“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” Albert Einstein
I am intrigued by the stories of peoples’ journeys, especially of their thought journeys. Some are more intriguing than others. The story of Pat Flynn fits squarely into the more intriguing category. (See the Side B Stories Podcast – Episode 78 – Science, Philosophy, and Reality – Pat Flynn’s Story)
Patrick Flynn has an educational background in philosophy. He embraced naturalism at an early age, but he encountered philosophical problems with naturalism when he read people like HL Menken and Frederick Nietzsche. These problems led him to seek answers that might provide a more coherent view of reality.
I am not going to try to summarize his whole story. You can listen to him describe his thought journey at the link in the first paragraph. I just want to focus on one aspect of his journey from atheism to theism.
Flynn’s journey took him from atheism to theism through the medium of philosophy. This process was intellectual for him, and not experiential. He became convinced of theism, first, before he even told his spouse, because he knew she was not particularly fond of religion.
He didn’t dive into Christianity after he became convinced of theism. He explored Eastern religions, first, perhaps because he had a good friend who was Indian. When the Eastern religions didn’t solve the philosophical problems posed by naturalism, he reluctantly began to explore Christianity.
One of the big issues Flynn had with atheism was the lack of explanation for the fact the universe is intelligible. Digging further, Patrick Flynn found that the fundamental, core commitments of science fit much better with theism than with atheism.
The best scientific data and analysis that we have today leads to the conclusion that the universe we live in began a finite time ago. That understanding, however, was far from evident just 100 years ago. In fact, most scientists, then, believed the universe always existed (the Steady State Theory).
Evidence that suggested to the contrary, that the universe is expanding (and therefore had a beginning “point”), was not received enthusiastically. Even the people whose discoveries led to that conclusion resisted it. Einstein famously added a cosmological constant to his equations on general relativity to avoid that conclusion.
Such was the commitment in the scientific community to the “Steady State” theory: the theory that the universe always existed infinitely in the past.
Indeed, that evidence unfolded like a “big bang” that blew apart the previous scientific consensus. Thus, the “Big Bang Theory” theory of an expanding universe from a “point” of beginning was coined, perhaps, more for the effect it had on the scientific community than as a descriptor of the occurrence. (See Is the Big Bang finally Over?)
Though the evidence continues to substantiate the view that our universe is expanding (and therefore had a beginning a finite time ago), I have often been aware that science is provisional. Just when we think we know something, something else comes along to change the paradigm. The recent history of physics and cosmology is a case in point.
A primary reason that the Big Bang Theory landed so hard in the scientific community is because it challenged more than the accepted science. It challenged the prevalent worldview of the scientific community since the Enlightenment.
Since the days of Darwin (and even before Darwin), people in the scientific community had been advocating for separating science from religion. When Darwin proposed evolutionary theory (natural “selection” acting on random changes), the scientific community was more than ready to use that “key” to unlock what they viewed as the “shackles” of religion.
The Steady State Theory, that the universe always existed infinitely in the past, was the natural assumption of scientists based on a worldview with no God and no religion at the center of it. Life was good for the proponents of naturalistic materialism until the specter of a beginning to our universe (and the real possibility of a “Beginner”).
That many people have managed to keep that specter at bay despite the strong evidence that gets stronger as time goes on that our universe is expanding is a testament to the faith some people have in naturalistic materialism. Never since before the Enlightenment, however, has science been so harmonious with the Bible and belief in God.
Even so, I have often wondered: what if the paradigm shifts again? What if new evidence is discovered to upset the apple cart again? What if that new evidence begins to cut against the grain of the Big Bang Theory and reinvigorates the Static State Theory?
What if the new evidence shows what Einstein and most other cosmologists and physicists believed 100 years ago? That our universe is past eternal; that it is not expanding after all; or that the earth is expanding, but that the expansion is not proof of a “singularity” (beginning)?
Indeed, this is what many preeminent scientists have been trying to prove since the scientific world conceded the evidence of the apparent expansion and singularity of our universe.
