Review of Current Religious Thought: March 02, 1959

MAN, AS GOD’S CREATURE, is essentially a religious being, and, try as he will, he cannot escape being brought face to face with both facts and mysteries which throw into relief the finite inadequateness of his own comprehension of things. This is true of every man, whatever his station or mental capacity. By his own creaturely constitution, as well as by the unmistakeable testimony of the created order which surrounds him, man knows that eternal power and godhead belong to the Creator alone, however much he may wish rebelliously to suppress this knowledge (Rom. 1:18 ff.). The secrets of the universe, of which he himself is part, are inexhaustible and to his questing mind unfathomable in their ultimate depths. The increase of knowledge is always accompanied by the increase of mystery. New acquisitions of comprehension open up new vistas of incomprehension. Hence the inability of the scientist as he probes the structure and significance of our world to dispense with hypothesis and speculation. This is true whether he is investigating through the lens of the microscope the microcosm of the infinitesimally small, or through the lens of the telescope the macrocosm of the vast unimaginable distances and quantities of astronomical space: despite all the amazing advances of our modern age, there are always tantalizing horizons beyond the range of his instruments of detection. Is it surprising that, in attempting to offer an explanation of the paradoxical manifestations of the new physical world into which he is now feeling his way, he finds it necessary to make use of terms which would not be out of place in a volume of theology? Basically, indeed, it is theology which confronts him every time he rounds a fresh scientific corner. Turn where he will, his Creator is standing to meet him.

These things are well illustrated by the fascinating series of Reith Lectures on “The Individual and the Universe” (published by the Oxford University Press, Feb., 1959; price 7s. 6d.) recently given on the B.B.C. by Dr. A. C. B. Lovell, F.R.S., who is Professor of Radio Astronomy at Manchester University and Director of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, Cheshire. To look into space is to look into the past, because of the time it takes for light from other bodies in space to reach us here on earth. Thus Professor Lovell bids us remember “that at any moment we see the sun as it existed eight minutes ago, the nearest star as it existed four years ago, and that for our nearer neighbors in extragalactic space the light and radio waves by which we study them have been travelling for millions of years and our information is that much out of date.” But it is precisely the possibility of this study of the conditions which existed so long ago that he regards as “of crucial importance to the inquiry into the origin of the universe and to speculation about its future history.” At the same time he frankly admits that as the modern watcher of the skies seeks through his observations to arrive at an explanation of the origin of our universe he must pass “from physics to metaphysics, from astronomy to theology.”

Although Dr. Lovell computes that by means of a giant telescope such as that on Mount Palomar it is possible for an observer to penetrate to a distance of about two thousand million light years, yet he advises us that “there is no indication that we are seeing anything but a small part of the total universe.” There are depths beyond which he avidly wishes to penetrate, if only because the farther out into space man sees the farther back into the past he is gazing, and the greater his hope of viewing things at an early stage of their development. It may be, as Dr. Lovell thinks, that the limits of man’s visual penetration of the universe from his earth have practically been achieved. The earth’s atmosphere forms a tiresome visual barrier. But it is a barrier which he expects soon to be surmounted, by the setting up of new observational posts on a man-made satellite or on the surface of the moon, where there will be freedom from this barrier and the possibility accordingly of seeing much greater distances.

There is, however, another obstacle of a more intractable nature which results from the modern concept of the universe as a constantly expanding system of galaxies. “Unfortunately,” says Professor Lovell, “there are fundamental difficulties introduced by the recession of the galaxies which no device of man will ever surmount. At the present observable limit of the large optical telescopes the galaxies are receding with a speed of about one-fifth of the velocity of light. From this aspect alone we face a limit to future progress. Even if no other effects intervened we could never obtain information about those further regions of space where the velocities of recession of the galaxies reach the speed of light. The light from the more distant galaxies will never reach us.” Once again, then, the creaturely finitude and insufficiency of man become apparent.

As things are, two rival theories of the origin of the universe are in fashion with scientists. The first, which Professor Lovell favors, supposes that all has developed from a huge “primeval atom,” or “gigantic neutron,” which “contained the entire material of the universe” and whose density “must have been inconceivably high—at least a hundred million tons per cubic centimetre.” But it is, he says, “when we inquire what the primeval atom was like, how it disintegrated, and by what means and at what time it was created,” that we “begin to cross the boundaries of physics into the realms of philosophy and theology.”

The second theory is that of the continuous creation of matter in the form of atoms of hydrogen. According to this view, the universe is in a steady state, since it is supposed that as distant galaxies recede beyond the limits of our vision their place is continuously being filled by others which are coming into being. According as a telescope, say, on the moon was able to determine whether ulterior space is less densely populated with galaxies than nearer space or whether the density does not vary, it might be possible to decide which of these rival views is to be discarded. On the other hand it might well show that both are erroneous. We venture to ask, for example, whether it may not be discovered that light travels through outer space at a velocity incomparably different from that at which it travels through our planet’s atmosphere.

In any event, man can never escape the ultimate questions of the origin of matter, the origin of the energy which underlies matter, the origin of life, and the origin of man himself. The only answer, and it is well known to every man, is that all is the exuberant handiwork of the Almighty Creator. Meanwhile, in this earthly existence, man, however much he advances in the knowledge of God’s universe, will never cease to know in part and to see imperfectly.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.