Chapter 3 Does the Big Bang Prove God
Chapter 3 Does the Big Bang Prove God?
Origins of the Big Bang Theory Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Belgian Catholic priest and physicist, Fr. Georges Lemaître, solved Albert Einstein’s general relativity equations to show the universe is expanding from an originating single point he called the “primeval atom. ” ● Einstein had described a universe with a variable radius and uniform density.
Initial Response to the Big Bang Theory Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Pope Pius XII enthusiastically argued that the Big Bang was scientific evidence for creation. ● He said that science had become a witness to the first moment when God said “let there be light, ” the “primordial Fiat Lux. ” ● Fr. Lemaître insisted that developing scientific theories be judged on their scientific merits alone and not be used in support of theological conclusions. ● The pope acknowledged that the arguments for the existence of God are outside the boundary of natural science.
Recent Studies on the Big Bang Theory Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● In 2014, the first evidence of primordial gravitational waves, which Einstein predicted, from 13. 8 billion years was spotted with the BICEP 2 telescope at the South Pole. ● Shortly thereafter, CNN Belief Blog ran an article titled “Does the Big Bang Breakthrough Offer Proof of God? ” ● In January 2015, Nature ran a story titled “Gravitational Waves Discovery Now Officially Dead. ” ● What astronomers thought to be gravitational waves of cosmic origin was actually Milky Way dust. ● In 2016, physicists at LIGO again reported that they had detected gravitational waves, “fulfilling a four-decade quest and opening new eyes on the heavens. ” ● In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the researchers, Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish, for the observations of gravitational waves.
What Do These Studies Prove? Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Should we use science to prove faith? ● We need to be careful with the language. ● Inductive and deductive proofs
How Scientists Use Inductive and Deductive Proofs Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Inductive proofs: Proof formed from evidence giving rise to; reason from particulars to generals. ● Deductive proofs: Proofs formed from evidence narrowing down to; reason from generals to particulars.
Science as Evidence for Faith Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? “Even though scientific conclusions are subject to change in the light of new data, we should not let this possibility cause us to unnecessarily discount the validity of long-standing, persistent, rigorously established theories. If we did this, we might discount the majority of our scientific theories. Thus, it is reasonable and responsible to attribute qualified truth value to such theories until such time as new data requires them to be changed. ” —Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S. J. New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy (2010)
Science as Evidence for Faith Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? “By experiments in the laboratory we attain some knowledge of the laws of nature, and then we extend them to the realms of the very small and the very large, and to the distant past. Sometimes they break down, as they did for the atom and at very high velocities, and this led to quantum mechanics and special relativity. How then can we be sure that our present understanding is adequate to discuss what happened billions of years ago? Very small changes in the laws, quite undetectable by us, could have large effects when applied to the whole universe. Yet in spite of this difficulty, we must extrapolate the laws of nature, because we have no alternative, but it is important to remember the provisional character of all our knowledge of the distant past, as this sets severe limits on, or even excludes, any possibility of drawing theological conclusions. ” —Dr. Peter Hodgson Theology and Modern Physics (2009)
Forming Your Own Conclusion Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Do you think science can provide strong inductive proof of the tenets of faith, like creation? ● Or do you think the provisional nature of science prohibits the possibility of drawing theological or metaphysical conclusions from science?
Forming Your Own Conclusion Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? ● Whether physics in our lifetime points to acceptance of the Big Bang theory and a beginning of the universe or not, Catholics still affirm that creation has a beginning because we hold that truth in faith. ● We need to be absolutely clear about the limits of science as we are clear about the truths of our longheld faith.
Forming Your Own Conclusion Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? “The articles of faith cannot be proved demonstratively, because faith is of things that appear not (Heb 11: 1). But God is the Creator of the world: hence that the world began is an article of faith; for we say, I believe in one God. ” —St. Thomas Aquinas
The Answer is an All-or-None Proposition Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? “With respect to the creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), theologians can note that the Big Bang theory does not contradict this doctrine insofar as it can be said that the supposition of an absolute beginning is not scientifically inadmissible. Since the Big Bang theory does not in fact exclude the possibility of an antecedent stage of matter, it can be noted that theory appears to provide merely indirect support for the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo which as such can only be known by faith. ” — International Theological Commission, “Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God”
Chapter 3: Does the Big Bang Prove God? Creation Is the Handiwork of God
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