The second coming as a dateable event?

Can we conceive of the ‘second coming’ also as a datable historical event?  If not why not?... We cannot take for granted that humankind is the only kind of life that needs to be ‘judged’.  And this must have major implications for any understanding of the ‘second coming’.

... given that [the Universe] has already existed for at least fifteen billion years or thereabouts, we have no good reason to suppose it will not continue for another fifteen billion years or more.  In psychological if not logical effect, the cosmos may continue for ever, certainly long after humankind has begun and ended on this planet.  What then does the ‘second coming’ mean?  What does our resurrection from the dead mean if it is postponed for billions of years?

Perhaps the second coming is an ‘event’ applicable only to us on earth, and does not have cosmic implications at all.  Perhaps it is simply a judgement on humanity only in so far as humanity exists...May we not be resurrected long before the solar system blows up in our face?*

Response:John was one of the co-authors of a Doctrine Commission report on this and co-edited a book with Michael Welker on this topic called The End of the World and the Ends of God and has written a book called The God of Hope and the End of the World.

What I suspect happens is that when we die we “fall asleep” and the next moment of which we are conscious is the End of the present Universe. It makes no difference in principle if this is in a few years or a few billion years – compare ideas of John Penrose where he “identifies” the totally flat heat death of the universe with a singularity in a big bang. We then find the “second coming” in terms of a new heaven and a new earth.   At the End of the universe of course all creatures that are capable of being redeemed, whether human or non-human, are equally present.

Now it’s almost certain that Earth will have perished long before the end of the Universe (unless we get very smart about moving it out of the way of an exploding Sun etc…) and all too possible that there will be some catastrophe which wipes out humanity before then. In which case from a human point of view the Second Coming will occur to a lot of living people at once.  This certainly makes sense of a lot of biblical language but we have to remember that apocalyptic language is not intended to be read “literally” in any case.

One thing that science has certainly taught us is that our view of time is far too petty and parochial by the standards of the universe.  Which of course is a truth often repeated in the Bible.


* The questioner in fact submitted a 4-page essay of which this is the extracted gist. Please do not submit questions as attachments I probably won't have time to respond and I certainly can't send attachments to John

Big bang and Existence of God

I have taken the position among colleagues and friends that the "big bang" theory, if accurate, clearly demonstrates the existence of God.  I would be interested in the good doctor's thoughts on the subject and rational comments from anyone who might have pondered the issue.

Response: The Big Bang theory was developed by a catholic priest (Lemaitre)  but he was clear that it has no direct religious applications. God could certainly have created a “steady state” universe and equally it is conceivable that one of the various secular stories about the Big Bang (eternal inflation, quantum vacuum etc…) might be true.

Having said that, it is certainly a problem for atheists to explain why a “big bang” with the very special characteristics we require for life actually occurred – see Questions of Truth for a discussion of this.  And Big Bang is similar enough to Genesis to give pause for thought at least!

Does QM really imply non-causality?

Does quantum physics really contend that particles can actually appear and disappear (and then reappear) into our time and space dimension without any outside cause or is it only a matter of that their measurement of them makes it appear like they do that?

Response: The correct interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is still hotly debated. It seems as if many possible interpretations (Copenhagen, Bohm, Many-worlds) are compatible with the equations and all the physical evidence. And no-one knows how to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, let alone how/whether String/M theory is correct.

So certainly in Hawking's highly speculative cosmology and interpretation things can happen "without any outside cause" and we do know that particles spontaneously appear and disappear in the so-called Quantum Vacuum - at a micro level this is very well confirmed by observation.

However (as John keeps pointing out) it is a ridiculous abuse of language to call the Quantum Vacuum "nothing" - this so called "empty space" is teeming with energy and an almost infinite number of particles.  Even if the existence of the Universe is a consequence of the laws of physics (and you can always formulate a set of laws of physics that "require" the universe to exist) this does not, and can not, address the question of WHY the laws of physics have the form that they do.  Hawking would suggest that anthropic selection answers this but that's really begging the question.

Further Question: Does changing the very beginning of time and space from a single point to a less than distinct point really change the Big Bang’s occurrence from an external causality to itself?

Response: No it's a mathematical "trick" with no real philosophical implications, though of course it might look as though it had. As St Augustine realised in the 5th century, the "need" for God does not depend on whether there is a first moment in time - but why is there time at all? You can always mathematically re-scale "time" so that it has no beginning and re-write the laws of physics appropriately.

As noted above, no-one knows how QM and GR reconcile. QM doesn't like singularities. Until there is much clearer empirical evidence the scope for clever speculation is endless, and Hawking is very clever and certainly offers deep insights (which may or may not be correct) at a physical level.  But he is no theologian/philosopher and doesn't seem to understand that his theories have nothing to do with the existence of God at all.