Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory

Since the creation of the Big Bang theory, many religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory of physical cosmology have been offered. The Big Bang itself is a scientific theory, and as such stands or falls by its agreement with observations. But as a theory which addresses, or at least seems to address, creation itself, it has always been entangled with theological implications. In the 1920s and '30s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory. This perception was enhanced by the fact that the theory's inventor, Georges Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest as well as a physicist and astronomer.

Buddhist View

One possible source for a Buddhist cosmology can be found in the Aggañña Sutta of the Pali Tripiṭaka or canon. According to this sutta, the universe itself is subject to impermanence and cycles of expansion and contraction. When the existing universe is dead, all the beings have moved into a special set of worlds called "Brahma Loka", which are independent of the physical universe. After some time, an empty space is created for a being to have rebirth. A being with strong Karma (past action) enters there. He is called Great Brahma. Due to the will of this being, some other beings also gain rebirth in this space as Brahmas. However, this state is only suitable for the beings of higher mental state, i.e. who are not attached to sensual pleasure. Non-Brahmas want the existence of a physical world. As a result of their collective will, with the help of Great Brahma, a new physical universe with space and time is created. Then the universe gradually evolves into a state where it can host life, where these beings with the desire to have sensual experience are reborn. This cycle repeats, with the total lifetime of the universe being called a kalpa. While the notion of an expanding universe might be seen to bear a relationship to contemporary Big Bang Theory, it needs to be understood that this sutta and its implied cosmology is not universally held among Buddhists. At least one contemporary scholar proposes that the entire Aggañña Sutta should be taken not so much as a cosmological foundation for Buddhism but as a contemptuous gloss on Brahmanic religious claims. For many Buddhists, especially those of the Mahayana schools, cosmological speculations are understood as a kind of entrapment, yet another way in which impermanence is disguised (see the article Buddhist Cosmology).^{[citation needed]}

Christian and Jewish views

Lemaître himself always insisted that, as a physical theory, the Big Bang has no religious implications; and yet the congruence between his scientific and religious beliefs is apparent in his famous description of the beginning of the universe as "a day without yesterday"—alluding to the creation account in Genesis. George Gamow had no compunction in describing the graphs of conditions in the Big Bang as "divine creation curves", and sent a copy of his book The Creation of the Universe to the Pope; yet even he favored an oscillating model in which the Big Bang was not a literal beginning. In recent times, scientists like Francis S. Collins (in his book "The Language of God") would favor a divine explanation for the Big Bang. He argues that only a supernatural force that is outside of space and time could have done that. To this day, many people's reactions to the Big Bang theory, both positive and negative, are influenced by how well it can be harmonized with their religious and philosophical world views.

Some interpretations of the Big Bang theory go beyond science, and some purport to explain the cause of the Big Bang itself (first cause). These views have been criticized by some naturalist philosophers as being modern creation myths. Some people believe that the Big Bang theory is inconsistent with traditional views of creation such as that in Genesis, for example, while others, like astronomer and old Earth creationist Hugh Ross, believe that the Big Bang theory lends support to the idea of creation ex nihilo ("out of nothing").

A number of Christian and traditional Jewish sources have accepted the Big Bang as a possible description of the origin of the universe, interpreting it to allow for a philosophical first cause. In particular, Pope Pius XII was an enthusiastic proponent of the Big Bang even before the theory was scientifically well-established, Lemaître protested, objecting to religious endorsement of any scientific theory, even his own. and consequently the Catholic Church has been a prominent advocate for the idea that creation ex nihilo can be interpreted as consistent with the Big Bang. This view is shared by many religious Jews in all branches of rabbinic Judaism. Some groups contend the Big Bang is also consistent with the teaching of creation according to Kabbalah.

Nahmanides

In his last work "Commentary on the Torah", Nahmanides, the famous 12th century Jewish philosopher, describes the universe expanding and matter forming.

“

...At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard. The matter at this time was very thin, so intangible, that it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on the tangible aspects of matter as we know it. From this initial act of creation, from this etherieally thin pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or will ever exist, was, is, and will be formed.

”

Hindu view

Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between what they consider the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe, and the Hindu concept of a "day and night of Brahma", which is much closer to the current assumed age of the universe than other creation myths (when taken literally). The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created, and is not strictly evolutionary, but an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the universe. According to Sagan:

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scale still.

Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, wrote that:

This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models. One of these cosmologies is based on the Hindu myth of lila—the divine play—in which Brahman transforms himself into the world.

View of Islam

See also: Qur'an and science

The Qur'an declares that in the very beginning the whole universe (heavens and the earth and what is suspended between them) was in the form of a single entity which may be referred as the proposed "singularity". "Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were joined together as one united piece, then We parted them? And We have made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?" Imam Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839-923 CE) quoted Ibn 'Abbas - the Companion of the Last Prophet of Islam Muhammad ,that the heavens and the earth were united and joined together.

Taoist view

It has been proposed by some that a suggestion of a Big Bang can also be found in Taoism, a branch of Chinese philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching is:

… It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.

See also

• Big Bang
• Qur'an and science
• Issues in Science and Religion
• Kalam Cosmological Argument

References

• Leeming, David Adams, and Margaret Adams Leeming, A Dictionary of Creation Myths. Oxford University Press (1995), ISBN 0-19-510275-4.
• Pius XII (1952), "Modern Science and the Existence of God," The Catholic Mind 49:182–192.
• Ahmad, Mirza Tahir, Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth Islam International Publications Ltd (1987), ISBN 1-85372-640-0. The Quran and Cosmology
• Long, Barry, The Origins of Man And the Universe Barry Long Books (1998), ISBN 1-899324-12-7. The Origins of Man And the Universe

External links

• More universe theories
• Varg Vikernes' "Irminsûl" (Germanic paganism view)