The Power of God as Creator

Science and Faith: Chapter One

THERE ARE two kinds of models of the universe which satisy different kinds of people. There is the mathematical mode for those who do not find it necessary to be able to reduce their understanding to the terms of sticks and strings and physical realities; and there is the mechanical or physical model for those who find that they are not satisfied until they can visualize a structure lot which analogies in mechanical terms are available. I am one of those who fall in this latter group and therefore find it necessary to create this kind of model, hoping thereby on the one hand not to contradict the requirements of the mathematical formulae of those who dwell in "ivory towers," but on the other hand--and more importantly to satisfy the demand for a physical reality. So, in the following pages some liberties have been taken in interpreting the concepts of the mathematicians, the chief justification of which is that the picture that emerges is at least imaginable in the terms of ordinary experience without, I believe, doing injustice to the less mechanical concepts of the mathematicians.

Probably everyone who has traveled anywhere by train over a level crossing in the New World or through a tunnel in the Old World will have observed that as the train approaches a ringing bell the note appears to rise slightly to a higher pitch and then, once it has gone past it, to fall of immediately to very nearly the original pitch. This is known as the Doppler effect, and it results from the fact that during the time of approach the sound waves are increasingly crowded into the ear and thereby shortened, giving rise to an apparently higher note as the approach is made. It is a sensation only, since the note has not really changed. As the source of sound is passed and left behind, the reverse sensation of a falling note is observed. This phenomenon is also true when we approach a light. It should appear to become slightly whiter as we draw near to it and slightly redder as we pull away from it. However, the change in color is so slight, for reasons which are not important in the present context, that our eyes are not capable of detecting the change. If we could travel fast enough toward and away from the source of light, we should probably be able to observe the same kind of change which applies to the ringing bell at the level crossing, but we cannot attain sufficient speed on earth.

On the other hand, the earth's movement relative to some of the distant galaxies out in the immense reaches of space does involve speeds of a magnitude which enable us to detect this color shift. In this case, however, the change can still be registered only by instruments. This color shift seems to point unmistakably to the fact that the distance between the earth and these remote galaxies is increasing. This could be interpreted in several ways. We may be running away from these objects and successfully making our escape; or we may be running after them and they are escaping from us. Or alternatively, we may be simply standing still while they are in flight, or they could be standing still while we are in flight. There is one further alternative, and that is that we are both moving away from a common center at about the same speed in different directions, thereby increasing the distances between us. To decide which is the correct interpretation, it is necessary to look very briefly at the nature of the evidence.

When a substance is burned, it emits light waves. The light waves from different substances are found also to differ when analyzed with a suitable device. By using an instrument called a spectroscope, it has been found that the light given off by any burning substance can be quite precisely analyzed and catalogued. In their attempt to analyze what distant galaxies or nebulae were made of; early astronomers used this principle because it was reasonably certain that the bodies which composed these nebulae were actually on fire. By analyzing their light by means of a spectroscope, it was believed that we could discover whether the rest of the universe was made out of essentially the same materials as composed our own immediate world. It was during this period of experimentation that--unexpectedly--the phenomenon of color change, now referred to as Red Shift, was first observed. It was found that the further away from us any particular nebula happened to be, the greater was the tendency for the band of light which emerged from the spectroscope to emphasize the longer wavelengths toward the red end of the spectrum. It was this observation which introduced us to the concept of an expanding universe in which the distances between the galaxies were becoming increasingly greater.

It all began almost fifty years ago when an astronomer, V. M. Slipher (4) at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, started photographing nebulae in the hopes of identifying their constituent chemical elements. It was thus that the Red Shift phenomenon was discovered. The discovery was an exciting one because of its implications. 1929, some years after Slipher had ended his studies, Edwin Hubble of the Mount Palomar Observatory had noted that the estimated velocities of the galaxies as determined by their Red Shift were faster as the distance of each nebula from the earth was greater. In short, the nebulae appeared to be receding with greater velocity as the distances between increased. The following table indicate representatively, the kind of picture that was beginning to emerge this respect. (5)

At the time Hubble discovered this correlation, only forty-six nebulae had been spectrophotographed. In order to investigate the matter further, Milton L. Humason of Mount Wilson Observatory, (6) began a program of determining the velocities of fainter and more distant nebulae, using the 100-inch telescope. By 1948 the number c known nebular velocities had increased to over five hundred. Even a distances of 200 million light-years or so, the limit of the l00-inch telescope for spectra, Hubble's Law of the Red Shifts still held.

