Reflections of a Physicist on the Mystery of the Creation of the Universe #

(The author of this article, O. V. Petrenko, holds a Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences degree, is a specialist in solid-state physics, and a recipient of the First-Degree Diploma in the Young Scientists Competition of Moscow State University. He is the author of more than 40 scientific papers in the field of physics. Nevertheless, this article, like his published book The Assurance of Thomas (Valaam Monastery Press, Moscow, 1997), is not an attempt to analyze religion through the lens of physics. On the contrary, it represents an effort by a believing person to comprehend the latest scientific data, which, in the author’s opinion, vividly and unequivocally testify to the existence of the Creator.)

For an ordinary scientific researcher, long since ceased in the bustle of life to ponder eternal questions, the new findings that have emerged over the past 15–20 years came as a complete surprise. Moreover, for many, this surprise proved unpleasant.

The fact is that the new situation in science places man before a moral choice: either to accept the arguments of common sense, with the inevitable consequences — to live according to God’s commandments and to fulfill His good will — or to pretend that nothing has happened and to wait for some additional clarifications that might perhaps restore the lost ground beneath one’s feet. Yet in reality something is occurring that defies rational explanation.

Today, in the highest circles of science, it is considered that the traditional scientific method has exhausted itself, and that in order to move forward in understanding nature, it is necessary to attract other “channels” of information, notions of which are borrowed from Eastern occult mysticism. A very significant situation is taking shape. Science, having now entered its mature age, has accumulated through rational methods of inquiry an entire body of systematic, fundamental knowledge about nature. The long, honest, and painstaking work of many generations of scientists has at last begun to bear good fruit.

Yet it is precisely now, when science is emerging from an externally imposed and uncharacteristic role as the adversary of faith and beginning to recover its true face as the faithful daughter and closest helper of faith, that there is a conscious abandonment of rational logic. Rationality is being replaced by theosophy, with its murky irrationality and feverish fantasies, which have no real foundation whatsoever.

A few words must be said here about the destructive role of the so-called Brussels scientific school, headed by I. Prigogine. Its fundamental thesis is frankly anti-theistic: “Chaos is the cause of order; it carries within itself the properties of an organizing principle.” In other words, “chaos creates order” by itself without any external assistance. This worldview postulate is based on an incorrect interpretation of certain physical experiments, the falsity of which was recently convincingly demonstrated by a theoretical group led by Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences S. I. Yakovlenko [1].¹

Indeed, “for judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:39). But let us leave the latter “to bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22).

The Miraculous “Birth” of the Universe and Its Astonishing Nature #

The notion of matter as an unshakable solid underwent a decisive revision in the 20th century. The atoms that compose all bodies are separated by enormous distances compared to their own sizes. Moreover, the atoms themselves consist practically of empty space. The atomic nucleus occupies only about one trillionth of the atom’s total volume. The rest of the space within the atom is taken up by an electron cloud, the constituents of which can be said to occupy a certain volume only in a purely conditional sense. Thus, matter represents rather tiny islands of substance in an ocean of emptiness, rather than the solid material perceived by our senses. And even the nature of these islands—the elementary particles—defies ordinary common sense. According to modern understanding, they should be regarded as ephemeral condensations of energy, which in an astonishing way simultaneously exhibit both particle-like and wave-like properties. From the standpoint of modern physics, reality pertains only to a certain ensemble of particles, considered as an energetic medium, in which no part exists fully independently from the whole. Thus, the universe cannot be imagined as consisting of primary “building blocks” capable of existing separately and independently from one another. Rather, the world is conceived and created as a single gigantic, variegated tapestry, in which each “thread” does not exist apart from the whole, but has meaning only as part of the woven fabric, within the framework of all-encompassing being.

Even the very concept of a wave or oscillation in physics is of an abstract character. It is only the “motion of matter”—a “ripple upon the water.” Even at the temperature of absolute zero, atoms within bodies do not cease their vibrational movements. Truly, it now becomes easier to grasp the words of the Holy Scripture, that God created all things out of nothing. Likewise, according to modern scientific understanding, the cosmos began its existence from absolute nothingness.

The universe did not exist eternally, but had a beginning in time. Time itself, like space, appeared simultaneously with primordial matter, for it is inseparable from it. The process of the “birth” of the world is described by the scientific theory of the “Big Bang.” It must be said, however, that this term is extremely unfortunate, as it misrepresents the meaning of the phenomenon. The observed process of the expansion of the universe cannot at all be imagined as the result of some kind of explosion. The expansion occurs with astonishing uniformity and, in the first approximation, is proportional to the distance between two typical clusters of galaxies. Thus, the farther apart galaxies are, the greater the velocity of their mutual separation. This is, indeed, a rather strange property for an ordinary explosion.

