The dialogue between Christian theology and science (primarily, I have in mind the natural sciences) has long represented a highly attractive challenge. This dialogue is already evident in the era of the ancient great Fathers of the Church. By way of example, it suffices to consider the work of Saint Basil the Great, the Hexaemeron, in which he interprets the biblical revelation of the creation of the world—and where it is clearly evident that Saint Basil, in his exegetical approach, takes serious account of the scientific/philosophical/observational insights of his own time (it would be anachronistic to label them as purely scientific). At the same time, however, throughout history this dialogue has also had its darker episodes—especially in the West—episodes marked by exclusivism and serious conflicts. Even today, this dialogue often represents very slippery ground, on which it is not uncommon for reflective thinkers to “lose their footing,” both on the side of science and on the side of theology. It seems that the fundamental reason for such “slippage” lies in the forgetting of the methodological boundary between science and theology. On the one hand, methodological naturalism in the natural sciences is sometimes transformed into ontological naturalism—an inclination to which some scientists are prone. On the other hand, current scientific theories are sometimes dogmatized and, as such, forced into theological discourse—an inclination to which some theologians are prone. Recalling one of his strict teachers from childhood, Mrs. McInerney, who had the habit of striking their knuckles with a ruler whenever they made a mistake, the evolutionary biologist and originator of the NOMA concept of the relationship between faith and science, Stephen Jay Gould, humorously wrote about these extremes: “I will say again to my colleagues—perhaps for the umpteenth time, from student debates to the writing of scholarly treatises: science simply cannot, by its legitimate methods, adjudicate the question of possible divine governance of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; quite simply, as scientists we cannot pass judgment on it. If some among us have claimed that Darwinism refutes the existence of God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and ask her to rap their knuckles—but only on the condition that she be equally strict with those who claim that Darwinism describes the methods of God’s creative action.”
NOMA (from the English Non-Overlapping Magisteria) is the concept of the relationship between faith (theology) and natural science that is closest to me, although not in the original sense in which Gould himself formulated it. According to Gould, there can be no conflict between faith and science because their domains do not overlap: science deals with the empirical world and the question of “how” that world (nature) functions, while faith deals with the ultimate questions of the meaning of that same world and the question of “why,” as well as with questions of value. Unlike Gould’s concept, in my view this non-overlapping of the paths of faith and science is manifested primarily in their methodological distinction. These are two layers—the physical and the metaphysical—of a possible unified explanation of the question of how the world functions. Certainly, physics (science) cannot, for methodological reasons, intrude into the domain of metaphysics, but neither can metaphysics claim to be science. The line of their unconfused and indivisible contact is precisely NOMA as I conceive it. If I may be permitted, I would call it a Christological NOMA: an unconfused and indivisible unity of the human, natural, physical on the one hand, and the divine, revelatory—beyond natural empiricism and physics, and in that sense metaphysical—on the other.
Let us now consider more closely how such a model might function in the relationship between theology and physics, that is, cosmology. This dialogue becomes particularly interesting from the first half of the twentieth century, when the model of an eternal and globally unchanging cosmos was definitively replaced by the new theory of the Big Bang. Through this theory, physics came remarkably close to the biblical revelation, which states that the cosmos has a beginning, that it is dynamic, and that it also has an end (of course, there are significant differences in certain fundamental assumptions, especially regarding the concept of creation out of nothing, but that is a topic for another occasion). It is precisely this protology and eschatology of the cosmos that both contemporary physics and Christian theology address. Let us therefore examine some facts in order to see where the point of contact between theology and physics might lie, within the framework of what I have called the Christological NOMA concept.
