THE DEATH OF MATERIALISM

Materialism can no longer claim to be a scientific philosophy.
Arthur Koestler, the renowned Social Philosopher. 1

How did the endless universe we live in come into being?

How did the equilibrium, harmony, and order of this universe develop?

How is it that this Earth is such a fit and sheltering place for us to live in?

Questions such as these have attracted attention since the dawn of the human race. The conclusion reached by scientists and philosophers searching for answers with their intellects and common sense is that the design and order of this universe are evidence of the existence of a supreme Creator ruling over the whole universe.

This is an indisputable truth that we may reach by using our intelligence. Allah declares this reality in His holy book, the Qur’an, which He inspired as a guide for humanity fourteen centuries ago. He states that He has created the universe when it was not, for a particular purpose, and with all its systems and balances specifically designed for human life.
Allah invites people to consider this truth in the following verse:

Are you stronger in structure or is heaven? He built it. He raised its vault high and made it level. He darkened its night and brought forth its morning light. After that He smoothed out the earth… (Surat an Naziat: 27-30)

Elsewhere it is declared in the Qur’an that a person should see and consider all the systems and balances in the universe that have been created for him by Allah and derive a lesson from his observations:

He has made night and day subservient to you, and the sun and moon and stars, all subject to His command. There is certainly Signs in that for people who pay heed. (Surat an-Nahl: 12)

In yet another verse of the Qur’an, it is pointed out:

He makes night merge into day and day merge into night, and He has made the sun and moon subservient, each one running until a specified time. That is Allah, your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those you call on besides Him have no power over even the smallest speck.(Surah Fatir: 13)

This plain truth declared by the Qur’an is also confirmed by a number of the important founders of the modern science of astronomy. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton all recognised that the structure of universe, the design of the solar system, the laws of physics and their states of equilibrium were all created by Allah and they arrived at that conclusion as a result of their own research and observations.

Materialism: A 19th-Century Fallacy

The reality of the creation of which we speak has been ignored or denied since the earliest times by a particular philosophical point of view. It is called “materialism”. This philosophy, which was originally formulated among the ancient Greeks, has also made an appearance from time to time in other cultures and has been advanced by individuals as well. It holds that matter alone exists and that it has done so for an infinity of time. From these tenets, it claims that the universe has also “always” existed and was not created.

In addition to their claim that the universe exists in an infinity of time, materialists also assert that there is no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that we see around us are merely the product of coincidence. This “coincidence assertion” is also put forward when the question of how human beings came into being comes up. The theory of evolution, widely referred to as Darwinism, is another application of materialism to the natural world.

We just mentioned that some of the founders of modern science were faithful people who were in agreement that the universe was created and organised by Allah. In the 19th century, an important change took place in the attitudes of the scientific world with respect to this matter. Materialism was deliberately introduced to the agenda of modern science by various groups. Because the 19th century’s political and social conditions formed a good basis for materialism, the philosophy gained wide acceptance and spread throughout the scientific world.

The findings of modern science however undeniably demonstrate how false the claims of materialism really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialism about the universe:

Modern science proves the reality of the creation of the universe by Allah, contrary to what outdated materialist philosophy maintains. Newsweek made “Science Finds God” the cover story of its July 27th 1998 issue.

The universe exists in infinite time and, because it has no beginning or end, it was not created.Everything in this universe is merely the result of chance and not the product of any intentional design, plan, or vision.Those two notions were boldly advanced and ardently defended by 19th-century materialists, who of course had no recourse other than to depend upon the limited and unsophisticated scientific knowledge of their day. Both have been utterly refuted by the discoveries of 20th-century science.

The first to be laid in the grave was the notion of the universe existing in infinite time. Since the 1920s, there has been mounting evidence this cannot be true. Scientists are now certain that the universe came into being from nothingness as the result of an unimaginably huge explosion, known as the “Big Bang“. In other words, the universe came into being–or rather, it was created by Allah.

The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition of the second claim of materialism: that everything in the universe is the result of chance and not design. Research conducted since the 1960s consistently demonstrates that all the physical equilibriums of the universe in general and of our world in particularly are intricately designed to make life possible. As this research deepened, it was discovered each and every one of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, of the fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and of the details of the structure of atoms and the elements of the universe has been precisely tailored so that human beings may live.

Scientists today call this extraordinary design the “anthropic principle”. This is the principle that every detail in the universe has been carefully arranged to make human life possible.To sum up, the philosophy called materialism has been utterly refuted by modern science. From its position as the dominant scientific view of the 19th century, materialism collapsed into fiction in the 20th.

How could it have been otherwise? As Allah indicates “We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who are disbelievers.” (Surah Sad: 27) it is wrong to suppose that the universe was created in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed as materialism and systems based on it were doomed to failure from the very beginning.