Matter and radiation in the universe, on a large scale, are distributed with extraordinary uniformity in all directions. Yet an explosion cannot lead to an even distribution of matter throughout space. Moreover, the force that acts upon fragments of matter during an ordinary explosion is caused by a difference in pressure. However, the universe encompasses everything that exists in the material world. Beyond its bounds there is nothing—no matter, no space, no time—in other words, not even the “emptiness” into which it could expand. Therefore, the very notion of a pressure difference is inapplicable in this case.

A helpful analogy for better understanding the problem is that of a uniformly inflating balloon, on the surface of which dots representing galaxies have been drawn. As the balloon inflates, its surface stretches, and the distances between the dots increase. Yet the dots themselves remain stationary on the surface. In like manner, it is the space itself between the galaxies that stretches and moves them apart from one another. However, the expansion of the universe does not affect individual bodies. Just as in a dispersing cloud of gas, the individual molecules themselves do not expand.

The “Big Bang” possessed a very specific, incredibly finely tuned force. Theoretical analysis shows that if, at the moment corresponding to the first second on the absolute time scale—when the pattern of expansion had already been fully determined—the speed at which matter was dispersing had differed from its actual value by more than 10⁻¹⁸ of its magnitude in either direction, it would have been enough to cause catastrophic consequences for life: the universe would either have long since collapsed back into its original state as a “material point” under the action of gravitational forces, or matter would have completely dissipated [2]. Is it really possible to believe that such a delicate balance is the mere result of a blind game of random forces?

For the full picture, it is necessary to mention the very first phase in time—the “inflationary” stage of the universe’s expansion—which lasted only about 10⁻³⁵ seconds, beginning from the moment when the “cosmic clock” started ticking. Yet within this vanishingly small span of time, the universe’s tiny “seed,” emerging from absolute nothingness, managed to increase its size by a factor of 10¹⁰⁰ [3].

In ancient times, commentators on the biblical text likened the scroll of the Pentateuch of Moses to the universe. The unrolling of the scroll was seen as analogous to the expansion of the universe, and the rolling up as its contraction. According to one ancient interpretation of the Bible, the name of God “Almighty” (in ancient Hebrew, “Shaddai”) is explained thus: “He who said, ‘Enough.’” This interpretation is accompanied by a tradition according to which, when the universe was created, it began to expand with tremendous speed, and then God said to it, “Dai”—“Enough!” Perhaps this was the end of the instantaneous and enormous stretching of space that, in scientific language today, is referred to as the “inflationary” stage of expansion. According to this scientific concept, the expansion continued afterward, but not at such a colossal speed, proceeding instead (according to the scenario of the “Big Bang”) due to the initial impulse acquired during the inflationary period. The temperature of the universe began gradually to decrease, spending its potential energy on the expansion of the world.

It took humanity an enormous intellectual effort to arrive at the unfathomable, astonishing conclusion of the “birth” of the world out of nothing. Yet for Christians, this is not news. Long before the development of the scientific method of studying nature, the truth of the world’s creation ex nihilo had already been proclaimed in the Bible and confirmed by the formal decree of the Fourth Lateran Council.

God the Father created the entire universe by His Word—He created it, for the universe is the fruit of a creative act. The marvelous harmony, beauty, and elegance of the world inspire a sense of reverent awe before the majesty of God. God is a wondrous Artist and the greatest Poet, who composed an amazing poem, calling this great world out of non-being into being.

The holy Fathers of the era of the Ecumenical Councils profoundly perceived and expressed this sense of the world’s poetic creation in the words of the Symbol of Orthodox Faith (the Nicene Creed). Its opening lines, in a literal translation from the Greek, read: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Poet of heaven and earth…”

The particle-wave duality of elementary particles gives rise to a poetic analogy of our world—as a vision of the universe as a giant “sound wave” from the strings of a “magical” musical instrument. This instrument is in the hands of the invisible and omnipotent Creator, who touches the strings and sustains the “sound,” thereby preserving the present heavens and earth, which are kept by the word (2 Peter 3:7). If for a moment the vibration should cease—if the “waves were to settle”—then, perhaps, “the heavens would be rolled up.” From this living Source the “sounds” pour forth, bringing all things out of non-being into being.

The Perfection of the Design of the Human Body #

Indeed, man has always stood in awe before the perfection and harmony of the world around him. Yet the very structure of the human body itself is no less worthy of admiration. It surpasses in complexity everything else combined. Let us consider, for example, the amount of information that the human brain can store. This is estimated to be between 10¹⁰ and 10¹⁵ bits. The lower figure assumes that there is, on average, 1 bit of information contained in each of the 10¹⁵ “cells” of human memory.²

The processing speed of the human brain is estimated to range from 10 to 1000 gigaflops.³ The minimum speed of 10 gigaflops is determined merely by the speed at which the eye processes information before transmitting it to the brain—without even considering the vast variety of other activities performed by the human intellect [4].

