INTRODUCTION

This evening's presentation is essentially a follow up from a paper delivered to this group some time ago entitled 'Science and the Christian Paranoia'. At that time I sought to establish the fact that Christianity has faced and continues to face serious challenges from the scientific community in the context of many of its traditional postures. Among these were identified such areas as:

1.     The Origin of The Universe.

2.     The Origin of Life on Earth.

3.     The Age of The Earth.

4.     The Presence of a Universal Flood.

5.     The Ice Age

6.     The Literal Week of Creation.

The paper essentially argued that many of the challenges to Christianity were coming from an arena, which were primarily from an area that was classified as 'Speculative Science'.  It was then established that there were no significant challenges coming from an arena considered to be 'True Science' Please note that the terminologies utilized in the paper were only for the purpose of understanding. I do not have the authority to describe some science as 'true' and others as 'untrue' or 'speculative'.

The issues listed above are some of the major challenge areas. However, perhaps the most fundamental challenge that Christianity has had to face is the frontal assault on the most basic tenet of religion, including Christianity. By this I refer to the challenge to the very existence of God. From the beginning of time, religious practitioners everywhere have agreed on one  basic premise and that is, the reality of a Deity.  No challenge to religion can therefore be more fundamental than this.

This afternoon we would seek to investigate this particular challenge and to seek to establish a plausible basis for the belief in the existence of God. This would be one of a series of efforts to examine the nature of the challenge and to seek to ascertain from various sources of nature whether there is a credible basis for maintenance of faith in God.

Before launching into the main course of our presentation, I wish to advise that the objective of the information and analysis to be presented would not be to, per say, prove the existence of God. Rather, I would be seeking to provide sufficient evidence to suggest that there is an overwhelming weight of credible data, which would drive one to conclude that it is very reasonable and logical to come to the conclusion that there is a higher force responsible for design and maintenance of nature. By contrast, the data presented would also suggest that to conclude otherwise would be to go against logic and reason and perhaps even intuition.  

Today we launch our quest for God with a journey into the cosmos to seek an understanding of what evidence can be derived for the existence of God. Because of the need to be illustrative, the presentation would essentially be in a Power Point format.

I would first of all take you on a journey through our universe in order to seek to provide a basic understanding of what constitutes the cosmos as far as our present investigations go. We would then drill a bit deeper into our current scientific understanding of the heavens to try to analyse the information that we now know today and see how it makes the case for a higher being which we have come to term as God. 

BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE COSMOS

For the next few moments we would peruse a number of slides starting with our own Solar System and concluding with the outer reaches of the known universe. I use the word 'known' since philosophically, it is difficult to seriously say what is the extent of the universe. It is one of those questions that has no right answer. For indeed to suggest that the universe is fixed volumetrically, would leave the question unanswered as to what lies outside of the fixed volume. If on the other hand one chooses to believe that the universe is not fixed, then it belies the question of what therefore is the nature of the universe and still what is there outside of the realm of the universe or cosmos. This is the confusing nature of cosmology, which as you would recognize takes the mind into a journey far beyond what is currently known or appreciated.

One must therefore recognize and appreciate therefore that the vast amount of knowledge in the area of cosmology can be classified under the heading of 'Speculative Science' as we used before. That in essence would suggest that there is largely no conclusive way to test and prove what has been postulated. What instead has been done to a large extent is to apply the laws of science, as we know them today and to extrapolate their application assuming consistency throughout the cosmos.

That having been said, we are ready to begin our tour. We shall essentially start at the centre of our Solar System and work our way outwards to the fringes of our universe.

On screen now is the Sun, which is indeed the centre and source of energy for our Solar System. The sun is our nearest star, which by nature is drastically different from a planet. The sun is a seething inferno, generating it's own energy from within. It bathes us daily with radiation ranging from radio waves, infrared or radiant heat, to visible light, ultraviolet light and even X-rays on the electromagnetic spectrum. 

It is the sun that is responsible for producing the winds that drive

the ocean swells that crash upon our shores. It is the sun that

vapourises the ocean's waters and dumps it back unto the earth as rain. It is the sun that converts carbon, hydrogen and oxygen into food for our consumption and frees oxygen for us to breathe through photosynthesis. The sun is responsible for the fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas that we derive from organisms that once obtained their energy from the sun. Most, if not all forms of energy on earth today is derived from the sun. It would be safe to say that life on earth could not exist without the sun.

