“Am I only a God nearby,”
declares the Lord,
“and not a God far away?
Who can hide in secret places
so that I cannot see them?”
declares the Lord.
“Do not I fill heaven and earth?”
declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:23-4).
The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzales and Jay Richards (another element of my recent refresher course on science-faith) spends a fair amount of space refuting the mis-called “Copernican Principle,” which states that we are an insignificant species on a run-of-the-mill planet orbiting a mediocre sun… and so on, until it nowadays often includes being in a lucky universe amid an infinite number in a multiverse.
The book works hard to base its thesis (that our cosmos, and our planet, are significantly fine-tuned both for intelligent life and scientific discovery) on the findings of science. The last “Copernican” counter-claim, on the multiverse, is particularly egregious in being entirely detached from current science, which still stubbornly points to our living in a universe whose space and time, and well as its matter and energy, began to exist 13.8 billion years ago.
We have forgotten, perhaps, just how wedded many scientists, before the final demise of steady-state cosmology in the 1960s, were to the universal scientific axiom of an infinite, past-eternal universe, despite the lack of any evidence for it.
For example, in 1938, a decade after Hubble published his work on red-shift, physical chemist Walther Nernst still complained angrily that the infinite duration of time was a basic element of all scientific thought, and to deny this would mean to literally betray the very foundations of science. And yet science still exists, despite the background cosmic microwave radiation confirming the Creation from every part of the sky.
But Olbers Paradox (in an infinite universe the sky should be uniformly bright) had confuted spatial infinity since 1828, and in a past-infinite world it is mathematically impossible for “now” to exist (any more than it’s possible to reach the last day of an infinite future eternity). “The very foundations of science” actually meant nothing more than “materialist prejudice,” much as Dobzhansky’s “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” does.
The inseparable link between the Big Bang and the creation of Einsteinian space-time not only points inevitably towards a transcendent God, but to one whose Being is neither in space nor in time. It’s actually rather astonishing that centuries before Einstein biblical religion anticipated this. For example The Westminster Confession of 1647 lists among the attributes of God that he is “immense” and “eternal.” It is crucial to realise that they did not mean “huge” and “ancient.”
My introductory quote from Jeremiah is one of their references for “immense,” and shows that the meaning is, literally, “beyond measurement.” God is as comfortable hiding in a cranny (in modern thought, crafting a quark) as he is filling heaven and earth.
As for “eternal”, since at least Augustine the Church had been familiar with the concept of God as timeless, rather than “past-eternal” in the crude, materialistic, sense of nineteenth century science.
What follows is that, under orthodox Christian theology, the “Copernican Principle” is quite meaningless. The modern cosmology and astronomy described by Gonzales and Richards show how, wonderfully, we needed the long (temporal) history of the cosmos, and generations of stars and galaxies, amongst other things to manufacture the heavy elements from which we are made. I love the thought that the universe had to be this big to make us this small.
But theologically, it’s more the case that the dimensions of space and time are simply irrelevant to the unmeasurable Spirit who creates in eternity. Such a God has infinite “time” to consider as equally important the entire cosmos, an individual quantum event, or the concerns of an individual sinner maybe halfway between in both size and natural longevity.
Given our own restriction to this finite, and entropic (aka perishable) Creation, God’s decision to wow us with extremes (yet conceivable) of space and time is actually as good a lesson as nature can teach us about the true meaning of immensity and eternity. He thus points us towards recognising God’s “eternal power and divine nature” (Romans 1:20) whether we are looking at stars or fleas with the naked eye, or at extreme red-shifted galaxies or mesons with the tools of science.
These thoughts, to my mind, counter the tendency of physicists like Einstein or Planck, overwhelmed with the divinity of the macro- or micro-cosmos, nevertheless to baulk at the idea of a God concerned with individual human lives. Part of their atheism (or pantheism, or Deism) is explicable by the universal human desire to evade our accountability to God. But part, surely, is simply failing to grasp that an eternal, immense God is no more prevented from providential or electing care, whilst maintaining the stability of the entire universe, than they themselves are appreciating their wife’s sandwich whilst writing a paper on cosmic inflation or quantum superposition.
