Diverse Origin
26/March/2008 13:05 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 10, Issue 13
PDF copy
Last week we began the article with the statement “Only in the Beginning, the beginning was not an end.” Coupling that with some other recent events, I realized that I have never really written about my concept of the origin of the universe. I am not a physicist, but I do see some problems with all current explanations on how the cosmos came into being. These problems deal however, not with physics but metaphysics.
What the post everything world seems to forget is that our physics (science) is derived almost completely from our metaphysics (philosophy or worldview). To say that our science, as presented, is based upon objective analysis of observable data, is grossly stretching the truth, because the data itself by definition can not interpret the presuppositions used to spin the data to prove our point. The current discussion about climate change being the prime example.
Just as the discussion of climate change, whether you believe in global warming by human intervention, or cooling by decreased sun activity, or you really don’t care at all because you will die before it really becomes an issue, all stem from a universe in which you are the great singularity that determines truth. In other words you are god (little g). whether you think you are being objective or not.
In that similar light all modern cosmos origin models fall out from that same Great Singularity principle. That be true whether it deals with the Big Bang and Black Holes or White Holes and other interpretations. All these theories have to deal with what we observe as an infinitely huge universe, in which we live on a small speck somewhere on the fringe of the Milky Way.
From both cosmology and philosophy these solutions beg the question what came before the beginning? Only religion answers that question, but that answer falls outside the acceptable presuppositions of the worldview of natural materialism, and hence is defined outside the valid “laws of materialistic science.”
What that really does however, is to close off the unknown, or more appropriately unmeasurable, as a paradigm in which human logic can not and should not venture. It also closes off any avenue, street, or humble trail, to any absolute beyond the problem with our own insecure, inadequate, individual, great singularity. More bluntly, we retreat from external reality into a fantasy world of our own delusions.
This really is not a significant problem for evolutionary dogma, because by definition mankind is really an unknown enigma within a cosmos in which absolutes do not exist, essentially because all cosmology is atheistic in nature. Atheistic evolution can not be wrong, because it’s universe both in the natural and the metaphysical sense is “designed” without that concept beyond itself. Simply put, God can not and does not exist, because the paradigm is too limited.
Christianity and all deistic religions however, point towards some Great Singularity, or intelligence, beyond the scope of human reason. These paradigms therefore promote a nature of a specific revelation beyond pure naturalism and hence are founded upon and base their presuppositions within some parameter of the Divine Absolute.
Judaism and Christianity have an answer of what came before the Big Bang, and that is before the Big Bang there was God. They base this on the specific revelation of God found in a Book called the Bible. The Bible is designed as a specific revelation of absolute truth to the children of God, not to the whole world. Children however, being a much more humble state than being a totally insecure singularity. As children the stress of having to figure out everything, is not only beyond your intellect, but also by definition not that important in this temporal universe, because there exists a greater universe in which the revelation of God will become eternal.
The point here is that creation is also a revelation of God and that it also has a diversity beyond the human capacity to comprehend. This revelation of God is available to all humanity and by that diverse reality they will one day be judged by God for ignoring these simple truths. These simple truths we call natural law and common grace.
The Bible clearly indicates that the universe is relatively young. While it does not specifically lay out a time line from the Beginning beginning until the dawn of recorded history, you stretch that Biblical credibility when you venture or adventure beyond thousands of years into the paradigm of existential materialism. Orthodox Judaism dates today as Adar II 19,5768 which lies well within that concept, as well does the Biblical timeline of Bishop Ussher, so popular with Dispensational evangelicalism, the timelines of Martin Luther, and other Christians who have tried to decipher the generations of the Book of Genesis.
The main problem with this young earth however, especially when contrasted with evolution, is how do you create a infinite triune universe within a short history of time, space, and matter. This problem within young earth Christianity normally is dealt with by playing with the concept of the speed of light within the larger concept of the afore mentioned Great Singularity of the evolutionary Big Bang, or a derivative thereof.
The argument is basically how can you logically create essentially a hundred elements, millions of compounds, transport it across light years of the universe, form a planet and life, both plant and animal, create humanity with a divine purpose and destiny, and do it all within essentially a calendar week as described in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis?
The truth is that you can’t.
That is because the God of the Bible is not only the one and only Great Singularity, but He is also the Great Diversity.
Let’s back up to a little more familiar ground, like in a family. Because of the nature of the development of American Christianity there has always been this tension between Arminianism and Calvinism. In the early American Christian scene, Lutheranism did not play a significant role, neither did Roman Catholicism, nor was Judaism of any significant religious importance.
