What are the origins of the universe?
Did the creation of the world truly happen in 7 days?
Or was there the Big Bang?
Is the Church or science correct about the origin of the world?
Is the Genesis passage true? Should it be taken literally? Does it allow for interpretations? Is the Bible mistaken?
1 • The Origin of the World According to the Bible
The first two chapters of Genesis (the first book of the Bible) contain the narrative of the creation of the world.
Immediately, a curious fact stands out: there are two accounts of creation. The first begins with the first verse of the first chapter (Gen 1,1), and the second starts from the fourth verse of the second chapter (Gen 2,4).
Why this redundancy? Did the author of the text make a mistake?
(And then, if it was a mistake, couldn’t someone have corrected it over the centuries… has no Jew or Christian ever thought about it?)
To complicate matters, it adds that the two accounts are also quite different from each other! Among the many divergences, I’ll just point out these two:
- The division of creation into seven days is reported only in the first narrative.
- In the first account, man is the last of the creatures that God shapes (after creating “light” and everything else); in the second narrative, however, man is the first creature formed, and everything else is created around him.
Why these differences? Is one of the two accounts true and the other false? Or is neither true?
But then, what does it mean for the creation account to be true?
1.1 • Literary Genres in the Bible
The Bible is composed of around seventy books, written over a period of approximately eight centuries.
Therefore, it won’t surprise you to know that the texts comprising it are quite diverse.
Just as literature is categorized into the so-called three “classic” literary genres (epic, lyric, and drama), similarly, each book of the Bible belongs to one (or sometimes more than one) specific literary genre: there are historical books, wisdom literature, prophetic books, poetic books, narrative books, etc.
A literary genre serves as a framework of reading expectations, indicating what one should anticipate from a book or written work. It determines one’s approach to the text.
Therefore, the first step in correctly interpreting a book of the Bible is to identify its appropriate literary genre to avoid misunderstanding the meaning of the text at hand.
1.2 • Genesis, Meaning
Question #1: Is Genesis a historical book? Did the author intend to write a chronological account of the creation event?
Most likely not.
Question #2: Does the fact that the book of Genesis is not a historical book mean that it is false?
Certainly not.
Question #3: What is the author’s intent in the text of Genesis?
(Without delving too deeply into the details) the creation account in Genesis is a symbolic text that conveys truths about God and the world, the nature of humanity, and sin. However, to be fully understood, it requires what is called exegesis – that is, a correct interpretation of the text.
1.3 • Exegesis (and Heresy-gesis)
Just to be precise, this “rule” of exegesis clearly applies not only to Genesis.
There are some books in the Old Testament – for example – that belong to a genre we could label as “narrative” (excuse the term): stories that don’t aim at conveying historical truth but rather paradigmatic truth. Examples include the books of Jonah, Tobit, Judith, and Job.
What does “paradigmatic truth” mean?
It means that the Church Tradition hands down these books primarily because they present models of virtuous lives, examples of an attitude open to listening to God.
The Jewish community often employed these narrative devices as part of its culture.
Jesus himself used them, as seen in the parables he told (does it make sense to wonder if “the good Samaritan” or “the prodigal son” really existed?).
Disclaimer #1: This does NOT imply that these texts are false! Quite the opposite: they exude a truth of a different kind, one that has little to do with a news report or a documentary.
In other words, not every passage in the Bible should be interpreted literally.
Disclaimer #2: This does NOT mean that EVERY passage in the Bible should be interpreted allegorically, or else we end up with interpretations that sound like…
Just to say: the Gospels, unlike the Book of Job, have a chronistic nature. The prologue of the Gospel of Luke is imbued with the historiographical approach found, for example, in the “Histories” of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (the so-called “father of historiography“) or Thucydides‘ “History of the Peloponnesian War”.
The Gospels are not an allegorical narrative but a “reportage”.
But let’s not open too many parentheses… in fact, let’s return to the origins of the world…
…and to the gentleman I showed in the first photo (alongside Albert Einstein): Georges Lemaître.
2 • Georges Lemaître
Version #1: Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) wakes up in the morning, has breakfast, takes a shower, and then begins his research in the laboratory: Georges is a Belgian physicist and astronomer.
He went down in history because in 1927 he published the hypothesis of the primordial atom, now known as the Big Bang theory.
Version #2: Georges Lemaître wakes up in the morning, makes the sign of the cross, opens the Breviary, recites the Office of Readings, and then enters the church to celebrate Mass: Georges is a Belgian priest.
Who is this man? A scientist? A priest? A paradox? Fake news?
No, no hoax! (Feel free to check on the usual Wikipedia)
Georges Edouard Lemaître was born in Belgium (in Charleroi) on July 17, 1894.
Despite having decided on a life of consecration at the age of nine, his father asked him to prioritize university studies over the seminary.
Therefore, Georges embarked on an educational journey in the scientific field, which culminated in 1920 with the attainment of a doctorate in mathematics and physics (his doctoral thesis advisor was none other than Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin, known for the “prime number theorem”).
In the same year, he was finally able to enter the seminary.
During his years of formation, his superiors allowed him to dedicate his free time to study, and Georges took advantage of this opportunity to delve into the publications of various academics working on the theory of relativity: Albert Einstein, Arthur Eddington, Wolfgang Pauli, Théophile De Donder, etc.
In 1923, he was ordained a priest.
3 • The Big Bang
In 1927, Lemaître formulated a cosmological model in which the radius of the universe exponentially expanded over time.
Through this model, it was possible to derive a mathematical relationship between the distance and the velocity of galaxies (the same results were independently reached two years later by George Hubble, who formulated the law that bears his name).
