|
Subscribe to our newsletter and you'll continuously
be informed about our new books, series and journals.
You can customize this e-mail newsletter to your particular
needs and interests.
Newsletters include special discount codes.
To subscribe or change existing preferences press the subscribe button
|
|
|
|
|
What Caused the Big Bang?
EDWARDS, Rem B.
Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2001, XXII, 411 pp.
|
Series:
Value Inquiry Book Series 115
Philosophy and Religion
“Edwards’ scholarship and erudition are really quite impressive … provides a very helpful overview of the basic alternatives seeking to explain the origination of the big bang, making a reasoned case for creation”
International Journal for Philosophy of religion 53: 2003
"This is a book that fills a large lacuna in process studies, namely, an examination of contemporary cosmology’s theories of origins from a perspective knowledgeable about, and sympathetic to, process thought. This is the first book authored by an avowed process thinker that focuses on the Big Bang and other recent theories of the physical universe’s origin. … [Edwards’] whole book is “must” reading for anyone interested in issues pertaining to the cognitive integration of science and religion, and particularly for those with interests in the integration of science and process theism."
PROCESS STUDIES 31.2 (2002)
This book critically explores answers to the big question, What produced our universe around fifteen billion years ago in a Big Bang? It critiques contemporary atheistic cosmologies, including Steady State, Oscillationism, Big Fizz, Big Divide, and Big Accident, that affirm the eternity and self-sufficiency of the universe without God. This study defends and revises Process Theology and arguments for God's existence from the universe's life-supporting order and contingent existence.
CONTENTS
Editorial Forewordi
Kenneth A. BRYSON: Preface
Acknowledgmentsi
ONE Scientific Cosmology and the Big Bang
1.The Evolution of the Universe
A. The Initial Singularity
B. Planck Time and Space
C. Inflation
D. Evolution of Physical Forces, Particles, and the Laws of Nature
E. From a Universe of Radiation to a Gaseous Universe
F. Creation of Quasars, Galaxies, Stars, Solar Systems Heavier Elements
G. Formation of Our Sun, Its Planets, and Life on Earth
2. Evidences for the Big Bang
A. Receding Galaxies and the Redshift
B. Hubble’s Law of Uniform Expansion
C. The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics
D. Inferences from Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
E. Nucleosynthesis of Hydrogen, Helium, Deuterium, and Heavier Elements
F. The Cosmic Microwave Background
G. The Dark Sky at Night
3. Scientific Cosmological Agnosticism
TWO Humanistic Naturalism
1. Family Traits of Humanistic Naturalism
A. Nature as All Existence
B. Nature as Purposeless
C. Nature as Infinite, Eternal, and Necessary
D. Nature Causes Everything
E. Scientific Method Alone
F. Humanism
2. How Scientific Is Humanistic Naturalism?
A. Humanistic Values and Scientific Method
B. Naturalistic Metaphysics and Scientific Method
i. Direct Observation
ii. Inductive Inference
iii. Hypothesis Formation and Testing
a. The Hypotheses of “Creation Science”
b. Hypothetical Cosmological Entities and Processes
c. Naturalistic Metaphysical Hypotheses
THREE Steady State and Plasma Cosmologies
1. Steady State Cosmology
2. Critique of Steady State Cosmology
A. No Observational Evidence
B. The Dark Sky, Microwave Background, Redshift, and Hubble Expansion
C. The First Law of Thermodynamics
D. Antimatter
E. Verifying Infinity
3. Plasma Cosmology and Eric Lerner’s Critique of the Big Bang
A. Large-Scale Structures
B. Dark Matter and the Galaxies
C. Cosmic Heterogeneity
D. Homogeneity and the Microwave Background
E. The Hubble Expansion and the Infinite Universe
4. Critique of Plasma Cosmology
A. A Universe Infinite in Space and Time
B. Hydrogen and An Infinitely Old Universe
C. The Vastness of the Universe
D. Mini-Bangs and the Age of the Universe
E. Electromagnetism and the Age of the Universe
F. Background Radiation
G. The Smoothness of the Universe
FOUR Antecedent Universe Cosmologies
1. Gamow’s Infinite Squeeze/Bang/Rebound Universe
2. Critique of Gamow’s Cosmology
A. Science and an Infinite Past
B. Gravity and Mass/Energy in the Squeeze Era
3. Oscillation Cosmology
A. Singularities
B. Quantum Effects and Singularities
i. Quantum Indefiniteness
ii. Quantum Discreteness
4. Critique of Oscillation Cosmology
A. An Infinite Number of Closed Universes
B. Singularities vs. Finite Size Maximal Compression States
i. Rebounds from Singularities?
