Updated to ask readers more directly for their thoughts, if you have any…<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n A random thought.\u00a0 Suppose we ask whether the world has a Beginning or an End, or whether it is eternal is one or both directions.\u00a0 It seems like there are 5 possible views, which I will name by association to various cultural groups who supposedly have had these views:<\/p>\n I find it interesting that the first four views all have some intuitive appeal, to different people, but the fifth view just seems horribly wrong and perverse!\u00a0 Why do you suppose that is?<\/p>\n My best guess is that there’s is a certain obvious symmetry to treating the past and future in the same way, which makes views (1-3) seem reasonable.\u00a0 And there is also an argument that the past is not<\/em> like the future, but if so it had better be like (4) rather than like (5)!\u00a0 I guess we all know deep down (it’s really the Second Law of Thermodynamics) that it makes sense for the universe to start from a simple initial condition and then develop complexities from there.\u00a0 But if we have to deal with infinite regresses AND we don’t even get an eternal universe out of it, that seems a bridge too far… but if anyone has any further thoughts on this, I’d be interested.<\/p>\n My cultural names are a brutal oversimplification, and you shouldn’t take my assigning these views to different cultures too literally.\u00a0 For one thing, there were lots of different Greeks and there are lots of different Hindus who believe all sorts of different things.\u00a0 For another, there is a conceptual difference between the world<\/em>\u2014in the sense of an ordered cosmology with a history\u2014beginning, and time<\/em> (a much more abstract notion) having a beginning. It takes a certain amount of intellectual sophistication to think about the latter question.<\/p>\n Norse mythology begins with fire and ice swirling around a bottomless pit for aeons; it is only later that a bit of fire strikes a bit of ice and spontaneously generates a giant and a cow, from whom later the jotun and gods emerge by various removes.\u00a0 (As you can see, the Norse were ultimately Materialists even about their so-called divinities.)\u00a0 At the end, the cruel jotun defeat the merry gods and the world is destroyed, plunging back into chaos.\u00a0 So it’s not really clear that time has a beginning or end, just that the story<\/em> has a beginning and an end.<\/p>\n The Hebrews had the notion of divine Creation in Genesis 1:1 and elsewhere, but it is controversial whether Genesis 1:1 actually teaches the creation ex nihilo<\/em> of later theology.\u00a0 St. Augustine is usually credited with the idea that there was not even time before creation, but in fact Philo, a 1st century Hellenistic Jew, got there first<\/a>.<\/p>\n Similarly, our current best “concordance cosmology” appears to begin with an initial singularity, but has no end in time.\u00a0 (Well, really we should talk about spacetime<\/em>, which allows time to end in some places, e.g. inside black holes, but not others.)\u00a0 This appears at first sight to be like the Hebrew view.\u00a0 At late times the universe expands exponentially forever, thinning matter out to a very cold but finite temperature<\/a>.\u00a0 This is in accordance with the Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics<\/a>, which tells us that the universe will reach a boring maximum entropy state at late times.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, the story<\/em> ends at finite time, and we really have the heroic defiance against inevitable destruction, as in the Norse view.<\/p>\n Even in Hebrew cosmology, there is that little matter of the whole universe being destroyed and then recreated again:<\/p>\n \u201cSee, I will create Never again will there be in it It’s really this “new heavens and new earth” that will last forever.\u00a0 Christianity is about Death and Resurrection, both for the universe and for each person.\u00a0 Science can get us as far as the doomed-to-die bit, but it can’t get us any farther.\u00a0 That is Law, the rest is Grace, revealed in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Updated to ask readers more directly for their thoughts, if you have any… A random thought.\u00a0 Suppose we ask whether the world has a Beginning or an End, or whether it is eternal is one or both directions.\u00a0 It seems … Continue reading \n
\nnew heavens and a new earth.
\nThe former things will not be remembered,
\nnor will they come to mind.
\nBut be glad and rejoice forever
\nin what I will create,
\nfor I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
\nand its people a joy.
\nI will rejoice over Jerusalem
\nand take delight in my people;
\nthe sound of weeping and of crying
\nwill be heard in it no more.<\/p>\n
\nan infant who lives but a few days,
\nor an old man who does not live out his years;
\nthe one who dies at a hundred
\nwill be thought a mere child;
\nthe one who fails to reach a hundred
\nwill be considered accursed.
\nThey will build houses and dwell in them;
\nthey will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
\nNo longer will they build houses and others live in them,
\nor plant and others eat.
\nFor as the days of a tree,
\nso will be the days of my people;
\nmy chosen ones will long enjoy
\nthe work of their hands.
\nThey will not labor in vain,
\nnor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
\nfor they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
\nthey and their descendants with them.
\nBefore they call I will answer;
\nwhile they are still speaking I will hear.
\nThe wolf and the lamb will feed together,
\nand the lion will eat straw like the ox,
\nand dust will be the serpent\u2019s food.
\nThey will neither harm nor destroy
\non all my holy mountain,\u201d
\nsays the Lord.\u00a0 (Isaiah 65:17-25<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n