Season 2 of Spirit-Led Hope looks at the origin story of our universe and life. In this episode, Glenn begins explaining how the universe started from the naturalistic perspective. This episode looks at the foundational work done by Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Einstein. Based on the work by these giants of science, a Belgian Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre formulated the first thoughts about what is now called the Big Bang Theory. Glenn points out the irony that the most commonly accepted naturalistic theory for the beginnings of the universe was advanced by scientists who believed in God.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the podcast section of https://spiritledhope.com/ .

S2 E4 TRANSCRIPT

THE BEGINNINGS ACCORDING TO SCIENCE PART 1

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are talking about:

THE BEGINNINGS ACCORDING TO SCIENCE

In previous episodes we looked at the worldviews of Christianity and naturalism, we briefly discussed the human spirit, and we explored some of the big questions people ask themselves. With that background in mind, it is time to examine the naturalistic view of how the universe started.

I have really wrestled with how to present this topic. In fact, I have really wrestled with how to present this whole season. Part of me wanted to lay out the pros and cons of Christianity versus naturalism, but I quickly realized that was not the best use of this podcast. In Episode 2, I recommended a couple of books if you find that approach interesting.

The fact is…I am a follower of Jesus and I automatically bring in my Christian bias to each episode. That does not mean I cannot present the naturalistic worldview fairly, but it does mean that I will likely point to what I see as the superiority of the Christian worldview.

In this Season, I want to help Christians understand how amazing the Biblical account of Creation is, and to not be afraid of science. On the contrary, science and nature itself point strongly towards the existence of a Creator. We will explain that more as we go.

If you are a naturalist and you are following this Season, I want you to relax. I may disagree with naturalism, and I may be critical of it, but I am not going to ridicule those who believe in it. And, I will do my best to present the science around naturalism fairly.

FOUNDATIONAL WORK PRIOR TO 1900

All right, let us start looking at the beginning of the universe through the lens of a naturalistic worldview. To do that, we are going to start in the early 1900’s. Now, obviously, we are leaving out a few thousand years of the history of science, but we do need to start somewhere.

Scientific knowledge in 1900 was heavily influenced by the work of three men, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell. Newton did his work in the 1600’s, and Faraday and Maxwell in the 1800’s.

Most people have heard of Newton because he is credited with discovering the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Motion. And many people know that Newton was also one of the inventors of the branch of mathematics called calculus. It is hard to overstate the influence Newton had on science. His work explained how the planets travel around the sun, and predicted how things move when acted upon by a force.

Fewer people have heard of James Clerk Maxwell. But Maxwell’s contributions to science are profound. Maxwell came up with an elegant mathematical way to describe electricity and magnetism with four equations. Most of Maxwell’s work was based on discoveries made by Michael Faraday who was 40 years older. The work by Faraday and Maxwell represents some of the most brilliant combinations of experiment, theory, and mathematics in the history of science.

The work by these three men set the stage for fresh discoveries in the early 1900’s. I am getting ahead of myself, but Albert Einstein, the scientist we will soon talk about, acknowledged that these three gave him the foundation for his contributions. In fact, Einstein even said that he stood on the shoulders of Maxwell. Maxwell, in turn, stood on the shoulders of Faraday. I mean, in science, everyone stands on the shoulders of someone else! That is just the way it works!

Before we jump back to the science, I think it is worth noting that these three men all believed in God. In our modern day, many people make the assumption that you cannot believe in God and be a scientist. But that is certainly proved wrong by these giants of science and their contributions.

Interestingly, Newton was more of a theist than a Christian because he had some non-orthodox beliefs about the Trinitarian view of God. Both Faraday and Maxwell were Christians, with Maxwell being the more open about it. It is reported that Maxwell had memorized large portions of the Bible and was comfortable talking to the theologians of that day. Again, Christians do not need to accept that a belief in God and science are incompatible.

Now ironically, naturalists today say that the work done by Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell, removes the need for God. But that certainly is not the conclusion reached by the men who made these important discoveries in physics.

THE BEGINNINGS ACCORDING TO NATURALISM

With that background in mind, let us return to 1900. In the early 1900’s, there were two important changes underway. The first was that observational astronomy was growing. Telescopes were getting better and more powerful, and astronomers were interested in the structure of our galaxy…in the structure of the Milky Way. Astronomers were collecting information on stars and relating their observations to the laws of physics and chemistry. This was a time of rapid growth for the field of astrophysics, which had its beginnings, way back, with Isaac Newton.

The second big change had to do with two papers published by Albert Einstein. In 1905, Einstein published the Special Theory of Relativity. The Special Theory of Relativity shook people up because it messed with people’s concept of time being unchanging. Special relativity developed the concept of spacetime.

One of the postulates of special relativity is that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers. This is a departure from the physics developed by Isaac Newton. Let me give you an example.

One day when I was a boy, some older kids decided that they were going to drive around the neighborhood and throw eggs at people. Unfortunately, I was their target. I was walking my bicycle up a steep hill when a car came speeding towards me. One of the boys leaned out the window of the car and threw an egg that hit me on the thigh. It hurt! It did a lot of damage to my leg and the bruise was there for weeks.

I could barely walk after the impact, which makes sense by the physics. The car was coming towards me at over 50 miles per hour. And the egg left the arm of the thrower at over 50 miles per hour as seen by the thrower. According to Newtonian physics, the egg hit my leg at the sum of the two speeds which meant I got smacked by an egg traveling at over 100 miles per hour relative to me. I am thankful it did not hit me in the head!

But according to Special Relativity, the speed of light does not act the same way as the egg. If the egg thrower instead had pointed a flashlight at me (which would have been much nicer), he would have seen the light leaving his flashlight at about 186,000 miles per second. (Yes, that is fast.) I would have experienced the light hitting my leg at the same speed, about 186,000 miles per second. In other words, the speed of the car is not additive to the speed of light. No matter how you measure the speed of light in a vacuum, the results will always be the same. And it does not matter if you are moving relative to the source of the light. This is very contrary to what we experience in our day-to-day living.

One of the results of this is that time flows differently based on relative motion. For example, if you drove past me in a car with an analog clock in the window, I would observe that your clock ticks slower than mine. Well, actually I would not. Your clock would be moving slower, but the amount would be so small that I could not detect it. It is only when you are going very fast, at a significant percentage of the speed of light, that I can see your clock going slower than mine.

And it gets stranger than that. Not only does your clock go slower, but I would observe that your length shrinks in the direction of motion. I would see you looking compressed, or skinnier, which you may like depending on your body type!

Now all of this sounds crazy, but it is measurably true. Special relativity has been tested using atomic clocks, and the slowing of time (which is called time dilation) is just as Einstein predicted.

If you are looking for more proof of the truth of special relativity, special relativity also predicts mass-energy equivalence with the famous equation that most people have heard of, E=mc^2 . And this has been proven many times by nuclear power plants and weapons.

Special relativity alone was a great discovery, but Einstein did not stop there. In 1915, Einstein published a paper on what he called general relativity. Whereas special relativity looked at light and bodies moving at a constant speed without acceleration, general relativity looked at gravity and accelerated motion.

Einstein’s work on general relativity resulted in what are now called the Einstein Field Equations, and these relate the geometry of spacetime to the matter within it. These equations are extremely technical and please, do not expect me to explain them. The math is well beyond most people. Even Einstein enlisted the help of a mathematician to work through the more complicated pieces.

As you might expect, general relativity predicted more non-intuitive results. For example, clocks run slower or faster based on gravity. This means a clock on the top of a mountain runs faster than a clock at the base of the mountain. Now, again, the difference is so small it is hard to measure, but it is there. In fact, GPS, global positioning systems must take these relativistic effects into account to be precise. So, GPS is a modern example that shows the truth of general relativity.

General relativity also predicts the curvature of spacetime and that rays of light can bend due to gravity. All these predictions have been examined many times using sophisticated methods of experimentation. And every time, Einstein’s intuition and theory have passed the test.

Well, what does all of this have to do with the origin of the universe? It is this…if special and general relativity are true, there are consequences that we should observe in the universe around us. For example, Einstein realized that if gravity were the only force acting in the universe, the matter in the universe (the stars and planets and everything else) should eventually contract upon itself. But obviously, that has not happened. This bothered Einstein and he theorized there must be some outward force that keeps the universe from collapsing.

In 1917 Einstein wrote another paper that he titled, “Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity.” I know, that is a mouthful. But in the title of this paper, you can see that Einstein is now focused on the ramifications of his own field equations and what they might mean with regards to the universe.

