February 25, 2024 • 22 mins
"Creation ex nihlilo (creation out of nothing) or "Ex nihilo nihil fit" (from nothing comes from nothing)?
The notion of a creator God is fundamental to Western religions. But is it true? The opening of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, studied so long and hard by the Kabbalists suggests so, and the Big Bang theory gave reason for many to believe the cosmological argument for God (everything that began to exist has a cause). But the newest scientific data suggests something preceded the Big Bang. And in our secular age, many prefer to follow the science, rightly so.
Planet Earth, the sun, our galaxy, and the universe itself, like all of us, is headed for the graveyard. But cycles of nature appear everywhere. Could this also be true of the universe itself? Does the universe resurrect? This episode explores the question in detail.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello.
I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geistepisode 80.
Welcome back.
The purpose of this podcast isto explore philosophy psychology
and modern science with anemphasis on what these
disciplines can tell usregarding building a better life
for ourselves and others.
And this episode, I will beexploring the timeless question
(00:21):
of whether or not there is aGod.
Now you don't hear much aboutGod these days in our highly
secularized world.
And I'm old enough to rememberthe famous time magazine cover
of 1966.
Asking the question is God dead.
It created quite a stir.
We even discussed it in some ofmy classes at the time.
But just around this same timein the 1960s, the new age moving
(00:44):
began to flourish and to focusmore on spirit and Eastern
religions that did not rely asmuch on traditional Western
notions of God, the father, thecreator, et cetera.
You remember the Beatles went tovisit the Maharishi.
In India.
And John Lennon famously saidthat the Beatles were more
popular than God.
And even today, and non-Orthodoxdenominations in many churches
(01:07):
and synagogues, God is not themajor focus.
In most reformed Jewish templesto a large degree.
And also many conservative.
Jewish.
Denominations, the focus is onliving a better life here and
not on any heavenly world, aperson.
And also, this is true inProtestant Christianity.
(01:28):
Same, same thing can be said.
Where the life of Jesus is heldup as an example of how to be a
better person.
And there's not much dogma aboutheaven or abstract notions of
God.
And I can't really speak.
To Islam, but I have read thatstudies have shown that a
majority of Muslims around theworld do hold more moderate
views on many issues.
(01:50):
And of course you have theEastern religions, whichever,
totally different conception ofour nature here.
Then these mean Westernreligions.
Now of course, a major featureof these religions over the
centuries has been that there isa creator.
God.
That started the whole thing.
And what I'm going to bequestioning here is whether this
is true.
(02:11):
Whether there was some entitythat created the universe and
all that's in it.
And even in our scientific agewhere we know so much about the
beginnings and, can speculateabout the eventual death of the
universe, the notion of acreator, God still persists.
Although it's true.
That it's much.
To a much less extent than inprevious centuries.
(02:32):
It even appears in Hinklesphilosophy, although in his own
terms, as we've discussed her somany times, And the various
episodes.
So let's begin with somedefinitions.
By the term creator.
God, I am referring to thenotion of creation X and a Hilo.
Creation out of nothing that theuniverse was created of nothing
by this creator.
(02:52):
God.
And it is this concept that Iwant to discuss.
I believe it's the most.
Common general conception of Godthat, that.
This God is the uncreatedcreator of all things.
You know, when little kids asktheir parents who made all this,
the easy answers, what God did.
And of course the next questionis, well, then who created a
guide?
(03:13):
And that usually stumps theparents when they say something
like, well, I guess God hasalways existed.
So, this is the question that Iwill be discussing here today.
And I've touched on it severaltimes in the past, in different
episodes, particularly a pointout episode, 15 on whether the
natural world was reallycreated.
Episode 39.
(03:33):
And whether there was an actualcreation event.
And episode 61 on thepossibility of a cyclical
universe.
But I'm going to bring somedramatic new perspectives on
these questions here in thisepisode.
And that's why I'm covering thistopic again.
And I'll be including much morecurrent science that we'll get
to.
Then I did in these previousepisodes.
(03:55):
As I said, the notion of acreator, God who created the
universe out of nothing iscentral to the three main
Western religions, Judaism,Christianity, and Islam.
Opposing this view.
Is that nothing can come out ofnothing.
This is an ancient Greek viewthat Parmenides is held in Greek
it's it's known as, um, exMihaylo Naheed fit.
(04:18):
Meaning nothing comes fromnothing.
So we have a dichotomy.
Was the universe created or didit always exist?
Which is it.
Well, let's turn first to theBible, the Hebrew Bible, the old
Testament to Genesis to see whatthis text has to say about it.
It's always a good place tostart just to check things out.
Let's begin with the first twosentences of Genesis.
(04:40):
Which, by the way, they've beenstudied endlessly by capitalists
over the centuries.
The first sentence in Genesis.
One, one is.
Quote in the beginning, Godcreated the heavens in the earth
and quote.