By comparison, one of the most powerful computers today, such as the Cray-2, has a speed of only about 1 gigaflop and a memory capacity of 2×10¹⁰ bits, which is 10 to 1000 times less than that of the human brain [5].

However, the human brain is most likely consciously limited by the Creator in its capabilities. Therefore, an even better illustration of the marvels of biological design may be found in “simpler things,” such as the chains of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contained in every cell of the human body.

These DNA chains carry the information for every part of the human body—from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Moreover, the capacity of DNA to store information is so efficient that all the data necessary to describe every type of organism that has ever existed on our planet could fit into a teaspoon—and there would still be room left over to hold the contents of all the books ever written [6].

It seems that for specialists working in this field of science, the idea of “automatic” evolution, based on the operation of random forces, ought to appear simply unnatural.

The Probability of the Random Appearance of Man #

In order to estimate the probability of the appearance of man, it should be noted that the human genotype is determined biochemically mainly by proteins—enzymes.⁴ Each protein, in turn, is encoded by a separate gene. In total, the human body contains up to 110,000 different types of genes [7].

For an average gene, consisting of a base of about 1800 nucleotides, only approximately 10–20% of all nucleotide bases remain unchanged during the activity of the enzyme [7,8].⁵

Although this consideration somewhat increases the probability of the appearance of a single gene once throughout the Earth’s history, it nevertheless remains an insignificantly small quantity, lying between 4.3×10⁻¹⁰⁹ and 1.8×10⁻²¹⁷. Therefore, even the entire lifespan of the universe would not suffice to allow all possible combinations of the nucleotide base to be tried out.⁶

The probability of the random formation of an entire human chromosome, containing the complete set of genes, simply defies comprehension: it fluctuates between 10⁻¹²⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ and 10⁻²⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ [9].

Evidently, the random appearance of man is no more realistic than, for example, the chance assembly of a global encyclopedia by means of an explosion in a printing house.

The Testimonies of Fundamental Science #

What, then, does modern fundamental science say about the problem of the creation of the world? In order to properly assess its contribution, we must move beyond the particulars studied by individual disciplines and turn to certain general categories that underlie every field of knowledge. An analogy, although imperfect, might be the image of a hypothetical “tree” (see the diagram), with each “branch” representing a particular branch of human understanding.

The common “trunk” from which these “branches” spread outward consists of the fundamental laws of physics. Indeed, there are only four basic physical interactions. From these directly flow all the particular laws by which inanimate matter is governed. The structural properties of matter—from the structure of atoms to galaxies—are likewise determined by these fundamental interactions. Yet even these interactions did not “grow” out of nothing. There have been serious and not unsuccessful attempts to construct a grand unified field theory intended to unite all the interactions into one whole.

In the course of these efforts, a certain fundamental principle underlying the entire universe has begun to emerge with increasing clarity: the aesthetic principle of symmetry. Today, it has become entirely obvious to scientists working at the forefront of theoretical physics that the world is built according to the laws of beauty. It is the idea of beauty, expressed mathematically through the laws of symmetry, that “nourishes” the entire tree of knowledge.

The basis for this assertion lies in the fact that all physical interactions, as has now become evident, are in essence manifestations of, and even instruments for maintaining, a certain inherent set of hidden symmetries in nature. In physics, these symmetries are understood as the invariance of physical laws under certain transformations (gauge transformations). The search for such symmetries lies at the heart of the scientific strategy aimed at achieving a deeper understanding of reality.

It is presumed that in the earliest moments of the universe’s existence, at energies on the order of 10¹⁵ GeV, all physical interactions were merely different manifestations of a single fundamental interaction—a single constant. The symmetry that served as the foundation for the unification of these interactions was perfectly exact.⁷

The principle of beauty is also seen in the mathematical formulations of the laws of nature. Possessing almost absolute precision, these formulations exhibit strict conciseness and elegance. Open any physics handbook and you will immediately see this: the fundamental laws are recorded simply, without long, complicated, or clumsy formulas. Such cumbersome expressions are encountered only in approximate, computer-based calculations, which are far from perfection.

Thus, when formulating the law of universal gravitation, Isaac Newton primarily sought functional and algebraic simplicity. Likewise, Johannes Kepler, guided by a desire for conciseness, achieved greater accuracy in describing the motion of planets and greater simplicity in calculations by introducing elliptical orbits, and so forth.

