Particles From Darkness
Darkness in the Bible
Now let’s compare the nucleosynthesis scenario with the ancient scenario most similar to it, Moses’ creation account.
The First Evening
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1–2). In the beginning all of space was empty and there was darkness. The darkness was formless but seething with energy. The energy was denser than any known fluid. It was organized in tiny but mighty packets of waves. The waves rushed in all directions at a high, constant, absolute speed. Nothing yet existed to give a name to that speed. The universe consisted of very energetic gamma rays, darting to and fro through empty space. Some of these rays were the energy that would later materialize and become the Earth. The Earth had no form at all, because the rays were going in all directions. Before the energy materialized, the Earth was empty, but it still existed, because the energy existed. The waters also existed, but like the Earth they were also as yet unformed. The rays were invisible. All was dark, the first evening. Darkness throughout nature is called night.
Energy has density and exerts pressure like any fluid. Gravity attracts it toward regions of greater density. But at the beginning the energy distribution was almost completely uniform. The uniformity made the attraction almost equal in all directions. There was no perceptible gravitation. One would have felt there as astronauts feel in free fall. Therefore, the Earth was a great abyss of dense, fluid energy, with nowhere to stand.
We now know that the way Moses described the physical situation in the first verses of his creation narrative is correct in every detail. He used common words, words that one may understand in their ordinary, literal meaning, to describe an event no one has ever seen. What he here calls night and evening is simply darkness prevailing throughout the universe for an unspecified period of time.
No one knew anything about particle production before the 20th century. Yet thousands of years before, Moses said that the darkness came first, before there was any light. Small minds may dismiss this insight as trivial, but so great a mind as that of Augustine did not. Augustine said, “What can darkness be, but absence of light?”[i] But he noted carefully that Moses says the Earth existed in a formless, empty, dark state before there was light. Later Augustine said that the created heavens were very nearly like God, and the Earth was very nearly like nothing.
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book XII, Chapter iii, Section 3.
If darkness is merely the absence of light, then darkness is nothing. “Nothing,” the absence of anything, needs no creation. A story of creation should not start with nothing, but with the first act of creation. One may take the first line of Genesis, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, as a summary of the creation narrative, and verse 3 as the first act of creation, And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. But then what does one do with verse 2, which describes the condition of the Earth before there was light? The Earth was formless, empty, and dark, but it was not mere nothingness! It therefore makes much more sense to consider the first line as the narrative of an act of divine creation at the very beginning, and the appearance of light at a later time as the first visible result of formation.
Cosmic rays are a kind of darkness that can produce material. At the beginning, before there were particles, cosmic rays consisted only of gamma rays. Gamma rays were the original darkness that produced subatomic particles.
The above analysis is not mere speculation. We are basing it on a theory that many experimenters have proved correct in many different laboratories and with many different kinds of instruments. We still call ideas and formulas “theories” even after they are well established as laws of physics. We now know that energetic darkness can make material particles. The idea that the particle creation process we have observed in laboratories is the same process that prevailed in the early universe is an additional theory. We haven’t directly observed the processes of the early universe. However, the results of those processes are quite consistent with the processes and results we can observe in laboratories. This encourages us to pursue the idea that the material of the universe came from energetic darkness.
Why Darkness Comes First
Moses thought of darkness as the beginning of a day.
Ancient peoples used the phases of the Moon to measure time intervals longer than a week and less than a year. It is difficult to say on exactly which night the Moon is at its fullest. People who use lunar calendars avoid this difficulty by starting the month at the first appearance of the new Moon. At first appearance the Moon is a thin crescent that sets in the west at twilight just after the Sun goes down. We understand that the new Moon follows the Sun across the sky all day, but during broad daylight the thin crescent of the new Moon is invisible. Therefore the lunar month must start after sunset just before the first stars come out. It seems illogical to have the month start at one time of day and the day at another. Therefore people who use lunar calendars usually start the night-and-day cycle with darkness, at sunset. The Egyptians may have had this practice even before the Hebrews. Moses accepted this arrangement. We read in Leviticus 23:27, 32: The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly… 32 It is a Sabbath of rest for you.… From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your Sabbath. The regulation for the Day of Atonement shows clearly that in ancient Israel days began with darkness. Today Jews and Muslims follow this practice.
It has taken humankind a very long time to discover a kind of darkness that is energetic enough to shine and give rise to something material. Moses’ master stroke of genius was to understand that the Earth existed in darkness before there was light. We are hardly the first to recognize the greatness of Moses’ ideas. Three Bible writers studied the creation narrative and gave their own interpretation. Each one adds a valuable insight to the creation story. In the historical order of their writings, they are the prophet Isaiah, Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul, and the apostle John.
There are many words for darkness in English. A thesaurus lists night, dusk, gloom, dimness, shadows, shade, and obscurity as synonyms. In Hebrew there are about 30 different words that translate as dark or darkness. Isaiah, Paul, and John must have known all of these. Paul and John would have known several additional Greek words for darkness. Other ancient people did not distinguish so many kinds of darkness.
Isaiah on Darkness and Light
Isaiah expressed his ideas in some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, notably from chapter 40 through the end of the Bible book that bears his name. Modern poets enjoy what they call “poetic license.” People today don’t try to interpret modern poetry literally. But were ancient poets aware of the license modern people are willing to grant them?