ii. Big Bounces Without Singularities
C. Singularities and Universal Physical Causation
D. Quantum Effects Near Singularities
E. Oscillationism and Thermodynamics
i. Entropy Can’t Apply to the Universe as a Whole
ii. Entropy Can Apply to the Universe as a Whole
FIVE Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologies
1. Big Fizz Quantum Cosmology
A. Mother Spacetime
B. The Physical Vacuum and Pure Energy
C. Forever Blowing Bubbles
D. Spontaneous Fluctuations
2. Big Divide Many Worlds Cosmology
A. Schrödinger’s Cat
B. Schrödinger’s Cat in Many Worlds
3. Critique of World-Ensemble Cosmologies
A. Lack of Empirical Foundations and Meaning
B. Possibility = Actuality, and World-Ensembles
C. You and I in Many Worlds
SIX Quantum Observership Cosmology
1. Observers Create the Universe
2. Critique of Quantum Observership
A. Incompatibility With Cosmic and Biological Evolution
B. Idealism vs. Realism
i. Critical Realism and Quantum/Relativity Matter
ii. Observership and Causation
iii. Ambiguities Involving “Observer” and “Measurement”
SEVEN Big Accident Quantum Cosmology
1. The Universe as a Big Accident
2. Critique of Big Accident Quantum Cosmology
A. Perfect Symmetry and Zero Energy
i. We Live in an Open Universe
ii. Matter Prevails over Antimatter
iii. The Bang Overpowers Gravity
B. Quantum Natural Laws Operating in Nothingness
i. The Incoherence of Something in Nothing
ii. Laws Are Only Formal Causes
C. Total Abandonment of Causation
i. Necessary but Not Sufficient Causal Conditions
ii. Freedom Has Necessary Conditions
iii. Applying Causation to World-Origins
D. No Contingency Without Causation
EIGHT Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology
1. The Anthropic Principle and Cosmic Purpose Without God
2. The Weak and Strong Anthropic Principles
3. Critique of Infinite World-Ensemble Teleology
A. Non-Empirical Status
B. The Principle of Plenitude
C. Infinity = All Possibilities
i. Infinity Is Not Infinite Diversity
ii. An Agent of Diversification Is Needed
iii. Infinite Possibilities Are Not All Possibilities
iv. Infinity Would Not “Use Up” Lifeless Worlds
v. Actualizing All Possibilities Is Incoherent
D. Infinitely Many Life-Sustaining Universes
E. Infinite Time and the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy
F. Infinite Space and the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy
G. Faith vs. Reason
NINE The Final Anthropic Principle
1.The Omega Point as the Purpose of the Universe
2. Critique of the Final Anthropic Principle
A. Unfounded Assumptions
B. The Meaning and Value of Human Life
i. Human Existence as Merely a Means to Something Beyond
ii. Enduring Grand Objectives
iii. Human Insignificance in the Grand Scheme of Things
iv. The Intrinsic Worth of Human Existence
v. The Meaning and Value of Infinitely Prolonged Existence
TEN Concepts of God’s Nature and Existence
1.Two Concepts of God’s Nature: Classical and Process Theology
A. Infinite in Being and Perfection
B. A Most Pure Spirit, Invisible, Without Body
C. Immense
D. Without...Parts
E. Without...Passions
F. Immutable...Eternal
G. Almighty
2. Conceiving of God’s Existence
A. Ordinary Existence
B. Necessary and Contingent Existence
3. Critique of Process Theology
A. God’s Influencing and Being Influenced by the World
B. Our Freedom and God’s Self-Limitation
C. How Process Theology Can Affirm Creation Ex Nihilo
i. A New Framework for Understanding Creation Ex Nihilo
ii. Elements of Superspacetime in Process Thought
iii. Process Objections to Creation Ex Nihilo
ELEVEN The Biopic Teleological Argument
1. God’s Purpose for the Universe and Cosmic Teleology
A. Extraordinary Cosmic Coincidences that Favor Life
i. Matter/Antimatter Asymmetry
ii. A Weaker or Stronger Force of Gravity
iii. More or Less Mass/Energy
iv. The Size and Age of the Universe
v. Variations in the Electromagnetic Force
vi. Alterations of the Strong Force in Atomic Nuclei
vii. Variations in the Weak Force Controlling Nuclear Decay
viii. Different Spatial Dimensions
ix. Additional Fine-Tuned Features
B. Inadequate Non-Theistic Explanations
i. Infinitely Many Worlds
ii. The Principle of Plenitude
iii. Nothingness
C. Probabilities Favor Divinity
Conclusion: God Ordered Our World
2. Critique and Defense of the Biopic Teleological Argument
A. Natural Creation of Order
B. The Insignificance of Life in a Vast Universe
C. The Big Mess: Evil and the Religious Ambiguity of Order in Nature
i. Solutions that Don’t Work
ii. A Process Theodicy that Works
a. The Free Will Defense
b. The Soul-Making Defense
c. The Utility of Law and Order
d. The Conflict of Good with Good e. Consolation
f. Compensation
TWELVE Theism and Cosmic Contingency
1. A Cosmological Argument from Contingency
A. Naturalistic Metaphysical Options
B. Contingent Parts and Wholes
C. No Necessary Parts of the Universe
D. Conclusion: The Dependence of the Universe on God
2. Critique and Defense of the Cosmological Argument from Contingency
A. The Universe Needs No God
i. Creating and Sustaining
ii. Influencing and Saving
B. Contingent Wholes Do Not Imply Necessary Causes
C. “Cause” Cannot Apply to the Universe as a Whole
D. God Also Must Have Had a Cause
E. Atheism Is Simpler than Theism
F. There Is no Universe as a Whole
G. Transcendent Reality Is Unknowable
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
Index
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
REM B. EDWARDS received his A.B. degree from Emory University in 1956, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. During graduate school, he was a Danforth Graduate Fellow. He received a B.D. degree from Yale University Divinity School in 1959 and a Ph.D. from Emory University in 1962. He taught for four years at Jacksonville University in Florida, moved from there to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1966, and retired from there partly in 1997 and partly in 1998. He continues to be professionally active and kept an office on the University campus until the end of May 2000. He was a U. T. Chancellor’s Research Scholar in 1985 and a Lindsay Young Professor from 1987 to 1998.
His areas of specialization are Philosophy of Religion, American Philosophy, Ethical Theory, Medical Ethics with a special interest in Mental Health Care, Ethics and Animals, and Formal Axiology.
He is the author and/or editor of sixteen books, including Reason and Religion (New York: Harcourt, 1972 and Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1979); Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979); with Glenn Graber, BioEthics (San Diego: Harcourt, 1988); with John W. Davis, Forms of Value and Valuation: Theory and Applications (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991); Formal Axiology and Its Critics (Amsterdam—New York: Editions Rodopi, 1995); Violence, Neglect, and the Elderly, co-edited with Roy Cebik, Glenn Graber, and Frank H. Marsh (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1996); New Essays on Abortion and Bioethics (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1997); Ethics of Psychiatry: Insanity, Rational Autonomy, and Mental Health Care (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997); Values, Ethics, and Alcoholism, co-edited with Wayne Shelton (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1997); Bioethics for Medical Education, co-edited with Dr. Edward Bittar (Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 1999), Religious Values and Valuations (Signal Mountain, Tenn.: Paidia Publishing Co, 2000); and Dialogues on Values and Centers of Value: Old Friends, New Thoughts, co-authored with Thomas M. Dicken (Amsterdam—New York: Editions Rodopi, in press). Edwards is also the author of over sixty articles and reviews, including “How Process Theology Can Affirm Creation Ex Nihilo,” Process Studies, 29:1 (2000), pp. 77–96.
