The Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest galactic neighbor
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some passages that I marked in Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology<\/em> (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
First, an obvious but extremely important point:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
An empirical scientific method will always seek to inquire about natural causes; only a nonempirical metaphysical naturalism will insist that they can always be found. \u00a0(112)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next, two passages about history that I will myself need to relate, and to get correct, in something that I\u2019m writing:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The twentieth century saw dramatic changes in our understanding of the origins and development of the universe. \u00a0The first two decades were dominated by the assumption that the universe was static. \u00a0This led Albert Einstein to make what he later came to regard as one of the greatest blunders of his life. \u00a0In 1915, Einstein published his ten coupled, nonlinear, partial differential equations, now known as the \u201cEinstein field equations,\u201d which set out some fundamental features of his theory of general relativity. \u00a0The solution of his equations indicated that the universe was not static, but expanding. \u00a0Alarmed by an apparent inconsistency with the prevailing model of a static universe, Einstein brought his theories into line with it by adding an artificial term \u2014 now known as the cosmological constant<\/em> \u2014 to his field equations, stabilizing his model of the universe against expansion or contraction. \u00a0Yet if Einstein had possessed sufficient confidence in his original equations, on the basis of his theory he would have predicted<\/em>\u00a0that the universe was expanding or contracting, long before there was any observational evidence for any such expansion.<\/span><\/p>\nDuring the 1920s, evidence began to emerge suggesting that the universe was indeed expanding. \u00a0Up to this point, it had been generally (though not universally) assumed that the nebulae observed in the night sky \u2014 such as M31 in Andromeda or M42 in Orion \u2014 were part of the Milky Way, the galaxy within which our solar system is located. \u00a0On the basis of observations at the newly constructed 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson (California), Edwin Hubble (1883-1953) proposed that these objects were galaxies in their own right, lying far beyond our own. \u00a0Developing work on the spectral redshifts of these galaxies, Hubble was able to propose that the greater the distance between any two galaxies, the greater their relative speed of separation. \u00a0The universe was expanding, with increasing speed and apparently irreversibly. \u00a0(112-113)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other ways of thinking were certainly possible. \u00a0In 1948, Fred Hoyle and others developed a \u201csteady state\u201d theory of the universe, which held that the universe, although expanding, could not be said to have had a beginning. \u00a0Matter was continuously created in order to fill in the voids arising from cosmic expansion. \u00a0(113)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Some passages that I marked in Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). \u00a0 First, an obvious but extremely important point: \u00a0 An empirical scientific method will always seek to inquire about natural causes; only a nonempirical metaphysical naturalism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11764,10253,12950,11761,1137,8307,12944,132,12953,11767,2007,1763,1760,3652,3814,12947,12956,12959,3787,10130],"class_list":["post-86144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-constant","tag-cosmic","tag-cosmic-constant","tag-cosmological","tag-cosmological-constant","tag-cosmos","tag-edwin-hubble","tag-einstein","tag-expanding","tag-expansion","tag-fred-hoyle","tag-galaxies","tag-galaxy","tag-hoyle","tag-hubble","tag-lambda","tag-nebula","tag-nebulae","tag-steady-state","tag-universe"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Andromeda](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/ANDROMEDA_GALAXY.jpg\")
<\/a>