Cosmological Argument Vs Big Bang Theory

When Science and Religion Collide

Throughout the past few centuries, science has come to play an important fundamental role in the lives of humans around the world. Major advancements in medical science, such as improving technological equipment and insight into diseases that once plagued human civilization have come to greatly improve the lives of many people. Unfortunately science is not always held in the highest ideals; some of the concepts in science come in direct conflict with religion. Being that religion in any form, governs many lives around the world, scientific concepts like the cosmological argument are not fully accepted worldwide. Though neither extreme can fully be proven, I believe that the Big Bang Theory is one that provides logical information about the origin of the universe; as well as an explanation to why distant galaxies are moving away from our own at extreme speeds.

The religious belief of the creation of the universe is based on the notion that God created everything including the universe. Aquinas presents an argument to support the religious belief. The Cosmological Argument presented by Aquinas for the existence of god is quite simple; the basic idea is that everything in the natural world has a prior cause. Since the chain of causes can not go back to infinity, there must be a first cause. The first cause has to be self occurring in order for the chain to commence. Since nothing in the natural world is self-occurring, the first cause has to be super natural. Hence the supernatural cause/being is God.

The scientific belief regarding the creation of the universe is based on a theory known as the Big Bang Theory. According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe was created "sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions." (Http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html) Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it comes into direct conflict with the Cosmological Argument presented by Aquinas. Aquinas conclusion implies that God created the Universe, while the Big Bang Theory mentions nothing regarding God. In fact one problem that the Cosmological Argument has is that, by accepting the possibility that something is uncaused, another idea can arise' this idea being one where something other than God that can be uncaused, for example, the Big Bang.

Both extremes place society in a place of limbo, since the creation of the universe dates back further and