Christians should not be afraid of String theory! If String theory turns out to actually describe reality it will change our perception of the universe, but will do nothing to undermine Christianity. String Theory is simply a theoretical and mathematical idea that the fundamental particles which make up our universe can be described as one-dimensional vibrating objects called strings. The different vibrations on these strings then give rise to the different particles that make up our universe. String theory is very attractive to physicists because it provides a possible “Theory of Everything” – the ultimate goal of physics, unifying and explaining all forces and particles with one grand set of descriptive mathematical equations.
Unification has been the goal of science since the 17thcentury when Isaac Newton unified the motions of planets with the motion of objects on Earth with his simple laws of motion and his universal gravitational force. Another example of unification is Maxwell showing that electricity and magnetism are different manifestations of the same force; describing them both with the same set of equations. Quantum mechanics has made it possible to unify all of the fundamental forces - except for gravity. General relativity (which describes how gravity works) does an excellent job explaining large things and has proved almost impossible to reconcile with quantum mechanics, which does an excellent job describing tiny objects. String theory is the attempt to accomplish this final union, describing the universe with a theory of everything by unifying general relativity with quantum theory.
String theory, if true, describes 10500possible universes. This “’landscape of universes” may not actually exist – it is just a range of mathematical possibilities for potential universes. This description gives no explanation as to why our universe has the values that it does, it is simply a mathematical list of possible universes and does nothing to undermine Biblical creation.
String theorists acknowledge a large number of possible solutions to the equations of string theory and that none discovered yet looks like this universe. They also acknowledge that the fundamental constants of nature in this universe appear finely tuned to support life. To reconcile these observations, theorists posit that all possible solutions of the equations actually exist in a landscape outside this universe. However, this solution requires that something outside this universe—another way of saying supernatural—is responsible for its creation.[1]
As William Lane Craig has pointed out, there are only three competing explanations for the extreme fine-tuning of our life-permitting universe: Chance, Necessity, or Design.[2]With 10500possible combinations of all the fundamental constants, it is amazing that there is one with the properties that will permit life! Either we just got lucky (chance), or there is something that forces all the values of the constants to be in the life-permitting range (necessity), or a designer set all the values at the correct levels to permit life (design). String theory’s 10500 options rules out necessity. For chance to be the explanation, all the 10500 universes must actually exist (a many-universe Multiverse) and we just happen to be in the one that can permit life. As Hugh Ross pointed out in the above quote, this does nothing to remove the need for a designer, it instead requires us to decide who or what the designer is.
At first glance, the multiverse theory seems to effectively buttress the human “selection effect” explanation for the fine-tuned appearance of our universe. Yet as research into multiverse scenarios advances, it appears that they may simply move the design “up one level.” In other words, instead of just one universe requiring fine-tuning to support life, it appears that any multiverse-generating mechanism also requires a high degree of fine-tuning to reproduce the observable universe in which we live.[3]
As for this large quantity of universes, a recent paper contends that many of them cannot exist![4]All current astrophysical evidence supports an accelerating, expanding universe which requires dark energy as kind of an anti-gravitational substance to facilitate the increasing acceleration. Current observations imply that the amount of dark energy in empty space remains constant; some string theorists now contend that this type of universe is incompatible with String theory.
Since 1998, telescope observations have indicated that the cosmos is expanding ever-so-slightly faster all the time, implying that the vacuum of empty space must be infused with a dose of gravitationally repulsive “dark energy.” In addition, it looks like the amount of dark energy infused in empty space stays constant over time (as best anyone can tell). But the new conjecture asserts that the vacuum energy of the universe must be decreasing. Cumrun Vafa, a prominent string theorist at Harvard University, has been mapping the forbidden “swampland” of impossible universes for 13 years. Vafa and colleagues contend that universes with stable, constant, positive amounts of vacuum energy, known as “de Sitter universes,” aren’t possible. String theorists have struggled mightily since dark energy’s 1998 discovery to construct convincing stringy models of stable de Sitter universes. But if Vafa is right, such efforts are bound to sink in logical inconsistency; de Sitter universes lie not in the landscape, but in the “swampland.”[5]
The number of possible universes allowed by string theory may be limited by dark energy. This would move the explanation of the fine-tuning of our universe closer to the physical necessity choice by limiting what universes can actually exist. Limiting the choices of possible universes does not, however, mean that our universe had to be the way it is. There is nothing in the scientific description of the initial conditions of the universe that would remotely suggest this.
The extraordinarily low entropy condition of the early universe would be a good example of an arbitrary quantity which seems to have just been put in at the creation as an initial condition. There is no reason to think that showing every constant and quantity to be physically necessary is anything more than a pipedream.[6]
All scientists agree that our universe is perfectly designed and fine-tuned for life. The scientific discussion centers now on why this is the case. If recent work showing that dark energy limits what universes can exist, making necessity a more reasonable explanation, we will still have the impossible task of showing why the initial conditions of the universe had to be the way they were with no other choices possible. If we discover that 10500universes actually exist and we just got lucky to be in this one, then we will still need to explain where the 10500universes came from. “Designed by something outside our universe” still remains as an increasingly reasonable explanation for our existence.
All String theories require that there are more than the four known dimensions of space-time. M-Theory, for example, requires 11 dimensions. These extra dimensions of String theory actually can help to explain the attributes of God and how He can operate in realms beyond ours! As Hugh Ross explained in his book The Creator and the Cosmos[7], an 11-dimensional being could easily perform acts that would be described as miracles to us four dimensional humans
Christians have absolutely no reason to be afraid of science. Instead, the more we learn about nature, the more reasonable the God of the Bible becomes! While it is a popular among Christians to point out that there isn’t any observational data supporting String theory or the Multiverse, I don’t think this retort does anything to convince someone versed in the sciences of the truth of Christianity. Instead, a more convincing response would be to show how current science actually supports the truths taught in the Bible.
[1]Hugh Ross, TNRTB Archive, February 22, 2006, String Theory and Multiverses Affirm Biblical Creation https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2006/02/22/string-theory-and-multiverses-affirm-biblical-creation
[2]William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith Podcast, January 28, 2019 https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/the-latest-on-string-theory/
[3]Jeffrey A. Zweerink, Ph.D., Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse?, Reasons to Believe 2008, page 53
[4]Georges Obied, Hirosi Ooguri, Lev Spodyneiko, Cumrun Vafa, De Sitter Space and the Swampland, Cornell University, July 17, 2018 https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.08362
[5]Natalie Wolchover, Dark Energy May Be Incompatible with String Theory, Quanta Magazine, August 9, 2018 https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-energy-may-be-incompatible-with-string-theory-20180809/
[6]William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 3rdedition, Crossway Books, 2008, page 164
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