“[God] stretches out the
heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.” (Isaiah 40:22, and ten other similar
passages)
In his article, “What About Atheism & Agnosticism?” (The Lutheran Layman, (July-August
2014), p.3), Rev. Peter Kirby wrote
with respect to the details of God’s creation, “No one was around at the beginning of the universe…to report on what
happened.” Kirby’s entire article
can be read online at http://www.lhm.org/ layman/default.asp. The implication of his statement is that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
interpretation of Genesis need not be reconsidered because science has nothing
to say about beginnings. Yet for not
only biblical reasons, but also scientific ones, he is wrong. Although his statement is obviously true,
that fact is utterly irrelevant to his assertion that modern science is ignorant
about the history of the cosmos. As we
shall see, God has so constructed the laws of His universe (specifically light-travel
speed) that we have the capacity to view virtually the entire history of the
cosmos from the vantage point of our time.
Consequently, we don’t need to have been present at its very beginning
in order to observe what happened then. For example, although I have never actually crossed
the border from Israel into Syria, a few decades ago I had a broad unrestricted view across
miles of its territory as I looked out from its boundary with Israel at the Golan
Heights. Similarly, the finite aspect of the speed of light makes
it possible for us to look beyond the boundary of the present time, out into
the past. I invite your initial
skepticism on this matter provided you follow me on these things. I assure you that this is no trick.
We can only see the moon as it was; never as it actually is. That is how our perceptions must always be except when we are viewing local objects. For example, when we see either a friend
sitting across the table or Mount Rainier on the horizon, we effectively observe
these two objects in the present moment for the reason that they are nearby. On the other hand, when we look upwards into
the heavens we are always looking into the past. The reason for this is that light does not
travel at infinite speed. Instead, it races
away at 186,000 miles per second (which seems
like infinite speed compared to a Corvette)!
Indeed such a velocity is the equivalent of 7 times around the world every
second. But, again, that journey is not
instantaneous. With respect to our view
of planets, stars, and galaxies, light-travel realities mean we are only able
to see these individual celestial objects after light from their surfaces has
traveled the entire distance between us in order to finally reach our eyes. Except from within our solar system, astronomical
distances in “light years” are the measured lapse of TIME in years taken for
the light to complete the respective journeys because, again, light travel
takes time.
According to the above considerations,
in round figures (pun intended) we see our moon as it was 1.25 seconds back in
time, the Sun is likewise 8 minutes so, Jupiter 40 minutes, and our image of every
star in the Big Dipper involves seeing them between 80 and 100 years back in
the past (before most of us were born). Peering
out to the edge of our own galaxy (we are half-way out from the center) entails
looking back to 25 thousand years ago, while the view of our nearest
neighboring galaxy (Andromeda) involves seeing it as it was 2.3 million years
ago, and so forth and so on. Indeed the
Hubble Extreme Deep Field photo (henceforth HEDF) reveals the primitive state
of those galaxies at a much, much, younger universe 13.2 billion years back
into the past (take a gaze at the image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_
Extreme_Deep_Field).
To be continued...
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