Creation is a fact. In this book we will be examining the evidence for this fact. We will see how materialism has collapsed in the face of modern science and also witness how wonderfully and perfectly the universe has been designed and created by Allah.

Notes
1. Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up, New York: Vintage Books, 1978, p. 250.

BIG-BANG IS BORN

In its standard form, the big bang theory assumes that all parts of the universe began expanding simultaneously. But how could all the different parts of the universe synchronize the beginning of their expansion? Who gave the command?
Andre Linde, Professor of Cosmology 1

A century ago, the creation of the universe was a concept that astronomers as a rule ignored. The reason was the general acceptance of the idea that the universe existed in infinite time. Examining the universe, scientists supposed that it was just a conglomeration of matter and imagined that it had no beginning. There was no moment of “creation”–a moment when the universe and everything in it came into being.

This idea of “eternal existence” fit in well with European notions stemming from the philosophy of materialism. This philosophy, originally advanced in the world of the ancient Greeks, held that matter was the only thing that existed in the universe and the universe existed in infinite time and will exist endlessly. This philosophy survived in different forms during Roman times but in the Late Roman Empire and Middle Ages, materialism went into decline as a result of the influence of the Catholic church and Christian philosophy. It was after Renaissance that materialism began to gain broad acceptance among European scholars and scientists, largely because of their devotion to ancient Greek philosophy.

It was Immanuel Kant who, during the European Enlightenment, reasserted and defended materialism. Kant declared that the universe exists for all time and that every probability, however unlikely, should be regarded as possible. Kant’s followers continued to defend his idea of an infinite universe along with materialism. By the beginning of 19th century, the idea that the universe had no beginning–that there was never any moment at which it was created–became widely accepted. It was carried into the 20th century through the works of dialectical materialists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant was the first person to advance the assertion of “the infinite universe” in the New Age. Scientific discoveries, however, invalidated Kant’s assertion.

This notion of an infinite universe fit in very well with atheism. It is not hard to see why. To hold that the universe had a beginning could imply that it was created and that, of course requires a creator–that is, Allah. It was much more convenient and safer to circumvent the issue by putting forward the idea that “the universe exists for eternity”, even though there was not the slightest scientific basis for making such a claim. Georges Politzer, who espoused and defended this idea in his books published in the early 20th century, was an ardent champion of both Marxism and materialism.

Putting his trust in the validity of the “infinite universe” model, Politzer opposed the idea of creation in his book Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie when he wrote:

The universe was not a created object, if it were, then it would have to be created instantaneously by God and brought into existence from nothing. To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science can not accede. 2

Politzer supposed that science was on his side in his defense of the idea of an infinite universe. In fact, science was to prove that the universe indeed had a beginning. And just as Politzer himself declared, if there is creation then there must also be a creator.
The Expansion of Universe and the Discovery of the Big Bang
The 1920s were important years in the development of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexandra Friedman produced computations showing that the structure of the universe was not static and that even a tiny impulse might be sufficient to cause the whole structure to expand or contract according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to recognize what Friedman’s work meant. Based on these computations, the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre declared that the universe had a beginning and that it was expanding as a result of something that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate of radiation could be used as a measure of the aftermath of that “something”.

The theoretical musings of these two scientists did not attract much attention and probably would have been ignored except for new observational evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy. Observing a number of stars through his huge telescope, he discovered that their light was shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was directly related to the distance of the stars from Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the universe model held until then.

According to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. (Just like the fading of a train’s whistle as it moves away from the observer) Hubble’s observation showed that according to this law, the heavenly bodies were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble made another important discovery; The stars weren’t just racing away from Earth; they were racing away from each other as well. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly “expands”.

Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding. Eventually he found evidence of the “the Big Bang”, a cataclysmic event whose discovery forced scientists to abandon the notion of an infinite and eternal universe.

Hubble had found observational evidence for something that George Lemaitre had “prophesized” a short while ago and one of the greatest minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded that the universe could not be static because of calculations based on his recently-discovered theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions of Friedman and Lemaitre).

Shocked by his findings, Einstein added a “cosmological constant” to his equations in order to “make the answer come out right” because astronomers assured him that the universe was static and there was no other way to make his equations match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to admit that his cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his career.

Hubble’s discovery that the universe was expanding led to the emergence of another model that needed no fiddling around with to make the equations work right. If the universe was getting bigger as time advanced, going back in time meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge at a single point. The conclusion to be derived from this model was that at some time, all the matter in the universe was compacted in a single point-mass that had “zero volume” because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into being as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume. This explosion has come to be called the “the Big Bang” and its existence has repeatedly been confirmed by observational evidence.

