In 1915, Albert Einstein put forward his general theory of relativity. Before this, the general view of the universe was derived from the classical mechanistic model worked out in the 18th century by Sir Isaac Newton. For Newton, the universe was like a vast clockwork mechanism, obeying a number of fixed laws of motion. It was infinite in extent, but essentially unchanging. This vision of the universe suffered from the defect of all mechanistic, non-dialectical theories. It was static.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble, using a powerful new telescope, showed that the universe was far bigger than had been previously thought. Moreover, he noticed a previously unobserved phenomenon. When light reaches our eyes from a moving source, it creates a change in frequency. This may be expressed in terms of the colours of the spectrum. When a source is travelling towards us, its light is perceived to shift towards the high frequency (violet) end of the spectrum. When it moves away, we perceive a shift towards the low frequency (red) end of the spectrum. This theory, first worked out by the Austrian Christian Doppler, and called the “Doppler effect” after him, had major implications for astronomy. The stars appear to observers as a pattern of lights against a dark background. Noticing that most of the stars showed a shift towards the red end of the spectrum, Hubble’s observations gave rise to the idea that the galaxies were moving away from us at a speed proportionate to the distance of the galaxy. This became known as Hubble’s Law, although Hubble himself did not think that the universe was expanding.

Hubble observed that there was a correlation between the redshift and distance, as measured by the apparent brightness of the galaxies. It appeared that the most distant galaxies then observable were moving away at 25,000 miles per second. With the advent of the new 200-inch telescope in the 1960s, even more distant objects were detected, moving away at 150,000 miles per second. Upon these observations, the hypothesis of the “expanding universe” was built. In addition, the “field equations” of Einstein’s general theory of relativity could be interpreted in such a way as to make them conform to this idea. By extension, it was argued that, if the universe was expanded, it must have been smaller in the past than now. The consequence of this was the hypothesis that the universe must have begun as a single dense core of matter. This was not originally Hubble’s idea. It had already been advanced in 1922 by the Russian mathematician, Alexander Friedmann. Then in 1927, Georges-Henri Lemaître first put forward his idea of the “cosmic egg”. From the standpoint of dialectical materialism, the idea of an eternally unchanging, closed universe, in a state of permanent equilibrium, is clearly incorrect. Therefore, the abandonment of this standpoint was undoubtedly a step forward.

The theories of Friedmann were given an important boost by the observations of Hubble and Wirtz. These appeared to indicate that the universe, or at least the part of it we can observe, was expanding. This was seized upon by Lemaître, a Belgian priest, who attempted to prove that, if the universe was finite in space, it must also be finite in time – it must have had a beginning. The usefulness of such a theory to the Catholic Church is beyond all doubt. It leaves the door wide open to the idea of a Creator, who, after being ignominiously expelled from the universe by science, now prepares his triumphal comeback as the Cosmic Ju-ju Man. “I felt at the time,” said Hannes Alfvén years later, “that the motivation for his theory was Lemaître’s need to reconcile his physics with the Church’s doctrine of creation ex nihilo.”[54] Lemaître was later rewarded by being made director of the Pontifical Academy of Science.

  1. Quoted by Lerner, E., op. cit., p. 214.