The new cosmology, derived from the sciences of the universe, the Earth, and life, is set in the broad scope of evolution. This evolution is not lineal. It includes stops and starts, and experiences set backs, mass destructions, and rebirths. But, if we look back, the process shows a direction: forward and up.
We are aware that some well-known scientists refuse to accept directionality in the universe. It simply would make no sense. Others, such as the well-known British physicist, Freeman Dyson – to name only one– says: «The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe, somehow, had to have known that we were on the way».
Looking back at the process of evolution, that has been going on for 13.7 billion years, we cannot deny that there was an upward path: energy became matter, matter became filled with information, the destructive chaos turned generative, what was simple became complex, from a complex object sprang life, and from life, consciousness emerged. There is a purpose that cannot be denied. In effect, if things in their minuscule details had not occurred as they did, we would not be here talking about them.
As the well-known mathematician and physicist, Stephen Hawking, wrote in his 2005 book, A Very Brief History of Time: «The whole universe seems to have been finely tuned to allow for the development of life. For example, if the electric charge of the electron had been a little different, the equilibrium in the stars between the electromagnetic and gravitational forces would have been altered and, they either would have been incapable of turning hydrogen into helium, or they would have exploded». Either way, life could not have existed.
How does God emerge in the cosmogenic process? The idea of God arises when we posit this question: what was there before the big bang? What gave the initial impulse? Nothingness? But nothing comes from nothing. If despite that, beings appeared, it is a sign that Someone or Something called them into existence and maintains them in being.
What we can reasonably say is: before the big bang the Unknowable existed and the Mystery was present. About the Mystery and the Unknowable, by definition, we literally can say nothing. By their nature, they are before the word, the energy, before matter, space and time.
Well then, the Mystery and the Unknowable are precisely the names that religions, including Christianity, use to denote what we call God. In front of God silence is better than words. Nevertheless, God can be perceived by reverent reason and felt by the heart as a Presence that fills the Universe and generates in us the feelings of greatness, majesty, respect and veneration.
Sitting between heaven and Earth, when we see the night filled with stars, we are breathless and become filled with reverence. The questions naturally come: Who made all this? Who hides behind the Milky Way? As the great rabbi from New York City, Abraham Heschel, said: «We can say anything, or doubt everything in our air-conditioned offices or between the four white walls of the classrooms. But we cannot be silent when we are faced with the complexity of nature and drenched with its beauty. It is impossible to underestimate the morning dawn, to be indifferent when a flower blooms, or not to be amazed when we see a newborn child». Almost spontaneously we say: it was God who set it all in motion. God is the originating Source and the Abysm that nourishes everything.
There is another important question: what does God want to express with creation? Answering this is the concern not only of the religious consciousness, but of science itself. Let us use as an illustration what Stephen Hawking also said in his well-known book, Brief history of time, 1992: «If we were to find the answer to why we and the universe exist, we would have the definitive triumph of human reason; because then we would have reached the knowledge of the mind of God». Scientists are still searching for the hidden design of God.
From a religious perspective we can succinctly say: It would seem that the meaning of the universe and of our own conscious existence resides in the fact of being the mirror in which God sees the Divine. God creates the universe as an overflowing of the divine plenitude of being, of goodness and intelligence. There is creation, so that others may participate in the divine superabundance. The human being with consciousness is created in order to be able to hear the messages the universe wants to communicate to us, so that the human being may capture the histories of the beings of creation, of the heavens, the seas, the animals, and the human process itself, linking everything to the original Source, whence it all comes.
The universe is still being born. The tendency is to finish being born and to show the hidden potentialities. For that, expansion also means revelation. When all has been realized, then the design of the Creator will be completely revealed.