The sun is located at 93 million miles away from earth. A distance that is important and we would return to this later. The sun's diameter is 110 times that of the earth standing at 149,598,000 km. What this translates to volumetrically is that the sun is about 1,331,000 times the volume of the earth.

Our current understanding of the physical constitution of the sun is that it is probably a big ball of gas with a denser core due to pressures of the order of one billion atmospheres. It is believed that the primary gas of the sun is hydrogen and the energy radiated comes from controlled nuclear fusion reactions, (effectively hydrogen bombs constantly exploding) at the sun's core resulting in a temperature of approximately 15 million degrees Kelvin at the core.  The obvious question that arises is, is the sun therefore an expendable commodity. In other words, can these reactions go on forever? Scientists, using Einstein's energy equation E=mc² suggest that at the rate of conversion of mass to energy, the sun should be around for another 10 billion years. 

This is a classic case of how scientists are called upon to give the best explanation in a circumstance without being completely sure that they have the correct answer. I referred to this as 'speculative science' but we need to accept that this is indeed bona fide science in every way. We just need to understand its limitations.

MERCURY

Moving away from the Sun, we encounter our first planet in the Solar System, Mercury. Mercury is an average of 57 million miles away from the Sun. In actuality, because the path around the sun is elliptical, the distance varies from 46 million miles at the closest approach to 69 million miles at the furthest point. The diameter of the planet is 4880 km compared to earth's diameter of 12,750 km. Interestingly the rotation of Mercury is 58 days and 15 hours compared to earths 24 hours. This is made alt the more interesting when one notes that the period of revolution is 87.96 days. In other words one day on Mercury is 58.64 earth days whereas one Mercurian year is 87.96 earth days, put another way a day on Mercury is 2/3 of a year.  This combination of circumstances results in there being a sunrise every 176 days.

In the context of physical features, the planet has a density of 5.2 g/cm³ compared to 5.5 for earth. This means that it is very solid in nature. However, it has no atmosphere. As a result of this and it's relative proximity to the Sun, the planet experiences temperature highs of 327 ^oC to 427 ^oC depending on its distance from the Sun with lows of -173 ^oC. These temperature extremes are basically experienced for 88 days each at a time. In summary, it may be safe to say that if we had to choose another planet to live on, Mercury would not be that place.

VENUS

So, we move away from the Sun some more and we come to Venus. Venus has been regarded by many as the twin to earth because of the similarity in terms of diameter and mass and consequently density. However, that is about as close as the comparison gets. Other than that Venus and Earth are poles apart in characteristics even though their distances from the Sun are only marginally different.

Venus is unique in many respects. First of all, the planet has a retrograde rotation of 243.16 days. It is the only planet in the Solar System known to have a retrograde rotation. Combined with this, it has a revolution of 225 days. The combination of these two effects means that the planet experiences a sunrise every 117 earth days.

The characteristic that makes Venus very different from Earth is its very dense atmosphere. Venus has an atmosphere that produces a pressure that is 90 times that on earth. In other words living on Venus would be equivalent to living at a depth of 1 km below the earth's ocean.

Perhaps just as significant is the fact that due to the presence of high amounts of CO₂ and H₂O in the atmosphere, the temperatures on Venus are of the order of 430 to 480 0C (810 to 900 0F). In other words Venus is simply a very hot desert with temperatures high enough to melt lead. Lead would be like mercury on Earth, a liquid metal on Venus. It should be worth noting here also that the clouds on Venus are composed of H₂SO₄ better known as sulphuric acid. So when it rains on Venus, you don't want to be outside.

In summary, it would be safe to conclude that Venus would also not be our planet of choice if we had to migrate from Planet Earth.

EARTH

As we move further into the reaches of space, we encounter planet Earth. This is our own planet and we would stop for a short while to examine some of the characteristics of this place that we call home.

The Earth is the only planet in the Solar System in which organic life is known to exist. An investigation and comparison of the environment of Planet Earth would suggest that of all of the planets in the Solar System, it is the only one that has the complete blend of features to support life.

Even though the atmosphere of Earth is not divided into distinct functional layers, it is useful to think of it in this way. The first layer, the one that contacts the earth's surface, is called the troposphere. This layer provides us with weather phenomenon and is largely responsible for the pressure of 1 atmosphere (14.7 psi) that we experience. The troposphere is composed of the air that we breathe, 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen with water vapour, carbon dioxide and inert elements making up the remaining 1%. Temperatures in the troposphere vary from +60⁰F at the base (ground level) to -60⁰F at the top (16km).