Furthermore, these Arminians or Calvinists came to these shores to flee or end religious persecution in Europe and to begin forming a new purer form of that religion in the freedom of the American promised land. This is still been the basis of the Religious Right in American politics. These distinctions were important to these early settlers, whether you were a Calvinist or an Arminian, for from either camp you drew religious significance. These differences are enumerated or spelled out in the Canons of Dordt in 1618-19, from which the famous Calvinist TULIP was developed. If you did not adhere to the five points of Calvinism you were by definition Arminian. The interesting point here and germane to our discussion is that this Calvinism developed in response to Arminian doctrine and was not developed directly as a statement of the teaching of the Geneva reformer, nor was it of little interest outside the “Reformed” denomination.
This illustration is similar to the young earth creationist response to the Big Bang. It is not based on the exegesis of scripture by the religious body, but in response to some heresy, in this case evolution. Therefore, the argument by it’s very nature takes place within the paradigms of evolution, just as Dordt took place within the paradigms of the Reformed Faith. Neither discussion is based upon the Absolute Nature of God, but a narrower specific revelation of applied doctrine or dogma, depending on what side of the divide you are talking about. So Calvinists believed that they won and Arminians were not persuaded they lost, but the bigger universe really was not addressed by either, even though both would agree to protest this conclusion.
Since we began this discussion in the terms of metaphysics rather than physics, to be successful the argument must be about the nature of God rather than the observable creation. To say the persuasiveness of our arguments will convince an atheist to accept our theories of Biblical creation is not only absurd, but also heretical from the Biblical context we are trying to establish.
The God of the Bible is both the Great Singularity and the Great Diversity. If you separate one from the other not only does the physics disappear so does the (absolute) truth of the metaphysics. The Christian Trinity is the great Unity in Diversity. Just because that is a mystery to human understanding does not dismiss that Absolute Truth. Just as God is outside the Triune Universe, He is also present within and controls all parameters of this Universal reality.
Therefore, we do not need a Big Bang to explain the creation of the universe, nor black holes, or white holes. God created, or can create the universe just as it is ex nihilo. That means that even though water appears to be the prime compound of creation, the metaphysical concept of the vast ocean can not be excluded. For land and all the other terrestrial components to emerge from the sea, does not mean they were created from the sea, but just as stated were under the sea, and emerged in due time. (Just as the Genesis account states)
The Big Problem is with the light and an infinite universe. In most Christian and materialistic interpretations of the beginning, the concept is simply visible light. But that concept is way too narrow for an understanding of a diverse God. Light is just a narrow “visible” bandwidth of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from gamma rays, through visible light, up thru radio frequencies. This spectrum is responsible for not only the carrying of energy but also information. Therefore, once the creation becomes real, ex nihilo we not only have the energetic power but the information conduit or source to reorder created matter into new substances for God’s desired outcome. The gospel of John begins with such a scenario regarding the logos, or Jesus.
What also seems to be neglected in most origins theory is the conversions under Einstein's theory of relativity. A slight change in the speed of light alters the energy or mass available by the square of the light speed. We now believe this to be a constant in a vacuum, but can be altered by matter, such as the blue glow emanating from the core of a water cooled nuclear reactor. However, the nature of God, as the Creator of the electromagnetic spectrum, does maintain this constant to suit His glory, which we call natural law. More important in the metaphysical sense is that this light along with matter can and probably was created again ex nihilo. This means either where it was needed or as the process to where it was needed. This method does not require either a red or blue shift of visible light scene in a Great Singularity creation beginning.
To bring this down to a level I can understand. I once had some friends that traveled to Boston from Seattle almost every Thanksgiving. Because they were traveling, they didn’t have the time frame to prepare some home cooked menu item. Instead they normally just purchased a turkey when they got off the plane on the way to Grandma’s house. It was a New England bird for this illustration, and cooked with New England energy for a New England Thanksgiving. This made much more sense than buying a turkey in Seattle, and transporting it clear across the country.
So when God desires to create the first turkey, why not just create it out of the dust of the ground, not only does it make logical sense, there is really no reason to do otherwise. In like manner God created man in His image out of the dust, but different from the rest of His creation. This is because humanity is not entirely a natural phenomenon, and therefore cannot be explained entirely by natural materialism.
As we began this article, natural materialism does not contain a paradigm outside of a reality beyond human current understanding and therefore is naturally a deficient worldview of not only the Great Singularity of God, but also the Great Diversity of God. To think that by human reasoning we can somehow bridge that gap to convert others, is the same erroneous assumption by which most Christian churches this last Sunday proclaimed a gospel of legalism of either specific or natural law, rather than a gospel of the unmerited grace of God found only in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
PDF copy
Last week we began the article with the statement “Only in the Beginning, the beginning was not an end.” Coupling that with some other recent events, I realized that I have never really written about my concept of the origin of the universe. I am not a physicist, but I do see some problems with all current explanations on how the cosmos came into being. These problems deal however, not with physics but metaphysics.
