Over the edge

If you go out tonight and take the hand of your beloved to gaze up lovingly at the sky, it will be dark. That may seem like an obvious statement, but it is proof that the universe is limited – it has a boundary. It may be big but it is still finite.

For every doubling of distance between you and a light source, such as a star, the light intensity reaching you will decrease by four times. However, in the context of the universe, each doubling of distance will increase the volume of space between you and the light source, by eight times. That would enable more stars to occupy the same space, increasing the cumulative light intensity by a greater degree than is lost to distance.

The density of the universe is such that the volume of space does not expose us to a vast amount of cumulative light, yet, if the universe was eternal, the cumulative light would be infinite and we would never have nighttime.

I am reluctant to get into heavy discussions from a deeply scientific perspective, for I am not qualified to engage at that level. However, the theological and philosophical perspectives of the universe will always intrigue me.

The idea that the universe is finite presents suggests that someone standing outside the universe would perceive it as a discrete sphere. It may be vastly complex, yet it is still just a variation of our own atom with its many random and complex electron orbits revolving around a common nucleus together with other more exotic, sub-atomic particles. Maybe we are a mere atom in the infinity that lies beyond our universe.

I recently argued that Jesus stands theologically at the confluence of time and eternity, namely at the edge of the universe, which we now know to be a defined state of existence. Job could not have known that when He said, “He stands on the circle of the heavens”. Evidently heaven is also at the northern edge of the universe, because we read about mount Zion being on the sides of the north.

Some scientists tried to argue for a static universe model, saying that it just is. However, there is ample evidence that it is expanding from a central point, confirming that it also had a finite beginning. Indeed, time, as we know it, was initiated at the ultimate trigger moment of the Big Bang event. Scientists claim to be able to look back, physically or theoretically, to within 10-43 seconds after the start of Big Bang started. However, small as that time lapse was, it was an eon in its own right, during which every dimension of life (length, breadth, depth and time) and the four basic forces of all matter were initiated.

So what do you think? How old is this universe and how did it evolve from its small, explosive beginning to the vast, complex system we now know as the universe? Does God dwell inside it or just beyond its fringe? If it has a beginning, will it also end?

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net