Barry chef is the first word ofthe Bible, the Hebrew Bible.
It's Hebrew and it means.
In the beginning or justbeginning.
(05:02):
Now, the first letter of bearishchef is the letter B bet in
Hebrew.
And this means to, and thisshows to the cobble list that
the universe was created as aduality, the heavens and the
earth.
The fact that it started with Bis very significant to that.
And that that suggests thisduality of heavens and the
earth.
(05:22):
And as I mentioned, you'reoften, uh, I believe the heavens
in the earth correspond to mindand matter the matter did not
come from mind and mind didn'tcome from matter.
They both exist at the sametime.
They're both primordial.
This duality also corresponds tothe Hey Galean notion of being
in nothing.
Existing equally at thebeginning of his science of
logic.
(05:43):
So the heavens and earth had abeginning per Genesis.
Which is say they were createdby God.
So you have three.
God, the creator, the one, andthen the duality of the heavens
in the earth, which he created.
And.
Now.
Th the question is.
Where the heavens and earth.
Created a nothing, or where theycreated a something.
(06:06):
It is with the second sentenceof Genesis where it gets
complicated.
The second sentence Genesis one,two begins in the following way.
And the earth was without formand void and darkness was upon
the face of the deep and thespirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters and court.
One reading of this is that Godcreated the heaven and the
earth.
(06:26):
And then once created by God,the earth was first formless as
water is, and it was in darknessand the spirit of God hovered
above it.
Now.
In this example.
It's God is the one that hascreated the dark forms.
Waters.
and it's a result of God'screation.
Now, but biblical scholarsdiffer as to just what this
(06:48):
means.
Perhaps it meant that these darkformless waters were preexisting
and.
This is what God used to createthe heavens and the earth.
But I believe most traditionalreligious people take it as the
foremost waters and the spiritof God being the creation out of
nothing by God.
There, what God, in fact,created the first step.
(07:11):
So you have formless matterwater.
And you have mind is expressedby the spirit of God hovering
above.
The Hebrew word for spirit ofGod has ruach, which can refer
to breath or wind or someinvisible moving force.
So as a result of this creation,we now have the duality of the
formless waters.
As I said, in the spirit of Godwas there as well.
(07:34):
And then God went on to createlight land and eventually Adam
and Eve and so forth.
Now, interestingly, there's asecond version of the creation
story in Genesis.
Th the begins with Genesis two,four.
This is where Adam is firstcreated from the dust of the
earth.
And it reads quote and the Lord,God formed man of the dust of
the ground and breathed into hisnostrils, the breath of life.
(07:56):
And man became a living soul andquote.
Bible scholars recognize thisaccount is from a different
source than Genesis one.
So we have two creation storiesand the first Adam and Eve were
created together.
And the second Eve is createdlater to keep Adam company.
So it is in the second accountthat the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil comes andeventually the fall of man, so
(08:17):
to speak and you know, the restof the story.
So to summarize, we have twotakes here.
The first is that the universeis the result of a creation out
of nothing.
The second is the universe wasformed out of a preexisting
form.
This material in God's spirit.
So.
The question is what doesscience have to say about this?
Which, which way the sciencepoint.
(08:39):
And before I get into that, Iwant to cover one other creation
event that occurs in the verybeginning of John's gospel in
the new Testament.
Let me read it.
Short.
Probably I'll know it.
Quote in the beginning was theword.
And the word was with God.
And the word was God.
He was with God in thebeginning, through him, all
things were made without him.
Nothing was made.
(08:59):
That has been made.
And him was life and that lifewas the light of men and quote.
Now.
This is different than it.
It places the word mind,rationality logos right there at
the beginning.
There was not a separate guidethat created the word reminder,
thought.
This suggests the thought ispre-existing.
(09:20):
And it is this thought or mindthat made everything.
And it also identifies thisthought with life itself.
And then it goes on a stepfurther and says that this life.
Is the light of men, which Itake as meaning that the life of
humans includes thisrationality.
So here we have got taken as therational logos, which is very
similar to Haydel's position.
(09:41):
Uh, their rationality logicallyproceeds nature of the material
world.
It's what made everything.
Now.
We've covered these variousbiblical interpretations.
As I said, let's move on toscience and see what that has to
say.
Now.
Sorry.
In the beginning of the 20thcentury.
(10:02):
Learned that the universe is notin a steady state.
And something like the big bangoccurred.
This created a major change inthinking not only in the
scientific community, but amongreligious believers as well.
Basically early in the 20thcentury, evidence started to be
accumulated that the universe isexpanding, but then, I mean, the
(10:22):
galaxies are moving away fromeach other.
Our own son is part of thegalaxy.
Which we call the Milky way.
Galaxy.
And it's interesting.
The Milky way galaxy containssome 100 billion stars.
That's a lot of stars.
And does estimated there aresome, 2 trillion galaxies in the
universe.
