Relativity
At the end of the nineteenth century, peoples’ imaginations were fed with multidimensional geometric pictures. Some philosophers started speculating on “other dimensions” as living places for spirits, and the popular writer Edwin A. Abbot published a book in 1884 entitled Flatland, the principal aim of which was criticism of Victorian England, but which in fact inspired both philosophers and scientists to deal with new geometric spaces.
With the advent of the special and general theories of relativity the concept of space-time entered the imaginary requisites of popular and philosophical literature and became a powerful tool of scientific investigation. From then on, geometry would not only deal with the problem of space but also with at least some aspects of the time problem.
Consider only two such problems that have repercussions in theological matters. The first problem concerns the nature of time flow and its relationship to eternity. The theory of relativity favors, but does not require, a picture of space-time as existing in one totality with the idea of the flowing time being only a “projection” of human psychological experience onto the world. Such a picture is consonant with the traditional idea of God’s eternity (going back to Augustine of Hippo [354–430 C.E.] and Boethius [c. 480–c. 526 C.E.]) as existence outside time rather than existence in time flowing from minus infinity to plus infinity. The second problem concerns the interpretation of the initial singularity appearing in some solutions of Einstein’s equations describing the evolution of cosmological models. The question whether such a singularity (for instance the one corresponding to the Big Bang in the standard cosmological model) could be identified with God’s act of creation was once heatedly discussed. The prevailing view at the start of the twenty-first century is that such interpretations should be postponed (if they are methodologically legitimate) until a trustworthy quantum cosmology becomes available.
