Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 27 No. 2, 2007.
Original scientific paper
Contact between Modern Cosmology and Religion: The Ultimate Understanding of the Beginning of the Universe
Tomislav Petković
Abstract
Uniting the great theories of physics – i.e. the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and astroparticle physics – continues to remain a dream of both physics and the philosophy of science even at the beginning of the 21st century. In respect of the ultimate laws of the universe (the theory of everything) they all agree that there was a beginning and that the ultimate laws are those that have already ruled at the beginning of the evolution of the universe. The beginning of the universe implies its creation and necessarily points to a Creator – a religious God, to building a bridge between modern cosmology and religion. In regard to the above classical cosmologies (Newton, Kant) correspond to the modern cosmological models of astroparticle theoretical physics, i.e. the reflections of the leading modern cosmologists: Einstein, Weinberg, Penrose, Hawking and others. The author highlights that even great international symposia on the history of science (Mexico City, 2001; Beijing, 2005) keep on reaffirming the complementary relation between science (natural forces) and religion (supernatural forces) as the true and only path to a universal horizon of the world in the 21st century. Einstein describes the state of affairs of the relation between science and religion exceptionally well with the following words: »Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind« (Ideas and Opinions: Science and Religion, 1941). The creation of the world described in Genesis, particularly in The Beginning, is God’s creation: God creates by the agency of words or actions – immediately and in real time – in the phases of creation measured in days. Genesis is adorned by all the modern initial cosmological conditions and parameters: creation, the beginning and end of the universe, time and space, the structure and evolution of the universe, the role and meaning of life in the universe. Irrespective of the extent to which, scientifically speaking, it is a simple and short narrative, this theological cosmology – including all the living creatures in it and their hierarchy with man as king – can indeed serve as a role model to the modern cosmological models, since the universe created by God is a universe of matter and life. We can say that we design cosmological models and conduct simulations and great experiments in the high energy physics in order to reach and understand the way in which God created. On the other hand, however, in contemporary physics in general and in modern cosmology in particular, the concept of God is frequently »effectively« used either in defining certain problems or in interpreting scientific calculations, which must not be viewed as the impoverishment of the theological or religious eminence of the concept as can be found in Newton, Petrić, Bošković, Kant or Davies.
This paper also surveys the principles and the so-called »great successes« achieved on the bridge that connects contemporary cosmology and religion: ‘participatory’ universe and the anthropic principle, as well as the challenging theoretical advances in today’s cosmology in the field of M−theory (string theory) which also discuss rival ideas of the pre-big bang scenarios. The author also poses the following question: does the contemporary crossroad of physics and religion perhaps issue from modern cosmology’s peculiar »experimental helplessness« taking shape in a grave technical problem, i.e. finding immense energies for experimental particle observations required by the physics of the Big Bang? These energies are, for example, approximate to 1019 GeV (which is approximate to 1032 K), which corresponds to 10−43 of a second after the Big Bang. A thinking in the paper was finally concluded, on the Kant’s trail, whether the contemporary theoretical advances achieved in quantum cosmology (gravitation) at Planck’s scale are also relevant for Kant’s cosmological scale – the one arrived at by a simple expansion of the categories to the unconditioned, which brings synthesis to a point that surpasses all possible experience.
Keywords
cosmology and religion; theory of everthing; God Creator; Genesis; Big bang; Planck scale; evolution of the universe; Higgs particle; pre big bang scenarios; participatory universe; anthropic principle; ultimate laws
Hrčak ID:
16986
URI
Publication date:
21.9.2007.
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