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?)
The evidence as it has unfolded since the discovery of the red shift on stars farther away from us (the first big clue that our universe is expanding) has continued to strengthen the so-called Big Bang Theory. The design of the James Webb Telescope is only the latest in a long line of evidence vindicating the “Big Bang Theory” that dramatically changed the paradigm of physics and cosmology.
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.
Continue reading “The Best Explanation for a Finite Universe (or an Infinite Universe)”
Navigating by Faith 