So number of stars in theEverett, 2 trillion times, a
(10:42):
hundred billion, I can't I'velost count, but you get the idea
of the enormity.
Here.
And in the early 20th century,as I said, scientists noticed
that the galaxies were movingapart from each other.
And this suggests that theuniverse is expanding.
Now as a side note, the questioncomes up.
What's the universe expandinginto.
(11:03):
Now.
If there's empty space, justtheoretically that that extends
infinitely than galaxies.
I can just keep moving apartbecause there's no end.
But.
Going back to the big bang.
If galaxies are moving apartfrom each other.
And this was the big idea.
In an earlier time, they must'vebeen closer.
So you could extrapolate goingback into the past.
(11:25):
That they were much closer.
And at one time they were meldedinto one.
They were crunched together intoone singularity.
And this included time as wellsince Einstein.
Showed time and space to belinked as one space-time.
So.
Uh, according to this new bigbang theory, time began then to.
(11:46):
As well as everything else.
And of course religion islatched onto this and claimed it
was evidence of it creationevent.
The argument goes as follows.
Everything that begins to existas a cause the universe began to
exist.
So therefore the universe musthave a cause and that the
universe has a cause than anuncaused creator.
The universe exists and somecall this creator.
(12:09):
God.
This is often called thecosmological argument and it
goes back to Plato andAristotle.
And it was later picked up byAquinas in the 13th century.
And now the theoretical big bangwas suggesting that perhaps this
was true.
And interestingly, there wassome reluctance among the
scientists at the time of thisdiscovery to release it to the
(12:31):
public or supportive, because itseemed to support the religious
viewpoint.
So did the big bang,scientifically confirm creation
out of nothingness.
Well, interestingly as moreanalysis has done over the
decades, and this was prettyrecent stuff.
Scientists now believe thatthere was a very brief period of
expansion and inflation.
(12:51):
That occurred a microsecondbefore the actual explosion of
the big bang.
What existed before thisexpansion?
No one knows, but they know thatthat expansion did exist now.
So some state of the cosmos didexist before the big bang.
Some call it, quantumfluctuations, but it is unknown.
(13:12):
That's important to realize wedon't know what it is.
It's not that nothing is, is wejust, something is just, we
don't know what it is.
Now this shows that theuniversity may not have had a
miraculous beginning, that itwas not created out of nothing.
And this is what I contend basedon the science and all that
we've covered here.
Now there's another side to thiscosmology, which is you look out
(13:33):
to the future.
What's going to happen to theend of it all now.
There's general consensus thatthe universe will keep
expanding.
And eventually burned itselfout.
There will be a death of theheat, so to speak, it will be a
big chill.
If you will.
And we know that all stars havea lifecycle, including our own
son.
Eventually the fuel of the sun,the hydrogen will run out.
(13:56):
The sun will run out of gas.
If you will.
Now it is estimated that theoriginal big bang occurred some
13.8 billion years ago.
And our son came into being anignited about 4.6 billion years
ago from spinning clouds of.
Gas and dust.
And is estimated it'll keep onshining for about another 5
billion years or so.
(14:17):
So our son is actually in middleage.
And stars go through a heatingup process and some one to 2
billion years from now, the sunwill be so hot that it will boil
away the oceans and any lifehere will be wiped out.
Now it's estimated that lifehere on earth is 3.7 billion
(14:37):
years old.
So that means if life here onthis planet will be
unsustainable in one to 2billion years.
It means we're currently about65 to maybe even 90% done.
With life sustainability onearth.
So life here is in old age.
That's an interesting concept.
Once the hydrogen runs out onthe sun, the sun will swell.
(14:58):
It will swallow a mercury, theinnermost planet, then Venus,
then it will swell up earth.
And maybe even more planets, itwill become what's called a red
giant and then begin to shrinkand become a white.
Dwarf and scientists know thisby seeing the death of other
stars.
And then the white dwarf willfade back further and it will
become a black dwarf and won'tgive off any heat.
(15:22):
And this is the life pattern ofall stars.
Now stars do continue to be bornin the universe, but this has
been slowing down for some time.
It's estimated that theuniversity has 97% of the stars
that ever will have.
And the galaxies themselves willgo through death as well as the
stars that make them up die.
(15:42):
Now it's estimated that in 100trillion years or so all star
formation will have ended.
And so they will all eventuallydie out within 10 or so billion
years from that point.
And the universe will be put inits grave, so to speak.
So, what does this mean for us?
Well, obviously we living today.
Don't have to worry about it,but somewhere down the line,
(16:02):
people, our ancestors will haveto worry about it and deal with
it.
So let's think about it.
What are the options?
Well, let me bring up a point Idiscussed before this is the
notion of a cyclical universe,which you covered.
As I mentioned in episode 61.
And there's a very interestingtheory proposed by physicist,
Roger Penrose, which is calledthe conformal cyclical,
(16:24):
cosmology or CCC for short.
