Beginning with this chapter, we will take up a series of questions pertaining to the relationship of theism and modern natural science. For approximately four centuries now, theists have been told repeatedly by the advocates of the modern Enlightenment that their views have been disproven by contemporary natural science, that they are opposed to modern physics, that recent scientific advances have made both faith in revealed religion as well as philosophical theism untenable, and even that theism is just plain silly and a position for children. As a result of such claims, a great many people who are interested in both theism and the study of contemporary natural science feel torn. Unable to reconcile the claims of both faith and reason, they often move into either a kind of rationalism in which theistic faith claims are rejected out of hand or a sort of fideism in which they “just believe” without worrying about bringing reason to bear on ultimate issues at all. Indeed, sometimes people adopt a sort of schizophrenia, practicing a natural science they perceive as atheistic all week long but then showing up for liturgical services on the weekend!
The basic goal of the next several chapters will be to show that the alleged antipathy between theism and modern natural science is grossly overestimated. We will argue that, when one gets down it, the conclusions of contemporary science are far more supportive of theism than opposed to it. The first two chapters will be about modern physics; then we will turn to modern biology. Before we can even begin, however, some long-standing misunderstandings need to be corrected.
A. The Story Told about Galileo
For several centuries now, there has been told a story about the famous scientist Galileo that goes more or less like this: “Prior to the time of Galileo, everybody thought that the earth was stationary and that that the sun moved around it daily. Galileo knew, however, that the sun was in the center and that the earth moved around the sun. The anti-scientific Christians, and especially the Catholic pope, arrested Galileo, tortured him, and forced him to say that the earth was stationary. Even as he signed the document agreeing to the claim that the earth was stationary, however, Galileo bravely muttered under his breath, ‘But it does move.’ ” Lest we misunderstand the moral of this tale, those who propagate it are very willing to tell us: “Christian theism is anti-scientific. The case of Galileo proves that the Church is inimical toward true science. Religion and natural science are necessarily enemies of each other.”
There is a great deal about Galileo that has been left out in this story; some of what is included is just not true. We will fill in some of the gaps in the story in the following paragraph, but the most important thing to notice is that even if the story were completely, historically accurate, the “moral” of the story does not follow. Galileo was one scientist; from this one case, it is a great fallacy to make such sweeping generalizations as “the Church hates natural science” or “faith and reason are opposed to each other.” One simply cannot draw universal claims from this single example.
Since we are on the subject, however, it would be unfair to readers not to explain a little about the history of the Galileo case; a great many books have been written on the matter, but we can give only a sketch of the facts here: The theory of heliocentrism had first been advocated in antiquity, but the theory of geocentrism had come to be the predominant view among physicists for a long time. Heliocentrism was gaining advocates, however, just prior to the time of Galileo, especially due to the work of Copernicus. No one at the time had any real proof of which theory was the correct one, and, indeed, the view of Tycho Brahe, which argued that the sun moved around the earth but the planets moved around the sun, also had its advocates. Geocentrism seemed to have common sense on its side, for our eyes suggest to us that the sun moves across the sky daily, but heliocentrism, at least after Kepler, could describe the movement of the planets more simply than could geocentrism. An irrefutable proof of the truth of heliocentrism was not yet available; that would come with the observation of stellar parallax, but no one at the time had a telescope that could show such a thing. As is well-known, Galileo advocated for heliocentrism and throughout his illustrious career hoped to be able to offer a firm proof of it based on the study of the tides. He was never able to deliver on his hopes, however.
