This was the title of the second contribution by the students to the seminar, "Which truths can we build upon? Physics and Theology in Discourse."
The idea of a creation out of nothing Christian theology developed in the second century. But already in the Jewish tradition, the universe is not created from pre-existing matter because God has absolute power and does not depend on any condition.
The table shows the Christian argument for a creatio ex nihilo. God's will to create a world began in time. Christianity implied the inherent goodness of creation and connected it to the idea of salvation.
In physics, nothingness is not defined. Traditionally, a vacuum contains no matter; it has no ether but fields. So particles pop up in the Higgs field and disappear.
Since Galileo, the (Catholic) Church has been regarded by many as antiscientific. Still, a Jesuit, George Lemaître, came to the conclusion of an expanding universe in analyzing Einstein's general relativity theory. In 1927, he estimated the Hubble constant two years before Edwin Hubble published his article about the redshift of light attributed to an expanding universe.
In 1931, Lemaître became the father of the Big Bang when he proposed an initial "creation-like" event he called L'Hypothèse de l'Atome Primitif (The Primeval Atom Hypothesis).
Initially, Einstein bitterly opposed an expanding universe, but he could not ignore Hubble's measurement of the redshift of light reaching us from distant stars.
Finally, in 1933, when Einstein had listened to a talk by Lemaître at the California Institute of Technology, he applauded and is supposed to have said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."
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| ©Gliscritti/Wikipedia |
*the man who measured the charge of the electron.
Thank you, students, for the lucid seminar.
In 1936, Pope Pius XI re-founded* the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, where
selected and nominated scientists advise the Vatican on scientific
matters. In March 1960, Georges Lemaître became the president until 1966.
*He continued similar earlier papal advisory bodies on scientific issues.
When Pope Pius XII heard about the Big Bang, he went overboard. In 1951, he spoke to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, "It seems that modern science, by ingenious recourse to millions of centuries, has somehow succeeded in witnessing the 'Let there be light' at the original beginning when matter came into being and a sea of light and radiation broke out of it, thus the creation in time, hence a creator. God, therefore, exists." His shortsighted proof of God is no longer shared by anyone today.
In Wikipedia, we read, "In relation to Catholic teaching on the origin of the Universe, Lemaître viewed his theory as neutral with neither a connection nor a contradiction of the Faith; as a devoted Catholic priest, Lemaître was opposed to mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict. "
The following slides summarize the distribution of the "assignments" between the three branches well thought out.
*He continued similar earlier papal advisory bodies on scientific issues.
When Pope Pius XII heard about the Big Bang, he went overboard. In 1951, he spoke to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, "It seems that modern science, by ingenious recourse to millions of centuries, has somehow succeeded in witnessing the 'Let there be light' at the original beginning when matter came into being and a sea of light and radiation broke out of it, thus the creation in time, hence a creator. God, therefore, exists." His shortsighted proof of God is no longer shared by anyone today.
In Wikipedia, we read, "In relation to Catholic teaching on the origin of the Universe, Lemaître viewed his theory as neutral with neither a connection nor a contradiction of the Faith; as a devoted Catholic priest, Lemaître was opposed to mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict. "
The following slides summarize the distribution of the "assignments" between the three branches well thought out.
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| Click to enlarge |
Thank you, students, for the lucid seminar.
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