He detailed this in his 2010books cycles of time, an
extraordinary new view of theuniverse.
And it's basically this, thatafter the death of the universe,
the elementary particlesthemselves eventually disappear
and there will essentially be aquantum state of neither time or
space.
(16:45):
They can be said to exist.
Just this quantum fluctuation.
And it is just this quantumstate that may have produced the
big bang in the past, in ourpast.
So the universe may in fact becyclical and then it goes from
big bang to death and then anew, big bang.
And what's interesting is thatsome information may survive.
(17:05):
This death may get passed on tothe next generation of the
universe.
And this could explain where thelaws of the universe come from.
It's a very big question, whichscience can not yet answer why
these laws.
This theory may provide theanswer.
That they.
That the laws, in fact evolved.
Over these different cycles tobetter support life and, and,
(17:27):
uh, and, and progress in theuniverse.
Now.
The cyclical concept.
I could also explain the finetuning that we see in the
universe that supports theformation of life.
As I just mentioned.
Each round may improve things abit.
For example, there may have beenprevious runs that only evolved
up to the standpoint of theanimals.
And before that, there may havebeen times when there wasn't
(17:51):
even life in the universe and itfinally evolved to support
rudimentary forms of life and soon.
Now, this brings us to animportant question.
What is driving thisevolutionary process?
Is there a goal here?
And so who, who set the goal?
Well, this is a difficultquestion, but I do not believe
that there's a puppet masterbehind the curtain, calling the
(18:11):
shots.
I do believe that evolutionbecoming improvement is
fundamental.
And life itself and all rationalcreatures are an improvement.
This is what we are here to do,and improvement includes greater
freedom, greater control.
Greater happiness itself,greater contentment.
This is all betterment.
(18:31):
This is all growth.
And at this cyclical theory iscorrect.
The emergence of life in theuniverse may be more of a
resurrection than some randomspontaneous one-off occurrence.
So how did this whole processstart or did it start.
Well, one way to look at it isthis, that there's always been
an evolution of becoming even invery primitive forms.
(18:53):
And that's because there'salways been an interplay between
being and nothing.
And there always will be.
Hey, Google says this at thebeginning of the science and
logic that everything containsboth being and nothing.
And is becoming that's.
Subplates the two it's whatdrives the process?
The becoming is not static.
It's always growing, alwaysincreasing sometimes slowly, but
it is growing and increasing andit must do so to stay.
(19:16):
One step ahead of nothing ofoblivion.
Growth.
Evolution becoming as the mostfundamental thing in the
universe.
And it may be.
Occurring over a cyclical.
Growth.
In other words, what we'redescribing it may grow and then
die out and then be rebornagain, to grow even stronger.
(19:38):
It's just like when winter comesand the trees go, dormant only
did come to life again in thespring and grow some more.
So the big chill of death ofheat in the, in the universe
corresponds to this dormantperiod we see in nature.
And there may even be cycles ofcycles in that life and mind
grow to some superhuman point,maybe even merge.
Rhonda after Rhonda and then theprocess starts all over again to
(19:59):
build something even better thatwe can't even imagine at this
point.
Now there's also another meritof this possible within this
current round or possibly one inthe future.
And that's that humans figureout a way to beat the death of
the sun, perhaps migrate to anewer, younger solar system.
And this however, made prolongthings for a few billion years.
(20:21):
But the next step is to reversethe eventual death of heat to
reverse the big chiller to stopit.
So the universe can sustain selfwithout repeating around, and
that evolution can continue.
I realized this is all purespeculation.
And I've taken this much furtherthan Penrose has with this CCC
theory.
But I base it on what scienceknows today and, and I think it,
(20:43):
it makes some sense.
Now you may ask why couldn'tthis round?
Just be a one and done.
It was, the universe was, cameinto being and it's going to go
away.
Well, first of all, we know thatsomething proceeded the big
bang.
It's unknown, but somethingproceeded and we do see cyclical
patterns and rotationseverywhere.
(21:04):
We look in the universe.
And the fact that we have lifeand minds to comprehend all this
suggested evolution supports usthe way we are, that we are
moving in the right direction.
And the cyclical evolvinguniverse while spec of it makes
tremendous sense to me.
So to answer the question westarted with.
I do not believe there is acreator.
God that created the universeout of nothing.
(21:25):
I believe it is a continualprocess.
The may include the birth anddeath of the universe in cycles
of evolution.
Well, That brings us to a closefor this episode.
Thank you once again forlistening, for staying with me
here.
I know we've covered a lot ofvery heavy abstract stuff here.
I know sometimes we go veryabstract to the tabs.
(21:46):
We make the episodes morepractical, And I do hope you
benefited a bit from this forayinto cosmology.
And please note that I domaintain a Facebook page for the
podcast.
It's at cunning of Geist onFacebook, please.
Check that out, like the page,follow the page.
I do post there almost daily inbetween episodes.
(22:06):
We get into good, gooddiscussions.