He is an Associate Editor with the Value Inquiry Book Series, published by Editions Rodopi, where he is responsible for the Hartman Institute Axiology Studies special series. For a number of years he was co-editor of the Advances in Bioethics book series published by JAI Press.
Edwards has been the President of the Tennessee Philosophical Association (1973-1974), the Society for Philosophy of Religion (1981-1982), and the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (1984-1985). He is a Charter Member and Fellow of the Robert S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology, has served on its Board of Directors since 1987, and since 1989 has been its Secretary-Treasurer. He chaired the committee that established the website for the R. S. Hartman Institute at: http://www.hartmaninstitute.org
EDITORIAL FOREWORD
The appearance of Rem B. Edwards’s What Caused the Big Bang? marks the introduction of the first title in the Philosophy and Religion (PAR) special series. I cannot imagine a better way to introduce the special series to the academic world than to do so through the thought of a frequently cited scholar. This is PAR’s first book, Edwards’s sixteenth.
Edwards’s erudition is everywhere in evidence as he devours the pages of Big Bang literature, separating fact from fancy, the examined from the unexamined. Socrates would recognize his sting as belonging to the most energetic of gadflies, unrelenting, pestering those who would readily ascribe the origin of the universe to anything less than disciplined reason requires. What caused the Big Bang? Now that the 15 billion-year-old cosmic dust has settled, several likely explanations emerge from the cosmic broth. But not all explanations are proven equal, as Edwards amply demonstrates: Steady State and Plasma Cosmologies; Antecedent Universe Cosmologies; Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmol-ogies; Quantum Observership Cosmology; Big Accident Quantum Cosmology; Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology; the Final Anthropic Principle–each view contains fatal flaws.
Edwards’s thesis that God caused the Big Bang follows a detailed deconstruction of alternate models showing their weakness: where and how they commit fallacies. The burden of proof now falls squarely on the shoulders of those who do not accept the claim that God caused the Big Bang. Critics must point to the deficiencies in Edwards’s argument and defend the superiority of their own view. This is a hard sell, given the breadth and depth of his work. But if God created the universe, what is our place in it? Who is God, why did God create, is God responsible for the suffering of innocent victims, and since the universe is contingent, does God sustain creation? Like all good philosophy, Edwards’s answer to questions raises more questions!
In my own work on death and immortality, the mysterious nature of the nothing has long beckoned forth, inviting me to visit the nurturing intelligibilities it incloses. In discussions on death and dying, I find useful the distinction between the absence of something and the removal of ground in which the possibility of this absence arises. For instance, is death the absence of life or is it the removal of the possibility in which the possibility of absence arises? The simple answer is that it is both. The complex answer is that one distinction (ontological) raises the question of what death might be like to the dead (if post mortem states exist), while the other (epistemic) addresses the ordinary-language view of death as absence of life. The investigation into the ontological character of death (death as such), then is conducted from the perspective of the nothing as reversal in the possibility of temporal existence. Death is a return to the conditions that existed before the Big Bang. In part, my thesis depends on the existence of a state in the likeness of the nothing. Edwards’s What Caused the Big Bang? provides solid evidence and confirms my own belief that God is at work in this domain.