In this paper, Einstein proposed what he called the “cosmological constant.” This mathematical term was added to his original general relativity field equations. Einstein added the cosmological constant to remove the possibility of gravitational collapse of the universe. Einstein then picked the value of the cosmological constant such that a repulsive force would just counter the effects of gravity.

I find it fascinating that Einstein’s reasoning for doing this was based on philosophical principles. There was no physical data to support this addition to his field equations.

The bottom line is that Einstein wanted the universe to be static. In other words, he did not want the universe to be either expanding or contracting. Why? Because with this approach, one could view the universe as eternal and always self-existing.

If you were a naturalist in the early 1900’s, this was a very comfortable approach to take. Because if the universe was static, then there is no reason to believe in the Biblical account of a Creation event. If the universe itself were infinite and uncreated…there is no need for an infinite Creator.

Einstein, along with many other cosmologists of his day, did not like any cosmological model that showed the universe had a beginning. Why? Because they knew all too well that this had theological and metaphysical implications.

Unfortunately for Einstein, a Belgian Catholic priest and physicist by the name of Georges Lemaitre (and I hope I am pronouncing that right), George Lemaitre, dashed Einstein’s hope for a static universe which ultimately caused Einstein to call the cosmological constant his greatest blunder. He even said, “the greatest blunder in his life.” Now interestingly, some physicists today think the cosmological constant is still useful, but that is beyond our discussion here.

Earlier we mentioned that in the 1900’s observational astronomy was growing. What George Lemaitre did in 1927 was to find a solution to Einstein’s field equations and compare it to the observational data. The data showed that galaxies were receding away from us and that the further away they were the faster they were moving. The conclusion from the mathematics and the data was that the universe, in other words space itself, was expanding.

The implications of this expansion were not lost on Lemaitre. He realized that if you rolled back the expansion of space in time, there must have been a beginning where all the matter of the universe was in one spot. He called this starting point a “primeval atom.” Everything in the universe, according to Lemaitre, expanded outward from that beginning state.

What Lemaitre had achieved was to describe a cosmological model that fit the equations of general relativity and aligned with the physical evidence. And this was the first description of the beginnings of the universe accepted by naturalists today.

Unfortunately for Lemaitre, his work was criticized. Einstein himself was not happy with the conclusions. Einstein believed that Lemaitre was inspired by the Christian view of Creation which, since he was a priest, may have been the case. But Einstein did not believe, when Lemaitre’s work first came out, that the physical interpretation of his theory made sense. In fact, Einstein is quoted as telling Lemaitre, “Your calculations are correct, but your physical insight is abominable.” That could not have been good press for the priest physicist, and it may be one of the reasons that Lemaitre’s work was minimized.

Ultimately though, Einstein did come to accept there was a beginning because the data continued to pour in. In 1929, Edwin Hubble published his paper which established “Hubble’s Law” and gave a rate of expansion for the universe. Unfortunately, for Lemaitre, Hubble received a lot of recognition, even though Hubble’s work was preceded by Lemaitre. Hubble even got a telescope named after him. Hubble is a household word, but Lemaitre is not.

On the happier side, Einstein did come to appreciate the work of Lemaitre. And, in 2018, the Hubble Law became officially known as the Hubble-Lemaitre Law…which is a step towards fairness…although people still generally call it the Hubble Law.

One of the most ironic things is that another well-known astronomer, named Fred Hoyle, was a devout believer in a Steady State Universe, this is another type of universe without a beginning. Hoyle hated the idea of the theistic implications of Lemaitre’s proposal. In fact, he made fun of it by calling it the “Big Bang” because everything expanded outward from a point…like a bomb going off. Hoyle never backed down and had to live with the realization that his contemptuous name for Lemaitre’s work is now fondly the commonly accepted name.

And maybe that is the biggest irony of them all. The Big Bang theory is the most accepted naturalistic theory for the beginnings of the universe. It is the idea that all of the universe burst forth from a single point. We will cover more of that in the next episode. But the irony comes into play when you realize that the foundation of the Big Bang theory included many people who believed in God.

CLOSING

In our next episode, we will continue looking at the beginnings according to science.

As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please email me at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritledhope.com.

And just a personal note, due to my family and work situation, I may not be able to get all episodes this Season published at my normal rate. If an episode is late, please check the website for an update. In the meantime:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Until next episode, take care.

Spirit-Led Hope