I do try to respond to allcomments.
So check that out.
Like it, follow it.
Don't forget to tell yourlike-minded friends about the
podcast helps spread the word.
And feel free to share any postof mine, these episodes on your
own social media accounts.
So to wrap things up, thanksagain for your support and
(22:27):
encouragement.
And let me close by saying I'mGregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geist.
See you next time.
Hello.
I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geistepisode 80.
Welcome back.
The purpose of this podcast isto explore philosophy psychology
and modern science with anemphasis on what these
disciplines can tell usregarding building a better life
for ourselves and others.
And this episode, I will beexploring the timeless question
(00:21):
of whether or not there is aGod.
Now you don't hear much aboutGod these days in our highly
secularized world.
And I'm old enough to rememberthe famous time magazine cover
of 1966.
Asking the question is God dead.
It created quite a stir.
We even discussed it in some ofmy classes at the time.
But just around this same timein the 1960s, the new age moving
(00:44):
began to flourish and to focusmore on spirit and Eastern
religions that did not rely asmuch on traditional Western
notions of God, the father, thecreator, et cetera.
You remember the Beatles went tovisit the Maharishi.
In India.
And John Lennon famously saidthat the Beatles were more
popular than God.
And even today, and non-Orthodoxdenominations in many churches
(01:07):
and synagogues, God is not themajor focus.
In most reformed Jewish templesto a large degree.
And also many conservative.
Jewish.
Denominations, the focus is onliving a better life here and
not on any heavenly world, aperson.
And also, this is true inProtestant Christianity.
(01:28):
Same, same thing can be said.
Where the life of Jesus is heldup as an example of how to be a
better person.
And there's not much dogma aboutheaven or abstract notions of
God.
And I can't really speak.
To Islam, but I have read thatstudies have shown that a
majority of Muslims around theworld do hold more moderate
views on many issues.
(01:50):
And of course you have theEastern religions, whichever,
totally different conception ofour nature here.
Then these mean Westernreligions.
Now of course, a major featureof these religions over the
centuries has been that there isa creator.
God.
That started the whole thing.
And what I'm going to bequestioning here is whether this
is true.
(02:11):
Whether there was some entitythat created the universe and
all that's in it.
And even in our scientific agewhere we know so much about the
beginnings and, can speculateabout the eventual death of the
universe, the notion of acreator, God still persists.
Although it's true.
That it's much.
To a much less extent than inprevious centuries.
(02:32):
It even appears in Hinklesphilosophy, although in his own
terms, as we've discussed her somany times, And the various
episodes.
So let's begin with somedefinitions.
By the term creator.
God, I am referring to thenotion of creation X and a Hilo.
Creation out of nothing that theuniverse was created of nothing
by this creator.
(02:52):
God.
And it is this concept that Iwant to discuss.
I believe it's the most.
Common general conception of Godthat, that.
This God is the uncreatedcreator of all things.
You know, when little kids asktheir parents who made all this,
the easy answers, what God did.
And of course the next questionis, well, then who created a
guide?
(03:13):
And that usually stumps theparents when they say something
like, well, I guess God hasalways existed.
So, this is the question that Iwill be discussing here today.
And I've touched on it severaltimes in the past, in different
episodes, particularly a pointout episode, 15 on whether the
natural world was reallycreated.
Episode 39.
(03:33):
And whether there was an actualcreation event.
And episode 61 on thepossibility of a cyclical
universe.
But I'm going to bring somedramatic new perspectives on
these questions here in thisepisode.
And that's why I'm covering thistopic again.
And I'll be including much morecurrent science that we'll get
to.
Then I did in these previousepisodes.
(03:55):
As I said, the notion of acreator, God who created the
universe out of nothing iscentral to the three main
Western religions, Judaism,Christianity, and Islam.
Opposing this view.
Is that nothing can come out ofnothing.
This is an ancient Greek viewthat Parmenides is held in Greek
it's it's known as, um, exMihaylo Naheed fit.
(04:18):
Meaning nothing comes fromnothing.
So we have a dichotomy.
Was the universe created or didit always exist?
Which is it.
Well, let's turn first to theBible, the Hebrew Bible, the old
Testament to Genesis to see whatthis text has to say about it.
It's always a good place tostart just to check things out.
Let's begin with the first twosentences of Genesis.
(04:40):
Which, by the way, they've beenstudied endlessly by capitalists
over the centuries.
The first sentence in Genesis.
One, one is.
Quote in the beginning, Godcreated the heavens in the earth
and quote.
Barry chef is the first word ofthe Bible, the Hebrew Bible.
It's Hebrew and it means.
In the beginning or justbeginning.
(05:02):
Now, the first letter of bearishchef is the letter B bet in
Hebrew.
And this means to, and thisshows to the cobble list that
the universe was created as aduality, the heavens and the
earth.
The fact that it started with Bis very significant to that.
And that that suggests thisduality of heavens and the
earth.