If God caused the Big Bang, then, the universe had a beginning. It might not have had a beginning in time (the universe could be eternal), but it must have had a beginning in the order of existence (thereby providing an answer to the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”). If matter has a beginning, science cannot reach that far. The laws of the universe only become applicable at Planck Time and Planck Space or length; at 10-43rd of a second, the size of the universe was 10-33rd centimeter in diameter (see pp. 98–99 of this volume). This is as close to the moment of creation as science can get. So how can the Big Bang have a cause? Philosophy and/or religion take over at that point. Edwards’s inquiry reveals that the gap separating the before and the after of existence (beyond scientific measurement) is not nothing at all since it is pregnant with the divine laws and patterns of existence. How else would the universe know to open the first act of existence in a scene of well-orchestrated expansion and contraction? Planets could not have formed in the absence of laws and patterns. The existence of the law implies structure. And structure points beyond contingency to the existence of a Necessary Being–or God at work in the ex nihilo.
Edwards’s book is powerful and timely. His cogent analysis of quantum physics provides at least one indubitable truth that cannot be deconstructed–God exists! The current crisis in Ethics is due to the excesses of relativism. Once we accepted Hume’s invitation to skepticism, Heidegger’s critique of the Absolute, Nietzsche’s death-of-God movement, and the genetic secularization of our species, nothing special was left to unite us. We found ourselves doing moral theory in the absence of a unified ethical vision of our common origin, nature, and destiny. Edwards’s book provides the ontological grounding required for a fresh start. It should be required reading, not only where physics is taught, but whenever Philosophy and Religion matter.
Kenneth A. Bryson
Editor, Philosophy and Religion
University College of Cape Breton
Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
January 2001
EXCERPT
here we are! Since this consideration applies to every epoch in an infinite series, no worlds at all would exist!
Oscillation Cosmologies differ over whether antecedent collapsing epochs begin and end in singularities, but they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. With singularities, no lawful spatiotemporal or causal relations could link cosmic epochs because space, time, physical causation, and all the laws of nature break down in singularities. The Naturalistic claim that all spatiotemporal events are caused by other spatiotemporal events would be untrue. The very notion of an antecedent universe becomes incoherent and unintelligible. An antecedent universe is postulated as a physical cause of our universe, but physical causation begins after T = 0 and cannot be traced back any further. We cannot infer that the cause of our universe was something physical. Singularities having no magnitude at all are empirically indistinguishable from nothingness.
Without singularities, Planck-size or larger spatiotemporal and causal relations could connect successive epochs; but the laws of nature would not break down between epochs; and without a total meltdown, the law of increasing entropy carries over from epoch to epoch. If our epoch was preceded by an infinite number of epochs, and if chaos increased in each and from one to the next, then our epoch would be infinitely chaotic. It is not; so Oscillation Cosmologies must be wrong. Furthermore, if the laws and initial conditions of each universe are totally reprocessed between epochs, an open or flat universe, a non-quantum universe, a terminal singularity, or the extinction of all energy whatsoever would occur in an infinite number of diversifying antecedent tries that actualize all possibilities; and our universe would not exist; but it does.
Quantum effects rescue Oscillation Cosmologies only at the price of unjustifiable favoritism. Quantum indefiniteness and discreteness would exclude all singularities, both initial and those in collapsing neutron stars and black holes. Initial singularities are excluded only in imaginary time, not in real time, if Hawking is right. Quantum effects support neither Oscillation Cosmologies nor even more eccentric Quantum Cosmologies yet to be examined, for we do not know that other worlds exist(ed) as quantum universes, or that atomic or sub-atomic size universes obey the laws of quantum physics when all the energy within them is drastically compacted in size, pressure, density, temperature, and curvature. With or without an initial singularity, our universe is flat or open, thus radically unlike the infinite number of universes that supposedly preceded it; but what happened to the missing gravity or mass?
Oscillation Cosmologies are initially attractive, but their problems are insurmountable. Antecedent Universe Cosmologies are not serious obstacles to theistic belief. This does not establish the truth of theism, but it clears away much of the rubbish that stands in the way.
|
|
|
Tijnmuiden 7
1046 AK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
T: +31-20-611 48 21
F: +31-20-447 29 79
248 East 44th Street - 2nd floor
New York, NY 10017
USA
T: 1-800-225-3998
F: 1-800-853-3881
Toll-free in the USA
info@rodopi.nl
|
|
|
