Why 11 Dimensions is Better

I thought this was a great interview, from my perspective as a follower of Jesus; because, I believe it is an example of the positive direction that science is going in overall. In order to see this however, you need to take into account where scientists were and what they used to think, and contrast that with what new possibilities they are opening up to, as they make these new discoveries. Let me give you an example. Once upon a time scientists used to believe that the universe was eternal, with no beginning and no end. This is what they believed all the way up until the 20th century. Needless to say, this view was at odds with what the Bible teaches about the creation. Therefore, it was impossible for a Christian to hold on to the belief that the universe had a beginning, and also be respected by the scientific community; because, as far as we knew, there was no empirical evidence to support this claim. However, in the 1920's, the Hubble Telescope confirmed the existence of other galaxies outside of our own, and observed that all of these galaxies were moving away from each other at a tremendous speed. Scientists could no longer believe that the universe was eternal, and had to concede that the universe had a beginning. This is how the Big Bang Theory was born. The reason Christians don't see this as a victory is because we typically focus too much on the conclusions scientists make, and not enough on the observations which lead to those conclusions – in this case, an expanding universe. Ultimately, scientific conclusions are not the product of observation alone, but observation filtered through a particular world view. So, while we all must contend with the observations science makes, we are not obligated to come to the same conclusions.

Early in the interview, Michio Kaku makes this statement.

"We physicists thought we knew it all; the universe was made out of atoms...that's the old picture. The WMAP satellite has forced us to throw out all this and introduce a whole new set of facts."
In order to analyze a statement like this, what I want to know first is - what is this “old picture”? What are the “old facts,” and what are the “new facts” that are replacing them? Michio Kaku states “we physicists thought we knew it all.” Since he is referring to physicists I assume the old picture he is talking about then is the materialistic universe. The old scientific world view that says that matter is all there is exists and that angels and demons can't possibly be real because you can’t see, feel, touch, or taste them. This is the world view that says there is no God. The “facts” then, which are being thrown out are not the claims of Christianity, but of a world view which claims that the only reality is the one we can perceive with our senses. The new facts are those observations which are leading scientists to conclude that there is stuff out there that we cannot see, and what they are finding is that there is more of that unseen stuff, than there is of the stuff we can see.

How do they know that? Well, by inference. We can see that in the universe, galaxies are all flying away from each other at a tremendous speed, and getting faster all the time. Now, given the rate of expansion, we have no explanation for why the stars and planets in those galaxies are holding together the way that they do. There is simply not enough matter in the universe to account for the necessary gravity to do this. The conclusion then – is that there must be more stuff in the universe that what we can see with our eyes – hence dark matter and dark energy (called dark, because we cannot see it or measure it). So where is all this hidden stuff? One theory is that it exists in other dimensions which we are unable to detect except by the gravitational effects of their mass. In other words, observation has forced scientists concede the existence of unseen stuff.

The existence of other dimensions greatly weakens the materialist’s position. If matter can exist in dimensions which we cannot see, this opens the door to the possibility of things like the existence angels and demons, and the possibility of things like miracles. A world with other dimensions makes these things sound – not so impossible.

The fact that Michio Kaku talks about a multiverse where our universe is the offspring of some other universe, and that we may be giving birth to other baby universes may sound troubling. But none of this is based on observation. It is merely the opening of the scientific mind to the possibilities of what might be out there; a concession that it’s more than what they had once believed, and a speculation about what it could be. From a Biblical perspective God was once a Universe unto himself who created our physical universe. Heaven and Hell seem to be universes unto themselves, not to mention the New Heavens and the New Earth.

I understand that we need to be careful not to resort to a God of the gaps theory, which makes God the explanation behind any unexplained phenomenon. I am not saying that modern physics has discovered God, or heaven, or anything like that. I am merely saying that the new cosmologies developed by physicists are leaving more room for faith and science to coexist than was possible in the past. And that is a good thing.


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Posted By Mike to Christianity 3.0 at 8/30/2009 01:28:00 AM