Throughout the history of science, it has often happened that substantially different theories developed to explain new phenomena have been equally confirmed by experiment. In such cases, the concepts that are simplest are considered more preferable. Therefore, the principle of simplicity is a specific requirement for constructing scientific theories. Many renowned scientists have regarded simplicity as one of the most decisive criteria for the correctness of a hypothesis.

In this way, the simplicity and harmony of the world itself are reflected.

In our own era, this simplicity of nature is understood as the presence of a tendency toward limiting diversity. Scientific data show that behind all difference and complexity there are rhythms and repetitions, symmetries and invariants [10]. They are expressed in the “ability of nature” to create the vast diversity of the material world from only a limited set of elements.

In them lies the ultimate foundation for the very possibility of the existence of scientific laws, particularly the laws of conservation. Indeed, the very vocation of science can be seen as the discovery of the invisible simplicity that lies behind the visible complexity of the world.

As the famous naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, put it: “The Supreme Being, in creating the world, wished to use only one idea, varying it in every possible way, so that man might marvel at the perfection of its execution and the simplicity of its design.”

It is absolutely impossible to imagine that all of this could have come about randomly. It is far easier to conceive that, in a world without a Creator, what would spontaneously arise would be a chaotic heap of formless matter rather than the harmonious beauty of an orderly cosmos, perfect in its completeness and unity, founded upon a lofty aesthetic principle. Without an Intelligent, Almighty, and Generous Creator—the Architect and Sustainer of all that exists—sound human reason refuses to perceive the world as it appears, both to the unaided eye and in the light of the latest scientific findings.

The world is not only created, but also sustained by the Word of God; thus, the imprint of Divine beauty is inseparable from it. In a special way, this beauty pertains to man. Just as flowers adorn any plant, so humanity, by Divine design, crowns the whole tree of creation.

Between these “flowers” and all other parts of the structure of the universe there exists a very strict and rigid interdependence, which science has named the “anthropic principle.” This principle asserts that the universe is fitted for the existence of life, and that both the laws of physics and the initial parameters are tuned in such a way as to guarantee its appearance.

Modern physics testifies that the world around us is extremely “sensitive” to the numerical values of universal physical constants,⁸ since all the main features of the real world (the sizes of nuclei, atoms, planets, stars, and so on) are ultimately determined by the values of these fundamental constants.

The very existence of the world is contingent upon the fulfillment of very strict relationships between them. Tiny deviations—insignificant from the human point of view—from the astonishingly complex and incredibly precise numerical balance of these constants would have led to fatal consequences for the existing universe. Its nature would have been such that life within it would have been impossible.

The Principle of Sacrificial Love #

Thus, both the living and the inanimate natural world are built upon principles of beauty and perfection. Yet within the relationships between different parts of creation another fundamental principle is discernible—the principle of sacrificial love.

The very act of the creation of the world was a generous, selfless gift—a kind of sacrifice on the part of the Creator, for He “is not worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25).

Thus, all creation bears the mark of this self-giving. The entire inanimate world, exhausting its fertility, as it were sacrifices itself for the sake of the existence of the plant world. The plant world, in turn, sacrifices itself for the animal world, becoming its food. And all of creation, taken together, sacrificially serves man, as a loving mother carries her child in the womb and sacrifices all her strength for him.

The greatest sacrifice on Golgotha was offered by God Himself, to save man for eternal life.

Why, then, does man exist? Can he live only for himself, for his own pleasure, greedily and recklessly consuming the resources of nature?

“Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1), answers Holy Scripture. The circle is complete. Thus, the entire world exists upon the principles of sacrificial service and love.

Therefore, as long as people strive to fulfill the commandments of love toward God and neighbor, their existence is justified, and human life retains its purpose and meaning.

Literature

1. С.А.Майорова, А.Н.Ткачева, С.И.Яковленко, УФН, 1994. т. 164, № 3, стр. 297-307.

2. Девис П., Суперсила, Москва, Мир, 1989.

3. Линда А.Д., Физика элементарных частиц и инфляционная космология, Москва, Наука, 1990.

4. M.M.Waldrop, Science 224, 1225 (1984).

5. I.Goodwin, Physics Today 37, (№ 5), 63 (1984).

6. М.Дентон, Эволюция: Кризис теории, Бетесди, Адлер Паблишерс, 1986, стр. 336.

7. T. Dobzhansky, F. Ayala, G. Stebbins and J.W. Valentine, Evolution, Freeman, San Francisco, 1977.

8. J. Deley, Evol. Biol. 2, 103 (1968).

9. J.D. Barrow, F.J. Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.

10. (This reference is missing due to an editorial oversight.)