(Errata corrige: This blog page was written in 2019; however, I later discovered that in 2018 the International Astronomical Union recommended renaming the “Hubble Law” to the “Hubble-Lemaître Law,” in recognition of the Belgian priest’s fundamental contribution to cosmology. For those who wish to learn more, I refer you to this link)
In 1931, Lemaître asserted that it would be possible to describe the origin of the universe through the laws of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
In the subsequent years, he developed this idea, which culminated in the formulation of the «primordial atom» model: a “nucleus” (about thirty times larger than the Sun) that encompasses all the energy/matter of the universe.
According to the model, the disintegration of this atom would not only have given rise to the universe but also to the very concept of space-time.
Does it ring a bell?
Exactly, it’s what later became known as the Big Bang theory.
4 • A Theory a Bit Too… Creationist?
Einstein was not entirely convinced by the idea of the primordial atom because it seemed to suggest the concept of an initial creation.
Alongside Einstein, other scientists believed that the Big Bang theory presupposed a metaphysical conception of the origin of the universe, based on the creation of the world.
In fact, the term “Big Bang” was not coined by Lemaître but by Fred Hoyle, who used it mockingly to describe the model proposed by the priest as a grand “firework display”.
However, later on, other significant scientists confirmed Lemaître’s discovery (in the 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson discovered the existence of the so-called «cosmic microwave background radiation»; in the 1980s, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking demonstrated the inevitability of an initial singularity in standard cosmological models).
Gradually, the scientific community reevaluated the model proposed by Lemaître, and the idea of the Big Bang slowly entered our “basic” knowledge.
To illustrate this, when Margherita Hack (*) was asked to explain what the Big Bang was in a children’s TV program, she replied:
(*) (Margherita Hack, 1922-2013, was an Italian astrophysicist and science communicator: the asteroid 8558 Hack has been named after her)
[…] it’s the biggest fart of the universe from which everything we can observe was born.
(MARGHERITA HACK, in an interview from 2011)
Indeed, a “perspicacious” statement, capable of simplifying a complex concept using an analogical language, making it understandable even for a child.
5 • Lemaître: Humility and Intellectual Honesty
It seems important to emphasize that Lemaître had no intention of blending the theological and the technical-scientific realms.
As an intellectually honest individual, he always considered it important not to confuse these “two paths”:
«There are two ways to attain truth. I decided to follow both. Nothing in my work, nothing of what I have learned in the studies of every science or religion, has changed my opinion. I have no conflicts to reconcile. Science has not altered my faith in religion, and religion has never conflicted with the conclusions obtained by scientific methods»
(from an interview given in 1933)
Ipse dixit.
Even though – to be fair – when I read this phrase, it really got on my nerves.
Alright… in the end, he was right to stay away from the unnecessary controversies in the ‘battle’ between science and faith.
Because, in the end, it only “serves” to quarrel.
So much so that in the 1930s, he received numerous accolades: in 1933, he became a member of the Science Class of the Royal Academy of Belgium; in ’34, he received the Mendel Medal at Villanova College in Pennsylvania and the Francqui Prize in Belgium; in ’35, he became an honorary canon of the Chapitre de Saint-Rombaut; in the same year, he received an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montreal, and so on…
The Age of the Universe
(A mini-paragraph that I didn’t know where to insert, so here it is – feel free to skip it if you prefer)
Another amusing thing I discovered is that, during Lemaître’s time, the estimated age of the universe was thought to be similar to that of the oldest rocks on Earth.
However, in the 1930s, he calculated that the universe was approximately 10 billion years old (an estimate that has proven to be very close to what is widely accepted today).
6 • Conclusion (and a Good Night Quote)
To wrap it up: I find the antagonistic opposition between the exegesis of Genesis and scientific models attempting to glimpse the origin of the universe to be unproductive.
Science has its area of competence (and the scientific method has its well-defined field of application).
The quest for truth regarding the origin of the cosmos (whether talking about the Big Bang, string theory, or whatever you prefer) is fascinating.
But it has nothing to do with what Genesis addresses.
I believe Genesis has a broader perspective; a perspective that holds true in the third millennium as it did in the 2nd century BC.
A timeless perspective; one fixed on the desire of Someone for things to exist. On the benevolence of this Someone toward creation. On a delight in how the work of His hands has taken shape. On the fact that things are good and it’s beautiful that they exist. And that man and woman (as flawed as they may seem) turned out really well.
I conclude with another quote from Lemaître:
Both – the Christian and the non-Christian – strive to decipher the intricate palimpsest of nature, where traces of the various stages of the long evolution of the world are covered and confused. Perhaps the believer has the advantage of already knowing that this enigma has a solution, that everything has been written by an intelligent being, and that the problem of nature has been posed to be solved, and its difficulty is undoubtedly proportional to the abilities of present and future humanity. This may not provide new resources for research, but it will contribute to maintaining this healthy optimism, without which such an effort could not last long.
(in O. GODART-M. HELLER, Les relations entre la science et la foi chez Georges Lemaître, in “Pontificia Accademia Scientiarum, Commentarii”, vol. III, no. 21, p. 11)
sale
(Summer 2019)
- DOMINIQUE LAMBERT, "Lemaître, Georges Edouard", in Dizionario enciclopedico di scienza e fede, Urbanian University Press - Città Nuova, Città del Vaticano - Roma, 2002, II, pp. 1909-1912
- Se poi non vi fidate del riferimento qui sopra perché è preso da un dizionario stampato «ner Vaticano», potete andare a leggere su Wikipedia... parola più parola meno, troverete le stesse informazioni!