Let us first briefly point to some important details within the Big Bang Theory itself. We begin with protology. It is a fact that the cosmos is expanding and that, as we move backwards in time, it becomes ever more compressed, until it ultimately terminates at its very “beginning,” which in physics is called a state of singularity. It must be said immediately that a singularity is not a physical entity, but a mathematical conclusion, according to which a singularity represents the attainment of infinite values of density, temperature, curvature of space-time, and so on. In fact, a singularity is not only not a physically observable entity; it is rather a signal that the theory breaks down at that point and requires correction. Thus, the very moment of the Big Bang, up to approximately 10⁻⁴³ seconds after it, represents an ultra-short period of the emergence of the cosmos in which scientific observation ceases and speculation begins. This threshold is known in physics as the Planck era. Above the Planck era, scientific observation functions. Below the Planck era, however, the domain of relevant scientific observation ceases, and mathematized speculation begins—formally consistent, but epistemologically speculative and non-scientific in the strict sense. What does mathematized speculation mean? It means that the model (or models, since there are several) is formally consistent and often elegant, but without the possibility of verification, without falsifiability, without empirical control—and therefore it is not empirical science in the strict sense of the term, but rather a form of mathematized metaphysics. Beyond the Planck era, not only does the possibility of relevant scientific observation cease, but so too does the possibility of meaningful comprehension and physical description of the four fundamental forces (gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong and weak nuclear forces) as distinct interactions. Given that the Planck era is the moment at which physics touches metaphysics, it is entirely legitimate, in accordance with our Christological NOMA, to engage in theological reflection at this point as well. This, however, is not a “filling of gaps” in scientific explanation, but a methodological acknowledgment that, at the very edge of empiricism, the question of the ontological conditions of possibility of the order of nature itself is opened. Let us therefore consider how one Saint Maximus the Confessor wrote about the protology of the cosmos as early as the seventh century. Certainly, like many of the Holy Fathers, as well as many great philosophers before the Christian era, he spoke of natural theology—on the basis of observing creation, he concluded that there exists a Creator. These are his words: “Nothing that is subject to motion is moved in any way or by any means without a cause.”
The beginning of every natural motion is the coming-into-being of all that moves, and the beginning of the coming-into-being of all that has come into being is God, for He is the Agent of creation. Here an objection might arise that Saint Maximus makes a logical and explanatory leap by placing the Christian God in the position of the First Mover. However, this objection does not hold. Saint Maximus does not claim that natural theology can tell us anything about God or the First Cause as such, except that He exists—through natural theology we come to know God as Creator, but not by learning what He is according to His essence and hypostasis—for that is impossible and unattainable—but only by learning that He exists, says Saint Maximus.
In his perception and contemplation of the world, Saint Maximus distinguishes between the role of reason and the role of the intellect (nous). Reason, through sensory perception and by the power of discursive thought, says Saint Maximus, apprehends the various logoi of things. This is what we would today call the natural sciences. Yet cognition does not end there. These various logoi, apprehended by reason, are gathered into a uniform, simple, and undifferentiated intellectual apprehension, on the basis of which what is called indivisible, immeasurable, and unified knowledge is formed. This unified knowledge could be presented, in the contemporary context of the dialogue between faith and science, as a conjunction of physics and metaphysics—an unconfused and indivisible conjunction that completes cognition. This would be the Christological NOMA concept: the non-overlapping of physics and metaphysics within this unified knowledge—two layers of cognition, the rational and the noetic, which touch one another but do not intermingle. Lest there be any misunderstanding—this is not an explanation of that brief interval below the Planck era. No, this goes even deeper, much deeper—it is an explanation of the ontological foundation of the very beginning of the cosmos, the ontological foundation of the very logoi/laws according to which the cosmos will develop and be shaped, and which science will recognize as such.
Let us now examine what scientific cosmological eschatology looks like, which also lies within the domain of speculation, lacking those essential attributes that would qualify this reasoning as strictly scientific. There are three models in physics that speculatively explain the eschatology of the cosmos, that is, the end the cosmos will experience in the very distant future. All three models are based on the fact of cosmic expansion—in this expansion the end of the cosmos is also reflected. According to one model, known as Heat Death or the Big Freeze, the universe will continue to expand forever. The temperature will asymptotically approach absolute zero. Stars will burn out, matter will decay, energy will be evenly distributed, and a state of maximum entropy will be reached. The cosmos becomes cold, dark, and, conditionally speaking, empty. Time practically loses its meaning. The cosmos is “dead.” This model is today dominant in standard ΛCDM cosmology.
