God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion (24 page)

For the scientist who has lived by 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.
¹⁴

However, it does not follow that a beginning requires a divine creator.

The Singular Universe

For many years, the Christian philosopher, apologist, and master debater William Lane Craig has argued that a theorem published in 1970 by famed Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking and eminent Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose provides evidence that the universe had a beginning.
¹⁵
Using Einstein's general theory of relativity, Hawking and Penrose proved that the universe began with a
singularity—
an infinitesimal point in space of infinite density. Theologians argue that time itself had to begin at that point and so must have the universe.

More recently, Craig and US Navy warfare analyst James Sinclair have added two other arguments that the universe must have had a beginning:

1. The universe cannot be eternal because that implies a beginning an infinite time ago, in which case we would never reach the present.
   
2. New arguments from general relativity prove that the universe had an “absolute beginning.”
   ¹⁶
   

Craig quotes the great mathematician David Hilbert as saying: “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a
legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.”
¹⁷
Here, on this specific point but not on his final conclusion, I find myself agreeing with Craig. While it is true that the word “infinity” appears often in scientific literature, it should be understood as meaning “very big” or “unlimited.” When infinity appears in an equation, it is a mathematical abstraction, not reality.

Craig and Sinclair propose the syllogism:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
   
2. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
   
3. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.
   ¹⁸
   

I hope you noticed the inconsistency here. On the one hand, Craig claims the universe started as a singularity of
infinite
density, and then he turns around and says that nothing
infinite
can occur in reality. (What about God?)

An eternal universe, one with no beginning or end, is anathema to Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief. If there was no beginning, there was no creator. In 1600, the monk Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing that the universe was infinite, among other heresies. As historian John Hedley Brooke points out, Bruno's teaching deprived humanity of a privileged place in the cosmos.
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The second argument for a beginning made by Craig and Sinclair is based on a theorem proved from general relativity and published in 2003 by mathematician Arvind Borde, physicist Alan Guth, and cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin.
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While Craig has been the primary theological source for these cosmological arguments for God, they can be found in virtually every popular Christian book that mentions cosmology. For example, Christian apologist and evangelist Ravi Zacharias stated in a 2008 book:

Big Bang cosmology, along with Einstein's theory of relativity, implies that there is indeed an “in the beginning.” All the data indicates a universe that is exploding from a point of infinite density.
²¹

In his 2007 book,
What's So Great About Christianity?
Dinesh D'Souza writes,
²²

In a stunning confirmation of the book of Genesis, modern scientists have discovered that the universe was created in a primordial explosion of energy and light. Not only did the universe have a beginning
in
space and time, but the origin of the universe was also a beginning
for
space and time.

The Argument from Fine-Tuning

The final argument that is widely presented as evidence for a creator is called the
argument from fine-tuning.
This is the claim that the constants of physics are such that any slight change in their values would cause life, as we know it, not to exist.

In 1987, theoretical physicist Tony Rothman wrote:

The medieval theologian who gazed at the night sky through the eyes of Aristotle and saw angels moving the spheres in harmony has become the modern cosmologist who gazes at the same sky through the eyes of Einstein and sees the hand of God not in angels but in the constants of nature…. When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science to religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.
²³

Francis Collins writes:

The precise tuning of all the physical constants and physical laws to make intelligent life possible is not an accident, but reflects the action of the one who created the universe in the first place.
²⁴

The fine-tuning argument is an outgrowth of a long history of physicists puzzling over reasons for the values of fundamental physical constants.
²⁵
This led physicist Brandon Carter to propose what he unfortunately dubbed the
anthropic principle
. At a 1973 symposium in Kraków, Poland, Carter made the observation, “Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent.”
²⁶

The Kraków symposium was in honor of the 500th birthday of Nicolaus
Copernicus. Carter was disputing the
Copernican principle
, which states that neither humanity nor anything else occupies a special place in the cosmos. The Copernican principle had grown out of Copernicus's insight that Earth revolved around the sun. As we have seen, the fact that Earth was not the center of the universe was a tremendous blow to the theology of the time—a grave threat to the notion that humanity is special. Now Carter was suggesting we are privileged in some way after all.