There was another truth that the Big Bang pointed to. To say that something has zero volume is tantamount to saying that it is “nothing”. The whole universe was created from this “nothing”. And furthermore this universe had a beginning, contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that “the universe has existed for eternity”.

The “Steady-state” Hypothesis

The Big Bang theory quickly gained wide acceptance in the scientific world due to the clear-cut evidence for it. Nevertheless astronomers who favored materialism and adhered to the idea of an infinite universe that materialism seemingly demanded held out against the Big Bang in their struggle to uphold a fundamental tenet of their ideology. The reason was made clear by the English astronomer Arthur Eddington, who said “Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me”.3

Another astronomer who opposed the Big Bang theory was Fred Hoyle. Around the middle of the 20th century he came up with a new model, which he called “steady-state”, that was an extension of the 19th century’s idea of an infinite universe. Accepting the incontrovertible evidence that the universe was expanding, he proposed that the universe was infinite in both dimension and time. According to this model, as the universe expanded new matter was continuously coming into existence by itself in just the right amount to keep the universe in a “steady state”. With the sole visible aim of supporting the dogma of “matter existed in infinite time”, which is the basis of the materialist philosophy, this theory was totally at variance with the “Big Bang theory”, which defends that the universe had a beginning. Supporters of Hoyle’s steady state theory remained adamantly opposed to the Big Bang for years. Science, however, was working against them.

Notes
1. Andrei Linde, “The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe”, Scientific American, vol. 271, 1994, p. 48 2. George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris 1954 ,p. 84 3. S. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator, Regnery Gateway, Chicago, 1980, p. 54

THE TRIUMPH OF THE BIG-BANG

In 1948, George Gamov carried George Lemaitre’s calculations several steps further and came up with a new idea concerning the Big Bang. If the universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion. This radiation should be detectable and, furthermore, it should be uniform throughout the universe.

Within two decades, observational proof of Gamov’s conjecture was forthcoming. In 1965, two researchers by the name of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson chanced upon a form of radiation hitherto unnoticed. Called “cosmic background radiation”, it was unlike anything coming from anywhere else in the universe for it was extraordinarily uniform. It was neither localized nor did it have a definite source; instead, it was distributed equally everywhere. It was soon realized that this radiation was the echo of the Big Bang, still reverberating since the first moments of that great explosion. Gamov had been spot-on for the frequency of the radiation was nearly the same value that scientists had predicted it would be. Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel prize for their discovery.

In 1989, George Smoot and his NASA team sent a satellite into space. Called the “Cosmic Background Emission Explorer” (COBE), it took only eight minutes for the sensitive instruments on board the satellite to detect and confirm  the levels of radiation reported by Penzias and Wilson. These results conclusively demonstrated the existence of the hot, dense form remaining from the explosion out of which the universe came into being. Most scientists acknowledged that COBE had successfully captured the remnants of the Big Bang.

More evidence for the Big Bang was forthcoming. One piece had to do with the relative amounts of hydrogen and helium in the universe. Observations indicated that the mix of these two elements in the universe was in accord with theoretical calculations of what should have been remained after the Big Bang. That drove another stake into the heart of the steady state theory because if the universe had existed for eternity and never had a beginning, all of its hydrogen should have been burned into helium.

Confronted by such evidence, the Big Bang gained the near-complete approval of the scientific world. In an article in its October 1994 issue, Scientific American noted that the Big Bang model was the only one that could account for the constant expansion of the universe and for other observational results.

Defending the Steady-State theory along with Fred Hoyle, Dennis Sciama describes their predicament in the face of the evidence for the Big Bang saying that he had first taken a stand along with Hoyle but, as evidence began to pile up, he had to admit that the game was over and that the steady-state theory had to be dismissed.1

Sir Arthur Eddington’s statement that “the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of nature was repugnant to him” was an admission of the discomfort that the Big Bang caused for materialists

The cosmic background radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson is regarded as incontrovertible evidence of the Big Bang by the scientific world.

Notes

WHO IS THE CREATOR ?

Who Created the Universe From Nothing?

With this triumph of the Big Bang, the thesis of an “infinite universe”, which forms the basis of materialist dogma, was tossed onto the scrap-heap of history. But for materialists it also raised a couple of inconvenient questions: What existed before the Big Bang? And what force could have caused the great explosion that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?

