 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
Creation is the process of making something new.
When written in English with a capital letter, Creation or The Creation is a casual reference to the origin of the Universe, or to the universe or cosmos itself. This colloquial use of the term refers, not always intentionally, to the belief that all things have a beginning. The creation of all things, the process by which the present cosmos began, is a subject of scientific, religious, and mythological interest.
Several religions have creation beliefs, some of which account for the existence and present form of the Universe by the act of creation by a supreme being or creator god. Most of these accounts depict one or several gods fashioning things out of themselves, or from pre-existing material.
Exceptions to this idea are the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which for the most part speak of creation ex nihilo (Latin: out of nothing). This is typified, for example, by the assumption that the first verse of the Bible ("In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth") indicates that only God is self-existent, and all other things have their being from God. 2 Maccabees 7:28 shows that this may have been a common Jewish understanding of creation: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not ...". This is very like the language of the Christian view in Hebrews 11:3, which states, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear".
However, in these traditions, the belief that God gave shape to pre-existing things was not unheard of, and that idea became more fully articulated especially under the influence of Greek philosophy. In both, Judaism and Christianity, belief in creation "from nothing" began to dominate the traditions more completely, sometime in the second century C.E., as a way of asserting that God alone is eternal, in reaction to the implications of philosophy. The following quote from the second century rabbi, Gamiliel II, illustrates this reaction:
Departing from this tradition, some modern scholars have argued that these statements and all others are still susceptible to ambiguous interpretation, so that creation ex nihilo may not be clearly supported by ancient texts, including the Bible. They point out the similarities of the biblical account, to other ancient religious beliefs that the universe was created by God or the gods out of pre-existing matter, as opposed to "out of nothing". Some scholars see evidence that the biblical account, like other ancient religious views, presumes pre-existence of some kind of raw material, albeit without form: "Now the earth was formless and void, darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the waters." God then fashions the disordered material, to create the world.
Astronomers, cosmologists and others have advanced scientific theories about the creation of the universe a finite time ago, where however the terms "creation" and "universe" may have different meanings than they do in other contexts.
For example, many scientists believe that the physical universe that we observe today came into existence in accordance with the Big Bang theory, without necessarily implying that the universe was created "out of nothing" in an absolute sense. Similarly, many scientists who subscribe to the Big Bang theory do not endorse the view that the occurrence of the Big Bang has itself been explained in scientific terms. Some scientists have speculated, for example, that the Big Bang was preceded by a Big Crunch.
The Big Bang theory is currently the most popular scientific creation theory, as it has predicted a number of experiment results, including measurements of the anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation, that could not have been known at the time the theory was first proposed.
Most modern atheists and agnostics assert that the creation both of the universe and of life came about through purely natural causes. Those holding this opinion offer evidence that the cosmos developed on its own in accordance with the laws of physics, through an evolutionary process, and suggest that since science has been successful in explaining things at ever more distant times in the past, the prospects for continued success are good. One potential problem with this view is that it seems to involve a scientifically impermissible extrapolation beyond the beginning of time. Some (notably Augustine of Hippo) also hold that God is altogether outside of time and that time exists only within the created universe. This notion is not entirely impossible. The Big Bang is seen by most as the beginning of the universe as we see it now, but for science, it is the beginning of time and space as we see it now. The formation of everything in the universe may have started then, but it was more a side-effect of the Big Bang. This is why it is impermissible to go beyond the beginning of time, since there was not time (or space) to go to before the Big Bang. Also, the whole concept of time itself is still barely understood.
Creation ex nihilo is quite at odds with our everyday experience, in that nothing spontaneously comes into (or vanishes from) existence but instead matter and energy merely change form. Indeed, we know of no such process by which matter or energy can be destroyed or created.
We are not currently able to explain creation ex nihilo, or even prove that it is required. As noted above, an endless extrapolation backwards of causes and effects seems unreasonable, but equally there is no decisive argument as to why it is not valid. In the absence of firm data we must make do with theory. A popular explanation is, of course, that God created the Universe out of nothing, but the reader should note that contrary to the arguments of a vocal minority this theory cannot be considered to be proved simply by the lack of any other firm explanation until all other possible theories have been disproved. See creationism for further discussion.
Whilst many scenarios are proposed by religion and science to identify 'first cause', the origin of creation (ontology), there are some fundamental limits to the knowledge of humankind that present a barrier to finding any definitive answer.
Philosophy currently holds that there is nothing that one can know for certain. Kant put a good case to show that because we view the universe through the lens of the mind, which is 'shaped' by space, time, and the things embedded in space and time, it is not possible to see things-in-themselves (noumena) - the real objects that lie behind the subjective objects we recognise. If true, it is beyond the mind of humankind to perceive a condition that has no space or time. Many other philosophers, most recently Popper have all shown that there is precious little one can be sure of that would provide a starting point to determine the 'first cause'that led to creation.
Religion has only philosophy available to it to prove a God that called the universe into existence. As such it is likewise bound by the limits of philosophy.
Modern physics is an empirical science (based on experiment. As such, physic's descriptive power breaks down at the Planck time/Planck length: the limit of our ability to carry out meaningful experiments. As such, it is quite incapable of providing an answer to creation because it has no access to first cause. Physics explains how things happen, when things happen and what things may happen, but it has no basis to explain 'why' things happen at the foundational (ontological) level. When physics says there was a 'Big Bang', it does not say why the universe decided to do so.
Contemporary mathematics is also unable to illuminate first cause because it is founded on axioms that, while being fairly obvious, are not provable (see Godel's Incompleteness Theorem). Mathematics is a (very advanced and elegant) descriptive tool, only. If the physics or the world changed tomorrow, the mathematics would change nearly as rapidly and we would all smile and say, 'Just so.' But the cause of creation would remain out of bounds.
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
