Law Assumes a Lawgiver - Part 1

As of 2010 the Hubble Space Telescope was able to discern an object 13.2 billion light years distant.  What that means is that the light emitted by what is believed to be a constellation traveling outward from that constellation at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second) would take 13,200,000,000 years to make it journey through the vastness of space and finally arrive at Hubble.

Consider then that in a given year (60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours X 365 day X Speed/Light) gives the distance in miles that light travels in one year.  Continuing then multiply that number by the 13.2 billion light years from that most distant object. The numbers looks something like this: 

Light travels 5,875,882,128,000 miles in one (1) year (5.8 X 10¹²)

X 13,200,000,000 light years distant from object (13.2 X 10⁹)

77,561,644,089,600,000,000,000 miles to object (77.5 X 10²¹)

Assume for a moment that the constellation is in a fixed location (that it is not moving outward from the earth).  With that in mind consider that such light as is emitted is traveling in all directions at that same speed.  That is to say that were the Hubble to be moved 26.4 billion light years diagonally from this side to the opposite side of the constellation its light would be there.

For that to be true what assumptions have to be made?  There is the assumption that Hubble would find light at that location.  There is the assumption that known physical laws are the same and operate in the same fashion 26.4 billion light years away.  

One can only assume it to be so because of science’s assumptions about the consistency of physical laws that govern light.  There again is that most troubling word, “assume!”  Think about what we take as reliable because of assumptions.  However, there is another word that is equally troubling.  It is the word, “laws.”

Consider this illustration.  No one enters a law library and assumes that the laws contained therein just happened.  While there may have been change due to case law, no one assumes that laws came about without some kind of an entity external to those laws. 

Letters + Time + Chance = Law Library – What?

Neither would anyone assume that letters plus time plus chance would result in the millions and millions of words that formed into some kind of order which then result in a meaningful system.   An orderly system that then evolved and gained the title of law.  No, not at all—there had to be an entity external to the Library.

So too with the physical laws which govern science and so too with ethical laws that are meant to govern conduct.  The Theist  believes that these laws came from God.  The Naturalist believes they evolved.  Now what makes more sense?  Which is more plausible given the order of the Universe?  Is it not more plausible that One who is external to these and other laws is God!   

 

More to follow.