What the post everything world seems to forget is that our physics (science) is derived almost completely from our metaphysics (philosophy or worldview). To say that our science, as presented, is based upon objective analysis of observable data, is grossly stretching the truth, because the data itself by definition can not interpret the presuppositions used to spin the data to prove our point. The current discussion about climate change being the prime example.
Just as the discussion of climate change, whether you believe in global warming by human intervention, or cooling by decreased sun activity, or you really don’t care at all because you will die before it really becomes an issue, all stem from a universe in which you are the great singularity that determines truth. In other words you are god (little g). whether you think you are being objective or not.
In that similar light all modern cosmos origin models fall out from that same Great Singularity principle. That be true whether it deals with the Big Bang and Black Holes or White Holes and other interpretations. All these theories have to deal with what we observe as an infinitely huge universe, in which we live on a small speck somewhere on the fringe of the Milky Way.
From both cosmology and philosophy these solutions beg the question what came before the beginning? Only religion answers that question, but that answer falls outside the acceptable presuppositions of the worldview of natural materialism, and hence is defined outside the valid “laws of materialistic science.”
What that really does however, is to close off the unknown, or more appropriately unmeasurable, as a paradigm in which human logic can not and should not venture. It also closes off any avenue, street, or humble trail, to any absolute beyond the problem with our own insecure, inadequate, individual, great singularity. More bluntly, we retreat from external reality into a fantasy world of our own delusions.
This really is not a significant problem for evolutionary dogma, because by definition mankind is really an unknown enigma within a cosmos in which absolutes do not exist, essentially because all cosmology is atheistic in nature. Atheistic evolution can not be wrong, because it’s universe both in the natural and the metaphysical sense is “designed” without that concept beyond itself. Simply put, God can not and does not exist, because the paradigm is too limited.
Christianity and all deistic religions however, point towards some Great Singularity, or intelligence, beyond the scope of human reason. These paradigms therefore promote a nature of a specific revelation beyond pure naturalism and hence are founded upon and base their presuppositions within some parameter of the Divine Absolute.
Judaism and Christianity have an answer of what came before the Big Bang, and that is before the Big Bang there was God. They base this on the specific revelation of God found in a Book called the Bible. The Bible is designed as a specific revelation of absolute truth to the children of God, not to the whole world. Children however, being a much more humble state than being a totally insecure singularity. As children the stress of having to figure out everything, is not only beyond your intellect, but also by definition not that important in this temporal universe, because there exists a greater universe in which the revelation of God will become eternal.
The point here is that creation is also a revelation of God and that it also has a diversity beyond the human capacity to comprehend. This revelation of God is available to all humanity and by that diverse reality they will one day be judged by God for ignoring these simple truths. These simple truths we call natural law and common grace.
The Bible clearly indicates that the universe is relatively young. While it does not specifically lay out a time line from the Beginning beginning until the dawn of recorded history, you stretch that Biblical credibility when you venture or adventure beyond thousands of years into the paradigm of existential materialism. Orthodox Judaism dates today as Adar II 19,5768 which lies well within that concept, as well does the Biblical timeline of Bishop Ussher, so popular with Dispensational evangelicalism, the timelines of Martin Luther, and other Christians who have tried to decipher the generations of the Book of Genesis.
The main problem with this young earth however, especially when contrasted with evolution, is how do you create a infinite triune universe within a short history of time, space, and matter. This problem within young earth Christianity normally is dealt with by playing with the concept of the speed of light within the larger concept of the afore mentioned Great Singularity of the evolutionary Big Bang, or a derivative thereof.
The argument is basically how can you logically create essentially a hundred elements, millions of compounds, transport it across light years of the universe, form a planet and life, both plant and animal, create humanity with a divine purpose and destiny, and do it all within essentially a calendar week as described in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis?
The truth is that you can’t.
That is because the God of the Bible is not only the one and only Great Singularity, but He is also the Great Diversity.
Let’s back up to a little more familiar ground, like in a family. Because of the nature of the development of American Christianity there has always been this tension between Arminianism and Calvinism. In the early American Christian scene, Lutheranism did not play a significant role, neither did Roman Catholicism, nor was Judaism of any significant religious importance.
