Before The Beginning

Thinking maturely about the Christian faith
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Before The Beginning

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ January 3, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment
From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Before the beginning
Date: 30 Mar 1999 13:14:32 GMT

This post reponds to an article now expired; sorry for the delay.
However, a new subject heading in this instance is no bad thing.

In aus.religion.christian Able <> wrote:
[snip]
> >> >I think many statements on the inadequacy of scientific knowledge are
> >> >transparent avoidance of the enormous success of tools of science,
> >> >and avoidance of the need to let a cherished belief structure be
> >> >informed or modified in the light of discoveries from that source
> >> >of knowledge, so risky and uncontrolled.
> >>
> >> Well look where it got Polkinghorne..
> >> The Universe is 15 Billion years old, but God was not there before the
> >> Big bang..awesome.
> >> Did he forget to read Genesis 1?
> >
> >I've already provided a long extract where Polkinghorne
> >explicitly discusses Genesis 1.
> >
> >For that matter, the phrase "in the beginning" can be taken as
> >"in the beginning of time", if you so desire. The bible does not
> >address the matter of time extending before the beginning.
>
>  I think we need to address this.
>
> > It is
> >merely our natural but invalid presumption that time is a backdrop
> >in which all events occur and all things have existence (even God)
> >that leads us to presume it makes sense to speak of before "the
> >beginning".
>
> There WAS a before the beginning!
> It is in the Bible.
>
> Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of
> the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in
> love:
>
> >Spacetime physics leads theologians like Polkinghorne to
> >suggest that God is not just another entity existing through time,
> >but actually the very source of time, which is itself aspect of the
> >created universe, and not something that proceeds into an eternal
> >"past" prior to "the beginning".
>
>  How did God choose us before the foundation of the world ?

Perhaps this was lyrical language not specifically concerned with
purely temporal orderings.

I personally think that the intent of this passage is not in
conflict with the notion of time itself being an aspect of the
created universe.

But if you take the use of the word "before" to imply that time
existed "when" God chose us, and this was "before" the foundation
of the world as measured in the flow of time, then you have to
face two horrible consequences:

(1) Time is not part of God's creation.
(2) Your belief entails a proposition addressed and refuted by science.

I am confining my remarks to a couple of extracts of what follows.
I did, however, appreciate the constructive spirit shown in text
not quoted, and I have tried to reciprocate.

[snip]
> My original tongue in cheek comment has gotten out of hand.
> What I am really saying is that dimension is a bad term to use.
> It confuses things such as a "real" dimension of Length, Breadth and
> Width...common use terms ..with the Dimension of Time, or the
> Dimension of religion for that matter.
>    You must forgive me for thinking in real three dimensions.

No problem: I don't blame you at all for thinking in three
dimensions. We all do: that is why 2-dimensional curved surfaces
embedded in a flat 3-space are so useful as explanatory tools.

However, I am using "dimension" in the standard way: length,
breadth and depth. 3-dimensional means a space in which things
require three spatial co-ordinates: they have length, breadth
and depth.

It turns out that real space really is curved, and that it is the
rectangular co-ordinate systems that are an unreal approximation.

Rectangular co-ordinates work okay on small local scales, but in
actuality real space is curved.  It remains three dimensional, but
it does not have any global rectangular co-ordinate system, and it
does not have a nice simple Euclidean structure. Real length, real
breadth and real depth really cannot be extended indefinitely to
give a Euclidean co-ordinate system. Really.

You earlier presented a quote from "A Journey into Gravity
and Spacetime" by John Wheeler, repeated here:
: "If you have trouble visualizing what this embedding space looks like,
: you are in good company. John Wheeler confesses in his 1990 book A
: Journey into Gravity and Spacetime that "I confess I have never been
: able myself to picture directly this mythical, flat, infinite 4-space
: and the 3-space universe embedded in it...This flat, 4-dimensional
: space has nothing whatsoever directly to do with our real physical
: world as spacetime, even though that also is four-dimensional. Almost
: all of this [embedding] space is totally out of our reach, quite
: untouchable, pure talk... Only [3-dimensional space] itself is real
: [to us]". 

I have since obtained the book from the library, and now recommend
it without reservation. It is superb: very readable, beautifully
illustrated, full of little illustrative and amusing examples,
keeping technical mathematical content to a minimum, and yet dealing
with many subtle aspects of general relativity. The author is one
of the world's leading experts in relativity; he is also clearly
a gifted writer.

The quote you provide is from page 250; although in the original
the latter half of the quote actually comes before the former.

More seriously, without the surrounding context it is possible a
reader might not be aware of Wheeler's intent.  Wheeler is actually
saying here that 3-dimensional space is curved, but this curvature
is NOT due to our 3-space being a curved object embedded in some
4-dimensional space. The only real space is our 3-dimensional space,
and curvature of our space exists without there being any higher
dimensional "flat" space (rectangular co-ordinates) at all. What is
unreal is actually "flatness".

This runs counter to our intuitions; but that's reality for you!

For better and more beautifully expressed detail, get the book.

[snip]
> >Most of what I now know in these areas has been picked up after
> >graduation from my own reading. I went to some effort over a
> >number of years to wade through a few text books on relativity
> >(not popularizations, but texts used to teach the fundamentals)
> >so that I would have a smattering of the background that would let
> >me appreciate the fascinating world of modern cosmology. I am not
> >an expert.
>
> But you speak with much more authority and conviction than the
> Nasa expert that answers questions on the subject on the Web!!
> He has not your confidence..
> You are  the Christian Graus of Cosmology.  

When it comes to propositions about the real world, I have, like the
Nasa expert, been careful to qualify myself. On the bound to time I
have said it is a quite solid conclusion. On whether the universe
is open or closed, I have said it is not known. On whether there
are an infinite number of stars, I have said it is an open question.

When it comes to technical definitions of terms or the content of
particular theories with which I am sufficiently familiar, I have,
like the Nasa expert, expressed myself with total confidence.

I have also repeatedly indicated the limits of my expertise, and
provided pointers to others more competent on fine details.

So let me defer to Dr Odenwald again.

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/astro/q25.html

is a long answer to the question "How is it that, according to General
Relativity, that space can be curved?". He concludes with the sentence

"The conclusion is inescapable, though intuitively troubling.

In the presence of gravity, space-time must be curved."

There you go. No doubt Dr Odenwald is generally a nicer and more
gracious person than I, no irony intended.  But when he really does
know something, he is not slow to say so, without qualification.

Best wishes -- Chris