There are but two possible or realistic fates for our expanding Universe. Either it will expand forever and ever, or else the expansion will eventually halt and reverse into a contraction. If you had to choose between the two, based not on the science of cosmology, but on the Bible, you’d have to opt for the former. Fortunately for the Bible, cosmologists place their bets on that option as well.
Revelation 1:8 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Beginnings and endings are not just the exclusive providence of the Almighty. Cosmologists too are interested in all things Alpha and Omega. Can the latter glean any guidance from the former? Well yes, but one has to enter some pretty strange territory, and ultimately one will have to conclude that any similarity between religion and cosmology comes down to a matter of just unconnected coincidence.
ALPHA
*The Biblical “In the beginning” matches the cosmologist’s Big Bang event, the origin and kick-starting of our Universe, even if there is a gap of some 13.7 billion years between the two versions.
OMEGA
*In all things Biblical there really is no Omega or ‘The End”. Yes, there is a forecast ‘end of days’ or ‘second coming’ or Armageddon or apocalypse, all as depicted in the Book of Revelation, as well as talked about in many other earlier books of the Bible. But, when all of that transpires, life, the Universe and everything goes on. Even after the ‘end of days’, etc., the Universe still goes on – there’s no point in wasting a totally good cosmos just because of some local terrestrial apocalypse. It’s not an “On the Beach” end-of-the-Universe plot. Stars aren’t really going to fall from the sky – that itself would take nearly forever since the stars are far away and a star can’t ‘fall’ at a velocity that exceeds the speed of light.
*In all things cosmological, there are two versions of Omega. Firstly, we know that our Universe is an expanding Universe. Its volume increases like an ever blown up balloon. Now that suggests two possible fates. Firstly, the expansion slows down (because of gravity), stops, and reverses course and starts to contract (gravity again), faster and faster, ever faster until everything comes together at the same point in space and time and you hit the Big Crunch. The Universe only has a finite amount of time before it enacts that “On the Beach” end-of-the-world or in this case end-of-the-Universe, plot.
*If there is a Big Crunch then its curtains for Heaven and Hell and all associated eternal lives, all snuffed out in its prime, crushed down into a singularity from which not even God can escape.
*Option two is that there isn’t enough gravity to stop the expansion and the Universe will keep on, keeping on – expanding that is. The Universe will have lots of time on its hands – an infinite amount of time. The latter scenario matches the Biblical scenario as defined by the phrase “everlasting life”. No end in sight – ever.
*And that’s the context or connection here. An everlasting Universe has to exist in order for there to be everlasting life.
AFTERLIFE
*Two questions now arise. Does Heaven physically exist and is there an eternal afterlife in that Heavenly abode? Well the Bible does say repeatedly one will have “everlasting life” (11 mentions), or “life everlasting” (4) or “eternal life” (26) or “life eternal” (4) or “live for ever” (14) in Heaven, so let’s tick the “yes” box for the afterlife.
*The immediate follow-up question though is what does the word ‘immortal’ or ‘immortality’ (also noted and logged in the Bible) or ‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’ or ‘for ever’ signify to you? The Bible doesn’t use the word ‘infinite’ or ‘infinity’ in the context of the afterlife though ‘infinite’ does appear, so the concept was known back then, and no doubt that’s the meaning you’d give to ‘eternal’, etc. If your ‘life eternal’ only amounted to 1000 years, you’d feel cheated. No, you expect ‘life eternal’ to equate to infinity. That in turn will create all manner of issues as we shall see. Meantime, you have eternal life, which immediately settles the fate of the Universe question since the Universe has to attain an infinite age as well. Now you need a Heavenly place in which to spend it.
HEAVEN - LET’S GET PHYSICAL
*Is there a physical Heaven to house that presumably physical afterlife?
*It seems clear that since various physical beings such as angels, as described in the Bible, descend from and ascend to Heaven, including mortals like Enoch and Elijah, that Heaven must be a physical 3-D place with geographical, or rather celestial, coordinates.
*Heaven is often referred to as the “Kingdom of Heaven
*Now the Bible refers to a throne in Heaven which God sits upon. Firstly, a throne is a physical object. Sitting is a physical action. If you are not a physical being you can’t get tired and so there is no need to sit. God sits on His throne, which is in keeping with the stated fact that God needed to rest on the seventh day of creation – God isn’t all powerful, He gets pooped like the rest of us! Jesus (J.C.) is also known to sit while in Heaven.
*If you sit, you have to sit on something (like a throne). If you sit on something and you don’t fall through that something (that throne for argument’s sake), then clearly the electromagnetic laws of physics are in operation – the same laws that prevent you from sliding through your chair at home when you sit down. The laws of physics can only operate in a physical realm.
*The Koran makes it crystal clear that Heaven is a physical abode, a land of milk and honey and lovely maidens all in a row for the menfolk to ogle.
*If the afterlife is a physical afterlife, then there must be a physical place in which to spend that afterlife. If the options are Heaven or Hell, then both are geographical locations existing in existing space and time.
PROBLEMS & ISSUES ARISING:
LIFE & THE AFTERLIFE
*From the moment of your conception, to the moment of your death (a more drawn out process since not every cell you’re composed of will perish at the exact same moment), you owe your entire life to the laws, relationships and principles of physics and chemistry.
*That equally applies to that brain-thingy of yours and all the processes that go on inside it – thinking, memory, personality, emotions, likes & dislikes, decisions, morals, spirituality, etc. None of these facets which makes you, you can be so without those root fundamentals of physics and chemistry.
*You may, or may not, have free will, but regardless, making a choice involves thought processes and drawing on memories and knowledge and those are within the providence of physics and chemistry, since without physics and chemistry there’s no life, no body, no brain, no thoughts and therefore no decisions.
*To give your afterlife any meaning and continuity with your life the same will have to apply. Your afterlife is equally dependent on physics and chemistry operating as we know it.
*Now perhaps your afterlife in Heaven is based around some totally other kind of physics and chemistry – who’s to say ours is the only kind possible. But, if that’s the case you are born afresh and can have no possible connection with this life you’re currently leading grounded in our physics and chemistry. In one sense that sounds an awful lot like reincarnation, where you are born again but have no connection to what you were previously.
*Okay, you’ve had a life; you now have an afterlife, what about a permanent, everlasting afterlife where physics and chemistry still rule, OK?
To be continued…
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