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CNN article about physics discovery and its relationship to the God concept
vinlyn
Colorado...for now Veteran
I make no claims. Just thought it was interesting per many of our discussions here.
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I guess this article is a good lesson on how us Buddhists sound when we use QM or other scientific findings to support our own views.
I happen to think that it is ok to put out certain views as support for ones claims and when doing so those views should be up for scrutiny and review.
Overall this article didn't really bring up anything new. It used a recent finding about the Big Bang to argue for God creating the universe, using older arguments when the Big Bang replaced a steady state universe.
All of her points have counterpoints, like if God was the cause of the universe what caused God. Or, if the universe includes time and space and God exists outside of that how can God change from not creating to creating, which means time exists already.
I happen to like such discussions, the article asks if the Big Bang breakthrough offers proof (or evidence) of God, I say no.
I don't think it offers any more proof than God believers have previously offered. Just because something amazing occurred doesn't mean God was responsible for it, IMO. The idea that everything amazing is the result of God just never made much sense to me. Most people I know who support that tend to refuse to give credit to anyone/anything except God. Doctor uses his education to save your life? That was God. Plants bloom, that's God, too. Universe is created and expanded at an astronomical rate, clearly, that is God, too. It just never worked for me to say "well, we can't explain it so it must be God."
I found this article linked by @Silouan in another thread much more interesting.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427722/mathematics-of-eternity-prove-the-universe-must-have-had-a-beginning/
I pretty much agree with you.
But of course, I don't find the way of thinking you describe any less logical than, "We can't understand it, so it's imponderable".
Just in my experience, a lot of Christians I know feel a need to think about and analyze and refute anything that comes out in regards to the beginning of the universe, or death, and so on because they feel their belief/religion hinges on it. They have to find a way to explain it away so it still fits into their religion because to do otherwise might insinuate they have been wrong. I find that to be a little strange, why their belief in God or Jesus' teachings would be entirely dependent on whether the bible is 100% correct. But that is how many of them (who I interact with) seem to see things.
For me, there are things I don't know. I sometimes ponder them, but I don't really cling to it. Nothing I believe hinges on when the universe or the planet really started, or what happens after we die. I enjoy reading about those things, but I just read them and then I'm done, I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how that new information fits into my beliefs.
So for me it's not so much "we can't understand, it's imponderable." It's "right now we don't understand/don't have the information, and that's ok."
Creation, like karma for example, is an article of faith. This doesn't scientifically prove that God created the universe, but reduces for now the uncertainty that it had a beginning. There are many points of view about God and creation and I can see this as being problematic for even some Christians.
Of course there are even counterpoints to those counterpoints.
If God is considered a spiritual order, free from every necessity, eternal, uncaused, source of being beyond all being, not as the universe itself or an object in it, nor subordinate to any laws then the word “cause” in reference to Him will mean something other than what we normally mean.
That being said one could then further say: God is separate from creation by nature and not by location. Creation is not the infinite diffusion of the Godhead, but the realization of His divine will, and creation's point of contact with the Godhead is its eternal reason or logos established in His uncreated energies which is at the same time the end towards which it tends; its Alpha and Omega, and since there was never a “time” He was not we can't attribute time to the establishment and realization of His divine will for its action was instantaneous and outside of time.
St. Basil saw the 'in the beginning' of Genesis as the beginning of time, but 'as the beginning of road is not yet a road, and the beginning of house is not yet a house, so the beginning of time is not yet time, not even the smallest part of it.'- In Hexaemeron, homilia I, 6, P.G., XXIX
Stephen Hawking supports and attributes a beginning to physical laws. How far can we go in search of the origin of these laws?
For most with a faith/ devotional leaning, believing is the foundation of understanding.
For the rest, belief & understanding have a more fluidic relationship to each other.
Unfortunately, most Western Buddhists are so wrapped up in disproving their old religion, that they can't see this equal truth in their new religion. As the old saying goes, "A new Catholic is the most devout Catholic", and that works for other religions, as well.
I think that you cannot make the assumption that the agent was separate from its effect. All other agents we have observed in reality are all dependently originated. So why posit a God seeing as nobody has discovered a causeless agent?
I appreciate your points @Silouan, they're not your standard theistic fare.
So can I ask, the main difference between your God and the Buddhist Dharmakaya is that God has a will?
It doesn't seem to me creation and karma are articles of the same type of faith, though. Karma, if reduced to it's simplest form, isn't just a theory, it isn't something I have to take on faith because I can see it in action. When I do A the result is B. As far as taking karma farther to past and future lives, that brings more faith in, indeed. But it is more an extension of applying what I can see in action here, to my belief in rebirth. So yes, there is an article of faith but not quite the same as saying "I believe this to be true because I read it, despite whether there is any proof for it." There are too many questions to ask where in Christianity (or most theistic religions) the answer is simply to have faith. Which to mean doesn't seem to be much of an answer at all because I can't make sense of it. If it works for others, then that's good for them. For me, I have to see something i action to lead me to believe it is at least possible, a reason for faith based on experience, facts, whatever right now. (if that makes sense)
For me, I might compare my religion now to my experiences in religions of my past, but I try not to compare them to others' experiences. Just because I don't believe in God or creationism, doesn't mean I go around telling everyone else they shouldn't. But I might explain why I don't believe in things, as topics come up.
I'll never understand how it gets boiled down to an intelligent creator or random chance.