(05:22):
And as I mentioned, you'reoften, uh, I believe the heavens
in the earth correspond to mindand matter the matter did not
come from mind and mind didn'tcome from matter.
They both exist at the sametime.
They're both primordial.
This duality also corresponds tothe Hey Galean notion of being
in nothing.
Existing equally at thebeginning of his science of
logic.
(05:43):
So the heavens and earth had abeginning per Genesis.
Which is say they were createdby God.
So you have three.
God, the creator, the one, andthen the duality of the heavens
in the earth, which he created.
And.
Now.
Th the question is.
Where the heavens and earth.
Created a nothing, or where theycreated a something.
(06:06):
It is with the second sentenceof Genesis where it gets
complicated.
The second sentence Genesis one,two begins in the following way.
And the earth was without formand void and darkness was upon
the face of the deep and thespirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters and court.
One reading of this is that Godcreated the heaven and the
earth.
(06:26):
And then once created by God,the earth was first formless as
water is, and it was in darknessand the spirit of God hovered
above it.
Now.
In this example.
It's God is the one that hascreated the dark forms.
Waters.
and it's a result of God'screation.
Now, but biblical scholarsdiffer as to just what this
(06:48):
means.
Perhaps it meant that these darkformless waters were preexisting
and.
This is what God used to createthe heavens and the earth.
But I believe most traditionalreligious people take it as the
foremost waters and the spiritof God being the creation out of
nothing by God.
There, what God, in fact,created the first step.
(07:11):
So you have formless matterwater.
And you have mind is expressedby the spirit of God hovering
above.
The Hebrew word for spirit ofGod has ruach, which can refer
to breath or wind or someinvisible moving force.
So as a result of this creation,we now have the duality of the
formless waters.
As I said, in the spirit of Godwas there as well.
(07:34):
And then God went on to createlight land and eventually Adam
and Eve and so forth.
Now, interestingly, there's asecond version of the creation
story in Genesis.
Th the begins with Genesis two,four.
This is where Adam is firstcreated from the dust of the
earth.
And it reads quote and the Lord,God formed man of the dust of
the ground and breathed into hisnostrils, the breath of life.
(07:56):
And man became a living soul andquote.
Bible scholars recognize thisaccount is from a different
source than Genesis one.
So we have two creation storiesand the first Adam and Eve were
created together.
And the second Eve is createdlater to keep Adam company.
So it is in the second accountthat the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil comes andeventually the fall of man, so
(08:17):
to speak and you know, the restof the story.
So to summarize, we have twotakes here.
The first is that the universeis the result of a creation out
of nothing.
The second is the universe wasformed out of a preexisting
form.
This material in God's spirit.
So.
The question is what doesscience have to say about this?
Which, which way the sciencepoint.
(08:39):
And before I get into that, Iwant to cover one other creation
event that occurs in the verybeginning of John's gospel in
the new Testament.
Let me read it.
Short.
Probably I'll know it.
Quote in the beginning was theword.
And the word was with God.
And the word was God.
He was with God in thebeginning, through him, all
things were made without him.
Nothing was made.
(08:59):
That has been made.
And him was life and that lifewas the light of men and quote.
Now.
This is different than it.
It places the word mind,rationality logos right there at
the beginning.
There was not a separate guidethat created the word reminder,
thought.
This suggests the thought ispre-existing.
(09:20):
And it is this thought or mindthat made everything.
And it also identifies thisthought with life itself.
And then it goes on a stepfurther and says that this life.
Is the light of men, which Itake as meaning that the life of
humans includes thisrationality.
So here we have got taken as therational logos, which is very
similar to Haydel's position.
(09:41):
Uh, their rationality logicallyproceeds nature of the material
world.
It's what made everything.
Now.
We've covered these variousbiblical interpretations.
As I said, let's move on toscience and see what that has to
say.
Now.
Sorry.
In the beginning of the 20thcentury.
(10:02):
Learned that the universe is notin a steady state.
And something like the big bangoccurred.
This created a major change inthinking not only in the
scientific community, but amongreligious believers as well.
Basically early in the 20thcentury, evidence started to be
accumulated that the universe isexpanding, but then, I mean, the
(10:22):
galaxies are moving away fromeach other.
Our own son is part of thegalaxy.
Which we call the Milky way.
Galaxy.
And it's interesting.
The Milky way galaxy containssome 100 billion stars.
That's a lot of stars.
And does estimated there aresome, 2 trillion galaxies in the
universe.
So number of stars in theEverett, 2 trillion times, a
(10:42):
hundred billion, I can't I'velost count, but you get the idea
of the enormity.
Here.
And in the early 20th century,as I said, scientists noticed
that the galaxies were movingapart from each other.
And this suggests that theuniverse is expanding.
Now as a side note, the questioncomes up.
What's the universe expandinginto.
(11:03):
Now.
If there's empty space, justtheoretically that that extends
infinitely than galaxies.
I can just keep moving apartbecause there's no end.
But.
Going back to the big bang.
If galaxies are moving apartfrom each other.
And this was the big idea.
In an earlier time, they must'vebeen closer.
So you could extrapolate goingback into the past.
(11:25):
That they were much closer.
And at one time they were meldedinto one.
They were crunched together intoone singularity.
And this included time as wellsince Einstein.
Showed time and space to belinked as one space-time.
So.
Uh, according to this new bigbang theory, time began then to.
(11:46):
As well as everything else.
And of course religion islatched onto this and claimed it
was evidence of it creationevent.
The argument goes as follows.
Everything that begins to existas a cause the universe began to
exist.
So therefore the universe musthave a cause and that the
universe has a cause than anuncaused creator.
The universe exists and somecall this creator.
(12:09):
God.
This is often called thecosmological argument and it
goes back to Plato andAristotle.
And it was later picked up byAquinas in the 13th century.
And now the theoretical big bangwas suggesting that perhaps this
was true.
And interestingly, there wassome reluctance among the
scientists at the time of thisdiscovery to release it to the
(12:31):
public or supportive, because itseemed to support the religious
viewpoint.
So did the big bang,scientifically confirm creation
out of nothingness.
Well, interestingly as moreanalysis has done over the
decades, and this was prettyrecent stuff.
Scientists now believe thatthere was a very brief period of
expansion and inflation.
(12:51):
That occurred a microsecondbefore the actual explosion of
the big bang.
What existed before thisexpansion?
No one knows, but they know thatthat expansion did exist now.
So some state of the cosmos didexist before the big bang.
Some call it, quantumfluctuations, but it is unknown.
(13:12):
That's important to realize wedon't know what it is.
It's not that nothing is, is wejust, something is just, we
don't know what it is.
Now this shows that theuniversity may not have had a
miraculous beginning, that itwas not created out of nothing.
And this is what I contend basedon the science and all that
we've covered here.
Now there's another side to thiscosmology, which is you look out
(13:33):
to the future.
What's going to happen to theend of it all now.
There's general consensus thatthe universe will keep
expanding.
And eventually burned itselfout.
There will be a death of theheat, so to speak, it will be a
big chill.
If you will.
And we know that all stars havea lifecycle, including our own
son.
Eventually the fuel of the sun,the hydrogen will run out.
(13:56):
The sun will run out of gas.
If you will.
Now it is estimated that theoriginal big bang occurred some
13.8 billion years ago.
And our son came into being anignited about 4.6 billion years
ago from spinning clouds of.
Gas and dust.
And is estimated it'll keep onshining for about another 5
billion years or so.
(14:17):
So our son is actually in middleage.
And stars go through a heatingup process and some one to 2
billion years from now, the sunwill be so hot that it will boil
away the oceans and any lifehere will be wiped out.
Now it's estimated that lifehere on earth is 3.7 billion
(14:37):
years old.
So that means if life here onthis planet will be
unsustainable in one to 2billion years.
It means we're currently about65 to maybe even 90% done.
With life sustainability onearth.
So life here is in old age.
That's an interesting concept.
Once the hydrogen runs out onthe sun, the sun will swell.
(14:58):
It will swallow a mercury, theinnermost planet, then Venus,
then it will swell up earth.
And maybe even more planets, itwill become what's called a red
giant and then begin to shrinkand become a white.
Dwarf and scientists know thisby seeing the death of other
stars.
And then the white dwarf willfade back further and it will
become a black dwarf and won'tgive off any heat.
(15:22):
And this is the life pattern ofall stars.
Now stars do continue to be bornin the universe, but this has
been slowing down for some time.
It's estimated that theuniversity has 97% of the stars
that ever will have.
And the galaxies themselves willgo through death as well as the
stars that make them up die.
(15:42):
Now it's estimated that in 100trillion years or so all star
formation will have ended.
And so they will all eventuallydie out within 10 or so billion
years from that point.
And the universe will be put inits grave, so to speak.
So, what does this mean for us?
Well, obviously we living today.
Don't have to worry about it,but somewhere down the line,
(16:02):
people, our ancestors will haveto worry about it and deal with
it.
So let's think about it.
What are the options?
Well, let me bring up a point Idiscussed before this is the
notion of a cyclical universe,which you covered.
As I mentioned in episode 61.
And there's a very interestingtheory proposed by physicist,
Roger Penrose, which is calledthe conformal cyclical,
(16:24):
cosmology or CCC for short.
He detailed this in his 2010books cycles of time, an
extraordinary new view of theuniverse.
And it's basically this, thatafter the death of the universe,
the elementary particlesthemselves eventually disappear
and there will essentially be aquantum state of neither time or
space.
(16:45):
They can be said to exist.
Just this quantum fluctuation.
And it is just this quantumstate that may have produced the
big bang in the past, in ourpast.
