DO TIME AND MATTER HAVE A BEGINNING?

 

 

Nobel-prize-winning physicist Arno Penzias surmised:

·       Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.

This is the very conclusion many cosmologists wish to avoid. To accept Big Bang cosmology is to accept the conclusion that the universe, time, space, and matter had a unified beginning and therefore requires a Transcendent (beyond the universe), timeless, matter-less, spaceless, uncaused eternal cause.

To bypass this conclusion, many have postulated Big Bang modifications that attempt to avoid a beginning. However, in New Proofs for the Existence of God, cosmologist Robert J. Spitzer has argued that this is highly unlikely because time cannot exist apart from matter:

·    ...the universe and time itself had to have had a beginning at some point, even if that point was not the big bang itself. In some specific scenarios this can be proven. So far, no one has found a completely consistent and satisfactory PBBM [Past-extended Big Bang Model] in which time had no beginning, and there is reason to believe that such a scenario is unlikely to be found in the future.

Spitzer suggests that there are several lines of evidence that the universe had a beginning. He cites the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which maintains that the physical world is subject to entropy, the dissipation of energy and particles. A hot cup of coffee only goes in one direction. Its heat dissipates to match that of its surroundings.

If the universe had existed eternally, then all of its energy and particles would have long ago dissipated.

Besides, time couldn’t have lasted eternally or infinitely. This would have required the passing of an infinite number of years. However, since it is impossible to count an infinite number of years, it is also impossible that an infinite number of years could have passed to bring us into the present year. This means that time needed to have a beginning.

To neutralize these conclusions, some have responded, “We just can’t know!” However, this conclusion requires almost exhaustive knowledge of the subject and an illogical leap of faith. It implies a great amount of knowledge, the very thing that this statement denies.

Admittedly, there exists many mysteries when we try to go beyond our experience and scientific observation and quantification—the very thing we are doing when we try to answer the question, “From where did everything arise, and what force maintains the universe?” However, to conclude that we are bereft of any answers goes beyond the evidence.