Tuesday, March 31, 2020

End Of The World: Science & Christianity Are In Agreement!


            Every sincere Christian would be longing for the return of the Lord Jesus in all HIS power and glory. Whenever we face severe adversity, we long for HIS Second Coming. Even now we pray, come Lord Jesus come (Revelation 22:20). Come and deliver us from all evil.

            We are aware that Christ’s second coming will usher the end of the world (Matthew 24:3b). The Lord’s second coming is imminent and will be sudden (1 Peter 4:7; Luke 12:40).

            Interestingly, secular scientists also think that the end of the world is closer than ever before. They moved the Doomsday clock 100 seconds to midnight on January 23, 2020 (and they did not even consider Coronavirus!):1

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—a nonprofit group of scientists and security experts who monitor the possibility of Armageddon caused by humans—has moved the Doomsday Clock 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has been in its 75-year history.
“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement. “The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”
According to the Bulletin, the Doomsday Clock is a visual representation of how close humanity is to ending itself. Every year since the clocks inception in 1947, a group of scientists and experts gather to discuss the possibility of the end of the world and adjust the clock accordingly. It’s meant as a warning.
At 100 seconds to midnight, the Bulletin is saying it believes Earth is closer to global disaster than at any other time in its history.

            Eschatology is the study of the last things. Theologically it means the study of the consummation of history, the completion of God’s working in the world. Theological eschatology is the Christian eschatology, whereas Physical Eschatology is a scientific field of study.

            In science, Eschatology is a branch of Cosmology, and studies all things pertaining to the end of this world. Dr. William Lane Craig posits, “Eschatology is no longer exclusively the subject matter of theology but has in the last quarter century or so emerged as a new branch of cosmology (the study of the large-scale structure and history of the universe), being a sort of mirror image of cosmogony, that branch of cosmology that studies the origin of the universe. Not that the future of the universe will resemble its past; far from it. But just as physical cosmogony looks back in time to retrodict the history of the cosmos based on traces of the past and the laws of nature, so physical eschatology looks forward in time to predict the future of the cosmos based on present conditions and laws of nature.”2

            How would our universe end? Here’s what the scientists believe:3

Scientists believe that eventually even the universe will end. How precisely that will happen is a matter of debate, but scientists have come up with three main theories as to how the entire universe will die.
The first theory is called the Big Crunch. Essentially, the Big Crunch theory states that one day the expansion of the universe will reverse. Matter will solely become compressed until the universe returns to its state prior to the Big Bang and reforms the Cosmic Egg. From here, some people theorize that another Big Bang will occur and a new universe will form. That universe then will expand, eventually reach its full size, collapse in a Big Crunch, form a Cosmic Egg and repeat the entire cycle.
The second major theory is that of the Big Rip. The Big Rip is the exact opposite of the Big Crunch. In the Big Rip theory, the universe will continue expanding forever. Eventually, this expansion will become so great that molecules, atoms and even subatomic particles are torn apart. The very fabric of space-time will be shredded and all semblance of existence will cease.
The third major theory of the end of the universe is called the Big Freeze or, more ominously, heat death. Like with the Big Rip theory, the Big Freeze theory states that the universe will continue to expand forever. Eventually, it will become so large that particles can no longer interact with each other. The expansion of the universe will become faster than the speed of light, and the maximum entropy of the universe will have been reached. No more heat transfer or work can be complete from a physics standpoint, and the universe ends quietly and meekly.

            How do theological eschatology and physical eschatology compare? Dr. Craig says that they do not disagree, “…even on a purely physical, scientific approach to eschatology, there is the imminent possibility of an apocalyptic scenario that would involve worldwide destruction.”4

            Dr. Craig outlines a parallel between the theological eschatology and physical eschatology, “The parallels between the theological and physical eschatological apocalypses are striking and unmistakable: a complete and worldwide metamorphosis of nature, sudden, without warning, like a thief in the night, unavoidable, issuing in a new heavens and a new earth, a renovated universe.”5

            Where do physical eschatology and theological eschatology diverge? Dr. Craig outlines the disagreement between physical and theological, “The difference between the two is, of course, for Christians we look forward to this event as the Second Coming of Christ and the deliverance from this world and its shortcomings and being ushered into the new heavens and new Earth that God has prepared for us.”6

            Does physical eschatology believe in a sudden and imminent extinction of our universe just as theological eschatology (2 Peter 3:10-12)? Yes! Dr. Craig posits, “Doubtless, one of the chief difficulties presented by Christian eschatology is that it just seems incredible that next year, say, or next Tuesday the universe is going to be obliterated by the return of Christ and Judgement Day…physical eschatology itself contains its own apocalyptic scenario of impending worldwide destruction…it is unpredictable and could happen, in the words of Adams and Laughlin, "at virtually any time, as soon as tomorrow." [40]”7

            Finally, physical eschatology provides sufficient scope for the existence of a transcendent Creator of our universe. This is an intriguing likeness to the theological eschatology.8 

            Cosmologists agree that our universe could not have existed eternally. Our universe ought to have had a beginning. The beginning, then, should have had a beginner – the one who caused the universe to exist. Dr. Craig explains:9

Of course, physical eschatologists might ask whether there is any reason to take seriously the hypothesis of a transcendent, intelligent agent with requisite power over the course of nature to affect the projected trajectories of physical eschatology. Intriguingly, physical eschatology itself furnishes grounds for taking seriously such a hypothesis. As we have seen, already in the nineteenth century scientists realized that the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the universe as a whole implied that the universe will eventually come to a state of equilibrium and suffer heat death. But this apparently firm projection raised an even deeper question: if, given sufficient time, the universe will suffer heat death, then why, if it has existed forever, is it not now in a state of heat death? If in a finite amount of time the universe will inevitably come to equilibrium, from which no significant further change is physically possible, then it should already be at equilibrium by now, if it has existed for infinite time. Like a ticking clock, it should by now have run down. Since it has not yet run down, this implies, in the words of Richard Schlegel, "In some way the universe must have been wound up." [8]
… Thus, the same pointed question raised by classical physics persists: why, if the universe has existed forever, is it not now in a cold, dark, dilute, and lifeless state? In contrast to their nineteenth century forbears, contemporary physicists have come to question the implicit assumption that the universe is eternal in the past. P. C. W. Davies reports,
Today, few cosmologists doubt that the universe, at least as we know it, did have an origin at a finite moment in the past. The alternative - that the universe has always existed in one form or another—runs into a rather basic paradox. The sun and stars cannot keep burning forever: sooner or later they will run out of fuel and die.
The same is true of all irreversible physical processes; the stock of energy available in the universe to drive them is finite, and cannot last for eternity. This is an example of the so-called second law of thermodynamics, which, applied to the entire cosmos, predicts that it is stuck on a one-way slide of degeneration and decay towards a final state of maximum entropy, or disorder. As this final state has not yet been reached, it follows that the universe cannot have existed for an infinite time. [11]
Davies concludes, "The universe can't have existed forever. We know there must have been an absolute beginning a finite time ago." [12]
… The plausibility of Christian eschatology vis à vis the projections of physical eschatology is thus inherently bound up with one's ontology. If, as physical eschatology itself intimates, there exists a personal, transcendent agent who created the universe with all its natural laws and boundary conditions, and if that agent has raised from the dead Jesus of Nazareth, who promised his eschatological return, then it is eminently rational to entertain "the blessed hope" of Christian eschatology, while accepting the findings of physical eschatology as more or less accurate projections based on present conditions.

Endnotes:

1https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/epgzqj/scientists-think-were-closer-to-the-end-of-the-world-than-ever

2https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/christian-doctrines/time-eternity-and-eschatology/

3https://www.beliefnet.com/news/what-does-science-say-about-the-end-of-the-world.aspx

4https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-the-last-things/doctrine-of-the-last-things-part-8/

5https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/science-theology/the-end-of-the-world/

6https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-the-last-things/doctrine-of-the-last-things-part-8/

7https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/science-theology/the-end-of-the-world/

8https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/christian-doctrines/time-eternity-and-eschatology/

9https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/science-theology/the-end-of-the-world/

Websites last accessed on 31st March 2020.

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