I was reminded recently that everything we see has already occurred. Now, before you think that I have taken leave of my senses, the reasoning supporting this truism is that there is a time lag in light reaching ones eye after it has left the object concerned. Of course in our daily lives this is of little significance, as the margins are irrelevant, however it does bring into question what time really is? We all work to various calendars, all devised by humans, so depending on whether it be Gregorian, Islamic, Jewish , Chinese or even at one stage a French Revolutionary Calendar, we all regulate our lives around a formulised system of hours, days, weeks and years etc., but what is the real time?

It is a proven fact that some of the stars that we see in the heavens no longer exist as their ‘candle burnt out long ago‘, but their light is still travelling to our eyes through millions of light years. Also scientists for a long period of time have maintained the theory of the big bang as the creation of our universe and so have now also devised a calculation to determine when this event actually took place. It appears that by using computer generated mathematical calculations it is possible by reversing the time span of light emanating from these celestial bodies, to trace our universe back to it’s birth, when there was in their interpretation, only a void. I can reveal therefore, that give or take a few million years, we are not according to these theorists in the year 2009, but 16.7 billion years since the start of time.

Now these same scientists have also gone on to explain Genesis, insomuch that our universe was encased in one giant Pandora’s box which then collided with a similar arrangement, thus creating this massive explosion of cosmic debris, part of which we now call Earth.

So there you have it, and as minute specs of dust in this incredulous conception and birth, perhaps we should all fear the arrival of the pale rider, as there does not appear to be any escape from the finality of our mortal existence. If one believes these prognoses then science is not only asking us to revalue our understanding of time, but also the meaning of life and creation.

St. Augustine was once asked “What was God doing through all the eternity of time before he created heaven and earth“? His reply was “Creating hell for those who ask questions like you.” I’m convinced that this did little, if anything in answering the question, but did highlight the fact that the only panacea for a doubting mind is faith, and arguably on occasions, the most difficult of analgesics to absorb when a more immediate anodyne solution would seem obviously imperative.

Over the centuries many proponents of new ideas have suffered at the hands of a suspicious church. Galileo’s insistence on the Copernican heresy that the planets move around the sun earned him interrogation by the inquisition and house arrest. Three hundred years later Charles Darwin suffered the same social ostracism with his origin of the species, but there is, and never should be any conflict between science and Christianity, as Jesus goes beyond time, space and the big bang; so even if we accept that Genesis was an interpretation, our faith tells us that unlike those distant stars, Jesus’ light will never burn out. I remember famously a leading Oxford professor being asked once what was there before his big bang theory; he replied that “He could only leave that to religion“. I guess without knowing it he probably had a lot in common with St. Augustine, insomuch that neither of them could answer the question, but their faith and belief led them to the same conclusion.

Ron Murphy

Pictures of the Eagle Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy.

For coloured posters of Hubble Telescope images go to www.allposters.com.