The vast percentage of scientists have abandoned the Steady State Theory, which claims that
the universe had always existed, in favor of Big Bang cosmology, claiming that the universe had a beginning.
This has created a big problem for the materialist, who now has to explain how
it came to be if nothing existed prior to it.
The late physicist, Stephen Hawking, had claimed that
gravity did it:
·
Because there is a law like gravity, the
universe can and will create itself from nothing.
There are several problems with this “solution”:
1.
What created gravity?
2.
How could gravity exist apart from time, space, and
matter in which gravity is embedded?
3.
Gravity doesn’t create matter or even the other
laws of science, let alone the universe.
4.
Even now, we do not observe gravity creating
anything out of nothing.
5.
What accounts for its elegance and immutability?
It gives the appearance of design.
Many regard these challenges as a series of knockout blows
and have appealed to Quantum theory to explain the origin of the universe.
Casey Luskin and Gary and Hailie Kemper (LKK) claim that Quantum theory:
·
Describes matter and energy in terms of
subatomic units called “quanta.” According to the theory, quantum events take
place in a quantum vacuum where waves and particles seem to pop in and out of
existence randomly, without any apparent physical cause. (Salvo, Spring 2019, 36)
As yet, there is no “physical explanation for the origin of
quanta.” However, this doesn’t mean that there is no explanation. LKK explain:
·
Quantum theory predicts that quantum events will
occur within a range of well-defined statistical probabilities—a highly ordered
set of circumstances, which is unlikely if there is no underlying cause. This
suggests that there is a cause for quanta, but that the cause is not physical. (36)
According to LKK, this suggests that:
·
Some events may originate from causes outside
the physical universe—countering the philosophy of materialism. (36)
Besides, this appeal to quantum events suffers from the same
flaws as does the appeal to gravity. For one thing, the breeding ground of the
quanta, the quantum vacuum, “is not nothing but a sea of fluctuating energy
endowed with a rich structure and subject to physical laws.” LKK reason:
·
If the universe arose in the same way quanta do,
materialists should realize that the quanta may be best explained by a
non-physical [transcendent] cause. In
the same way, the beginning of the universe some 13 billion years ago also
requires an explanation outside of the universe. (36)
We cannot appeal to the universe (gravity or quanta) to
explain the origin of the universe. Instead, we have to look to a sufficient
cause outside the universe, one that doesn’t require time, space, and matter.
Perhaps, this is why cosmologist and Nobel Prize recipient
for his work in support of the Big Bang, George Smoot, concluded:
·
What we have found is evidence for the birth of
the universe…[I]t is like looking at God. (35)
The very One who the materialist cannot bear to behold!
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