Materialists like Arthur Eddington recognized that the answers to these questions could point to the existence of a supreme creator and that they did not like. The atheist philosopher Anthony Flew commented on this point:

Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas contended could  not be proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning. So long as the universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only without end but also beginning, it remains easy to urge that its brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most fundamental features, should be accepted as the explanatory ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still correct, it certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this position in the face of the Big Bang story. 1

Many scientists who do not force themselves to be atheists accept and favor the existence of a creator having an infinite power. For instance, the American astrophysicist Hugh Ross proposes a Creator of universe, Who is above all physical dimensions as:

By definition, time is that dimension in which cause-and-effect phenomena take place. No time, no cause and effect. If time’s beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. …It tells us that the Creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe.2

Objections to Creation and Why They are Flawed

It is patently obvious that the Big Bang means the creation of the universe out of nothing and this is surely evidence of willful creation. Regarding this fact, some materialist astronomers and physicists have tried to advance alternative explanations to oppose this reality. Mention has already been made of the steady state theory and it was pointed out it was clung to, by those who were uncomfortable with the notion of “creation from nothingness”, despite all the evidence to the contrary in an attempt to shore up their philosophy.

There are also a number of models that have been advanced by materialists who accept the Big Bang theory but try to exorcise it of the notion of creation. One of these is the “oscillating” universe model; another is the “quantum model of universe”. Let us examine these theories and see why they are invalid.

The oscillating universe model was advanced by the astronomers who disliked the idea the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. In this model, it is claimed that the present expansion of the universe will eventually be reversed at some point and begin to contract. This contraction will cause everything to collapse into a single point that will then explode again, initiating a new round of expansion. This process, they say, is repeated infinitely in time. This model also holds that the universe has experienced this transformation an infinite number of times already and that it will continue to do so forever. In other words, the universe exists for eternity but it expands and collapses at different intervals with a huge explosion punctuating each cycle. The universe we live in is just one of those infinite universes going through the same cycle.

This is nothing but a feeble attempt to accommodate the fact of the Big Bang to notions about an infinite universe. The proposed scenario is unsupported by the results of scientific research over the last 15-20 years, which show that it is impossible for such an “oscillating” universe idea to come into being. Furthermore the laws of physics offer no reason why a contracting universe should explode again after collapsing into a single point: it ought to stay just as it is. Nor do they offer a reason why an expanding universe should ever begin to contract in the first place.3
Even if we allow that there is some mechanism by which this cycle of contraction-explosion-expansion does take place, the crucial point is that this cycle cannot go on for ever, as is claimed. Calculations for this model show that each universe will transfer an amount of entropy to its successor. In other words, the amount of useful energy available becomes less each time and every “opening” universe will open more slowly and have a larger diameter. This will cause a much smaller universe to form the next time around and so on, eventually petering out into nothing. Even if “open and close” universes can exist, they cannot endure for eternity. At some point it becomes necessary for “something” to be created from “nothing”.4

Put briefly, the “oscillating” universe model is a hopeless fantasy whose physical reality is impossible.

The “quantum model of universe” is another attempt to purge the Big Bang of its creationist implications. Supporters of this model base it on the observations of quantum (subatomic) physics. In quantum physics, it is to be observed that subatomic particles appear and disappear spontaneously in a vacuum. Interpreting this observation as “matter can originate at quantum level, this is a property pertaining to matter”, some physicists try to explain the origination of matter from non-existence during the creation of the universe as a “property pertaining to matter” and present it as a part of laws of nature. In this model, our universe is interpreted as a subatomic particle in a bigger one.

However this syllogism is definitely out of question and in any case cannot explain how the universe came into being. William Lane Craig, the author of The Big Bang: Theism and Atheism explains why:

A quantum mechanical vacuum spawning material particles is far from the ordinary idea of a “vacuum” (meaning nothing). Rather, a quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles, which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. This is not “nothing,” and hence, material particles do not come into being out of nothing.5

So in quantum physics, matter “does not exist when it was not before”. What happens is that ambient energy suddenly becomes matter and just as suddenly disappears becoming energy again. In short, there is no condition of “existence from nothingness” as is claimed.

In physics, no less than in other branches of the sciences, there are atheist scientists who do not hesitate to disguise the truth by overlooking critical points and details in their attempt to support the materialist view and achieve their ends. For them, it is much more important to defend materialism and atheism than to reveal scientific facts and realities.

In the face of the reality mentioned above, most scientists dismiss the quantum universe model. C. J. Isham explains that “this model is not accepted widely because of the inherent difficulties that it poses.”6 Even some of the originators of this idea, such as Brout and Spindel, have abandoned it.7

A recent and much-publicized version of the quantum universe model was advanced by the physicist Stephen Hawking. In his book A Brief History of Time, Hawking states that the Big Bang doesn’t necessarily mean existence from nothingness. Instead of “no time” before the Big Bang, Hawking proposed the concept of “imaginary time”. According to Hawking, there was only a 10-43 second “imaginary” time interval before the Big Bang took place   and “real” time was formed after that. Hawking’s hope was just to ignore the reality of “timelessness” before the Big Bang by means of this “imaginary” time.