Next above this would be the stratosphere, which extends from 16km (-60⁰ F) to 50km (-32⁰ F). The major feature of this layer is the presence of ozone, which acts as a protective barrier from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. As most of you know, UV can be very dangerous to humans if overexposed to it.

Above this layer lies the mesosphere, which extends from 50km (-320F) to 90km (-1300F). Further up there is the ionosphere, which consists of atoms, which have lost or gained electrons due to solar radiation to become ions. This layer is the one that is used to reflect radio waves for communication.

One of the fascinating features of the atmosphere is the greenhouse effect, which is created by virtue of the fact that the earth contains ozone, water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The earth receives many forms of energy from the sun. These are all absorbed by the crust and reemitted in the form of infrared radiation. The atmosphere retains a significant amount of this radiation, which is used for heating of the environment. Without this effect, the temperatures on the surface of earth would be 45⁰F lower.

Another interesting feature is the sky colour, which is created by the absorption and reemission of the sun's light by the atmospheric molecules. Due to the size of the molecules, the wavelength that they tend to vibrate at corresponds to the blue light that makes up the sky. 

There are of course countless interesting features of earth as we know it but we would need to move on to other parts of the Solar System for now.

MARS

Mars is a planet, which has continued to keep the fancy of earth's inhabitants. It is by far the most explored planet. We generally know it as the 'Red Planet" This is so because of it's red appearance even to the naked eye at nights and it's confirmed tones from the spacecraft which have landed on the planet. It is believed to be due to iron oxides in its surface.

The atmosphere of Mars is of interest since there has been a long and tireless search for life on the planet. 

BACK TO EARTH

Now that we have essentially explored in a fairly expeditious fashion, the Solar System and the outer reaches of the Universe or the Cosmos, the question as we come back to Earth is; what does it all say to us?

I would imagine the big question before us this afternoon is, did this all happen by virtue of chance? Or is this the result of a cleverly designed plan from an Almighty Designer?

Maybe for a second, we should examine the two (2) alternative proposals to the beginnings.

Scientists, and I should clarify that this is one aspect of the fraternity, have essentially offered the several models for the beginning of the universe. The 'Big Bang' is seen as the best and clearest explanation for the beginnings of the Universe. To try to analyse what the Big Bang in any detail is beyond the scope of this discussion. I would however, at least provide you with an outline of what is postulated.

In terms of terrestrial experience, you can only observe the

present never the past. The past, by definition, no longer exists.

In terms of the universe, the opposite is true (due to the

limitations of the speed of light). You cannot observe the present,

only the past.

Vesto Slipher (1914): Presented findings at an obscure astronomy meeting which showed that several "nebulae" were receding away from the earth. A graduate student named Edwin Hubble was in attendance and realized the implications of these findings. Hubble proved that these nebulae were actually galaxies, composed of billions of stars.

Alexander Friedman (1922): This Russian mathematician predicted the expansion of the universe.

Hubble (1929): Proposed the law of red shifts. Galaxies which are moving away from the earth demonstrate emission spectra with bands that are shifted toward the red (or longer wavelengths) end of the spectrum.

From the speed of expansion, it is possible to calculate the age of the universe. It is therefore possible to tell that somewhere between 10 to 20 billion years ago, the present universe started exploding from a point where all space, time and matter were compressed into an infinitely small point, called a spacetime singularity. It is crucial to appreciate that a singularity is not a point within space or time; it is the point from which space and time emanate.

Conceptually, it is difficult of think of the universe as we know it originating from an infinitesimally small point with no space outside of it and an explosion taking place in which space is created as the expansion happens.

The explosion or big bang takes place and the result is that energy is converted into matter in the form of hot gases which is cooled and condenses to form galaxies.

Big Bang theorists have made much about the discovery of microwave background radiation data, which suggests that there has been broad conformance with predicted theories about the temperatures and the observed data throughout the universe.

The concept of universal expansion is an area of intense ongoing discussion. The Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that everything in the universe tends towards a state of entropy, that is, energy loss and uniform disorder.

The discourse within the cosmology fraternity suggests that there are two approaches to the universe. The first is a closed one in which the expansion would be slowing down due to the imbalance between gravity and the energy of expansion. This would lead to eventual collapse of the universe as we know it resulting in another singularity event and another Big Bang. The term used here is that the universe would bounce. Huh!!!