Furthermore, these Arminians or Calvinists came to these shores to flee or end religious persecution in Europe and to begin forming a new purer form of that religion in the freedom of the American promised land. This is still been the basis of the Religious Right in American politics. These distinctions were important to these early settlers, whether you were a Calvinist or an Arminian, for from either camp you drew religious significance. These differences are enumerated or spelled out in the Canons of Dordt in 1618-19, from which the famous Calvinist TULIP was developed. If you did not adhere to the five points of Calvinism you were by definition Arminian. The interesting point here and germane to our discussion is that this Calvinism developed in response to Arminian doctrine and was not developed directly as a statement of the teaching of the Geneva reformer, nor was it of little interest outside the “Reformed” denomination.
This illustration is similar to the young earth creationist response to the Big Bang. It is not based on the exegesis of scripture by the religious body, but in response to some heresy, in this case evolution. Therefore, the argument by it’s very nature takes place within the paradigms of evolution, just as Dordt took place within the paradigms of the Reformed Faith. Neither discussion is based upon the Absolute Nature of God, but a narrower specific revelation of applied doctrine or dogma, depending on what side of the divide you are talking about. So Calvinists believed that they won and Arminians were not persuaded they lost, but the bigger universe really was not addressed by either, even though both would agree to protest this conclusion.
Since we began this discussion in the terms of metaphysics rather than physics, to be successful the argument must be about the nature of God rather than the observable creation. To say the persuasiveness of our arguments will convince an atheist to accept our theories of Biblical creation is not only absurd, but also heretical from the Biblical context we are trying to establish.
The God of the Bible is both the Great Singularity and the Great Diversity. If you separate one from the other not only does the physics disappear so does the (absolute) truth of the metaphysics. The Christian Trinity is the great Unity in Diversity. Just because that is a mystery to human understanding does not dismiss that Absolute Truth. Just as God is outside the Triune Universe, He is also present within and controls all parameters of this Universal reality.
Therefore, we do not need a Big Bang to explain the creation of the universe, nor black holes, or white holes. God created, or can create the universe just as it is ex nihilo. That means that even though water appears to be the prime compound of creation, the metaphysical concept of the vast ocean can not be excluded. For land and all the other terrestrial components to emerge from the sea, does not mean they were created from the sea, but just as stated were under the sea, and emerged in due time. (Just as the Genesis account states)
The Big Problem is with the light and an infinite universe. In most Christian and materialistic interpretations of the beginning, the concept is simply visible light. But that concept is way too narrow for an understanding of a diverse God. Light is just a narrow “visible” bandwidth of the electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from gamma rays, through visible light, up thru radio frequencies. This spectrum is responsible for not only the carrying of energy but also information. Therefore, once the creation becomes real, ex nihilo we not only have the energetic power but the information conduit or source to reorder created matter into new substances for God’s desired outcome. The gospel of John begins with such a scenario regarding the logos, or Jesus.
What also seems to be neglected in most origins theory is the conversions under Einstein's theory of relativity. A slight change in the speed of light alters the energy or mass available by the square of the light speed. We now believe this to be a constant in a vacuum, but can be altered by matter, such as the blue glow emanating from the core of a water cooled nuclear reactor. However, the nature of God, as the Creator of the electromagnetic spectrum, does maintain this constant to suit His glory, which we call natural law. More important in the metaphysical sense is that this light along with matter can and probably was created again ex nihilo. This means either where it was needed or as the process to where it was needed. This method does not require either a red or blue shift of visible light scene in a Great Singularity creation beginning.
To bring this down to a level I can understand. I once had some friends that traveled to Boston from Seattle almost every Thanksgiving. Because they were traveling, they didn’t have the time frame to prepare some home cooked menu item. Instead they normally just purchased a turkey when they got off the plane on the way to Grandma’s house. It was a New England bird for this illustration, and cooked with New England energy for a New England Thanksgiving. This made much more sense than buying a turkey in Seattle, and transporting it clear across the country.
So when God desires to create the first turkey, why not just create it out of the dust of the ground, not only does it make logical sense, there is really no reason to do otherwise. In like manner God created man in His image out of the dust, but different from the rest of His creation. This is because humanity is not entirely a natural phenomenon, and therefore cannot be explained entirely by natural materialism.
As we began this article, natural materialism does not contain a paradigm outside of a reality beyond human current understanding and therefore is naturally a deficient worldview of not only the Great Singularity of God, but also the Great Diversity of God. To think that by human reasoning we can somehow bridge that gap to convert others, is the same erroneous assumption by which most Christian churches this last Sunday proclaimed a gospel of legalism of either specific or natural law, rather than a gospel of the unmerited grace of God found only in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.