Stephen Hawking also tries to advance different explanations for the Big Bang other than Creation just as other Materialist scientists do by relying upon contradictions and false concepts.

As a concept, “imaginary time” is tantamount to zero or non-existence–like the imaginary number of people in a room or the imaginary number of cars on a road.

Stephen Hawking also tries to advance different explanations for the Big Bang other than Creation just as other Materialist scientists do by relying upon contradictions and false concepts.

Here Hawking is just playing with words. He claims that equations are right when they are related to an imaginary time but in fact this has no meaning. The mathematician Sir Herbert Dingle refers to the possibility of faking imaginary things as real in math as:

In the language of mathematics we can tell lies as well as truths, and within the scope of mathematics itself there is no possible way of telling one from the other. We can distinguish them only by experience or by reasoning outside the mathematics, applied to the possible relation between the mathematical solution and its  physical correlate.8

To put it briefly, a mathematically imaginary or theoretical solution need not have a true or a real consequence. Using a property exclusive to mathematics, Hawking produces hypotheses that are unrelated to reality. But what reason could he have for doing this? It’s easy to find the answer to that question in his own words. Hawking admits that he prefers alternative universe models to the Big Bang because the latter “hints at divine creation”, which such models are designed to oppose.9

What all this shows is that alternative models to the Big Bang such as steady-state, the open and close universe model, and quantum universe models in fact spring from the philosophical prejudices of materialists. Scientific discoveries have demonstrated the reality of the Big Bang and can even explain “existence from nothingness”. And this is very strong evidence that the universe is created by Allah, a point that materialists utterly reject.

An example of this opposition to the Big Bang is to be found in an essay by John Maddox, the editor of Nature (a materialist magazine), that appeared in 1989. In “Down with the Big Bang“, Maddox declares the Big Bang to be philosophically unacceptable because it helps theologists by providing them with strong support for their ideas. The author also predicted that the Big Bang would be disproved and that support for it would disappear within a decade.10 Maddox can only have been even more discomforted by the subsequent discoveries during the next ten years that have provided further evidence of the existence of the Big Bang.

Some materialists do act with more common sense on this subject. The British Materialist H. P. Lipson accepts the truth of creation, albeit “unpleasantly”, when he says:

If living matter is not, then caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation, how has it come into being?…I think, however, that we must…admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.11

In conclusion, the truth disclosed by science is this: Matter and time have been brought into being by an independent possessor of immense power, by a Creator. Allah, the Possessor of almighty power, knowledge and intelligence, has created the universe we live in.

Notes
1. Henry Margenau, Roy Abraham Vargesse. Cosmos, Bios, Theos. La Salle IL: Open Court Publishing, 1992, p. 241 2. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos: How Greatest Scientific Discoveries of The Century Reveal God, Colorado: NavPress,  revised edition, 1995, p. 76  3. William Lane Craig, Cosmos and Creator, Origins & Design, Spring 1996, vol. 17, p. 19 4. William Lane Craig, Cosmos and Creator, Origins & Design, Spring 1996, vol. 17, p. 19 5. William Lane Craig, Cosmos and Creator, Origins & Design, Spring 1996, vol. 17, p. 20 6 Christopher Isham, “Space, Time and Quantum Cosmology”, paper presented at the conference “God, Time and Modern Physics”, March 1990, Origins & Design, Spring 1996, vol. 17, p. 27 7. R. Brout, Ph. Spindel, “Black Holes Dispute”, Nature, vol 337, 1989, p. 216 8. Herbert Dingle, Science at the Crossroads, London: Martin Brian & O’Keefe, 1972, p. 31-32 9. StephenHawking, A Brief History of Time, New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p. 46 10. John Maddox, “Down with the Big Bang”, Nature, vol. 340, 1989, p. 378 11. H. P. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution”, Physics Bulletin, vol. 138, 1980, p. 138

THE SPEED OF THE EXPLOSION

The explosive vigour of the universe is thus matched with almost unbelievable accuracy to its gravitating power. The big bang was not evidently, any old bang, but an explosion of exquisitely arranged magnitude.
Paul Davies, Professor of Theoretical Physics 1

In the first chapter we examined the universe’s creation from nothingness as a result of a great explosion. Let us now consider some of the implications of this.

Scientists estimate that there are over 300 billion galaxies in the whole universe. These galaxies have a number of different forms (spiral, elliptical, etc) and each contains about as many stars as the universe contains galaxies. One of these stars, the Sun, has nine major planets rotating around in it in great harmony. All of us live on the third of those planets counting from the sun.