Christians, too, need to get a handle on the complete irrelevance of space-time dimensions to God’s involvement in the world. “Why would God be concerned with such details as what I have for lunch?” Or, if you’re a theistic evolutionist, his unconcern might even extend to not caring if sparrows (as the particular species Passer domesticus) evolved at all, let alone concerning himself with individual sparrows falling to the ground.
The obvious answer to why he is concerned with such meticulous providence is that Creation is the work of love that this unmeasurable, time-independent Father is performing (by the Son and through the Spirit), and not simply an artefact he set off with a bang long ago. The Lord is… loving towards all he has made (Psalm 145:13), and it would appear from the standard cosmology that he made everything, initially infinitesimally small, and now inconceivably big.
A one-off performance from a leading musician is expected to be perfect, embodying both regularities, such as rock-steady rhythm for dancers and a consistent “groove,” and contingencies like variations or improvisations. The work of the artist has both regular, and spontaneous, elements. In God’s case, it’s not just the music. He can’t leave the perfection of his instrument to Stradivari or George Lowden, or its wood to nature, or even the acoustics of the hall to an architect. All things come from the hand of God – where else could they originate, in cosmos that came from a divine singularity?
Infinity and eternity are, as I have said, impossible in a material world. But they are, it appears, possible not only in the conceptual world of maths, but in the realm of divine Spirit. And that’s how the Cross and the Empty tomb – and the individual Christian’s interest in them – can be of equal, or greater, cosmic significance than the universe itself.
I think it’s time for a re-run of this old song of mine:
I always appreciate reading your thought-provoking posts, Jon. In particular, I enjoyed your reflections on how God’s immensity transforms how we view cosmic scale.
However, regarding your argument here that an infinite temporal past is mathematically impossible and that the Big Bang points inevitably to the origin of space-time a finite time ago, I wonder if a few too many extra-scientific and theological conclusions are being drawn:
1. Mathematics: An infinite past is mathematically consistent. Equating reaching “now” in a past-infinite world with reaching the “last day” of an infinite future conflates two different set structures: if past time is indexed by the negative integers (…, -2, -1, 0), “now” (t=0) is not a “last day” reached from an initial starting point—which would require a non-existent “least negative integer”—but simply the origin, from which every past event is a finite number of steps away.
2. Physics: General Relativity’s t=0 singularity is a mathematical breakdown of an incomplete theory, not empirical proof of an origin of spacetime or matter. Furthermore, virtually any cosmological model can be mathematically re-parametrized to occur within a pre-existing spacetime framework.
3. Theology: Doesn’t “from everlasting to everlasting” (e.g., Psalm 90:2) point to God persisting through infinite time rather than being timeless? Even WCF II.1 defines God as “eternal” without explicitly ruling out everlasting temporal persistence in favour of strict atemporality.
Hi jb, and welcome to the Hump (unless I’ve forgotten responding to you in the past).
(1) I’d still defend my infinite past argument (which I made in the context of nineteenth century scientists assuming “normal time” stretching infinitely into the past, rather than complex new concepts of time, which are certainly more interesting and different).
You write “[t=0 is] simply the origin, from which every past event is a finite number of steps away.” But in a past infinite universe, that’s not so, because the “first” past event is, by definition, an infinite number of steps away, and necessarily so to avoid a creation event. So time needs to traverse infinity to get to our t=0, making the next day infinity +1, which does not compute. If you like, imagine (as physicists sometimes have) that the arrow of time is illusory, and that you reverse the equation for an infinite future, starting at infinity. It takes the same time to get here as it would for us to arrive at infinity.