The alternative view is that of a constantly expanding universe due to the fact that the mass is sufficiently small that gravity is unable to stop the expansion which goes on indefinitely.

On a personal note, the expansion is not just out there but right here among us. In other words in an expanding universe all of space and matter is expanding, even though it cannot be sensed by the participants in the process since it is happening together. Therefore in reality, each of us is larger now than when we first entered the room because we are expanding but we wouldn't observe this because we are doing it together at the same time and rate. Reminds one a little bit about the early theories of science where all of nature was made up of fire, water and ether; ether being that unknown quantity that no one could sense or capture.

CREATION

Of course the major alternative theory of the beginnings comes from religion and perhaps we may state in this case Christianity. Essentially, Christianity states is "In the beginning, God ....". This statement enunciates a clear starting point enunciated as well as an appreciation that humankind may not necessarily know by finding out, all of the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

This approach has been seen as an affront to science in some quarters and is viewed as a means of coping out early in the game when no apparent solution can be found. This is directly counter to the general philosophy of science. 

One of the questions that needs to be asked from the Creation Story as narrated in Genesis, is: Does the first week of Earth's creation or better stated, inhabitation, represent the beginning of the universe. After all, the Scriptures does state "he made the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."

A THEORY OF EVERYTHING

When one stands back from the entire discussion and observes science in it's various segments trying to explain truth and reality, one observes a number of things.

As science advances, theories encounter each other and one of two things happen. If they disagree, they clash and the stronger (more predictive, more productive) model wins out. The result being, there is a paradigm shift and a new approach is adopted. If they agree, then they reinforce each other resulting in a more encompassing, comprehensive concept that lends itself to a better understanding of things.

It is clear that science is a dynamic, ongoing endeavour in which truth and reality are the ultimate goals. However, because of the fragmented nature of science as well as the fact that we are in a continuous process of incremental discovery, the theories that we advance may be limited in scope and represent only a part of a bigger whole. The other pieces of the puzzle may be held in other quarters or perhaps have not yet been discovered.

It is therefore broadly recognized or perhaps needs to be so, that what science and in this case cosmology is supposed to be seeking after is getting the whole puzzle and not sections of it.

In other words there a school of thought that suggests that there is a 'Theory of Everything' which takes all of the components of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy etc together and gives greater meaning to the entire process of exploring and discovering the universe. Put another way, there is likely to be a common ancestor to biology, physics, chemistry etc which would give meaning to all of the observed phenomena in these various arenas.

THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE

Over and beyond the various cosmological thoughts and theories is perhaps the greater question of the presence of man within the Universe. The whole question of the value and meaning of life and where and how does man fit into it arises. The big challenge here for scientists is that these questions usually have existential and religious significance which for the scientific purists are areas that need to be kept clearly apart from scientific endeavour.

According to the Anthropic Principle advanced by Barrow and Tipler "Imagine a universe in which one or another of the fundamental constants of physics is altered by a few percent one way or the other. Man could never come into being in such a universe. That is the central point of the anthropic principle. According to the principle, a life-giving factor lies at the centre of the whole machinery and design of the world.

There are many arguments and counter-arguments to this principle, but what it suggests is fundamentally correct and that is, that the presence of mankind on this planet cannot be considered to be a strictly chance phenomena, since it is statistically impossible for that to happen, given the various requirements both in the worlds of physics and biology to allow man to be able to arrive on the planet and be sustained as he has by the environment.

If we examine the conditions necessary for human life a bit further we find that the list of things required to ensure not just the presence but also the sustenance of life, the list is a rather long one. We would look at just a few of them of significance this afternoon.

Planet earth is what is considered to be a wet planet. As a result of this, life on earth is possible because without water life as we know it would not exist. What the earth has is water, which covers most of the planet, and there is a cycle by which water is drawn from the oceans and redeposited again as rain to provide for earth's inhabitants. Imagine the world in the absence of a water cycle. Fresh water supplies would soon be in short supply and so would life. For water to exist in liquid form, then the planet needs to be at a certain distance from the Sun. In addition, the planet needs to have sufficient atmosphere to maintain liquid water. The moon for example although it is at the same radius as the earth from the Sun, does not have an atmosphere therefore does not have any water.