In 1986, astronomer John Barrow and physicist Frank Tipler published a highly technical tome called
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
, which presents a detailed physics discussion, with equations, of what are called the
anthropic coincidences
.
²⁷
Several other excellent popular books survey the subject without equations.
²⁸
Although recognizing the theological, and teleological, implications, Barrow and Tipler were careful not to conclude anything about the source of the coincidences. Such a claim would be provided by theologians and Christian apologists.
²⁹
A comprehensive list of the primary claims of divine fine-tuning can be found in the article by physicist and Christian apologist Hugh Ross.
³⁰

There can be no doubt that life, as we know it, would be different if the constants of physics were only slightly different. However, this does not rule out other forms of life that might have developed had the universe had a different set of constants. Referring to Ross, biologist Rich Deem lists five crucial parameters without the fine-tuning of which he claims no form of life of any kind would be possible.
³¹

Five Crucial Parameters

1. The ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity

This ratio is 10
³⁹
for the forces between an electron and a proton. If the strengths of these forces had differed by just a few orders of magnitude, the universe would have collapsed long before stars, galaxies, and life of any sort had a chance to form.

2. The ratio of the numbers of protons to electrons in the universe

If this number had been slightly larger, electromagnetism would dominate over gravity and galaxies would not form. If it had been smaller, gravity would dominate and chemical bonding would not occur.

3. The expansion rate of the universe

In his blockbuster 1988 bestseller
A Brief History of Time
, Stephen Hawking wrote: “If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.”
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4. The mass density of the universe
³³

According to Ross, if the mass density of the universe were slightly larger, then overabundance of the production of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) from the big bang would cause stars to burn too rapidly for life to form. If smaller, insufficient helium from the big bang would result in a shortage of the heavy elements needed for life.
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5. The cosmological constant

In Einstein's gravitational equation, the cosmological constant is equivalent to an energy density in a vacuum, that is, in a space devoid of matter. By equating this density to the density of the zero point energy that is left in a volume after you remove all its particles, you obtain a number that is 120 orders of magnitude higher than what is observed. Such a high value would result in a universe that would so rapidly inflate that galaxies would have no time to form. Theists tout this as the best example of God's fine-tuning of physics so that we could exist. Physicist Leonard Susskind calls the cosmological constant problem “the mother of all physics problems” and “the worst prediction ever.”
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This summarizes the cosmological case for God.

BIG BANG SCIENCE

Let us now look at what modern physics and cosmology have to say about these theological claims based on cosmology. Please keep in mind that nowhere is the argument being made that the big bang did not occur. The evidence that it did is overwhelming and from a number of independent observations that agree quantitatively with the model. While other models have been proposed that offer ad hoc explanations for this or that specific observation, none comes close to comprehensively fitting all the data the way the big bang model can. As we will see, the big bang simply did not require a miraculous creation.

Conservation of Mass

Early in the twentieth century, Einstein showed that mass is equivalent to energy. In his famous equation, a body of mass
m
has a
rest energy E = mc
²
, where
c
is the speed of light in a vacuum, a constant that merely changes the units of mass to units of energy and can be set equal to one. This implied that any form of energy can be used to create mass, or mass can be changed into any other form of energy. For example, the kinetic energy of two colliding particles can result in the creation of new particles. In chemical and nuclear reactions that produce energy, that energy comes from the rest energy of the initial ingredients. The nonconservation of mass is measurable in nuclear reactions, but also occurs in chemical reactions although there the mass differences are too tiny to measure directly.

Thus the law of conservation of mass is invalid and the mass of the universe could have come from energy. But then, where did the energy come from? The law of conservation of energy still would seem to require miraculous creation.

The First Law of Thermodynamics

As we have seen, the big bang is considered by theists as evidence for a creator. This is yet another invocation of the God-of-the-gaps argument—but we don't have to wait for science to fill the gap. Ironically, the big bang has filled
its own gap by providing natural explanations for the apparent violation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Our best current observational evidence strongly supports a picture first proposed in 1980 by physicist Alan Guth and others called
inflation.
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According to the inflationary cosmological model, the current big bang was preceded by a short period of rapid, exponential expansion lasting about 10
^-35
second. Inflation solved a number of problems with the prior big bang theory and furthermore implied that the total energy of the universe is zero.

Think of the three dimensions of space as analogous to the two-dimensional surface of a balloon. When that balloon is inflated by many orders of magnitude, its surface will be nearly flat. Similarly, inflationary cosmology results in space becoming very flat (Euclidean). A flat space is characterized by a balance in the kinetic, rest, and gravitational potential energies giving zero total energy.

The theoretical prediction from inflationary cosmology that the energy of the universe is zero was confirmed by astronomical observations late in the twentieth century. In short, zero energy was required to make our universe. Conservation of energy—the first law of thermodynamics—is not violated by a model in which the universe came from a state of zero energy, that is, came from nothing.
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Now, because of the quantum uncertainty principle the energy cannot be exactly zero; that is, there is always a tiny “zero-point energy.” However, this does not affect our conclusion since no miracle is required, no law of physics was violated.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics