Before the Big Bang
This last weekend, Fr. Bob Spitzer SJ, member of the Oregon Province and founder of the Magis Reason and Faith Centre, offered a lively and informative seminar at the Old Student Centre in UCD, Dublin. By erudite exposition of the latest theories in physics woven through with the wit of a stand-up comedian, Fr. Bob kept his audience on its toes.
With a new and modern apologetics (Dictionary: reasoned arguments for a position, especially religious), Fr. Bob showed on the basis of the convergence of three major bodies of empirical evidence how the Big Bang Theory (BBT), formulated by Belgian Fr. Georges Lemaitre (1894-1866) in 1927, can be accepted as a reliable scientific theory. But the BBT leaves the question of the origin of the universe unanswered. What caused the Big Bang? Where did all this energy come from that caused the creation of time and space?
All scientists agree that the probability of a big bang giving us the universe we now know is almost infinitesimally small. It did not happen by accident: there must be a transcendent super-intelligence behind it. This is not the same as the evolutionary theory of intelligent design, but much more certain and convincing. Spitzer showed the absurdity of the multiverse theory (postulates an infinity of parallel universes to explain away the improbability of our universe happening by chance), for which he stated there is not shred of evidence, and which requires even more faith to believe in than faith in God. And even if there were an infinite number of parallel universes, the same question of the beginning would still remain.
Capito? Sounds heavy! Yes, it was heavy, but the whole teaching is available on the web in a series of 12 videos of 10 minutes each. Free!