(2) The various competing hypotheses to circumvent the singularity can indeed speculate on what happens when general relativity breaks down. But Baconian science began because reason (in this case mathematical reasoning) led the Greeks astray in a contingent universe, and empirical confirmation is required. There is some small hope of “seeing” beyond the cosmic background radiation in future, but until then, the empirical evidence still says 13.8 billion years from t=0.
Of course, Aquinas allowed for the possibility of an eternal creation in his philosophy, reasoning that even an eternal universe (with contingent parts like laws, quantum gravity or differential equations) requires by nature a preceding, non-contingent, cause. “And this cause we call ‘God’.”
(3) I agree that Scripture is, itself, ambiguous on this, and I think that’s because it’s usually concerned to accommodate to human limitations. That’s why I referenced Augustine who was (I think) the first to grapple with a deeper concept of eternity. Though I’ve not read his work on that, I imagine that he was considering texts like:
“Before the world was, I am.”
“I make known the end from the beginning.”
“I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning an the end.”
Etc.
Clearly, though, “from everlasting to everlasting” does not (in its divinely inspired sense) mean “from the beginning of the Einsteinian space-time continuum,” or else he would be a product of the cosmos. I suppose God could exist in Stephen Hawking’s “imaginary time,” but that has some unsettling theological connotations!
Thanks, Jon. To wrap up:
1. Mathematics: A past-infinite timeline has no “first event” by definition. Demanding an initial starting point forces a “least element” onto a set that explicitly lacks one. From any actual past event at t = -N, reaching t = 0 takes strictly N steps—which is always finite. No event sits at t = -infinity.
2. Physics: Strict Baconian empiricism rests on direct observation—and our actual empirical data consists strictly of present-day measurements (redshifts, CMB). Interpreting these as a t = 0 creation event is not direct observation, but a theoretical extrapolation using General Relativity, an incomplete theory that breaks down at Planck scales. Treating a mathematical singularity as a proven physical origin goes far beyond the empirical data.
3. Theology: Creatio ex nihilo implies a temporal sequence where God existed before creating the physical universe. Confusing physical spacetime metrics with time itself misses the point: God can possess His own uncreated temporal duration, existing prior to the physical cosmos without being a product of it.
Thanks jb.
(1) I think you’re agreeing with me on this point. Any time t=-N has (on the past-eternal scheme) an infinity of time before it, which would appear to preclude the arrival of any chain of actual events at t=-N.
(2) Fair cop. Scientifically, then, we must currently be agnostic as to what, if anything, lies behind the CMBR. It remains a question of metaphysical commitment as to why one would prefer an eternal universe to one created ex nihilo as a space-time continuum. To me, fine-tuning in its many guises suggests choice, not chance. Of course, some Greeks thought time was cyclical, which would avoid a beginning and endless regress, but would probably lead to Groundhog Days and violate entropy.
(3) Delineating God’s mode of being is, of course, a very hazardous undertaking! But I disagree that Creation ex nihilo entails, at least, a time-like existence for God. Creation could be, for example, an eternal thought, in God’s mind, of a space-time universe. By analogy, a human author can conceive an entire novel in his mind, of an entirely imaginary world, which the reader (and more to the point, the characters) have to go through sequentially. In this way, Creation would not be an act that God happened to execute at some point in eternity, but his whole divine will and nature as it is eternally directed outside himself. Thus, for example, the self-sacrifice of Christ’s Incarnation would not be an instance of God’s self-giving love, but its one eternal expression, through the one creation.
If time is a fourth physical dimension, it is plausible (and attractive, at least to me) that God did not set off “the big bang” at some point in his existence, with or without the deistic clockmaker intervening thereafter, but created in eternity, to unfold for its creatures in time. This would accord with the Orthodox concept of creatio continua, which would also be congruent with “all things holding together in Christ.”
Anyway, if some concept of uncreated time does indeed exist for God, we would be wrong to shackle it to our time, as the Open Theists do in denying God’s knowledge of the future.