makes my point to them - humble they become to think such things. BUT – not only have I created other neighborhoods, but other entire cities and continents and oceans. Such things are completely beyond the ants’ frame of reference, and beyond even their imagination. It seems such things have no purpose towards what I want to do for the ants. And so it is with us and the universe. However, I love the theory everything in the universe was necessary to support an earth with life. That makes the most sense, and is most reassuring to me. I guess it would be just like the ants needing an (imponderable to them) planet to support their reality, their neighborhood.

-Larry
 
crowonsnow said:
The most distant galaxies are billions of light years distant. But traveling at these very high speeds will cause time to pass slower for the traveler. There wouldn’t be an Earth left to come back to after our tour of the cosmos because time would pass relatively faster for the Earth and its inhabitants.

Check out the twin paradox and special relativity.
Click to expand...
Yes, if we could travel at near light speed, it might take 13 billion earth-years to cross the universe, but the travelers would perceive it to be just a few weeks or days (depending on how near light speed we got.)

At light speed, time would essentially stop for the traveler. However, his mass would become infinite and his length zero.

If we traveled faster than light, does that mean that time would go backwards, and length and mass would go negative? Could be a new mode of travel.
 
JimG said:
Yes, if we could travel at near light speed, it might take 13 billion earth-years to cross the universe, but the travelers would perceive it to be just a few weeks or days (depending on how near light speed we got.)

At light speed, time would essentially stop for the traveler. However, his mass would become infinite and his length zero.

If we traveled faster than light, does that mean that time would go backwards, and length and mass would go negative? Could be a new mode of travel.
Click to expand...
Well, we can’t travel at light speed or faster unless we become more massive than the cosmos itself. So I think there’s some fundamental discovery awaiting us with regards to the speed of light, probably having to do with the fabric of spacetime itself.

We may discover that all apparent motion is just localized vibration that gets propagated, or perhaps that motion itself has something more fundamental about it. Think about the surface of the ocean. There isn’t really a surface, just two planes in contact. The surface is an illusion, or rather just a creation of the air above and the water below. Or maybe the cosmos is a black bubble and not a black hole.

The universe is big in a classical human sense, but it simply is what it is. It may be quite tiny in comparison, infinite regression being a distinct possibility.

For me, asking why the universe is so big is like asking why it’s so hard to make a good cheesecake.
 
This is an interesting question because it looks to me like man could exist just fine with only the solar system as we know it to be and very little else beyond that seems to be required fro human life.
 
crowonsnow said:
Good question. Why does anything of any size need a reason to exist?

There is no reason why any catholic gods should exist, and there is certainly no purpose to their alleged existence.
Click to expand...
Some of what you say is true, when viewed from the perspective of pure “self”. The Problem with humanity, is that we “know just eough to be dangerous”, as the saying goes.
For instance, we are self aware, and thus we are curious about our surroundings, and abstract things like time and distance, the substance of things and their beginnings and endings. So we, “as a species” study on things, and reach certain conclusions based upon observation and reason. Sometimes these conclusions are changed by the development of greater understanding. The Earth’s relationship to the Sun for instance. Direct observation tells us that the Sun revolves around the earth, and indeed from our purely natural perspective it does, yet a larger understanding of the universe tells us that the earth actually revolves around the sun. The substance has not changed, only our knowledge and perspective has.

[Edited] We accept each other. We accept the universe. “Reasons” may fill a need in our human need to understand, but they are not required of God.

Peace
James
 
The universe was made so large so that we could one day hear Carl Sagan say, “Billions and billions.”
 
The vexing notion of a large universe is the perception of unending complexity, and this befuddles our limited understanding of existence.

But what must be noted, is that the enormous size of the universe, daunting to us, is perfectly simple to God, because He inhabits every nano-measurement of space in this universe.

As the bread of faith grows with it leaven, the never-ending love of God causes never-ending Creation, because Creation is Love. Thus, the universe and all her parts expand at a never-ending rate as God continually creates and creates and creates.

The lesson is not that God likes things big. The lesson is that His love is un-containable and never-ending.
 
I am not saying this is the only purpose, but maybe it is a purpose…

God did say be fruitful and multiply right… so it makes sense that there is a big universe in which to multiply. If we are to multiply naturally, it is only a relativlely small amount of time to populate the entire earth (look at our present state of population). So if the universe is created before the fall, and before the fall people did not die, it would make sense that there were plenty land, including other planets besides the Earth, to occupy so that it did not get too crowded. How many more millions would be on this earth if we did not die, if Adam had never eaten the apple? Perhaps the vastness of the universe is majorly part of the old plan before the fall.
 
Here are the last two paragraph’s of Stephen Barr’s article “Anthropic Coincidences,” from First Things (about 2001):

“The traditional answer is a good one, but there may be another. It turns out that the very age and vastness of the universe may have an “anthropic” significance. Life emerged in our universe in a way that required great stretches of time. As we have seen, most of the elements needed for life were made deep in stars. Those stars had to explode to disperse those elements and make them available before life could even begin to evolve. That whole process alone required billions of years. The evolution of human life from those elements required billions of years more. Thus, the briefness of human life* spans and even of human history compared with the age of the universe may simply be a matter of physical necessity, given the developmental way that God seems to prefer to work. It takes longer for a tree to grow to maturity than the fruit of the tree lasts. It took much longer for the universe to grow to maturity than we last.
Physics can also suggest why the universe has to be so large. The laws of gravity discovered by Einstein relate the size of the universe directly to its age. The fact that the universe is many billions of light-years across is related to the fact that it has lasted several billions of years. Perhaps we would be less daunted by a cozy little universe the size, say, of a continent. But such a universe would have lasted only a few milliseconds. Even a universe the size of the solar system would have lasted only a few hours. A universe constructed in such a way as to evolve life may well have had to extend widely in space as well as in time. It may well be that the frightening expanses that are so often said to be a sign of human insignificance may actually, like so many other features of our strange universe, point to man, as they also proclaim the glory of God.”

If you would like to see the entire article, go to firstthings.com, type in Stephen Barr. When his list of articles comes up, click on “Anthropic Coincidences.”
 
:bible1: Gen 15:5
[God] brought [Abraham] outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
 
Hehe.

Just had a thought:

If God had made the Universe, say, half as large, would that change the OP question? :hmmm:

And if it were half as large, where would it end and what would be beyond it???

Whoh. Better stop. My brain hurts.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top