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The Convergence of Torah and Science by EduPlanet Rectorate (daniEl I. Ginerman) - Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 01:42 PM

The Convergence of Torah and Science* by Prof. Paul Eidelberg Wednesday, November 9, 2005 taken from http://www.theraphi.com/ppe/tcotas.html Israel’s survival ultimately depends on national unity. Nothing is more conducive to unity than revealing the convergence of Torah and science. Hence the importance of Gerald L. Schroeder’s book, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. This essay is very much indebted to his work. Dr. Schroeder, a physicist, writes: “Of all the ancient accounts of creation, only that of Genesis has warranted a second reading by the scientific community. It alone records a sequence of events that approaches the scientific account of our cosmic origin.”[1] Dr. Schroeder has especially in mind the Big Bang theory. Based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the abundance of evidence confirming the Big Bang has made creatio ex nihilo the reigning cosmological principle in the community of scientists. The dogma of the eternity of the universe, which held sway for millennia in philosophy and science as well as among eastern religions, has thus been discarded. In fact, more and more astronomers, astrophysicists, physicists, and mathematicians—hitherto atheists or agnostics—now admit that the universe, having had a Beginning, must have had a Beginner. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created (bara) the heavens and the earth …” contains a unique and seldom used word in the Torah, namely, bara. This word, translated as “created,” has as its primary definition “bringing into existence something that did not exist before.” In Genesis 1:1, bara means creation from nothing. Here “nothing” signifies the absence of matter and energy as well as the dimensions of space and time—hence nothing which any human being can detect and measure. The Big Bang theory therefore accords with the Genesis account of Creation. How did scientists arrive at the big bang? When Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity in 1916, the cosmological doctrine of an eternal universe held in a static state throughout infinite time reigned supreme. Although his field equations predicted an expanding universe, Einstein was trying to construct a static model universe that would not collapse as a result of its own self-gravitation. But since Hubble’s discovery in 1929 of the recession of the galaxies, the theory of an expanding universe has dominated cosmology.[2] Knowing the rate at which the universe is expanding, one can extrapolate backwards to determine the size of the universe “in the beginning,” that is, at the moment when expansion began. At that moment, about 15 billion (Earth) years ago, the entire universe—all the galaxies, with their millions of stars, the dust and gas, the intergalactic matter, all the energy and even the four dimensions of space and time—was squeezed into an “atomic nucleus” or “singularity” of infinite or near infinite density, temperature, and pressure. That singularity, at which all known physics come to an end, was itself created (bara) from “nothing.” From that singularity, whose volume is very much smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, the universe burst forth and expanded, and it continues to expand. What an incredible and unintended confirmation, by science—indeed, by a Jew who was not even a believer—of the infinite power and majesty of God! Strange indeed are God’s ways. Strange too that estimates of the age of the universe from Jewish sources antedating the fifteenth century range from 2.5 to 17.5 billion years.[3] Ponder, therefore, the words of the great Torah scholar and Kabalist Nahmanides (1194-1270). Commenting on Genesis 1:1 some seven hundred and fifty years ago, Nahmanides writes: The Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute non-existence. Now we have no expression in the sacred language for bringing [into existence] something from nothing other than the word bara (created). Everything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead He brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a power of potency, fit to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by God.[4]   This “primary matter” is nothing other than energy, which can be converted into matter (and vice versa) according to Einstein’s celebrated formula E=mc2. Commenting further on the first verse of Genesis, Nahmanides says, “with this creation, which was like a very small point having no substance, everything in the heavens and on the earth was created.” That point, of course is the previously mentioned “singularity” from which the Big Bang originated. Nahmanides derived this knowledge from the Talmud (ca. 500 CE). Physics has thus confirmed the first verse of Genesis, whose meaning was known 1,500 years ago by Rabbis who had received this secret knowledge via the oral tradition going back to the time of Moses. However, more fundamental than energy is wisdom: “With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth.” (See Proverbs 3:19.) Since the reliability of the evidence confirming the Big Bang depends primarily on the accuracy of general relativity’s predictions about the dynamics of the universe, consider the following. General relativity predicts that, over time, two neutron stars orbiting about one another will radiate so much gravitational energy that they will spiral inward toward one another causing their orbital periods to speed up. With measurements extending over twenty years (1974-1994), general relativity was confirmed over all to an accuracy of no more than one part in a hundred trillion. This prompted physicist Roger Penrose to say, “This makes Einstein’s general relativity, in this particular sense, the most accurately tested theory known to science.”