Would Christians, like myself, and other theists simply cling to faith without evidence? Would we cling to our faith “in the teeth of the evidence”, as Richard Dawkins has charged?
I wasn’t sure before today. As I was listening to Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer on Audible, an answer to my question began to materialize. I will attempt to summarize it.
Set of Universe Infographics – Solar system, Planets comparison, Sun and Moon Facts, Space Junk made by man, Big Bang Theory, Galaxies Classification, Milky Way description. Vector illustration
The question that forms the title of this blog article is the subject of a recent video on YoutTube. I am embedding the video here so you can watch and listen for yourself. The suggestion, however, that the James Webb Telescope is disproving the “Big Bang”, is overstated. You might even call it clickbait!
Before launching into my thoughts on this, however, what is meant by the “Big Bang” needs to be defined. The terminology is credited to Fred Hoyle. When Hoyle coined the phrase in a 1949 a talk on BBC Radio, he was probably speaking tongue in cheek.
Hoyle (like most scientists of his age) had long believed in a steady state universe. The new evidence indicating that the universe is expanding was like a big bang to them. It rocked the long-held view that our universe is static and unchanging.
The laws of physics seemed immutable. Why wouldn’t scientists believe the universe was equally immutable?
That the evidence that the universe is expanding was unsettling to the accepted “science” at the time is an understatement. As Hoyle was describing the then recent discoveries and the theories that derived from that evidence, he said:
“These theories were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past.”
Because these discoveries came as a shock wave to scientists in the first half of the 20th Century. the term, “big bang”, may have been used to characterize how those discoveries were received!
The evidence that the universe is actually expanding raised the specter that the universe isn’t static, and it might even have had an origination “point”. This realization that the universe may have had a beginning wasn’t lost on scientists at the time, and it wasn’t eagerly received.
The term didn’t really “stick” until the 1970’s, and it isn’t really a good descriptor for what we (think we) know happened. It probably wasn’t a “bang” for instance, because no sound was likely generated. The history of the development of this evidence is interesting and can be found on Wikipedia.
The Big Bang does suggest a beginning to the Universe (to put it bluntly). This possibility, of course, has theological implications, another realization that wasn’t lost on scientists who largely viewed the universe through a materialistic lens. That possibility was largely downplayed then, and many scientists have continued to downplay that possibility.
We still don’t have evidence that reveals how the universe was formed. We can’t see back that far, and doubt exists whether we ever will be able to see back that far. As the Wikipedia article states: “[T]he Big Bang model does not describe how energy, time, and space were caused, but rather it describes the emergence of the present universe from an ultra-dense and high-temperature initial state.”
The current suggestion that the James Webb Telescope is disproving the “Big Bang” (the implication of an expanding universe with a “beginning”) comes from people who would like to downplay the implication of an expanding universe with a beginning, and it seems to be more wishful thinking than reality.
The James Webb discoveries fueling this resurgence in old thinking include images of old stars and galaxies that are more formed than they should be on our standard (Big Bang expansion) model of the Universe. The standard Big Bang expansion model is similar to the concept of evolution. If the universe expanded, it must have progressed from a simpler state to a more complex state.
Just as life began with a simple, self-replicating molecule and progressed to ever increasing complexity over a long span of time, the thinking has been that the universe must have developed in the same progressive sort of way. This is the paradigm that has driven much of modern science: that natural processes developed from the bottom up.
The new James Webb images reveal more highly developed stars and galaxies than we imagined would exist in the earliest stage of the universe on the standard model. The mature development of ancient galactic stars and star formations is surprising on the progressive view.
These images do not contradict the fact that the universe is expanding, however, and they don’t disprove the appearance of a “beginning”.
People are “surprised that things grew so quickly”. People are perplexed that stars and galaxies are so well-formed at such an early stage, when they would expect to find “fledgling” galaxies in more undeveloped states.