So the universe may in fact becyclical and then it goes from
big bang to death and then anew, big bang.
And what's interesting is thatsome information may survive.
(17:05):
This death may get passed on tothe next generation of the
universe.
And this could explain where thelaws of the universe come from.
It's a very big question, whichscience can not yet answer why
these laws.
This theory may provide theanswer.
That they.
That the laws, in fact evolved.
Over these different cycles tobetter support life and, and,
(17:27):
uh, and, and progress in theuniverse.
Now.
The cyclical concept.
I could also explain the finetuning that we see in the
universe that supports theformation of life.
As I just mentioned.
Each round may improve things abit.
For example, there may have beenprevious runs that only evolved
up to the standpoint of theanimals.
And before that, there may havebeen times when there wasn't
(17:51):
even life in the universe and itfinally evolved to support
rudimentary forms of life and soon.
Now, this brings us to animportant question.
What is driving thisevolutionary process?
Is there a goal here?
And so who, who set the goal?
Well, this is a difficultquestion, but I do not believe
that there's a puppet masterbehind the curtain, calling the
(18:11):
shots.
I do believe that evolutionbecoming improvement is
fundamental.
And life itself and all rationalcreatures are an improvement.
This is what we are here to do,and improvement includes greater
freedom, greater control.
Greater happiness itself,greater contentment.
This is all betterment.
(18:31):
This is all growth.
And at this cyclical theory iscorrect.
The emergence of life in theuniverse may be more of a
resurrection than some randomspontaneous one-off occurrence.
So how did this whole processstart or did it start.
Well, one way to look at it isthis, that there's always been
an evolution of becoming even invery primitive forms.
(18:53):
And that's because there'salways been an interplay between
being and nothing.
And there always will be.
Hey, Google says this at thebeginning of the science and
logic that everything containsboth being and nothing.
And is becoming that's.
Subplates the two it's whatdrives the process?
The becoming is not static.
It's always growing, alwaysincreasing sometimes slowly, but
it is growing and increasing andit must do so to stay.
(19:16):
One step ahead of nothing ofoblivion.
Growth.
Evolution becoming as the mostfundamental thing in the
universe.
And it may be.
Occurring over a cyclical.
Growth.
In other words, what we'redescribing it may grow and then
die out and then be rebornagain, to grow even stronger.
(19:38):
It's just like when winter comesand the trees go, dormant only
did come to life again in thespring and grow some more.
So the big chill of death ofheat in the, in the universe
corresponds to this dormantperiod we see in nature.
And there may even be cycles ofcycles in that life and mind
grow to some superhuman point,maybe even merge.
Rhonda after Rhonda and then theprocess starts all over again to
(19:59):
build something even better thatwe can't even imagine at this
point.
Now there's also another meritof this possible within this
current round or possibly one inthe future.
And that's that humans figureout a way to beat the death of
the sun, perhaps migrate to anewer, younger solar system.
And this however, made prolongthings for a few billion years.
(20:21):
But the next step is to reversethe eventual death of heat to
reverse the big chiller to stopit.
So the universe can sustain selfwithout repeating around, and
that evolution can continue.
I realized this is all purespeculation.
And I've taken this much furtherthan Penrose has with this CCC
theory.
But I base it on what scienceknows today and, and I think it,
(20:43):
it makes some sense.
Now you may ask why couldn'tthis round?
Just be a one and done.
It was, the universe was, cameinto being and it's going to go
away.
Well, first of all, we know thatsomething proceeded the big
bang.
It's unknown, but somethingproceeded and we do see cyclical
patterns and rotationseverywhere.
(21:04):
We look in the universe.
And the fact that we have lifeand minds to comprehend all this
suggested evolution supports usthe way we are, that we are
moving in the right direction.
And the cyclical evolvinguniverse while spec of it makes
tremendous sense to me.
So to answer the question westarted with.
I do not believe there is acreator.
God that created the universeout of nothing.
(21:25):
I believe it is a continualprocess.
The may include the birth anddeath of the universe in cycles
of evolution.
Well, That brings us to a closefor this episode.
Thank you once again forlistening, for staying with me
here.
I know we've covered a lot ofvery heavy abstract stuff here.
I know sometimes we go veryabstract to the tabs.
(21:46):
We make the episodes morepractical, And I do hope you
benefited a bit from this forayinto cosmology.
And please note that I domaintain a Facebook page for the
podcast.
It's at cunning of Geist onFacebook, please.
Check that out, like the page,follow the page.
I do post there almost daily inbetween episodes.
(22:06):
We get into good, gooddiscussions.
I do try to respond to allcomments.
So check that out.
Like it, follow it.
Don't forget to tell yourlike-minded friends about the
podcast helps spread the word.
And feel free to share any postof mine, these episodes on your
own social media accounts.
So to wrap things up, thanksagain for your support and
(22:27):
encouragement.
And let me close by saying I'mGregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geist.
See you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com