The second model of cosmic eschatology is called the Big Crunch. According to this model, the expansion of the universe will eventually stop. Gravity will prevail, and the universe will begin to contract. Galaxies, stars, and ultimately space-time itself will collapse into a final singularity. The cosmos will end in a state of extreme density and temperature. This model is sometimes also viewed as a prelude to a new Big Bang, that is, to a cyclical view of the cosmos (the end of one cosmos would be the beginning of the existence of another, and so on eternally in a circle). Today it is considered that this model, although not logically excluded, is unlikely.
Finally, the third model of the end of the cosmos is called the Big Rip. According to this model, the expansion of the universe will continue to accelerate (it should be recalled that the universe, in terms of the expansion of space itself, expands at a speed greater than the speed of light). So-called dark energy will grow stronger over time. One by one, galaxy clusters, galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, and subatomic particles will begin to be torn apart. Eventually, a moment will arrive when space-time itself will disintegrate. This model, too, is highly speculative, though mathematically consistent.
Let us, in conclusion, summarize the outcomes of these three models of the end of the cosmos: eternal cold and darkness, collapse into a singularity, and the complete tearing apart of reality. What these models share in common is the conclusion that the cosmos will ultimately, in one way or another, “die.” In addition to these classical models of the end of the cosmos, contemporary cosmology also considers alternative models—such as the Big Bounce, cyclic models, and brane scenarios—which, although mathematically consistent, remain within the domain of speculative cosmology without the possibility of empirical verification. With regard to these speculative models of cosmological eschatology, I must emphasize one detail that I consider important. Although each of them possesses elegant mathematics, they cannot all be correct—but they can all be incorrect. Their potential correctness cannot be scientifically verified or falsified—which is a condition for a theory to acquire scientific status—even though behind them there stands not only creative thought, but also mathematics. Mathematics and empirical reality do not necessarily coincide—empirical reality can be described by mathematics, but behind every mathematical description there need not stand an empirical reality. Mathematics indicates what is intellectually possible, but not necessarily what is really existent. I had the honour of meeting our scientists working in the field about which I am writing and of speaking with them—Prof. Dr. Goran Poparić of the Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, and Dr. Marko Vojinović of the Institute of Physics in Belgrade. From their extensive experience of encounters with scientists around the world, they told me that it is not uncommon for the religious-philosophical culture from which scientists come to significantly shape the cosmological model they advocate. For example, those for whom Indian religious-philosophical culture and its characteristic teaching on cyclicality and reincarnation are close very often support the aforementioned cyclic model of the cosmos—even when they are not formally religious.
Let us now consider what Saint Maximus the Confessor, on the basis of divine revelation and Christian theology, says about cosmological eschatology. The end of the natural coming-into-being of all that has come into being is rest [the cessation of motion], which, after the passing of all that is passing, is established by infinity, in which, due to the absence of distance, every motion of those that move naturally ceases, for there is no longer where, how, or towards what to move, because God, as the Cause of motion, is also its End [Goal of motion], who determines infinity itself, which limits every motion. Therefore, the beginning and the end of every coming-into-being and every motion of beings is God, for they have come into being from Him, He moves them, and in Him they will come to rest, says Saint Maximus. This is a typically Christian vision of the history of the cosmos as an arrow of time, which is “released” at the beginning, by the creation of the world, which by creation is set into motion towards its goal, which lies temporally ahead of it, when motion will be brought to completion. Although God is both the beginning and the end (with the clarification that here the end is not the death of the cosmos but, on the contrary, life as its ultimate goal), we do not have a cyclical vision of reality here.
