ISCAST Intensive 30-10-2010

Cosmology, Apologetics and the Will to Believe

James Garth, BEng (Aero) (Hons), MAIAA, AMRAeS

“I invite you to examine the snapshot provided by half a century’s worth of astrophysical data and see what the pieces of the universe actually look like…In order to achieve consistency with our observations we must…assume not only creation of matter and energy out of nothing, but creation of space and time as well. The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.”

- Dr Arno Penzias (Nobel Laureate)

Cosmology

(1) a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe

(2) a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe

- Merriam-Webster dictionary

Three Positions

Overstatement Understatement Consonance

… or “The Ugly, The Bad, and The Good”

Overstatement: An apologetic misfire...

[This center] has no knowledge of the use of its computers supposed by Mr. Harold Hill and attributed to our scientists. Goddard does not apply its computers to the task of projecting thousands of years into the future or past, as this would be irrelevant to the operational lifetime of satellites, which rarely exceeds a dozen years.

- Public Affairs Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Overstatement: An apologetic misfire...

Overstatement & Scripture

Psalm 104:2 - “He [God] wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent.”

Job 9:8 - “He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.”

Jer 10:12 - “But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.”

(Also Is 40.22, Is 42.5, Is 45:12, Jer 51:15, Zech 12:1)

This text [Ps 104:2] was offered as a primary justification for an expanding universe. I provisionally believe in an expanding universe. However, I remembered times when I camped in the Scottish Highlands. I would stretch out my tent. Then I would admire the starlit heavens stretched out like a tent. Then stretch out on my airbed, and sleep while the night stretched out to day. I cannot include expansion in any of these thoughts. I sincerely believe that we must not use Scripture like that.

- Dr John Martin, author & Reader of Physics

Overstatement & Scripture

Psalm 104: A troubled history

Understatement

Comparative cosmologies Greek Scientology Babylonian Abrahamic

Contrary to popular perception, many of these cosmologies are subject to falsification by modern cosmology to a considerable degree

Greek mythology

The 'Flying Spaghetti Monster'

Consonance

1) The scripture means now what it meant then

2) Seek to extract broad principles

3) Ground these principles firmly in the nature of God

4) Compare these broad principles with alternative cosmologies that are endorsed by other religions

5) Recognize that God is the God of the living, not the dead!

Cosmological arguments (Craig)

Kalaam Cosmological Argument

1.Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2.The universe began to exist.

3.Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Cosmological arguments (Koons)

1) There are contingent facts or situations. (Premise)

2) If there are contingent facts or situations, then there is a fact or situation which is the sum of all contingent facts or situations. (Premise)

3) (Hence) there is a fact or situation C which is the sum of all contingent facts or situations.

4) C is a wholly contingent fact or situation. (Premise)

5) Every wholly contingent fact or situation normally has a cause. (Premise)

6) (Hence) C has a cause. (From 4, 5)

7) Causes and effects must not overlap. (Premise)

8) (Hence) C has a cause which is a necessary fact or situation. (From 6, 7, definition of ‘wholly contingent’).

Cosmology and Aesthetics

For both theists and atheists, modern cosmology instills strong feelings of awe and wonder

If one believes God exists, this picture of reality is also likely to elicit aesthetic responses of worship, and joyful anticipation of the life to come

If one believes God does not exist, this picture of reality is equally capable of eliciting aesthetic responses of loneliness, emptiness, frustration and futility

The facts themselves are neutral, it is our a-posteriori re-interpretation of them which drives our aesthetic response

“Purpose, after all, means quite simply the bringing about of something undeniably and permanently good. Is that what is going on in the cosmos?”

- John Haught

“It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.”

- Museum Girl in Woody Allen's “Play it Again, Sam”

There is no plea for help, no request for provision, no cry for vindication: simply pure and unclouded praise. When did you last pause to allow your spirit the luxury of sustained praise and gratitude toward God?

- Rod Benson

QUESTIONS?

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