People are scratching their heads at the appearance of extremely small and extremely large galaxies in the early Universe because it does not comport with the progression of the expansion of the Universe as modern scientists have modeled it before the advent of the James Webb Telescope.
These observations have nothing to do with the evidence that the universe is expanding. A more accurate statement is that models for how that expansion occurred are being called into question: not the fact of expansion from “a point of beginning”.
The James Webb findings do not negate the evidence we have that our universe is expanding from some very dense “point”. If anything, the findings evoke even more theological implications, perhaps, than the standard Big Bang model.
The idea that the universe developed from simple to complex over time is difficult to maintain when stars, galaxies, and other formations in the farthest (and earliest) regions of the universe that we can see are so well-formed and “mature”. These things conjure up the specter that this evidence is more consistent with the idea of the universe being created than we previously thought.
Of course, we had clues that this should be not surprising to us: the standard expansion inflation model incorporates the assumption that an early, extremely rapid and short “burst” of expansion occurred, and this assumption was necessary to accommodate the short time frame in which the Universe appeared to have “developed” based on what we could see before the James Webb telescope. Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be surprised to find even greater “development” at earlier stages.
We shouldn’t be surprised either that modern scientists who are committed to a materialistic worldview are struggling with these things. A materialistic worldview has colored modern science for a couple hundred years, at least.
A materialistic worldview was perfectly at home with the old static state view of the universe. It took a hit with the evidence that the universe is actually not static, but expanding from a point of beginning, though materialist thinking held firm, and most scientists have continued to hold to a strictly materialist position.
Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose famously calculated “singularity” that “proved” the so-called Big Bang (that expansion necessitates a “beginning”). Vilenkin (and some other guy who I can’t remember, lol) determined that even a multiverse that is expanding would have to have a “singularity” (a euphemism, it seems, for a beginning).
So far, modern discoveries have continued to negate good reason to believe in a static universe (which theory was discarded after centuries of use when we found that our universe is expanding) or an oscillating or cyclic universe. Multiverse(s) seem to make sense theoretically, but we will likely never be able to prove it/them anymore than we are likely to see back before the “beginning” of this universe.
Scientists like Neil de Grasse Tyson, Hawking, and Penrose who are committed to finding explanations for these things that do not implicate a Beginner (a/k/a God), will likely continue to try to prove their point. Hawking spent much of the rest of his life after mathematically proving the “singularity” trying to get around “singularity” and its theological implications. Penrose (and Vilenkin) do not concede any theological implications either.
Nothing (much) has changed on that score, but the new james Webb images are certainly is producing some head scratching! Some scientists, like Hoyle, who were once very antagonistic about people drawing theological implications from cosmology have backed off their dogmatic stances. Penrose seems to concede the possibility of a legitimate “metaphysical” component to reality, though he “doesn’t go there” in his own thinking.
There certainly is a lot of head scratching going on, and these are interesting times. We may all be at the edges of our seats to learn where all of this will take us, though I strongly doubt that we will get definitive answers to our most fundamental questions, like the origin of the Universe in my lifetime – if ever.
The new discoveries do call into question the expansion models that scientists have developed, but they do not call into question the evidence that the universe is, indeed, expanding. The new discoveries do not align with they way scientists have believed the universe expanded, but the evidence that the universe expanded from a “point” of singularity remains solid.
I am interested in peoples’ stories. I can trace my interest in personal stories to my own experience of becoming a Christian and my own spiritual journey. I have found much common ground with other people who have had similar experiences. The story of spiritual journey (a “testimony”) is part of the fabric of the evangelical Christian tradition. The testimony is a test of sorts of the authenticity of the journey, of a real encounter with God that we call being “born again”.
A testimony is the most personal evidence for the existence of God for the person who claims to be a Christian, but it isn’t evidence in a scientific sense. It’s evidence that is easily discounted by the naturalist who relies only on science and empirical, measurable and falsifiable evidence.
