Scientists - the Theologians are Waiting

I was quite intrigued by an article on Cosmology published by Aaron Robotham, PhD, entitled, "Don’t panic, but the universe is slowly dying" on the academic blog/e-zine The Conversation. He describes in layman's term's the early life of our universe, and how it will proceed to the time when no more stars form, and the whole thing cools down into its entropic death.

Note: All Bible references herein are from the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, but it is very similar to its contemporary, the King James Bible.

As I read through the most recent research on the development of our universe, the description sounded remarkably like the account of creation in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. If we remind ourselves that in Genesis, the Lord is revealing the creation event, involving the physics of sub-atomic structures and quantum physics in a way that nomadic herdsmen would understand it. He had to dumb things down a little bit. Also bear in mind that the term "day" could also simply mean "a time period."

Since the period of the "Enlightenment" secular society has placed science as the main source of truth, and has relegated religion to the superstitious enemy of science. The Catholic Church has always proposed that since all truth comes from God the Creator of the universe, there can be no disagreement between religious truth and scientific truth, since they both come from the same source. If there is an apparent disagreement, it is only due to a lack of knowledge of science or a lack of knowledge of religious truth. This was observed by the Astronomer Robert Jastrow in his book, God and the Astronomers:

For the scientist who has lived by his 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.

So it is with this article by Dr. Robotham: As he deals with the deeper knowledge on the birth and death of the universe some specific parallels between the latest scientific discoveries and the Book of Genesis come to light.

A 2-D Projection of the Formation of the Universe

In the first few seconds of the life of the universe, it is so hot (billions of degrees) that is a highly energetic plasma of exotic particles that don't obey the laws of physics - they pop in and out of existence, they exceed the speed of light, and all kinds of crazy chaotic things.

And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [plasma?] (Genesis 1:2a)

A few seconds later the exotic particles in plasma settled into a highly energetic electron fog of protons (hydrogen nuclei) and neutrons and some helium nuclei.

And the spirit of God moved over the waters [hydrogen-helium fog] (Genesis 1:2b)

 Then about 400,000 years later, all of a sudden, the internal energy of the particles decouples from them and light photons stream out across the universe.

And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (Genesis 1:3)

The energy released from the subatomic particles in the form of light was a key event to forming matter, Now the basic proton particles could hold onto electrons and start forming hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atoms formed into hydrogen molecules (H₂), and began collapsing into proto-stars where the lighter elements like carbon and oxygen formed.

Since the universe was still expanding, the early universe was a pretty crowded place, You had loosely formed proto-stars, forming and exploding, creating a chain of explosions in the neighboring stars. Whole galaxies smashed together. All these explosions caused the formation of heavier elements like silicon, and metals like iron and nickel.

This great, cosmic fireworks show went of for about 3 billion years or so, and "mysterious dark energy" entered the universe. This dark energy in combination with the expanding universe stabilized the stars and galaxies into more ordered forms that could produce planets.

And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day. (Genesis 1:4-5).

I always wondered in the Bible why the Lord created night and day (darkness and light) on the first day before he created the sun and the moon on the fourth day. To me it seemed like He got it backwards, but I was not thinking on a cosmic scale. Our sun is a fairly young sun and just the right size to support our form of life. The first stars that were created then would be be dead now.

So it seems the farther we look out into the heavens, the more we can see God, or as the Psalmist says:

The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. (Psalms 19:2)

Look up and believe... the Theologians are waiting for you.