The Unity Of Truth

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Preface......................................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgments..............................................................................................xixIntroduction.................................................................................................xxiChapter 1 The Big Bang Theory, Where the Truths of Science and Religion Have Already Met.....................1Chapter 2 The Quantum Revolution.............................................................................13Chapter 3 The Great Paradox..................................................................................39Chapter 4 Resolving the Great Paradox........................................................................58Chapter 5 God................................................................................................76Chapter 6 Life...............................................................................................104Chapter 7 Human Nature.......................................................................................136Chapter 8 The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Life...........................................................156Chapter 9 Mystery and Paradox................................................................................167Chapter 10 It Is Spirit That Brings God's Virtues into Our Lives.............................................171Chapter 11 Passover and Easter...............................................................................174Chapter 12 Sacrifice.........................................................................................178Chapter 13 The Expanding Expressions of Experience...........................................................190Chapter 14 The Practice of Truth.............................................................................200Chapter 15 Conclusions.......................................................................................205Index........................................................................................................217

Chapter One

How the Big Bang Theory Came About

We start our quest at the beginning, at a point where the truth of science and the truth of religion have already overlapped—perhaps by accident, perhaps by intent—in a way that is quite mysterious and largely unknown to most scientists and religious people alike. The story starts out with the equations of general relativity that were developed by Albert Einstein in 1915 and with a suggestion from a Belgian Jesuit priest and physicist, Father Georges Lemaitre, of a novel solution to these equations. Father Lemaitre was the first (in 1927) to call to the attention of the world's physics and cosmology communities that a theory of cosmology could be constructed by identifying a point in time when the universe began. A little later, Alexander Friedman in Russia came to a similar conclusion.

The steady state theory of the universe that was most favored by the scientists of the time was unacceptable to theologians because it elevated the material universe to the position of being coeternal with God. However, Father Lemaitre found a solution within Einstein's equations of general relativity that predicted the existence of a definite point in time when our universe began. If this were true, our universe was not eternal, answering the objections of theologians. Once our universe came into being, it embarked upon a period of expansion that continues to the present day. This picture of our universe's beginning is remarkably similar to the creation story in the Bible (found in Genesis 1). Father Lemaitre never publically stated his intention to build a bridge between the biblical account of creation and the scientific account of creation, but it is hard to imagine that a man of the cloth would not have this motive in mind.

Initially, the physics-cosmology community did not take Father Lemaitre's proposal very seriously. But gradually, a fantastic story of discovery began to unfold as evidence mounted that favored Father Lemaitre's ideas. First there was the Hubble red shift, and later, to clinch the argument, there came the discovery by two Bell Laboratories communication engineers (in 1962) of cosmic microwave background noise. Interestingly, the term "big bang" was initially used as a term of derision by Fred Hoyle, a British steady state cosmologist. Like many other names of derision, this one has stuck. We will now tell the whole story of the discovery of the big bang theory of cosmology in the detail it deserves.

Evidence in Favor of the Big Bang Theory of the Universe

Perhaps the most significant event in human history happened approximately 13.5 billion years ago. It is called the big bang. Cosmologists now understand the big bang as a point along the timeline of history when time itself began. No time existed before the big bang; in fact, nothing (i.e., no things) existed prior to the big bang. No space, no time, and perhaps no laws of physics existed; nothing of a material nature existed in any sense of the word.

Physicists call the moment when the big bang occurred a singularity. A singularity is a lot like a black hole, except it works roughly in reverse. A black hole swallows up all the surrounding matter and energy (within its local event horizon) by the immense gravitational attraction of its point-like grasp. On the other hand, the big bang's singularity started out as a point and grew outward, serving as the genesis for all things within our universe. All of the matter and energy, all of the laws of physics and chemistry, and even space and time themselves expanded outward from that first infinitesimal moment at the point of creation called the singularity. Before the singularity, there was no matter, no energy, no space, and no time; but after the singularity, the potential for all things came into being within that very instant of the singularity.

How do we know the big bang singularity theory is true? There are several competing cosmological theories of creation, not to mention all of the creation stories contained in the world's religious traditions. What is so special about the big bang theory that drives us to take it so seriously? The answer is quite simple. There exists experimental evidence (and lots of it), of the kind that scientists love so dearly, in support of the big bang theory. What is so special about the big bang theory is that religious people of all cultures are able to recognize their own creation stories within this scientific account of creation.

Before discussing the evidence in support of the big bang theory, let us first discuss the concept of evidence in a general way. Science, as we know it today, got its start in the seventeenth century CE. (Of course there was a wealth of scientific literature produced by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it wasn't until the Renaissance in Western Europe that science adopted the universal language of mathematics.) The cornerstone of science is in the gathering of experimental data about the natural world and applying reason and logic to this evidence for the purpose of developing new theories explaining the observed natural phenomena....