[5] In fact, no other theory of physics has ever been tested in so many different contexts and so rigorously; general relativity has withstood all these tests, which solidifies the Big Bang theory. Given the infinite or near infinite temperature of the singularity which exploded in the Big Bang, one of the predicted consequences of this explosion is cosmic background radiation. The most compelling evidence of such radiation—which evidence showed how the galaxies were formed out of the Big Bang—was provided in the 1992 findings of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (a reputed atheist) said, “It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time.” Astronomer George Smoot declared, “What we have found is evidence of the birth of the universe. It’s like looking at God.”[6] Many other kinds of evidence confirming the Big Bang theory have been accumulated. Consider the Anthropic Principle, which has been elaborated during the last three decades, and which postulates a linkage between the structure of the universe and the prerequisites of human existence. The Anthropic Principle suggests a Creator-God concerned about man. Michael A. Corey writes: The gravitational constant (G), for instance, appears to be exceedingly fine-tuned for the existence of life. If it were slightly larger, stars would have burned too hot and much too quickly to support the fragile needs of life; but if it were slightly smaller, the intrastellar process of nuclear fusion would have never initiated, and life would have been incapable of arising here. This same rationale can also be applied to the expansion rate of the nascent universe … If the … expansion rate happened to be slightly greater than the presently observed value, life-supporting galaxies would have been unable to form; but if it were slightly smaller, the early universe would have collapsed back in on itself shortly after the Big Bang. Either way and no life forms would have been possible. This is significant, because the various parameters that comprise the cosmic expansion rate [mass density of the universe, the explosive vigor of the Big Bang, and the strength of the gravitational constant] also had to be fine-tuned to better than one part in 1060 in order to generate a “flat” universe, so that normal Euclidian geometry (in which the sum of a triangle’s three angles add up to 180 degrees) could then become applicable. A similar degree of fine-tuning can be found throughout the remainder of nature’s fundamental parameters. The challenge is to find a plausible explanation for this fine-tuning. According to the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, the odds that our biocentric universe could have accidentally evolved into its present fine-tuned configuration are an astounding one in 10 to the 10123, which is a number so vast that it couldn’t be written on a piece of paper the size of the entire visible universe. This is why many theorists have posited the existence of a “super-calculating intellect” to account for this fine-tuning.[7] The fine-tuning of the universe includes dozens of parameters whose values must fall within narrowly defined ranges for physical life of any sort to exist. Mention may also be made of the ratio of the number of protons to electrons, the carbon to oxygen energy level ratio, the speed of light (299,792,458 kilometers per second), and the fine structure constant necessary for DNA to function. Although the validity of the Anthropic Principle has been challenged by various scientists, its general formulation is consistent with the Torah, according to which the universe was created for man. Scientist and former skeptic Fred Hoyle concludes that “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.” Paul Davies has moved from promoting atheism to conceding, “It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe. The impression of design is overwhelming.” No less than Stephen Hawking concedes: “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”[8] But let us return to the big bang. Since the Big Bang theory entails a finite universe, the question arises: What is there beyond? Outside the universe there is no space. The notion of emptiness, as opposed to fullness, applies only inside the universe. It bears repeating that space was created at the moment of the big bang. Hence there are no dimensions outside the universe (and of course the human mind reasons and calculates in terms of spatial dimensions). The same applies to time. The question of what went on before the big bang is meaningless, since time itself was created with that awesome event. Leaving aside the two religions derived from Judaism, only the Torah unambiguously states that time is finite, that time has a beginning, and that God created time, as should now ring true from the Genesis account of Creation. Indeed, Dr. Schroeder, using Einstein’s equation for gravitational time dilation, shows that the duration and events of the billions of years which followed the big bang, and the events of the first six days of Genesis, are in fact one and the same! Here are some relevant passages from his The Science of God. Schroeder suggests that we read the opening chapter of Genesis a few times, paying particular attention to the description of the events and the flow of time related to those events. Then read any other chapter in the entire Bible, again concentrating on the flow of events and the related flow of time. Note how the context changes. The description of time in the Bible is divided into two categories: the first six days and all the time thereafter. During those six days, blocks of time are described and then we are told that a day passed. This is repeated in a totally objective fashion six times…. There is no intimate relation between the events and the passage of time.