God is the beginning of the cosmos, in the sense that He is its Creator and thus the Mover of the cosmos; yet He is also the ultimate end of the cosmos, as the Book of Revelation states in the words of God the Creator, who at the very end of history declares: “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 21:6).
The reason why scientific—or, more precisely, naturalistic—speculation, regardless of which cosmological model it advocates, ultimately sees the death of the cosmos, whereas Christian theology sees life, is the following. In naturalistic cosmology, both the beginning and the end of the cosmos are envisaged within the cosmos itself, within that naturalistic, closed ontology—in which the inviolable rule prevails that whatever has a beginning must have an end, that is, must in some manner pass away, die, and disintegrate. Such a view is also consonant with Christian theology: the Fathers of the Church are unanimous in judging that the world, when left to itself, is transient and mortal. Scripture likewise states this: “In the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain; they will all wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change them, and they will be changed” (Ps. 102:25–26). “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die likewise; but My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be abolished” (Isa. 51:6). In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). Yet although biblical revelation affirms the end of the created cosmos, that end does not mean annihilation, but rather transfiguration, change—“like clothing You will change them, and they will be changed.” The cosmos is indeed transient and mortal, yet its end will not be annihilation, because it is not left to itself—“My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be abolished.” The Apostle Peter says: “But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). Biblical revelation thus affirms what science today similarly proclaims: the transience of the cosmos, of galaxies, stars, planets, and life on earth. Science today can clearly and with sound argument compute the time of the death of our Sun, describing also the stages of its demise (red giant—white dwarf—black dwarf). It also clearly and with sound argument describes the end of the conditions for life on Earth, which will occur long before the death of our Sun. All these are natural processes explicable empirically. Biblical revelation, however, does not leave the cosmos to itself—neither in its coming-into-being nor in its consummation. Therefore, the cosmos, although by nature transient and corruptible, will not cease to be; rather, in the final union of all created reality with God, it will be transfigured and thus become eternally living and incorruptible. For this reason, biblical revelation speaks of a new heaven and a new earth: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isa. 65:17). “But according to His promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Rev. 21:1). “And He who sat upon the throne said: Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).
Of course, these biblical insights belong to the domain of divine revelation and, as such, are offered to human faith; consequently, they are not, in the scientific sense, empirically testable or falsifiable. For that reason, this is not and cannot be an insight of the natural sciences. Nevertheless, the cosmological models of mathematized speculation and Christian protology and eschatology stand on a similar epistemological plane. (This does not equate science and theology in the nature of their claims; rather, it points to the shared boundary of their testability when they speak about beginnings and ends.) What differentiates them is the basis on which trust is granted to one or the other: cosmological models possess mathematical consistency, whereas theological positions have behind them the authority of revelation, tradition, and internal coherence of meaning. Can the theological insight, as a metaphysical layer within a Christological NOMA, be joined to contemporary physics (not to mathematized speculations, but to exact physics as a science) into one—what Saint Maximus called—unified knowledge? It can. And the criterion for why it can is very simple. I heard it and adopted it from the esteemed Professor Poparić, our outstanding physicist, and the criterion is this: the two do not contradict one another. Thus, they can—unconfused and indivisible—be brought to completion in a single unified knowledge.
Finally, I would underscore one important aspect of why, in my view, the theological vision of the eschatology of the cosmos has an advantage over the naturalistic, as I have called them, mathematized speculations. The mathematized speculations concerning the end of the cosmos cannot, even in principle, be verifiable, for one simple reason. Even if one of them were correct, by the time it was being realized there would long since be no intelligent observer who could verify it. On the other hand, although the Christian revelation concerning eschatological events is a matter of faith, that faith is not faith in an event that no one will be able to see, that is, to verify. No: Christian belief is also belief in the future, final confirmation and vision of what is now believed: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power” (Matt. 24:30). “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Yes. Amen” (Rev. 1:7).
Presbyter Dr. Aleksandar Milojkov
