The origin of the Universe

in science and philosophy

Part One: In Science

Every, even the smallest, success scored by science is a sort of promise that somewhere, maybe still a very far way off beyond a runaway horizon, lies the ultimate explanation.

How, when, and why did the Universe come into being?

Isaak Newton to Richard Bentley (1693):

The reason why matter evenly scattered through a finite space would convene in the midst you conceive the same with me, but that there should be a central particle so accurately placed in the middle as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and thereby continue without motion, seems to me a supposition as fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright on its point upon a looking glass.

And much harder is to suppose all the particles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one among another as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I recon this is as hard as to make, not one needle only, but an infinite number of them stand accurately poised upon their poits.

Gravitational instability – black hole NGC4262

Gravitational instability – Big Bang

WHAT IS THE INITIAL SINGULARITY?

NGC 4261

Below Plnck’s threshold:

Quantum gravity and superunification of forces: - Superstring theory (M-theory) - Loop theory - Qantum groups - Noncommutative geometry ............................................

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The tacit assumption is that the laws of physics are valid before we start constructing the creation model.

BUT WHERE DO THE LAWS OF PHYSICS COME FROM?

PART TWO:

In philosophy

Why is there something rather than nothing?

After all, nothing is simpler and easier than something.

G.W. Leibniz, “Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason,” The doctrine of creation is a philosophical attempt to answer this question.

Its sources

:

Greek ideas concerning the genesis of the universe:

- Atomists – no beginning, casual events - Aristotle – no beginning, teleology - Plato (‘Timaeus’) – out of chaos

Bible – Old Testament

• •

Gen. 1 Book of Machabees, 7:28 . I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also. So thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren.

St. Augustine, Confessions, book 11 See, I answer him that asketh, "What did God before He made heaven and earth?" I answer not as one is said to have done merrily (eluding the pressure of the question), "He was preparing hell (saith he) for pryers into mysteries." It is one thing to answer enquiries, another to make sport of enquirers .

For that very time didst Thou make, nor could times pass by, before Thou madest those times. But if before heaven and earth there was no time, why is it demanded, what Thou then didst? For there was no "then," when there was no time.

St. Thomas Aquinas

‘DE AETERNITATE MUNDI (contra murmurantes) Let us assume, in accordance with the Catholic faith, that the world had a beginning in time. The question still arises whether the world could have always existed...’

There is no contradiction in asserting that the world is created, but has no beginning.

Creation is a relationship between the creature and the Creartor consisting of the continual dependence (in the existence) of the creature on the Creator.

Newton:

‘Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration’ ‘Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable’

Leibniz:

‘I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is; . . . For space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order to things which exist at the same time, considered as existing together."

Newton:

- Eternity = existence from temporal ‘minus infinity’ to temporal ‘plus infinity’ - Creation in time

Leibniz:

- Eternity = atemporal existence - Creation with time

Present popular view follow Newton

My proposal:

- Why is there something rather than nothing?

- Why is the Universe comprehensible?

This is the mystery we shall never comprehend Einstein The mystery of existence is the same as the mystery of comprehensibility

The world is rational in the sense that it can rationally be investigated

Logos

(λόγος) was an important term in Greek philosophy.

Heraclitus

established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos. The

sophists

used the term to mean discourse, and

Aristotle

applied the term to rational discourse. The

Stoic

philosophers identified the term with the divine animating principle pervading the Universe

. Philo of Alexandria

adopted the term into Jewish philosophy .

John 1,1-3 In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

John 1.1

The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, through which everything is created.

LOGOS of the Universe

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