Look about you: Does what you see appear to be a disordered jumble of matter haphazardly scattered this way and that? Of course not. But how could matter have formed organized galaxies if it had been dispersed randomly? Why has matter accumulated at certain points and formed stars? How could the delicate balance of our solar system have emerged from a violent explosion? These are very important questions and they lead us to the real question of how the universe was structured after the Big Bang.

If the Big Bang was indeed a such cataclysmic explosion then it is reasonable to expect that matter should have been scattered everywhere at random. And yet it is not. Instead it is organized into planets, and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and superclusters of galaxies. It is as if a bomb that exploded in a granary caused all the wheat to fall into neat sacks and bales on the backs of trucks ready to be delivered instead of showering the grains every which way. Fred Hoyle, a staunch opponent of the Big Bang theory for years, expressed his own surprise at this structure:

The big bang theory holds that the universe began with a single explosion. Yet as can be seen below, an explosion merely  throws matter apart, while the big bang has mysteriously produced the opposite effect- with matter clumping together in the form of galaxies.2

That the matter produced by the Big Bang should have formed such tidy and organized shapes is indeed an extraordinary thing. The occurrence of such a harmony leads us to the realization that the universe was the result of its perfect creation by Allah.

In this chapter we will examine and consider this extraordinary perfection and excellence.

The Speed of the Explosion

People hearing of the Big Bang but not considering the subject at length do not think about what an extraordinary plan must lie behind this explosion. That’s because the notion of an explosion doesn’t suggest harmony, plan, or organization to most people. In fact there are a number of very puzzling aspects to the intricate order in the Big Bang.
One of these puzzles has to do with the acceleration caused by the explosion. When the explosion took place, matter certainly must have begun moving at an enormous speed in every direction. But there is another point that we need to pay attention to here. There must also have been a very big attractive force at the first moment of the explosion: an attractive force that was strong enough to gather the whole universe into one point.

Two different and opposing forces are at work here. The force of the explosion, driving matter outward and away, and the force of attraction, trying to resist the first and pull everything back together. The universe came into being because these two forces were in equilibrium. If the attractive force had been greater than the explosive, the universe would have collapsed. If the opposite had been true, matter would have been splattered in every direction in a way never to unite again.

Then how sensitive was this equilibrium? How much “slack” could there have been between the two forces?

Paul Davies: “The evidence is strong enough to acknowledge the existence of a conscious cosmic design.”

The mathematical physicist Paul Davies, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, performed lengthy calculations of the conditions that must have existed at the moment of the Big Bang and came up with a result that can only be described as astonishing. According to Davies, if the rate of expansion had differed by more than 10-18 seconds (one quintillionth of a second), there would have been no universe. Davies describes his conclusion:

Careful measurements puts the rate of expansion very close to a critical value at which the universe will just escape its own gravity and expand forever. A little slower and the cosmos would collapse, a little faster and the cosmic material would have long ago completely dispersed. It is interesting to ask precisely how delicately the rate of expansion has been “fine tuned” to fall on this narrow dividing line between two catastrophes. If at time I S (by which the time pattern of expansion was already firmly established) the expansion rate had differed from its actual value by more than 10-18, it would have been sufficient to throw the delicate balance out. The explosive vigour of the universe is thus matched with almost unbelievable accuracy to its gravitating power. The big bang was not evidently, any old bang, but an explosion of exquisitely arranged magnitude.3

Bilim Teknik(Science Technique, a Turkish scientific periodical) quotes an article that appeared in Science in which the phenomenal equilibrium that obtained in the initial phase of universe is stated:

If the density of the universe was a little bit more, in that case, according to Einstein’s relativity theory, the universe would not be expanding due to  the attraction forces of atomic particles but contracting, ultimately diminishing to a spot. If the initial density had been a little bit less, then the universe would rapidly be expanding, but in this case, atomic particles would not be attracting each other and no stars and no galaxies would ever have formed. Consequently, man would never come into existence! According to the calculations, the difference between the initial real density of the universe and its critical density, which is unlikely to occur, is less than one percent’s one quadrillion. This is similar to place a pencil in a position so that it can stand on its sharp end even after one billion years… Furthermore, as the universe expands, this equilibrium becomes more delicate.4

It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it. (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47)

Even Stephen Hawking, who tries hard to explain away the creation of the universe as a series coincidences in A Brief History of Time, acknowledges the extraordinary equilibrium in the rate of expansion:

If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size. 5

What then does such a remarkable equilibrium as this indicate? The only rational answer to that question is that it is proof of conscious design and cannot possibly be accidental. Despite his own materialist bent, Dr Davies admits this himself:

It is hard to resist that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out… The seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence for an element of cosmic design.6

Notes
1. Paul Davies, Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature, 1984, p. 184 2. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, London, 1984, p. 184-185 3. Paul Davies, Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature, 1984, p. 184 4. Bilim ve Teknik  (Science and Technics ) 201, p. 16 5. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History Of Time, Bantam Press, London: 1988, p. 121-125 6. Paul Davies. God and the New Physics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 189

THE FOUR FORCES

The speed of the Big Bang’s explosion is only one of the remarkable states of equilibrium at the initial moment of creation. Immediately after the Big Bang, forces that underpin and organize the universe we live in had to be numerically “just right” otherwise there would have been no universe.