… Rather, we are told that the land and waters separated, plant life appeared, “And there was evening and there was morning a third day” (Gen. 1:9-13). No hint is given for the time each of these major events took. With the appearance of humankind the accounting changes dramatically. The events now become the cause of the flow of time. Adam and Eve live 130 years and are the parents of Seth (Genesis 4:25; 5:3). Seth lived 105 years and is father to Enoch (Gen. 5:6). The passage of time is totally tied to the earthly events being described. These are indeed years of an earthly calendar. Now here’s a puzzle. If, as th[e] ancient commentators claimed, the six days of Genesis are twenty-four-hour days, then why not include them in the calendar? Why not have the calendar start six days earlier? And why must these commentators tell me the days are twenty-four hours each? The Bible says “day.” I know a day takes twenty-four hours to pass. Why did they think I would think otherwise? [Actually] … our questions were anticipated thousands of years ago. The six days are not included in the calendar because within those (six twenty-four-hour) days are all the secrets and ages of the universe. The confusion mounts. How can six days contain the ages of the universe? And if they are truly ages, then why refer to them as days? The ancient realization that somehow the days of Genesis contained the generations of the cosmos is based on two biblical verses: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Eternal God made the earth and the heavens” (Gen. 2:4); and “This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day that God created Adam” (Gen. 5:1). In both verses, generations are juxtaposed to days [that is, to one day] of Genesis. If the six twenty-four-hour days of Genesis were adequate to include all the days of the universe, the cosmic flow from the creation at the big bang to the creation of humankind, we clearly require an understanding of time that is not obvious to our unaided senses. Albert Einstein provided that understanding…. The law of relativity tells us that the flow of time at a location with high gravity or high velocity is actually slower than at a location with lower gravity or lower velocity. This means that the duration between ticks of a clock … in the high-G (or high-V) environment is actually longer than the duration between ticks on a clock … in the low-G (or low-V) environment. These differences in time’s passage are known as time dilation….[9]   After explaining the equality between the six days of Genesis and fifteen billion Earth years during which the entire universe was created, Dr. Schroeder refers to Nahmanides’ above quoted commentary on Genesis 1:1, and points out that the great Kabalist learned from his teachers that the first word of the Bible, beresheet— “In the beginning of”—means in the beginning of time. Biblical time thus begins with the appearance of matter—an extraordinary insight. Of course, it remained for the mathematics of general relativity to show how the six days of Creation recorded in Genesis is equal to fifteen billion (Earth) years. It follows from the preceding discussion that the modern dichotomy between science and religion, or rather, between science and the Torah, has been placed in question by science itself. Indeed, a recent scientific article in one of the foremost international journals of physics bears the title, “Creation of the Universe from Nothing”: At the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Professor John Mather of Columbia University, an astrophysicist who also served on the staff of NASA’s Goddard Center, presented “the most dramatic support ever” for an open universe [i.e., one which supports a cosmological proof of God’s existence]. According to a journalist present, Mather’s keynote address was greeted with thunderous applause, which led the meeting’s chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Burbidge [an atheist astronomer], to comment: “It seems clear that the audience is in favor of the book of Genesis—at least the first verse or so, which seems to have been confirmed.”[10] This is only the beginning! Footnotes: [1] Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (New York: Broadway Books, 1997), p. 80. [2] See Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001), pp. 24-25. [3] See Aryeh Carmell & Cyril Domb, Challenge: Torah Views on Science and Its Problems (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1976), p. 282, n. 10. [4] Ramban (Nachmanides), Commentary on the Torah (5 vols.; New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971). I, 23, Chavel trans. [5] Cited in Ross, p. 104. [6] Cited in ibid., p. 31. [7] Extracted from the Internet. [8] Quotes in this paragraph are cited in Ross, pp. 157, 159. [9] Schroeder, pp. 45-47. [10] Cited in Lawrence Kelemen, Permission to Believe: Four Rational Approaches to God’s Existence (Jerusalem: Targum/Feldheim, 1990), p. 40. *(The Jerusalem Post recently published rather superficial articles regarding the relationship between science and religion. No mention was made of Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder’s illuminating work on the subject. Hence this essay, which is based on my latest book “A Jewish Philosophy of History.) ***** Prof. Eidelberg, special to TheRaphi.com, is a political scientist, author and lecturer; co-founder and president of The Foundation For Constitutional Democracy and is the President of the Yamin Israel movement. Reply See this post in context

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