In 1951, with the even larger 200-inch telescope, Humason photographed two nebulae estimated to be 360 million light-year away, a distance of 360 million times 6,000 miles! The red shift recorded by these plates was the largest ever measured and indicated a velocity of 38,000 miles per second! This is the last figure shown in the table above.

At the risk of some repetition, it may be worthwhile quoting Hubble's own words at the time of his original observation: (7)

The spectrum is composed of light separated according to its wavelength, running from the longer wavelengths of red at one end to the shorter wavelengths of violet at the other. Each element produces light of certain definite wavelengths, which appear in the spectrum unless the source of light is, relatively, moving toward or away from the observer. If the source is approaching, the pattern of lines for any element will appear farther toward the violet. If the source is receding, the lines will appear farther toward the red than they would if the source were stationary with respect to the observer. This shifting of the spectral lines is used extensively to determine the velocities of planets and Stars with respect to the earth. Practically all spectra of island universes have their lines shifted toward the red. These shifts are very great for the more distant universes and less for the closer ones. This shift has become commonly known as the "red shift."

It may be stated with confidence that red shifts either are velocity shifts or they must be referred to some hitherto unrecognized principle in nature.

The present distribution of red shifts could be adequately described on the assumption that all the nebulae were once jammed together in a small volume of space. Then, at a certain instant...an explosion occurred, the nebulae rushing outward in all directions and with all velocities.

In a BBC broadcast, C. A. Coulson (8) pointed out that "if the matter in the Universe was really so greatly concentrated at that time, it is hard to avoid calling it the moment of creation." The European astronomer, C. F. von Weizsacker, picking up the concept of this opening phrase, speaks of it as being analogous to an explosion. It is as though God began everything with a tremendous concentration of energy. Thus von Weizsacker wrote: (9)

The famous red-shift of the spectral lines of galaxies is most naturally explained by the assumption that they are all receding from each other--not unlike the pieces of an exploding bomb shell.

Physics, as we know it today, does not offer any other natural explanation of this red shift than the assumed expanding motion.

There is one additional argument for considering the expanding motion as real, and in my view this argument is very strong. If there is a real motion it defines a time-scale. Assume the comparison with an exploding bombshell as correct: then, if you can measure the distances and the velocities of the fragments in a given moment, you can calculate at which moment of time the explosion took place. Now the distances of galaxies are roughly known, and the red shift, if interpreted as indicating a velocity, gives you the numeric value of the velocity: hence we can calculate the time of the first explosion. It turns out to be roughly 15,000,000,000 years ago" [emphasis mine].

We now have, therefore, a picture of all the matter in the universe concentrated in one mass at some finite time ago. However, we can say something more regarding this original "lump" of matter which Lemaitre envisioned long ago and termed the "primeval atom." In the first place, according to Lovell, (10) it contained the entire material of the universe and had a density which was inconceivably great--"at least 100 million tons per cubic centimeter." This original lump with its tremendous density has led astronomers to refer to the concept as the "superdense state" theory of the origin of the universe. George Schweitzer observed: (11)

This lump had a temperature that was extremely hot and underwent a explosion which hurled its matter and radiation outward. The matter, which was initially neutrons, interacted at the superhot temperature to produce atoms. As the expansion continued outward, the temperature decreased an the atoms cooled to form clouds of gas. Some of these clouds, under the action of local turbulence, then condensed to form the planets, stars, galaxies and galaxial clusters. The galaxial clusters are still expanding from the force of the explosion.

