THE BIG THREE: TIME, SPACE, and
ENERGY
I am amused by atheists who can explain away God by
pointing to the ordered universe. Where is heaven? If you
could travel to the edge of the universe, would you just
come to a brick wall and heaven is on the other side?
Everything is made from atoms, and contains some
combination of just 92 or 93 elements, (the rest being more
o’er less theoretical than real). We know what atoms are
made of. It’s not so complicated. Where is God? Everywhere?
Impossible? What’s “he” made of? Who made him? What was he
doing before he created the universe? Must have been pretty
boring for a whole eternity or two before he snapped his
fingers and cast up two naked people to amuse himself.
A lot of Christians get mired in the sequential nature of
time, as they know time. Jesus came, now he’s sitting (and
sitting and sitting and sitting) at the right hand of God,
wearing his gorgeous crown, waiting for the signal to come
again and gather his elect, including pulling bodies from
their graves in one huge “rapture.”
And we’ll all go “up.” Maybe into a cloud. Maybe all at
once, or maybe the cloud will take a few hours to race
around the earth.
Wait a minute.
All of this is confining God to time, as we know it and
space, as we know it. If you’re going to think about it at
all, it’s crucial to recall that God invented time and
space. How does that make him subject to it? Some
theologians are willing to consider that all time is
available to God all at once. All space is available to God
all at once.
The very idea that God is patiently listening to this and
plotting that and arranging the other, roughly as they
occur in our concept of sequence and time, is ludicrous to
me. We are subject to time. When we get around to
connecting with God, on-again-off-again, as it often is
with us humans, we are subject to time. I don’t try to
imagine what God’s consciousness is like in the absence of
a time factor, because I don’t believe I could comprehend
it. But I believe God has a consciousness that is exempt
from time.
And exempt from space. Classic philosophical arguments have
been put forth for decades about how big this universe is
and have speculated whether, in the space between the
nucleus and the electron rings of a single atom, another
whole universe might exist like ours. Maybe every electron
is an entire universe unto itself, complete with miniature
galaxies and planets and sentient beings. How many complete
universes are contained in a spec of dust?
Galileo speculated that light was not an instantaneous
illumination but traveled at a fixed speed. He tried to
prove it but failed. In 1676, Römer measured it with
reasonable precision. Photons, which we still can’t say for
sure are waves or particles, are the fastest “things” in
the universe and nothing can travel faster. The fastest we
humans can aspire to travel or transmit something,
therefore, is just short of the speed of light.
In 1905 Einstein proposed the special theory of relativity,
in which he described space between elements (that is,
objects) in a system and the time it would take for
something to travel from one point in a system to another
point in the system, as observed from another system. If
the two systems are moving in different directions, the
time for an object to move between points within one system
will be different than the time for that same object to
move between the same points in that system if viewed from
the other system. This is almost as deep as fleetingly
grasping God. A simple example of two such systems is
represented by two trains sitting on parallel tracks at a
station. When one train starts to move slowly, the
occupants might not be certain whether it is their own
train that has started to move, or the other train. Once
one has started to move, though, time itself is not the
same in one train as it is in the other. It’s too small a
difference for us to measure, because there is hardly any
real difference in the relative velocities of two trains.
The time difference is barely measurable in very fast
flight and would become significant only when a system’s
velocity approaches the speed of light.
But Einstein started to get it. In 1915 he published his
general theory of relativity, which is commonly represented
by the ubiquitous E=mc2 and which was originally used to
help explain the force of gravity. (Both theories have been
applied to countless other situations ever since.)
But Einstein realized something else. The two related
theories of relativity pretty much “prove” an
interconnectedness between time and space that, although
not apparent to us as plodding mammals on a tiny planet, is
nevertheless a real and fundamental phenomenon in the
universe. The faster something travels through space, the
slower time goes. Not just seemingly, but really.
There is a “willingness” in the physical characteristics of
things toward order. Physical principles are based on this.
Thus crystals grow inside rock cavities. Atoms of iron line
up in recognition of a naturally-occurring magnetic field.
Planets orbit stars in regular motion. Atoms vibrate with
detectable rhythms. All very orderly.
But there is a principle of ecology called entropy. It is
the tendency of an ordered system toward disorder. In
simple terms, a well-kept farm, if abandoned to the forces
of nature, will eventually return to the randomness that
nature will impose. In a way, it’s a mathematical concept.
There is nothing in nature that tends toward order – except
when a deliberate force is at play. Thus, a bird’s nest is
a microcosm of order. A conscious being made it so on
purpose, even though according to instinct. But what
conscious force made the bird? It is not the tendency of
nature to create a bird.
Those for whom all the universe and everything in it is
accidental cannot explain to me how something so elegant as
a space-time continuum came to be, how chance arrangements
of atoms attained the capability of reproducing themselves
(amino acid strings), and how simple groups of atoms
grouped still further and crossed over into what we call
“life.”
These are the common arguments against atheists. But the
one I have never heard put forward is concerned with
energy. Once humans realized not only that atoms had
chemical properties and could be cleverly combined, but
realized also that atoms could be split and could release
incredible amounts of energy, the question should have been
asked of the atheists: Where does that energy come from?
Did a vast universe filled with atomic energy simply happen
without any initiating influence? Where did the energy come
from that is locked up in every atom?
And if you are ever satisfied that you've met an athiest
who can explain energy without ascribing it to a source
greater than himself, then ask the athiest to explain
consciousness, memory, will, intent, and love.
If God is not behind it all (and what a mind to conceive
and engineer it all!), then who did? It is more absurd to
conclude that it all occurred randomly than to believe that
it was ordained. See FAITH.
2002
©DamnYankee.com