These are the “four fundamental forces” that are recognized by modern physics. All structure and motion in the universe is governed by these four forces, known as the gravitational force, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. The strong and weak nuclear forces operate only at the atomic scale. The remaining two–the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force–govern assemblages of atoms, in other words “matter”. These four fundamental forces were at work in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang and resulted in the creation of atoms and matter.

A comparison of those forces is enlightening for their values are stunningly different from one another. Below they are given in international standard units:

Strong nuclear force: 15
Weak nuclear force: 7.03 x 10-3
Electromagnetic force: 3.05 x 10-12
Gravitational force: 5.90 x 10-39

The molecular biologist Michael Denton addresses an important point in his book, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe. According to Denton, the universe was created and specially designed to make human life possible.

Notice how great are the differences in the strengths of these four fundamental forces. The difference between the strongest (strong nuclear force) and the weakest (gravitational force) is about 25 followed by 38 zeros! Why should this be so?

The molecular biologist Michael Denton addresses this question in his book, Nature’s Destiny:

If, for example, the gravitational force was a trillion times stronger, then the universe would be far smaller and its life history far shorter. An average star would have a mass a trillion times less than the sun and a life span of about one year. On the other hand, if gravity had been less powerful, no stars or galaxies would have ever formed. The other relationships and values are no less critical. If the strong force had been just slightly weaker, the only element that would be stable would be hydrogen. No other atoms could exist. If it had been slightly stronger in relation to electromagnetism, then an atomic nucleus consisting of only two protons would be a stable feature of the universe-which would mean there would be no hydrogen, and if any stars or galaxies evolved, they would be very different from the way they are. Clearly, if these various forces and constants did not have precisely the values they do, there would be no stars, no supernovae, no planets, no atoms, no life. 1

Paul Davies comments on how the laws of physics provide for conditions ideal for people to live:

Had nature opted for a slightly different set of numbers, the world would be a very different place. Probably we would not be here to see it…Recent discoveries about the primeval cosmos oblige us to accept that the expanding universe has been set up in its motion with a cooperation of astonishing precision.2

Arno Penzias, who was the first, along with Robert Wilson to detect the cosmic background radiation (for which discovery the pair received a Nobel prize in 1965), comments on the beautiful design in the universe:

Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has underlying (one might say “supernational”) plan.3

The scientists we have just quoted have all drawn an important conclusion from their observations. Examining and thinking about the incredible balances and their beautiful order in the design of universe inevitably leads one to a truth: There exists in this universe a superior design and a perfect harmony. Unquestionably the Author of this design and harmony is Allah, Who has created everything flawlessly. Allah draws our attention in one of His verses to the order in the creation of the universe, planned, and computed in every detail:

He to whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. (Surat al-Furqan: 2)

Notes
1. Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, The New York: The Free Press, 1998, p. 12-13 2. Paul Davies. The Accidental Universe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, Foreword. 3. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, p. 122-23

THE MATHS OF PROBABILITY

What has been said so far shows the extraordinary balances among the forces that make human life possible in this universe. The speed of the Big Bang’s explosion, the values of the four fundamental forces, and all the other variables that we will be examining in the chapters ahead and which are vital for existence have been arranged according to an extraordinary precision.

Let us now make a brief digression and consider the coincidence theory of materialism. Coincidence is a mathematical term and the possibility of an event’s occurrence can be calculated using the mathematics of probability. Let’s do so.

THE PROBABILITY OF THE OCCURRENCE OF A UNIVERSE IN WHICH LIFE CAN FORM

The calculations of British mathematician Roger Penrose show that the probability of universe conducive to life occurring by chance is in 1010123. The phrase “extremely unlikely” is inadequate to describe this possibility. 10000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 10 00000000000000000000000000000000

Taking the physical variables into account, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into existence by coincidence? One in billions of billions? Or trillions of trillions of trillions? Or more?

Roger Penrose, a famous British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this question and tried to calculate the probability. Including what he considered to be all variables required for human beings to exist and live on a planet such as ours, he computed the probability of this environment occurring among all the possible results of the Big Bang.

According to Penrose, the odds against such an occurrence were on the order of 10¹⁰¹²³ to 1.