The superdense state theory is one theory which explains in a fairly adequate way the things we know about the Universe. It does not violate any accepted physical law. It accounts for the recession of the galaxial clusters; is fairly successful in predicting the abundance of the elements; and it provides a date for the Universe which agrees with the age of the earth, our galaxy and the Universe as determined by other methods.

In the second place, we know that the total available energy in the universe is being dissipated as the universe expands until, presumably, the whole vast system will "die a heat death." This steady loss of organization is referred to as an increase in entropy--one might almost term it an increase in disorganization. If this process has been operative since the creation, we must assume that at first the initial primeval mass was totally organized. Referring to this, Eddington said: (12)

Traveling backwards into the past we find a world with more and more organization. If there is no barrier to stop us earlier, we must reach a moment when the energy of the world was wholly organized with none of the random element in it. It is impossible to go back any further under the present system of natural law. I do not think the phrase "wholly organized" begs the question.

The organization we are concerned with is exactly definable, and there is a limit at which it becomes perfect. There is not an infinite series of states of higher and still higher organization; nor, I think, is the limit one which is ultimately approached more and more slowly

There is no doubt that the scheme of physics as it has stood for the last three-quarters of a century postulates a date at which either the entities of the Universe were created in a state of high organization, or pre-existing entities were endowed with that organization which they have been squandering ever since. Moreover, this organization is admittedly the antithesis of chance. It is something which could not occur fortuitously.

I think it is important to note that Eddington then added, "It has been quoted as scientific proof of the intervention of the Creator at a time not infinitely remote from today." (13) And then he said, with complete honesty, "It is one of those conclusions from which we can see no logical escape--only it suffers from the drawback that it is incredible."

George Gamow has written illuminatingly of the initial stages of this "explosion" which seems to have started off the present expansion of the universe. In 1948 he wrote: (14)

According to our calculations, the formation of elements must have started five minutes after the maximum compression of the Universe. It was fully accomplished, in all essentials, about 10 minutes later, by the time that the destiny of matter had dropped below the minimum necessary for nuclear-building processes. All the elements were created in that critical ten minutes, and their relative abundance in the Universe has remained essentially constant throughout the billions of years of subsequent expansion.

In 1954 Gamow expanded this precise statement as follows: (15)

During the first few minutes of the Universe's existence, matter must have consisted only of protons, neutrons and electrons, for any group of particles that combined momentarily into a composite nucleus would immediately have dissociated into its components at the extremely high temperature. One can call the mixture of particles ylem (pronounced eelem)--the name that Aristotle gave to primordial matter. As the Universe went on expanding and the temperature of ylem dropped, protons and neutrons began to stick together, forming deuterons (nuclei of heavy hydrogen), tritons (still heavier hydrogen), helium and heavier elements.

On the basis of what we know about the behavior of nuclear particles and of the assumptions about the rate of temperature and density changes in the expanding Universe, one can calculate the net result of all the possible nuclear reactions that must have taken place during those early minutes of the Universe's history. The time available for the formation of the element must have been very short, for two reasons: (I) the free neutrons in the original ylem would have decayed rapidly, and (2) the temperature quickly dropped below the level at which nuclear reactions could take place. The mean life of a neutron is known to be only about 12 minutes; hence half an hour after expansion had started there would have been practically no neutrons left if they had not been combined in atomic nuclei. Favorable temperature conditions lasted about the same length of time. Thus all the chemical elements must have been formed in that half-hour.

The temperature of this superdense primordial mass must have been in the neighborhood of a few billion degrees, and at such a heat the mass itself could be more precisely conceived of as a source of pure energy rather than material substance. (16) One cannot speak of the energy as being located somewhere in the universe, for it was the universe. Furthermore, when we are dealing with energy, it is quit meaningless to speak of "dimensions." Years ago, when Jeans wrote his classical little work, The Mysterious Universe, he pointed out that even now the material substance which we touch and weigh is leas substantial than appears to common sense, since it is not at al certain that electrons, for example, are actually "particles" in spite of the fact that we refer to them as such. They are more accurately described, perhaps, as locations of energy. Jeans in his characteristically eloquent way stated the matter thus: (17)

The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves, and nothing but waves, which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave-energy and setting it free to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole Universe to a world of light, potential or existent.

