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It was just a year ago that a team of astrophysicists announced the
detection of ‘ripples’ in cosmic background radiation, a faint and distant
impression of galactic order that emerged from the big bang, 15 billion
years ago. George Smoot, the team leader based at the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, California, captured headlines worldwide when he said: ‘If you’re
religious, it’s like seeing God.’

Since then the results have been confirmed by astronomers at Princeton
University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; but cosmologists
are still worrying about God. Smoot was one of the star attractions at the
AAAS. He expressed wonder at human beings’ ‘audacity to construct a theory
of creation’.

The inclusion of a session on ‘The religious significance of big bang
cosmology’ on the usually so scientifically proper programme took many people
by surprise.

The session was organised by Robert John Russell, director of the Center
for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, California. Speakers not
only explored the parallels between modern cosmology and theology but also
sought more fundamental links. For instance, the creation-from-nothing theology
can be cast as merely a coincidental analogy with the image of big bang
cosmology. But Russell would like to go further, anchoring them in common
philosophical terrain.

For Russell, Western culture has obscured the common foundation of cosmology
and religion. Imagine two neighbouring oceanic islands, he said. They look
separate, but in fact rest on the same bedrock, which becomes evident when
the waters are removed. The same is true of cosmology and religion, he argued:
the waters represent the notion in Western culture that science and religion
must be separate; and the bedrock on which cosmology and religion rest is
the notion of ‘contingency’.

By this Russell means that in both theological and cosmological models
there are many possible universes (depending either on God’s whim or on
initial physical conditions) and the one we inhabit depends upon – is contingent
upon – what ‘choices’ were initially made. ‘The common role of contingency
in both fields leads to a fresh perspective on why science and theology
can be consistent with each other and need not be compartmentalised,’ said
Russell.

Ian Barbour, professor of religion and professor of physics at Carleton
College, Minnesota, expanded on the theme of contingency, but expressed
caution as to how far it might be taken. For instance, although a particular
cosmology might explain how a particular universe came to be, it can never
explain why. That is the role of theology, and relates to what Barbour calls
‘contingent existence’.

Science and religion are more in harmony in the emergence of order in
the Universe, suggested Barbour, which he referred to as ‘contingent laws’.
By the 18th century the theistic view of order in the Universe was that
God’s role was simply to start the mechanism, after which the Universe could
unfold according to the laws of nature. This, said Barbour, is echoed in
the notion of the emergence of higher levels of order in complex systems,
according to the concepts of complexity theory. The order is contingent
upon the laws of lower levels in the system, but cannot be predicted simply
from knowledge of the laws.

Barbour said he was cautious about marrying cosmology with theology
because ‘in the past God has often been invoked to explain gaps in the prevailing
account. This has long been a losing proposition as one gap after another
has been filled by the advance of science.’