Cheap Seats 2021

The Heart of the Matter - 02/08

By Rich Trzupek
  Whether or not you ascribe to a certain theology or none at all, there is one overriding question that you should consider when considering the nature of your existence. That question is this: Does creation require a Creator?
  That’s a short version of the concept that separates people of faith from people who value only the secular. It’s commonly called “the cosmological principle.” The substance of the cosmological principle starts with the undeniable evidence that we exist. Because we exist, it is clear to the faithful that some sentient force causes us to exist.
  Atheist thinkers, like the late Steven Hawking, have long postulated that existence can be explained as an exercise in random chance. Something, according to this view, can arise from nothing and does not require the guiding hand of a sentient Creator operating in plane of existence beyond our capability to understand as human beings.
  Much of this thinking among brilliant scientists like Hawking arises from a part of the equations that are at the core of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. The concept is called “vacuum energy.”
  There’s a lot of weird stuff that naturally grows out of General Relativity. Not the least of which is that both time and space had a starting point – that there was a “day without a yesterday” when time and space sprang into being. We call that event the “Big Bang.”
  Because Einstein tells us that nothing (a vacuum) still contains some form of energy, one can speculate that this energy can spontaneously and mindlessly create random existence. But here’s the weird thing about vacuum energy: The amount of vacuum energy available – according to Einstein’s equations – is independent of volume. The universe contains as much vacuum energy as my little toe, in other words. That’s both bizarre and fascinating. And rather than being a replacement for a Divine Creator, the existence of vacuum energy could very well be one of the Divine Creator’s calling cards.
  As creatures whose vision is constrained by time and space, it’s very hard for many of us to come to grips with the idea that there might be realities to existence of which we are not only not aware, but of which we cannot possibly be aware. The correct answer to the question “what happened before the Big Bang?” Is that there could be no “before” the Big Bang, because “before” implies that the Big Bang occurred at a moment in time, rather than being the event that created moments in time.
  Secular atheists ponder the Big Bang from the secular perspective: What caused the Big Bang? Whether they realize it or not, people of faith approach the question from a different perspective: What marvelous wonders and mysteries lie beyond the constraints of space and time? Catholics like myself, and like many other people who believe in a Creator, often speak of “the mystery of faith.” The choice of the descriptor “mystery” is a mistake. It is an acknowledgement that we are ever unraveling the wonders of Divine Creation through prayer, through scientific inquiry and through faith.
  The Christmas season just past is the opening chapter in a wonderful and hopeful tale in which the Creator is not revealed per se, but in which the marvelous and mysterious connection between the Creator and creation is made more clear.
  The two most important Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, speak to the most important issue that anyone should wrestle with. The atheist view holds that our existence is fleeting, ultimately defined by the physical limitations of time and space that we can understand. The atheist believes that we blink into existence and, sometime later, blink out, never to transcend the physical world we once occupied.
  That is, for me, a pretty depressing view of life. I cannot deny that it may be accurate. I do not have the capability to see the unseen so as to be able to assert that the unseen exists. Maybe existence is all random chance and we are but sparks that briefly shine and disappear in the cosmological scheme of things. It may be so, but the pointlessness of such an existence is overwhelmingly sad. I believe there is much more to being than that which we conceive of.
  I choose to believe. It’s not a choice I would impose on you or anyone. The choice must be yours, or it doesn’t matter a whit. But I put it to you that you should not deny yourself the journey just because you cannot be sure of the destination.  
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com