When the scientific debate on the matter became controversial, ecclesial officials began to look more carefully at the arguments, both from faith and from reason. The Scriptures did not have a lot to say on the matter, but there were a handful of texts that perhaps suggested geocentrism; Psalm 93:1 is a typical example of these: “The world is established; it shall never be moved.” It was accepted by Christian theologians that texts were not always to be understood “literally”, but there was no unanimity as to whether this handful of texts fell into that category. Fearful that the Church would move prematurely against Copernicanism, Galileo went to Rome to defend it. In 1615, he met with Cardinal Bellarmine, then head of the Inquisition. We do not know with precision what happened in the meeting, but apparently Galileo was warned by Bellarmine that heliocentrism should not be publicly taught or held, but heliocentrism could continue to be investigated and attempts could be made to place it on a firmer foundation. In the meantime, it should be treated only as a mathematical possibility and not as an established fact. Galileo apparently agreed with Bellarmine on these matters and promised to act accordingly.
By 1633, however, Bellarmine was dead and Galileo had published A Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a dialogue in which he at least seemed to advocate heliocentrism. He had, moreover, named one of the feeble defenders of geocentrism in his dialogue “Simplicius”, which in its Italian version had overtones of “Simpleton”, and he had placed words of the new pope into the mouth of this character. The pope, who had heretofore defended Galileo and thought him his friend, was not amused. He felt personally betrayed and insisted that a trial of Galileo be conducted by the Inquisition. Galileo was declared to be vehemently suspected of heresy, and while he was never tortured, he was forced to withdraw the views of the Dialogue and spent most of the rest of his life in house arrest at a Florentine villa.
So, the story is much more complicated than the legend suggests, and personal animosities seem to have played far too large a role in the whole affair. Most importantly, the details of the case hardly establish that the ultimate judgment against Galileo’s Dialogue is somehow “typical” of the attitude of Christian theism toward physics. It is especially worth noting that both Galileo and Bellarmine professed that they were committed to the notion that faith and reason do not contradict each other; indeed, they both seem to have been advocates of what we have called in this book “integrationism”. Bellarmine was a prudential, erudite man who had been trained especially in the integrationist position of Thomas Aquinas. Historians are sometimes forced to rely upon secondhand information about his views, but he apparently admitted that the scriptural case against heliocentrism was thin and that if Galileo could come up with a real proof of heliocentrism, the Church might have to rethink her views about how to interpret certain passages from Scripture, for faith and reason must ultimately coincide. To be sure, Bellarmine thought that heliocentrism was probably false, but he likewise knew that he did not himself have real proof of such a claim. His prudential judgment, then, was that Galileo (and others) were free to continue to study the matter but that in the meantime the Church should continue to side with those defending geocentrism, for that was the inherited view and it should not be changed until there was proof to the contrary. Galileo was not to write publicly on the matter until he had proof in hand, for otherwise his claims only had the effect of scandalizing people who were not really in a position to understand all the arguments. Galileo seems to have accepted this as a temporary solution. He thought that the biblical passages in question did not preclude heliocentrism and that he probably could shore up the theory through further investigation. But he shared Bellarmine’s view that faith and reason would align with each other in the end.
In any case, the goal of this chapter is not to rehash the history of the Galileo affair. We only want to remove the matter as an obstacle preventing readers from approaching this and the following chapters with an open mind. The current chapter’s main task is to consider the implications of contemporary cosmology for the question about faith and reason. In order to do this, however, it is first necessary to explain just a little about modern cosmology. Obviously, modern cosmology is very complicated, so much so that sometimes people have a tendency simply to avoid thinking about it. Certainly we cannot hope to give a complete explanation of contemporary cosmology here, but it is possible and necessary to go over some of the basics in order to reach the point where we can even begin to consider the implications of the Big Bang theory’s account of the origins of our universe.
B. The Basics of the Big Bang Theory of Cosmological Origins
In chapter 5, we explained that the word “physics” originally referred to the study of nature generally. So, the study of plants, animals, human beings, and so forth—the study of the natures of things and the things belonging to nature—was called “physics” or “natural philosophy”. Indeed, among polytheistic philosophers, the nature of the divine or of “the gods” also belonged to physics. The meaning of the word has become restricted in modern times, however, so that now if one takes a course in physics, one is talking about nonliving things—especially about matter and the principles of matter and its motions.
We can distinguish (roughly) three basic theories of “physics” in the more restricted and modern sense of the term that have held sway among thinkers over the centuries. Aristotelian physics dominated intellectual discussion for a very long time. It was replaced by Newtonian physics, which was dominant until the twentieth century, when the theories of Einstein came to prevail. To be sure, elements of the earlier views were preserved in the later views, and in general this tripartite division is a great oversimplification, but it can be used as “a rule of thumb”.
Let us pick up the story with Newtonian physics. According to Newtonian physics, space and time may well be infinite. Newton and his followers did not actually claim to have proven the infinity of the universe, but his views seemed to point toward an infinite universe, and the conviction that the universe was in fact infinite was widespread among physicists. If the universe were indeed infinite with respect to time, however, then any theist claiming that the universe had a temporal beginning (in other words, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, at least) was faced with a problem, for faith and reason would seem to be in contradiction to each other. Revelation, especially in the Book of Genesis, suggests that the universe was created with a temporal beginning, but Newtonian physics was suggesting that the universe was eternal with respect to time. Faith and reason thus seemed to have views opposing each other, and integrationism seemed close to impossible. We say that it seemed “close” to impossible because, to repeat, Newtonian physics pointed toward but did not really have a proof of the eternity of the world. Nevertheless, the situation was very uncomfortable for those who were committed to both reason and theistic faith.
The story of the rise of the physics that dominates our thinking today is a very interesting one, regarding which we can mention only a few highlights. Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in 1916. He soon realized, though, that he had described a universe that was either expanding or contracting, but not eternally static. Einstein famously rejected such an implication of his own theory and, instead, adjusted his equations with a cosmological constant so that they could predict a stable universe—one that would, with respect to the eternity of the world, still fit with the views of Newtonian physics. By 1929, however, Hubble and Humason, building on the earlier work of Slipher, had noticed a strange phenomenon upon examining the light from galaxies.
Let us try to grasp this strange phenomenon by means of an analogy borrowed from the study of sound waves. Perhaps we remember from our grade school or even high school studies the phenomenon known as the Doppler effect. According to this discovery, sound waves emitted from an object traveling toward us have an increase in frequency or a higher “pitch” than sound waves emitted from an object traveling away from us. Consider a car at a racetrack, for example. While the car is idling at the far end of the track, it is emitting sound waves of a certain frequency that we shall call “X”. As the car begins to move down the track toward us, however, the car starts to “catch up” with the sound waves as it emits them, so that the distance between the waves becomes less. But less distance between the waves means higher frequency, so the “pitch” emitted by the car accelerating toward us seems to be increasingly higher. After the car passes by us, however, the distance between the emission of the sound waves increases or is “stretched”, as it were, because the car is moving away rapidly between each sound wave. But greater distance between the sound waves means lower frequency or “pitch”. The following chart illustrates this phenomenon:
What does this have to do with Einstein and the galaxies? Well, sound waves have many properties that are quite different from light waves, but light exhibits a phenomenon analogous to the Doppler effect among sound waves. Light emitted from an object moving away from an observer will be rapidly shifted toward the long wavelength, or red side, of the light spectrum, whereas light emitted from an object moving toward an observer is shifted toward the short wavelength, or blue end, of the light spectrum. Now, when Slipher and then Humason and Hubble studied the light emitted from galaxies, they discovered that it was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. In other words, the galaxies are moving away from us at a rapid rate, which implies that the universe is. . . expanding. Einstein’s original theory was apparently correct after all, and he abandoned the “adjustments” to his equations he had made in order to ensure a stable, nonexpanding, and noncontracting universe.
But that is not all. Hubble also discovered that the light from galaxies farther away was more red-shifted than light from galaxies that were closer. When we are looking at such light, however, we are receiving light that was emitted many, many years ago—millions of years ago. This means that when we are looking at galaxies that are farther away from us, we are quite literally looking farther back in time than we are when we are looking at galaxies that are relatively closer to us. But if galaxies farther away are more red-shifted than galaxies that are closer, and if in viewing galaxies farther away we are also looking farther back into the history of the universe, it is possible to get some idea of the rate of expansion of the universe at different moments. By extrapolating backward, some cosmologists concluded that all the galaxies of the universe must have once been more or less piled on top of each other and then began to race apart.
Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest, was the first to connect Einstein’s equations to the astronomical observations of a red-shifted universe and articulate the basics of Big Bang cosmology. At the beginning of the universe, Lemaître said, was a primal atom, a “singularity”, from which the current universe suddenly expanded, or “exploded”. This theory of the universe beginning with a “big bang” was not immediately accepted by everyone, but in 1965 a piece of confirming evidence was discovered that convinced those still harboring doubts about it. It had been realized since 1948 that if there had indeed been this incredible expansionary explosion described by the Big Bang advocates, the universe would have been incredibly hot at the beginning, emitting an extremely high-energy radiation. By now, however, this radiation would have cooled into low-energy microwaves as the universe expanded. Working at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, two natural scientists, Penzias and Wilson, came across this predicted “cosmic background radiation” in 1965. For most cosmologists, the Big Bang had been empirically confirmed.
C. The Implications of “Big Bang” Cosmology for the Faith-Reason Question
In chapter 9, we distinguished the notion of creation from the notion of a temporal beginning to the cosmos. We explained that the basic theistic view of creation was that creation means dependency—a total causal dependency upon God. We also explained that religious theists like Jews and Christians also claim, especially because of the beginning of the Book of Genesis, that the universe had a temporal beginning—a first “tick-tock” of time, as it were. In chapter 10, we explained that some important theistic thinkers, especially Thomas Aquinas, thought that it was possible to prove by means of reason alone that the universe was created but not possible to prove by means of reason that the universe had a temporal beginning. And we explained there that other theistic thinkers, especially the advocates of the kalaam argument, thought that it was possible to establish through reason alone that the universe had a temporal beginning and, indeed, that this temporal beginning could be used as a premise to establish that the universe was created.
Our readers can therefore probably anticipate the reaction of theists to the emergence of the new Big Bang cosmology, for the picture of the origin of the universe presented by the new physics obviously has a lot in common with the picture presented by the Book of Genesis. In particular, both accounts—the account of reason and the account of faith—seem to point directly to a temporal beginning of the universe. Whereas in Newtonian physics, theists were uncomfortable because the arguments were pointing toward an eternal universe, now in Einstein’s physics, the nontheists have to be uncomfortable, because the arguments are suddenly pointing toward a universe with a temporal beginning.
Furthermore, with the original advent of Big Bang cosmology, Thomas Aquinas’ objection to the kalaam argument suddenly seemed out of date. Thomas’ thinking may have been sound enough at the time, some said, but of course he did not know about “red-shifting” or the “cosmic background radiation”. Thomas, of course, did not preclude the possibility of a temporal beginning but only had said that it was something accepted through faith in the Scripture and traditions of the Church rather than something known through philosophical reasoning. If we go back to our little diagram of truths known through faith and truths known through reason, it seems that the doctrine of a temporal origin to the universe now must be moved, even for Thomists, from the category of truths known by faith alone to the category of truths known both by faith and by reason:
The kalaam argument for the existence of God also received a big boost from Big Bang cosmology. Remember from chapter 10 the basic structure of the kalaam argument:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Big Bang cosmology would seem to supply formidable support to the second premise of the kalaam argument. If one were not convinced of the second premise by the argument about the impossibility of the existence of an infinite series of past time, one might well now be convinced by the claims of the new cosmology.
D. More Recent Developments and Their Implications
Cosmology has not remained static since Lemaître first attempted to unify Einstein’s general theory of relativity with Hubble’s discoveries about red-shifted galaxies by positing a “primeval atom”. Some of these new developments have been principally about refinements of the Big Bang theory that do not change, at least directly, its basic implications for theism. For example, cosmologists have refined the “date” of the Big Bang to about 13.7 billion years ago, whereas they used to think it was somewhat older. It has also been discovered that the rate of the expansion of the universe, which was once thought to be generally slowing, has actually increased during the last five billion years or so. This recent increase in the rate of the expansion of the universe is a phenomenon that has led to the development of the notion of “dark energy”. Interesting as these developments are in themselves, however, they probably do not have major implications for theists thinking about the relationship between faith and contemporary cosmology.
Some of the refinements in the theory of the Big Bang may have implications for theism, however. The “classical” or “standard” Big Bang theory suggests that the Big Bang was quite possibly the very beginning. If time could be represented by a line, at the moment of the Big Bang, the value on the line would have been zero. There would have been no negative times on the line; in other words, our line would really be a vector. However, some speculative cosmologists have developed and are developing scenarios in which the moment of the Big Bang would not have been the beginning.
There have been a number of these speculative scenarios proposed suggesting that perhaps the Big Bang was not the beginning. Many of them have soon been rejected; others have shown more promise. Perhaps the most promising argument for a time before the Big Bang is associated with the idea of an inflationary period in the early history of the universe. According to this notion, the young universe underwent a period of expansion dramatically different from its normal, more gradual expansion. This inflationary expansion was powered by quantum forces quite different from the physical forces that drive the normal expansion of the universe. If this inflationary era did indeed occur, it would explain many features about the universe, including, for example, the amazing “flatness” of space, which cannot easily be accounted for otherwise. Since such an inflationary period in the universe’s history would fit with what physicists have grasped about quantum mechanics, there are real reasons for thinking that the notion of an inflationary period in the universe’s history may ultimately turn out to be true.
Some cosmologists think that even if the universe did go through this inflationary period, it is still the case that the universe must have had a beginning point in time, as theists suggest. Other cosmologists, however, think that it is possible that the universe may have already existed “prior” to the Big Bang. In other words, they think that the inflationary period is more consistent with a situation in which the current Big Bang is only a phase in a longer history of the cosmos. Perhaps what has happened is that what we call “our universe” is really a region that suddenly emerged from an “older” universe. Perhaps the situation is rather like a blister on a tire that suddenly bulges out or like a soap bubble emerging from another, older soap bubble. Perhaps, then, the universe is really a multiverse, which might imply that “our” Big Bang was not the beginning after all.
These theories about the beginning strike many as extremely speculative. Since theories exist, however, that suggest that the Big Bang may not have been the beginning, and since some of these theories have some plausibility behind them, theists need to be cautious. The earlier theory of a primordial singularity has not been disproven, but now there are other, competing theories. The simplest explanation of the empirical evidence still points to the idea of a temporal beginning to the universe, but the simplest explanation is not always the correct one. Geocentrism, for example, seems at first to be simpler than heliocentrism. Theists should not think that contemporary cosmology “proves” that there was a temporal beginning to the universe, even though such a conclusion is quite tempting to a thinker with theistic commitments.
Even though caution is warranted, though, it is quite fair to conclude that contemporary cosmology is at least not opposed to theistic faith on this question of the temporal origin of the universe. Theists are not in the uncomfortable position that they were in during the reign of Newtonian physics, and those arguing for the opposition between science and religion are the ones who are beginning to feel uncomfortable. Modern cosmology seems to be at least consistent with theism, and it actually seems to provide some evidence (if not proof) for at least one of theism’s claims.
In considering the atheistic argument from evil in chapters 12 and 13, we pointed out that if that argument is interpreted as inductive rather than deductive, it should be understood to be claiming that the existence of evil in our world constitutes evidence (but not proof) for atheism. We also pointed out there that such evidence would have to be weighed against all other pieces of evidence before any judgments could be legitimately rendered. The Big Bang theory of cosmological origins should possibly be understood as a piece of evidence (but not proof) for theism, a piece of evidence that may counter or partly counter the piece of evidence that the atheist claims the existence of evil provides.
But of course, there are even more pieces of evidence to be considered, and it is to more of that evidence that we must turn next.