Jeans may perhaps have allowed his eloquence to rob him in some measure of precision, and some of his views are now widely repudiated. Nevertheless, the evidence points firmly to the conclusion that what we think of as the solid substance or material of the universe may not in reality be solid at all, but rather an expression of pure energy. The atom bomb is sufficient proof of this. Matter cat apparently be annihilated in the sense that its substance dissolve into energy instead. Sir Richard Tute years ago pointed out that the modern scientist recognizes that physical reality is produced by super-physical agencies, which must be so designated because they can never be observed." (18)

Edward McCrady, president of the University of the South, said: (19)

So many evidences have come from so many directions and have converged with such remarkable unanimity upon the conclusion that the material Universe came into existence all at once in a great creative act some billions of years ago that it would require either a lot of new evidence or a special prejudice to hold any other opinion. All that we know now about the recession of the spiral nebulae, the dispersion of star clusters, the separation of binary stars...the relation of radioactive isotopes to their stable daughters in meteorites and in the crust of the earth, arid the relative abundance of the different elements throughout the Universe, tells the same story. If today we do not believe in creation, it is in spite of, not on account of the testimony of Science. And I mean Creation by supernatural means--that is, by processes quite literally outside the laws of nature.

I do not think that Sir Richard Tute meant any more by his statement above than that the agencies which produce physical reality were at present beyond definition. But I believe that McCrady was being much more forthright and was really admitting that we must go outside of nature as we know it into the spiritual order to find the Creator. Both men agree in this, as would Jeans also, namely, that physical reality is not the ultimate reality: that which lies behind is some kind of nonphysical Power or Agency. In the Epistle to the Hebrews this truth was recorded quite precisely almost two thousand years ago in these words (Heb. 11:3):

Through faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were out made of things which do appear.

The extent to which the solid substance of reality is now being recognized as far less substantial than a gross materialism would like to think it is, is pointed up by a remark by von Weizsacker made in Switzerland, in which he said: (20)

The concept of the particle is itself just a description of a connection which exists between phenomena, and if I may jump from a very cautious and skilled language into strict metaphysical expression. I see no reason why what we call matter should not be "spirit." If I put it in terms of traditional metaphysics, matter is spirit.

The idea of creation, of something out of nothing, is of course incomprehensible to the scientific mind. Its rejection as a useful concept accounts in large measure for the popularity of the theory evolution, which seems to postpone the need for it. It is of course only a postponement, because even a perfectly unbroken chain of minute evolutionary stages must still have a beginning somewhere, an pushing it further and further back into the past doesn't really provide an alternative explanation. Curiously enough, even Thomas Huxley himself--Darwin's watchdog and chief defender--recognized the propriety of retaining the concept of creation. He said: (21)It seemed to me then (as it does now) that "creation" in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this Universe was not in existence and that made its appearance...instantaneously, in consequence of the will of a pre-existing Being. Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against the existence of God, and (given this existence) against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me to he devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then and have not now, the smallest a priori objection to raise against the account of the creation of animals and plants given in "Paradise Lost," in which Milton so vividly embodies the natural sense of Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is untrue because it is (scientifically considered) impossible.

Huxley's remarks show that the intellectual climate of his day was not as strongly materialistic and anti-supernaturalistic as it is today. But the pure materialist, who will accept as reasonable only what he can conceive, still finds himself on the horns of a dilemma when it comes to a question of origins. As Sir Theodore Fox put it: (22)

To contemplate the Universe is to stand even more abashed. For somehow, at sometime, all that we see and touch and hear must have emerged from nothing. To us this transformation of nothing into something is contrary to reason; and the creation of the Universe is a mystery that man may never be able to understand.