It can also be problematic for the Christian community. There is a certain social, group pressure – unintended, or not – for every Christian to have “a testimony”. The more dramatic the better. The person who was “always a Christian” may feel a tinge of self doubt. The person whose story does not line up with more “typical” testimonies may feel out of step.
Personal stories are subjective, and the subjective nature of them engenders some natural and warranted skepticism.
Don’t get me wrong. The intimate and private nature of a personal experience with God is exactly the most compelling thing about it. Like the woman at the well who told everyone of her encounter with Jesus – “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!” (John 4:4-30) – the intimate and highly personal nature of the experience is what makes it so meaningful and convincing.
But personal encounter, ultimately, is meaningful and convincing mainly to the one who experiences it. It can’t be empirically verified, and it doesn’t carry the same weight with other people who don’t have the same intimate connection to the personal details.
Personal experiences are not bound by logical, rational or empirical factors. If we rely on personal experiences, especially to the exclusion of more “scientific” analyses, the highly subjective and personal nature of personal experiences can led a person down some questionable rabbit holes. We probably all know people who have been so influenced by their own personal experiences which, unchecked by some objective analysis, have led them onto some strange and questionable paths.
For the Christian, that objective analysis is Scripture, doctrine and tradition. For each religion, that objective analysis is some combination of that religion’s scripture, doctrinal corpus and tradition, and for the naturalist, that objective analysis is empirical evidence, proven theory and scientific analysis.
“They [Adam and Eve] wanted, as we say, to ‘call their souls their own.’ But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not, in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, ‘This is our business, not yours.’ But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.”
The quotation is by CS Lewis in the Problem of Pain. As he notes, tt’s axiomatic that, if God exists, we are not God, and this isn’t our universe.
By “God” (capital G), what is meant is a “maximal being” – that is a Being having maximal qualities. Thus, we say of God that He would have to be all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, all-just, all-merciful, etc. All characteristics of which God is the standard find their greatest expression in God.
We are not talking about flying spaghetti monsters or Zeus-like personalities when we refer to God, capital G.
If such a God exists, and I believe this is more or less self-evident, than anything we call our own, including our own self-sufficiency, is mere illusion.
I find it interesting that many naturalists, like the late, great Stephen Hawking, agree that self-sufficiency is nothing but an illusion. We are all merely dancing to the tune of our DNA, says Richard Dawkins. Ravi Zacharias describes a lecture given by Stephen Hawking many years ago in which he eloquently laid out the evidence that we are determined (by natural influences) in everything we do. Hawking ended with the “uplifting” thought that, even though we have no control over anything that we think or do, we still feel as if we do – to which Ravi Zacharias says the audience audibly groaned.
For the naturalist, the conclusion, some say (like Hawking and Dawkins), is inescapable. We aren’t the captains of our own souls as we suppose, and our end is “predetermined” by naturalistic causes as our beginning and everything in between. Such a fatalistic view might be sufficient to undo us completely, but for our ability to imagine otherwise – even if it isn’t true – according to these naturalists. Some very small consolation!
For the Christian, however, we find our consolation in the very God whose existence belies our illusion of self-sufficiency and self-control. We find that this God made us in His image, which suggests we are made with some capacity for free will and self determination – even if it subsists within the sphere of God’s ultimate providence.
We find that God is loving and desires us to reflect Him and His love without coercion from Him. Even if our ability to govern ourselves is ultimately illusory, the fact that we believe we have this ability, is all that matters because believing it to be so, believing that we can choose other than we can, even if we can’t truly exercise this choice freely as God does, means that we can, nevertheless, reflect God’s love back to Him without coercion.
Love, after all, is not coerced. Love is the complete absence of coercion.
Though we may not be self-sufficient or self-controlling as we suppose, we can still reflect God’s love back to Him by virtue of the appearance (the illusion if you will) that we are or can be self-sufficient and self-controlling. Feeling as if we can deny God and go our own way, we freely exercise our will to submit to Him and to choose His way, and this act of love is genuine to the extent that we genuinely believe it and mean it.
Navigating by Faith 