It is hard even to imagine what this number means. In math, the value 10¹²³ means 1 followed by 123 zeros. (This is, by the way, more than the total number of atoms 10⁷⁸ believed to exist in the whole universe.) But Penrose’s answer is vastly more than this: It requires 1 followed by 10¹²³ zeros.

Roger Penrose: “This number tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been.”

Or consider: 1³ means 1,000, a thousand. 10¹⁰³ is a number that that has 1 followed by 1000 zeros. If there are six zeros, it’s called a million; if nine, a billion; if twelve, a trillion and so on. There is not even a name for a number that has 1 followed by 10¹²³zeros.

In practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 10⁵⁰ means “zero probability”. Penrose’s number is more than trillion trillion trillion times less than that. In short, Penrose’s number tells us that the ‘accidental” or “coincidental” creation of our universe is an impossibility.

Concerning this mind-boggling number Roger Penrose comments:

This now tells how precise the Creator’s aim must have been, namely to an accuracy of one part in 10¹⁰¹²³. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full in the ordinary denary notation: it would be 1 followed by 10¹²³ successive 0′s. Even if we were to write a 0 on each separate proton and on each  separate neutron in the entire universe- and we could throw in all the other particles for good measure- we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. 1

The numbers defining the design and plan of the universe’s equilibrium play a crucial role and exceed comprehension. They prove that the universe is by no means the product of a coincidence, and show us “how precise the Creator’s aim must have been” as Penrose stated.

In fact in order to recognize that the universe is not a “product of coincidences” one does not really need any of these calculations at all. Simply by looking around himself, a person can easily perceive the fact of creation in even the tiniest details of what he sees. How could a universe like this, perfect in its systems, the sun, the earth, people, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into existence as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion? Every detail we peer at shows the evidence of Allah’s existence and supreme power. Only people who reflect can grasp these signs.

In the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and day, and the ships which sail the seas to people’s benefit, and the water which Allah sends down from the sky- by which He brings the earth to life when it was dead and scatters about in it creatures of every kind – and the varying direction of the winds, and the clouds subservient between heaven and earth, there are Signs for people who use their intellect. (Surat al-Baqara:164)

Seeing the Plain Truth

20th-century science has come up with categorical evidence that the universe was created by Allah. The anthropic principle that we mentioned before reveals every detail of a universe that has been designed for mankind to live in and in which there is no place for chance.

The interesting part is that the ones who discovered all this and came to the conclusion that the universe couldn’t possibly have come into being by accident are the very same people who defend the philosophy of materialism. Scientists such as Paul Davies, Arno Penzias, Fred Hoyle and Roger Penrose are not pious men and they certainly had no intention of proving Allah’s existence as they pursued their work. One can imagine that they reached their conclusions about the design of the universe by a superior power most unwillingly.

The American astronomer George Greenstein confesses this in his book The Symbiotic Universe:

How could this possibly have come to pass (that the laws of physics conform themselves to life)?…As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency – or, rather Agency- must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?2

An atheist, Greenstein disregards the plain truth; nevertheless he cannot keep from wondering. Other, less prejudiced scientists on the other hand, readily admit that the universe must have been specially designed for mankind to live in. The American astrophysicist Hugh Ross ends his article “Design and the Anthropic Principle” with these words:

An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have brought the universe into existence. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed the universe. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed planet Earth. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed life.3

Thus science proves the reality of creation. Certainly there is Allah and He has created everything around us–the seen and the unseen. He is the sole Creator of the extraordinary and outstanding equilibrium and design of the heavens and Earth.

It has come such a pass that today, materialism has the flavor of a superstitious, unscientific system of belief. The American geneticist Robert Griffiths jokingly remarked “If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”4

To sum up: Every physical law and every physical constant in this universe has been specifically designed to enable human beings to exist and live. In his book The Cosmic Blueprint, Davies states this truth in the last paragraph, “The impression of Design is overwhelming.”5

Doubtlessly, the design of the universe is evidence of Allah’s power to establish. The precise balances and all the human beings and other creatures are the evidence of Allah’s supreme power and act of creation. This result discovered by modern science is just a reworking of a truth revealed fourteen centuries ago in the Qur’an:

Your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then settled Himself firmly on the Throne. He covers the day with the night and, each pursuing the other urgently; and the sun and moon and stars are subservient to His command. Both creation and command belong to Him. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all worlds. (Surat al-Araf: 54)

Notes
1. Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind, 1989; Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny, The New York: The Free Press, 1998, p. 9 2. George Greenstein, The Symbiotic Universe, p. 27 3. Hugh Ross, Design and the Anthropic Principle, Reasons To Believe, CA, 1988 4. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, p. 123 5. Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint, London: Penguin Books, 1987, p. 203