We are faced with two incomprehensibles, one of which we must accept--incomprehensible though it is. For either the universe must always have existed and there must never have been a time, no matter how distant in the past, at which it did not exist; or, there must have been some moment in the past at which it did not exist and then suddenly did exist. Neither of these concepts is really comprehensible. And Fox is quite right when he adds that we must beware of making excessive claims for any system of thought, such as the scientific one is, which finds itself totally unable to grapple with the only two alternatives there are by which to describe the origin of the universe.

Even in the less all-embracing question of the supposed evolutionary origin of living forms, earlier writers like Thomas Huxley appear to me to have been more honest with themselves than most of today's authorities. Thus Herbert Spencer, (23) in his Principles of Biology, in grappling with the problem of how a peacock's tail came to acquire its elaborate pattern, made an attempt to estimate what today would be called the amount of "information" that must be present in the peahens's egg in order to produce the pattern of just one single feather of the adult tail. He admitted frankly that this "organizing process transcends conception. It is not enough to say we cannot know it; we must say we cannot even conceive it."

It is hard to know whether Professor Hoyle evolved his Steady State theory of the universe in a conscious or unconscious attempt to escape from the dilemma of a beginning and therefore of a Creation, or whether it was the result of a brilliant mind seeking objectively to understand and to structure the data of astronomy. Observing that the retreating galaxies were accelerating to such speeds as they fled from the original point of explosion that they must soon pass entirely out of range of any detecting instrument man can make, and must have been doing this for countless eons: and observing at the same time that in spite of this flight into oblivion the apparent density of the universe has remained more or less constant--or so it seemed--he proposed that hydrogen atoms attenuated extremely thinly through space were for some reason being constantly coagulated here and there into fresh "lumps." These congealings led to the continuous formation of new galaxies which made up for those at the outer rim of space which were simply disappearing. So that the observable universe was really in a steady state.

Whatever may have prompted Hoyle to formulate a theory which, because it evaded the concept of a point in time at which the universe began, was very widely accepted, the fact remains that he has now abandoned it. With an integrity that one might always hope for among scientists, yet which one all too infrequently encounters, Hoyle finally admitted: (24) "From the data I have presented here [i.e., Cambridge] it seems likely that the idea will now have to be discarded at any rate in the form that it has become widely known as "the Steady State Universe." In The New Scientist a report published of a Congress of Astronomers held in Florence, Italy in 1969 in which the Steady State concept was "officially" discarded. (25)

No humanly conceived cosmology has survived unchallenging for very long, and it has been noted on several occasions that such cosmologies of more recent centuries survive for a shorter an shorter period of time. So it seems possible that the Expanding Universe concept will ultimately be replaced in due course also. But at the present time it is rather widely accepted as the most likely account, and it certainly accords with Scripture to this extent least, that it requires a very specific initial moment of creation, and suggests that there must be an end one day.

At the moment, the concept of an expanding universe based on the Red Shift phenomenon seems to have "emerged as a front runner." (26)

The recent discovery of microwaves, short radio-like waves from outer space, seems also to confirm the present Expanding Universe cosmology, since the best current explanation of them is that the represent radiation left over from the initial "explosion." (27)

The British astronomer, Dennis W. Sciama, in his Modern Cosmology has provided a very useful survey of the evidence pro and con of both the Steady State and Expanding Universe concepts. He believes from the present evidence that "there is no longer an difficulty in supposing that the Universe was once very dense" an he essentially supports Gamow's Big Bang hypothesis. (28) It appear that the evidence as a whole has now been judged by the great majority of European astronomers as clearly favoring the Big Bang, cosmology as against the Steady State theory of Hoyle. Dr. Pete Stubbs, science editor of the New Scientist, reported the findings of the European Physical Society's Inaugural Conference held in Florence in May 1969 by saying: (29)

The sum total of work on radio source counts and quasars now argues strongly against the steady state theory of Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold, and attractive as this may be from a philosophical angle, it now looks as if it must give place to a version of the Big Bang model of the Universe.