Apart from water, there is the atmospheric composition. Earth's atmosphere turns out to be just correct for life on the planet. Nitrogen exists at 78% of the air and while it does not contribute to the respiration process in an overt way but it serves to compensate for the very reactive oxygen (21%) by limiting it's reactivity in air. Pure oxygen is very explosive and without nitrogen present in the air in the quantities present, any flame on earth would result in an immediate explosion. In the process of respiration also, the combination of constituents in the air that we breathe is exactly as it should be. Nitrogen is also a critical component in healthy growth of plants on the planet.

Then there is the Carbon Dioxide cycle. CO2 is absolutely necessary for life sustenance though not in large quantities. What we have on earth is a simple cycle in which man produces CO2 from the respiration process whereas, plants utilize this same CO2 in their photosynthesis process of trapping energy from the Sun and transforming it to a form that can be used by humans for sustenance. Again a delicate balance is struck, enough to ensure that the desired outcomes are obtained.

More than that CO2, ozone and water vapour are used to trap heat and keep the planet sufficiently warm by keeping the infrared portion of the sun's radiation reflected within the atmosphere.

This brings again to light the crucial role played by oxygen and ozone in the atmosphere. Oxygen (O2) as we stated earlier is crucial to life facilitating respiration by animals and humans on the planet. Its sister ozone (O3), exists in the stratosphere and serves as a watchdog for UV radiation, keeping the levels on the planet down to tolerable levels. Interestingly, ozone does not occur in the troposphere but the stratosphere where humans do not have to deal with it as a respiratory gas. This would result in severe harm to our bodies.

The temperature on Earth is set not only by the atmosphere but also more crucially by the distance and relative sizes of the Sun and the planet. A larger Sun would result in higher temperatures, all things being equal, whereas a smaller Sun would require the planet to be closer to receive the requisite amount of radiation. This would then potentially affect the planetary rotation due to the interplay of the gravitational forces of both special bodies. (Mercury & Venus)

The planet is correctly placed with just sufficient atmosphere to maintain temperatures required for existence of life forms.

The truth is, we can go on for the rest of the afternoon, listing the factors that are required for life to exist on earth or perhaps on any planet. The list is rather long but what would be observed is that while it is long and perhaps exhaustive, every requirement is indeed checked off. The obvious conclusion that one can draw is that it is highly improbable that in a situation of complete chance that such an outcome can be realized. It therefore draws one back to the anthropic argument that humankind's presence on this planet must have been based upon purpose and design. It would be impossible to honestly come to any other conclusion.

That aside, this also raises questions of what other life forms may exist within the universe. Against the background of the sheer magnitude of the universe as we have discovered, it would be imprudent to think that with billions and perhaps trillions or more within the universe, there would be only one planet with life forms existing. This is perhaps speculative but also logical since it would be difficult to accept that the only purpose of creating an entire vast universe would be for humankind as we know it.

It must be understood against this background that Genesis 1 cannot possibly be referring to God's creation of the entire universe but must be referring to events specific to earth and it's environs. The chapter must be taken as seeking to accomplish two things:

1.     To establish God as the source of all things, matter, energy, space and time.

2.     To establish a specific event in time in which God acted to create mankind and provide him with all of the necessary requirements for sustenance and support.

Taking Genesis 1 to mean anything more than it set out to do, such as providing a detailed map of God's activities in creating the earth and mankind, would leave one with some significant issues that become impossible to untangle. Genesis 1 is not a scientific paper; it is largely a religious statement.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we can arrive at several pertinent positions from our discourse.

1.     The universe is a vast and wonderful place with mysteries abounding.

2.     The exploration of the universe by scientists is an activity that Christians need to take a positive view of rather than seeing this as an affront to their belief system.

3.     The conclusions of science as far as the cosmos and it's workings and origins go, need to be taken in context, since for the foreseeable future, science would continue to operate at arms length from religion. This is actually a safe thing since historically mixing science and religion resulted in warped scientific effort with religious positions affecting honest interpretation of information.

4.     The acknowledgement of God as the source of all things is a position that Christians should adopt without any concern for being considered scientifically obsolete. The truth is that the scientific community, in spite of its advances in a range of areas has not come up with any clear answers to the question of beginnings. This is the case both for it's evolutionary theories (beginning of life) as well as its cosmological theories (beginning of the universe).

5.     Finally, I would make reference to our conclusions from my last presentation 'Science and the Christian Paranoia', that one needs to recognize that cosmology for all that it has contributed, falls under the banner of Speculative Science, which as we established before cannot be rigorously tested and proven either repeatably or conclusively.