Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?
Christian Epistemology
Walking in Faith With The Scientific Method
How the Big Bang restored my faith
My early experience in Faith and the Scientific Method
I was born and raised in the Southern Baptist Church and had a lot of personal training regarding doctrine because of my parents’ interaction and exchanges with people not of our view. Yet my faith would gradually be challenged when, for my 10th birthday, I received a small reflector telescope. That would eventually lead to my becoming a growing member of the Central Florida Astronomy club, where that subject would become the dominant focus in my life outside of matters of faith. Yet, the subject of astronomy would challenge my faith for a number of years until my late high-school days. The issue was my study of apologetics (the defense of the faith) in which Christian teachers insisted on a doctrine and biblical interpretation that the universe was only six to 10,000 years old.
Then (the 1960s)
That seriously alienated me from Christianity in the 1960s, and was a crisis of faith for me because Christians were asking me to believe a description of ultimate reality that I knew was fictitious. I knew, based on geometric/angular parallax calculations to even nearby stars, that any hope of the universe fitting into a 6,000 light-year radius or diameter was virtually zero!
The irony here was that people dedicated to the defense of the Gospel were and are, both then and now, actually throwing out obstacles to faith to many in the astronomical community, including myself. Note: a light year is how far light travels in a year, so it is both a measure of distance and an expression of time.
Currently
Today, with satellite-based parallax and luminosity measurements, the distance to the nearest galaxy is precisely measured at 49.59 kiloparsecs or 161,753 light years with an uncertainty of +/- 1% (A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent (Nature Magazine link). In light of these precision measurements, some Young Earth Creationists still maintain that 6-10,000 as a Biblical timeline, but insist that God created the light beams already in route at creation to be consistent with perceived 24-hour Genesis creation “days”. That still makes Young Universe Creationism a stumbling block for many. TODAY, since few scientists or knowledgeable theologians would ever concur. Why is that premise so offensive to so many professional theologians?
In many passages of the Bible, God gives evidence of himself, as in Romans 1:20 or more directly, in terms of astronomy, in Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” So, given the nature of God so clearly described in the Jewish TANAKH or Christian New Testament, why would God so clearly cite evidence of his own existence? Then turn around and confuse that same evidence by making creation look either younger or older than it is in ultimate reality? That interpretation of the Biblical text would demand a view of God with a deceptive character that plays games in his revelation to mankind! Redefining the nature of God is a tactic many CULTS often employ!
Back to my story in the 1960s
Given my resulting doubts about faith, the assumption I was left with was highly suggestive of either atheism or at least agnosticism. That strongly implied a universe of infinite age and raised the possibility that man, the earth, and the Universe had all evolved through exclusively natural processes rather than processes under divine control. Years later, Ravi Zacharias would coin the phrase, “What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.” That describes the obstacle to faith I was up against, given the way Christians were attempting to recast ultimate reality before faith. And this same unnecessary obstacle to faith is before many astronomers today.
My Turning Point
Then one night, an Anglican friend and I attended the astronomy club again, where, after the lecture, we both went over to a table full of books on astronomy, and one in particular caught both of our eyes. It was The Creation of the Universe by George Gamow (a well-known atheist). It was the first popular book introducing the general public to the Big Bang Theory of the universe, first theorized by Georges Lemaître (A Person of Faith). The unique property of that theory, for me, was that it was evidence supporting a “beginning to the universe” reflecting the first verse in the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
The next day, when we got together again, my Anglican friend, with his knowledge of Catholic doctrine, chimed in that this theory was a direct reflection of the doctrine of Ex Nihilo, meaning that God formed creation out of nothing. Significantly, that was the first scientific thesis we had heard of advancing a universe limited by time. But of far greater significance are the inevitable questions it raises. After all, how can there be a beginning to the universe without an initial creator? Moreover, how can the universe be created (the book’s title) without a creator? Certainly, if there was a bang, who lit the fuse?
We were both ecstatic, but for me it was the most electric day of my life, which launched my 50+ year personal relationship with Adonai (our God). Now, did I mean 50 years of blissful Nirvana? ABSOLUTELY NOT! It would be followed by many hard lessons, usually related to Adonai’s authority in my life, which were then integrated into my subsequent walk of faith. It also rendered my original question of stellar distances a moot point for me, since many scientific phenomena are unexplained.
Likewise, in a walk of faith, it is not necessary to understand EVERYTHING! The big hurdle here was to reconcile my relationship with Adonai. Understanding the Biblical conflict over stellar distances is something that could wait for my further studies, which I will be returning to in subsequent linkd.
Theological Potential of the Big Bang
For that reason, I believe the Big Bang theory of the universe has the potential of becoming the most persuasive proof of the existence of God since the works of St. Augustine and Maimonides! However, that objective could not be achieved unless the general public is given a greater understanding of Astronomy/Cosmology, plus how to properly connect the dots between science and the Biblical text.
One Jewish Astronomer Weighs in on the Subject
One of the most poignant examples of the potential of the Big Bang as a stimulus of faith was given by the late Robert Jastrow in his book God and the Astronomers. But I need to give some background to draw out its significance to people of faith. Jastrow, in his book, describes himself as an agnostic. But in a small group setting that I was in, Jastrow made it clear that his parents were scientists who came from Nazi-dominated Europe when Hitler was purging Jewish scientists from that region.
The point is that he had at least some measure of a heritage of faith embedded in his background, which I think played a role in his writing, especially in my final quote below at the end of his book.
Jastrow then takes the example of an expanding universe and, like a video-tape of the universe’s history and plays it backward in time. Finally, when all the mass in the universe was crammed by gravity into a densely packed tiny object called the singularity. He then completes his book as follows:
Now we would like to pursue that inquiry further back in time, but the barrier to further progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, another theory; at this moment, it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. 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, is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries!
Bill Anderson
Note: Many people in the disciplines of the Scientific Method or Systematic Theology (The Study of Adonai, our God) will immediately have objections to this blog. Therefore, there will be several follow-up essays in both disciplines later. Until then, I would recommend watching the Christian Movie, “God’s Not Dead” (the first of a sequel). Additionally, you could watch this older CBN video below with Jewish Astronomer Robert Jastrow (Author of the book God and the Astronomers) at a Jastrow inspired Trailer.
Note #2: For that reason, this writing may appear to be an exclusive defense of the Christian faith. That is untrue; I intended to make it just as much a defense and inspiration to those in the Jewish faith as it is to those in the Christian faith. After all, the Jewish faith is the foundational basis at the very core of the Christian faith. Jesus was a Jew!