The only other concept that has seriously challenged the Big Bang concept is known as the Cyclic theory, which proposes that the universe has expanded and contracted successively any number of times, and that we are living at this moment in a cycle of expansion. This theory is discussed in one of the Harvard Books on Astronomy entitled Galaxies, written by H. Shapley in 1943. (30) It is found to be so seriously contradicted by the experimental data of astrophysics that it is no longer accepted by astronomers as a whole.

At the present moment the concept of an initial creation followed by an explosive expansion holds the field.

References:

4. Slipher, V. M.: see George W. Gray, "The Universe from Palomar" in Sci. Amer., February 1952, p. 45.

5. Figures by George W. Gray, ref. 4, p. 45.

6. Humason: see George W. Gray, ref. 4, p. 45.

7. Hubble, Edwin: in the Annual Sigma Xi Address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 30 December 1941, reported in Science 95 (1942): 212-15.

8. Coulson, C. A., "The Age of the Universe," The Listener, BBC, London, 21 May 1953, p. 839.

9. Von Weizsacker, C. F., The Relevance of Science: Creation and Cosmogony, Collins, London, 1964, p. 147.

10. Lovell, A. C. B., The Individual and the Universe, Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 88.

11. Schweitzer, George K., "The Origin of the Universe" in Evolution and Christian Thought Today, ed. Russell L. Mixter, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1959, p. 42.

12. Eddington, Sir Arthur, The Nature of the Physical World, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1930, p. 84.

13. Ibid., p. 85.

14. Gamow, George, "Galaxies in Flight" in Sci. Amer., July 1948, p. 24. Some details of the theoretical background for Gamow's ten-minute estimate will be found in Dennis W. Sciama, Modern Cosmology, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971, pp. 164-75.

15. Gamow, George, "Modern Cosmology," Sci. American, 1954 pp. 61ff.

16. Taylor, H. S., Religious Perspectives in College Teaching: in the Physical Sciences, Haze: Foundation, New Haven, 1950?, p. 16.

17. Jeans, Sir James, The Mysterious Universe, Cambridge Univ, Press, 1931, p. 77.

18. Tute, Sir Richard, in Comments and Criticisms, Sci Monthly, October 1946. p. 322.

19. McCrady, Edward, Religious Perspectives in College Teaching: in Biology. Hazen Foundation, New Haven, 1950?, pp. 13-15

20. Von Weiszacker, C. F.: quoted by W. H. Thorpe in his concluding remarks in Beyond Reductionism, ref. 1. p. 434.

21. Huxley, Thomas: quoted by R. T. Clark and J. D. Bales, Why Scientists Accept Evolution, Presbyterian and Reformed Publ. Co., Philadelphia, 1966, p. 67.

22. Fox, Sir Theodore, "The Purposes of Medicine," Harverian Oration for 1965, The Lancet, 29 October 1965, p. 804.

23. Spencer, Herbert: quoted by Sir Peter B. Medawar, The Art as the Soluble, Methuen, London, 1965, p. 46.

24. Hoyle, Fred: see Robert Ardrey, Territorial Imperatives, Delta Books, New York, 1966, p. 326.

25. Congress of Astronomers: New Scientist, 22 May 1969, p. 431.

26. "The Most Distant Object Ever Seen" in New Scientist, 12 April 1973, p. 73.

27. Townes, Charles H., "How and Why Did It All Begin?" in Jour. Amer. Sci. Affil. 24, no. (1972) :2. See also Robert C. Newman, "Hierarchical Cosmologies: New Trend?" on page 7f of the same issue of this journal.

28. Sciama, Dennis W., Modern Cosmology Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971, pp. 46, 156-7. Stanley L. Jaki in his Relevance of Physics (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 210-235) especially has some thoroughly worthwhile and salutary observations to make regarding the shifts in opinion which have occurred over the past couple of centuries and more especially over the past fifty years on the question of a finite versus an infinite universe.

29. Stubbs, Peter "Physics in Florence" in New Scientist, 24 April 1969, p. 173.

30. Shap1ey, H., Galaxies, Blakiston, Philadelphia, 1943, pp. 207-19

Corrections, June 20, 1997.