God's Design of a
Blueprint for the Universe: the laws of nature and the Creation Account
[excerpted from the article "The Instant Universe:
And God Said: "Let there have been a big bang"]
Central elements of the traditional
understanding of the origins of existence can be seen to follow from its
conception of the purposive creation of a universe containing a free-willed
moral consciousness.
Designing the Big Bang: God’s Choice
“What really interests me is whether
God had any choice in the creation of the world” — Albert Einstein.[14]
Which parameters of the universe were chosen to allow for
the fulfillment of the Divine purpose in Creation? Is ours the only type of
universe and laws of nature that could exist?
According to scientific origin theory, in order to produce
our universe, at some point an initial state
(eg the big
bang)
would have to exist. It could not be just any state, since only a very specific initial state would lead to
our universe, eg with human beings.
From the traditional perspective, if God created the
universe as indicated by science, the design for the initial
state would therefore have to be carefully
worked out in advance. [15] Since a central purpose of the created being is its
exercise of free-willed moral choice, the universe would have to be designed to
contain morally meaningful situations and dilemmas. The design of the universe
must therefore be based on the opportunities of moral choice that the Creator
desires the being to eventually face.[16]
Creation and its Description
We can match aspects of the traditional conception of the
universe’s
purpose to resulting elements of the physical creation procedure.
If, as stated above, it is the eventual human moral
challenges that prescribe the universal blueprint, and if it is the Torah that
prescribes these moral challenges, then it is the Torah that sets the
parameters for the design of the universe and humanity. As the Midrash says, “God looked into the Torah and created the universe.”[17]
Only after assembling a complete picture of a moral being
and an appropriate universe could there begin the design of the big bang and
laws of nature leading to their emergence.
According to this scenario, the process of Creation began
not with the big bang but rather with the prior idea to create a being with
moral responsibility, and a mental conception of this moral being and of the
universe it would inhabit. Prior to physical creation it would be necessary to
mentally assemble the desired main ingredients of the universe until everything
necessary to produce a moral being has been obtained. The blueprint of the
universe is created one stage at a time. A new stage is initiated after the
previous stage is seen to fit into the whole—“God saw … that
it was good”[18]—until the end product is reached. A being is created in
the Divine image and is integrated into the rest of the Creation—“God saw … that all … was
very good.”[19]
A description of this creation could then consist of an
account of the creation either of the universe itself or of the blueprint of
the universe, which is completed with the design of humanity.[20]
Given the entire functioning integrated blueprint of a universe containing
moral beings, a big bang could then be designed and programmed to teleologically produce them.[21]
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[14] According to Misner,
Thorne, and Wheeler’s Gravitation, Einstein said, “What really interests me is whether
God had any choice in the creation of the world” to an assistant. The reference they provide is a book
review by G. Holton of Ronald W. Clark’s Einstein: The Life and Times
that appeared in the New York Times, 5 Sep 1971. p.20. (DELETE??!: Holton wrote a lot about Einstein and presumably
inserted this quote into his review.)
[15] See Paul Davies, The Mind of God (Simon &
Schuster Touchstone, 1992) for interesting discussions on related topics.
[16] This may be seen as a version of the Anthropic Principle in cosmology.
[17] Genesis Rabba 1:1. The midrash says that we know this
because the first word of Genesis, breisheet =
with reisheet = with the Torah, which is
called “reisheet.”
[18] Genesis 1:3, 10, 12, 17, 21, 25.
[19] Genesis 1:31.
[20] According to tradition, the Creation account contains
the whole Torah; and, “God looked into the [Creation account of] the Torah and
created the universe.” The Creation account is paradoxically both the blueprint
of Creation and the description of the Creation from that blueprint. Fittingly,
it ends with the onset of Shabbat, which paradoxically, while it is part of the
purpose of Creation and therefore ‘logically prior’ to the onset of Creation, is also the commemoration of
the completion of Creation, and therefore ‘chronologically after’ the cessation of Creation.
[21] Moral beings seem a late development of the big bang,
but the true order is reversed: They are the first stage of the big bang’s design. As in Alkabetz’s Shabbat hymn “Lkha Dodi” in which Shabbat, which is
seemingly the final act of Creation, is teleologically
primary to it: “That which was last in execution [of Creation, i.e., the
Shabbat] was first in intention.”
See also Genesis Rabba 10:9 and
the commentary of Radal. By resting on Shabbat, God
places the universe in its natural-law operating mode. This is simultaneous
with and caused or allowed by the emergence of moral consciousness.