I doubt it is either of these as it doesn't make sense to have an absolute beginning.
All points and counterpoints aside in the end much of what we believe comes down to trust in something we can't see or know for ourselves atm. Why I prefer Buddhism over other sources comes down to the truths in Buddhism are realized truths and we can ask others who have spent the time and effort to realize them, so we can place our faith in them. In the theistic faiths the truths are revealed, meaning they have been given to another who then disseminates them, there is no peer review as it were.
Come on now. There has been far more dissection and "peer review" in Christianity than in almost any other religion. It is picked apart constantly. It is part of the reason that there are literally dozens and dozens of different denominations.
The article claims: "The new discovery also has significant implications for the Judeo-Christian worldview, offering strong support for biblical beliefs."
No it doesn't!
The type of peer review I was talking about is the personal experience of the deep realizations that come about from years of inner work, not really the intellectual hashing out of ideas or strong feelings.
That's okay. And I still feel that Buddhism has lacked "the intellectual hashing out of ideas or strong feelings"...a concept that in general is avoided in many Buddhist societies in the world.
Each has a value.
In essence this discovery is this: As the universe grew out of nothing, and developed a critical mass it became something that was over-inflated (and this may have been the first instance of an inflated ego), but in doing so it realised this: if it expanded too quickly and rapidly it would blow itself apart, however, if it did not inflate, it would not become anything significant. So it opted for the middle way for its own survival.
So my opinion of it is that these finding just reflect what we are, both on a macroscopic and microscopic level. Nothing more or less.
The more you probe...?
As the universe grew out of nothing,
I think science is moving towards the idea that there was something before the Big Bang.
It has for some time. Even Hawking admits the term "nothing" is a misnomer. The term was used for the lack of any meaningful label but only confused the issues.
If we can use the word "it" when we are talking about nothing then we are misusing the term "nothing".
Nothing doesn't exist and it never could have.
Apparently I can't edit from my phone. Before anyone makes light of my contradiction above please remember its late and I tried, lol.
Thanks and you're right, the mystical theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church isn't the standard theology of the west, though there may be influences and elements found in its various forms.
Like differing perspectives on the Trinity found within Christianity the same can be said of Buddhism and the Trikaya, so I really can't speak directly about the differences. I can only provide a certain perspective regarding God, and then you would need to compare that with your perspective on the Dharmakaya, which I would be really interested in hearing.
From the perspective of the previously mentioned ancient tradition, the Holy Trinity is considered an expression of God's infinite love in three persons or hypostatis which are undivided in essence/nature or will, and there was never a time He was not. God, the uncaused Mind, holds all forms of existence only in Himself and is aware of everything. He is absolute existence, goodness, and life because He is complete and free from every necessity nor is He subject to any laws. There is no development, progression, or anything higher or an end to which He tends.
St Gregory of Nazianzus says in Oration 31, in On God and Christ;
"We have one God because there is a single Godhead. Though there are three objects of belief, that derive from the single whole and have reference in it. They do not have degrees of being God or degrees of priority over against one another. They are not sundered in will or divided by power. You cannot find here any of the properties inherent in things divisible. It is as if there were a single intermingling of light, which existed in three mutually connected Suns. When we look at the Godhead, the primal cause, the sole sovereignty, we have a mental picture of the single whole, certainly. But when we look at the three in whom the Godhead exists, and at those who derive their timeless and equally glorious being from the primal cause, we have three objects of worship."
When describing aspects and qualities, such as love and intelligence for instance, in reference to God they are infinitely deeper and surpass any comparisons that can be made with creation. With that being said, creation is the realization of His loving will freely given. Creation is called from that which was not to participate and share in that love and life, so in a way it can also be said that in the beginning there was love.
Dependent, conscious beings not only aspire to a deeper knowledge of themselves but also to a direct relationship with the absolute to gain the possibility of living in the unlimited and endless absolute through their efforts toward growth in goodness, love, and well-being.
When referring to creation ex nihilo, or out of nothing, it does not refer to a literal definition, because that would be a contradiction for there is nothing outside of God, but rather that creation has no ontological foundation in itself nor in the divine essence or nature. It is of a different nature because it has a beginning, is temporal, and dependent.
The divine essence would not be divine if there was not the mutual love of the Holy Trinity. A monopersonal God would neither be a person or God, because He would lack perfection in that his omnipotence would not be united to goodness or love making him incapable of forming a loving relationship with another form of existence. He would be like an impersonal essence subordinated to laws of evolution or emanation as is found in forms of pantheism.
It is my understanding that the doctrine of karma is a core Buddhist doctrine very much a part of the becoming or existence of beings linked with the conception of rebirth, and that it is not just simple cause and effect or linear in dimension.
Do we know with certainty that what we are experiencing right now could be the result of some action or deed committed in an infinite past?
Perhaps we can use inference to reduce uncertainty and grow in conviction but there will still be required an element of faith to enter as admitted, but this no different from what other forms of spirituality require at some point.
And for those who look for spiritual reasons and explanations for their experiences be they Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc can each relate them to the truths found in their respective traditions, so I don't think it would be correct to say that others don't have a way of personal revelation.
For instance, eastern Christianity has ancient practices handed and passed down by the desert fathers and mothers, like the Hesychasm, available and open to all as part of their personal spiritual practice.
Vladimir Lossky, in the introduction to his Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church says the following: