From Rob Sheldon:
The ideas of the Big Bang theory have been resisted by astronomers and cosmologists for decades if not millennia. Plato was against, Augustine was for a creation event. In modern times, the initial idea was put forward by a Belgian priest, Fr Georges Lemaitre in about 1927. Albert Einstein hated the idea, and preferred to insert an “anti-gravity” term into his famous set of gravitational equations to balance the attraction of gravity, and thereby obtain a steady-state, static, unchanging and eternal universe. It was only after Willem deSitter showed that Einstein’s solution was unstable, and Edwin Hubble showed that all the galaxies were moving away from us at increasingly faster speeds the further away they were, that Einstein finally conceded that the Universe did have a beginning. A very readable book on this topic is “God and the Astronomers” by astronomer Robert Jastrow (1979).
Jastrow ends his story with the most quoted line of his book: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
This hatred for the discovery of the beginning of the universe has caused cosmologists to add all sorts of “metaphysical poison pills” to their models–things that they think will repel creationists and justify materialists. Philosopher and astronomer Stanley Jaki wrote about this in his companion book to Jastrow, “God and the Cosmologists” (2000).
For reasons that others can perhaps explain to you, young earth creationists have also taken a dislike to Big Bang cosmology, though it is clearly not for the same reason that materialists hate it–since materialists want to say the universe is eternal to do away with the creator entirely. I think YECs object to the idea that the Big Bang supposedly happened 13.7 billion years ago, and claim that it should be closer to 6-10,000 years ago. Since Einstein’s spacetime tangles up space and time, if one argues for the creation of large space and small time, then this asymmetry brings in complications that make the models specific and particular, and frankly, I don’t understand very well. But this debate should not erase the conclusion that both the “standard Big Bang” and the creationist account of a beginning are in very close agreement compared to the alternative theories. Where they differ — as in Jaki’s book about cosmology poison pills, or in YEC theories about time-dependent physical constants — is secondary, metaphysical, and without much experimental basis.
That was News’ impression too. See, for example, Big Bang exterminator wanted, will train Thoughts?
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Well, yes, except isn’t it more like a boundary rather than a beginning? As I understand it, the theory can take us right up next to the Big Bang but it can’t take across that boundary into the primordial singularity itself. We have no idea what conditions inside were like, or what came before – assuming the inside of a primordial singularity or talking about “before” time itself is thought to have begun actually means anything.
As for Jastrow’s little epigram, it’s a nice picture but I prefer Haldane:
YECs should love the multiverse theory because it undermines naturalist objections to YEC. With the multiverse theory, small universes are much more probable than large ones and it is therefore more likely that the vast age and size of our universe are an illusion and the universe consists of just our solar system and the earth is 6000 years old. With the multiverse theory chance can explain anything so YECs can say naturalists have no grounds to object to YEC science.
Both YECs and Big Bangers are crackpots, IMO. Somebody please explain to the physics community and the YECs that time cannot change by definition (i.e., nothing moves in spacetime), that motion is discrete, that space (distance) is an illusion and, as Aristotle claimed, motion is causal. Thank you.
as to:
The main reason why YECs reject an ancient age for the universe is because an ancient age for the universe would imply that death preceded the fall on man.
Dr. Dembski sought a reconciliation to this problem in his book, “The End Of Christianity: Finding A Good God In An Evil World”:
And although some may think it is unscientific to believe that the effects of the fall of man can ‘reach backward in time’, the fact of the matter is that advances in quantum mechanics have now shown us precisely that.
In other words, advances in quantum mechanics have now verified Dr. Dembski’s contention that our present choices can, in fact, ‘reach back in time’.
In the following experiment, which is an extension of Wheeler’s original delayed choice experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is directly falsified by the fact that present conscious choices are, in fact, effecting past material states:
You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the preceding experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video
In the following article, Dr. Antoine Suarez points out that free will is ‘axiomatic’ to quantum mechanics:
Thus, as far as the science itself is concerned, Dr. Dembski’s reconciliation of death preceding the fall of man works. In fact, it is ‘surprisingly’ concordant with science.
A few related notes as to how Genesis and the Bible itself fairs from a Old Earth perspective:
Here are some quotes that are of related interest:
Video, Picture, Verses, and Music:
bornagain77,
A couple of items to keep in mind so that we can see that there really is no dilemma created by death preceding the fall according to human chronology:
— God continually holds the Universe in existence, being the “Mind” that Max Planck concluded must be the “matrix of all matter.” God’s creation isn’t then something He did but something He is doing.
— God is outside of time and is omniscient. The past, the present and the future are all equally present to Him. His perfect providence takes past, present and future (including the use or abuse of free will on our part) into consideration. The sin of Adam and Eve was just as clearly there before God at the beginning of time as it was when they sinned and as it will be on the last day. In fact, He knew all about it before time began from all eternity.
So, with God’s perfect providence acting on a past, present and future that are all equally present to Him, and His creation of past, present and future all being ongoing and simultaneous from His perspective, death can be a direct result of the fall even though it began, from our perspective, before the fall.
We can get confused if we forget that our perspective is human and God’s is, of course, Divine.
Thanks for bringing that nuance out Harry
harry, thanks for the Planck quote. I must explore this guy’s philosophical musings more. I have been playing around with a very similar pattern of thought — that the mind of God is the quanta. If so, it could be envisioned that the entire universe is merely the grand imagining of God’s mind. It is staggering to think that God could partition his mind in such a way as to truly give portions of it, me, free will.
bFast @8,
St. Paul seems to be saying something very similar to that.