Getting Something From Nothing

The last post dealt with infinity and how an actual infinity cannot exist. "God didn't create the universe; it's infinite; it's always existed" you might hear someone say. But this is NOT what the overwhelming scientific evidence shows. All the evidence points to a beginning of the universe that includes space, time and all matter.

In 1922 Alexander Friedmann proposed a theory that the universe began with a giant explosion that he called "The Big Bang." His theory was based on the observations from the far reaches of the universe and later confirmed by astronomer Edwin Hubble; the observations are what astronomers call "redshift". What "redshift" shows is that the known galaxies are moving away from each other and that the universe it literally expanding. Friedmann thought that if the universe is expanding out, like a balloon being blown up, then when you reverse the process we come to what is known as the singularity. The singularity is the point when space, time and all matter came into existence. Scientists don't know what created the Big Bang, since there was nothing before it, but everything came into existence at the singularity.

Now the fun part! Something cannot come from nothing, and whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist; therefore, it has a cause. Since the cause of the universe created time, the cause must be timeless and changeless. It must also be immaterial and transcend space, since it created space and all matter. It must also be extremely powerful since it created the universe. We can see how science has revealed what Christians have always believed: In the beginning, God created the universe.

Is the universe actually infinite?

Can an actual infinity really exist? After all, if the universe is truly infinite in time and space, the idea of God is not needed for its existence. Carl Sagan declared, "The universe is all there was, is and will be."

Let's look at the German mathematician David Hilbert's "Hotel". Imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and each room is occupied. However, a guest arrives and asks the front desk for a room. "No problem!" says the clerk, and he moves guest one into Room 2, guest two into Room 3, and so on to infinity, making Room 1 available for the new guest. Then, an INFINITE amount of guests arrive looking for rooms. "No problem!" says the clerk, and he moves guest one into Room 2, guest two into Room 4, guest three into Room 6, etc., always moving each guest twice the number of their room, making an infinity of rooms available for the infinite number of new guests. Yet, before they arrived, all the rooms were full.

Hilbert's Hotel gets even stranger. Suppose some of the guests start checking out. If all the guests in the even numbered rooms check out, an infinite number of guests leave and an infinite number of guests remain. But, if guests in Rooms 4, 5, 6 and so on leave, the hotel is only left with three filled rooms. In both cases the same number of guests leave, but you are left with different conclusions.

Now, lets see if we can make our heads explode, shall we? Let's consider an infinite regress of events. If time is infinite, then an infinite number of events have taken place before this one. However, before this moment could arrive the moment before it would have had to arrive. And before that moment could arrive, the moment before it had to arrive, and so on to infinity. No moment could ever "arrive", because an infinite number of moments would have to arrive first. But, what if this moment could arrive? Then the question is: Why didn't this moment arrive yesterday, or the day before, since, by then, an infinite number of days would have already passed?

What can we conclude? Nothing is actually infinite; therefore, the universe is not infinite and it had a beginning. And whatever begins to exist has a cause.

"Philosophically, the notion of a beginning to the present order is repugnant to me and I should like to find a genuine loophole.We must allow evolution an infinite amount of time to get started."-Arthur Eddington
"Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang." -Stephen Hawking

Why make a blog about faith?

I realize that there are tons of blogs and websites about the existence of God, faith, evolution, the Big Bang and everything else under the sun; so why add another? I have all this stuff in my head and I need an outlet, that's why! :)
I hope to share some of the things that I have learned from others as well as my own thoughts or I might expand on on someone else's idea. I want everyone to know that belief in God and having a relationship with Him is logical, and there is plenty of evidence to support our Christian Faith.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your MIND and with all your strength." Mark 12:28-30