Creating the Darkness
Isaiah reports that God made a remarkable statement. God says, I form the light and create darkness (Isaiah 45:7). Surprisingly, this statement can be interpreted literally. This means that the statement makes sense when each word is given its simple, ordinary meaning.
The Hebrew word בָּרָא bara´ translated create refers to creation as a primary work. There is no reference to a consumable resource. Here God says through Isaiah that He creates darkness.
The kind of darkness Augustine defined can never produce light. Under his definition, light is something, but darkness is nothing. If we were to follow Augustine’s line of interpretation then Isaiah would have God saying, “I create the absence of light,” or worse, “I create nothing.” But this makes no sense. “Nothing” has no need of a creator. God created everything that exists. “Nothing” does not exist, and no one created it. But according to Moses, just after the beginning, darkness was an existing, substantive part of the heavens and the Earth.
Dark But Not Evil
The preceding line of analysis started going astray when we introduced a restricted definition of darkness, the one that Augustine proposed. Other interpreters have tried a different approach. They spiritualize the darkness and call it evil. In many places in the Bible darkness is a symbol of evil. But if we read Isaiah 45:7 that way, we have God saying that He creates evil.
Some translations, including the King James Version, do have God saying I make peace, and create evil in the next line. But the New International Version translates the phrase as I bring prosperity and create disaster.
That cannot be. In Moses’ narrative of creation God frequently pauses to evaluate what He has made and everything He has made is always good. In Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had God made, and it was very good. Everything God made includes the darkness. Therefore the darkness God created was also good. Some people spiritualize the darkness of Isaiah 45:7 and take it as evil, but that leads to logical difficulties.
The simplest interpretation of the light and darkness of Isaiah 45:7 is physical and literal. Isaiah is talking about the kind of darkness and light that a child with seeing eyes understands.
In Genesis 1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. The light did not eliminate the darkness. God kept both the darkness and the light, but He separated them. Separation can be done in time or in space or both. The darkness and the light were both good. We will later analyze other kinds of darkness and see why they are good, too.
Formless, Empty, and Dark
Isaiah doubtless meditated on Genesis 1:1‑3 when he wrote that God creates darkness and forms light. In the beginning when the heavens and Earth were created, they were at first formless, empty, and dark, but they existed. What created objects are formless, empty, and dark? Augustine says he tried a long time to imagine a formless object and gave up.[i] Science at last knows the answer. Such created objects are found in nature. Physicists can also make them in the laboratory.
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Books XII and XIII, passim, especially Chapter vi, Section 6.
What are they? They are electromagnetic rays that vibrate very rapidly. A laser emits light rays that all travel in nearly the same direction. A laser beam has a very definite form. The form is the form of a beam of light, a bundle of rays that go in the same direction. Most light sources emit light rays that go in all directions. Their light is formless. Likewise, natural gamma rays travel in all directions. Such gamma rays are created, existing, dark, and formless.
We tend to think of outer space as an empty vacuum, punctuated here and there with planets, stars, and galaxies. Yet space is not empty, filled with nothing. We say that the light from distant galaxies comes through empty space. But while the light is coming, is the space empty? Space contains the light in transit and is therefore not really empty. Gamma rays travel through empty space, just as light does when it comes to us from the stars and galaxies. Light rays and gamma rays can exist in regions devoid of matter. They are, however, very real. Energy can exist in “empty” space.
Light rays are visible, but gamma rays are dark. Human eyes cannot respond to vibrations that are so rapid. A region filled with gamma rays is therefore an existing object that is formless, empty, and dark. The Bible says that the Earth was formless, empty, and dark. The unformed Earth at first existed in empty space as dark but detectable energy.
Isaiah adds to the confirmation we found in the books of Moses. Neither one knew anything about particle production from gamma rays, but they make an exact description of energetic darkness the beginning of the narrative of the formation of the Earth. We are already far beyond simple coincidences. Somehow Isaiah and Moses avoided error when they spoke of the beginning. If God’s Spirit did not guide them, how did they describe the beginning so accurately?
Darkness in the Bible
Now let’s compare the nucleosynthesis scenario with the ancient scenario most similar to it, Moses’ creation account.
The First Evening
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1–2). In the beginning all of space was empty and there was darkness. The darkness was formless but seething with energy. The energy was denser than any known fluid. It was organized in tiny but mighty packets of waves. The waves rushed in all directions at a high, constant, absolute speed. Nothing yet existed to give a name to that speed. The universe consisted of very energetic gamma rays, darting to and fro through empty space. Some of these rays were the energy that would later materialize and become the Earth. The Earth had no form at all, because the rays were going in all directions. Before the energy materialized, the Earth was empty, but it still existed, because the energy existed. The waters also existed, but like the Earth they were also as yet unformed. The rays were invisible. All was dark, the first evening. Darkness throughout nature is called night.
Energy has density and exerts pressure like any fluid. Gravity attracts it toward regions of greater density. But at the beginning the energy distribution was almost completely uniform. The uniformity made the attraction almost equal in all directions. There was no perceptible gravitation. One would have felt there as astronauts feel in free fall. Therefore, the Earth was a great abyss of dense, fluid energy, with nowhere to stand.
We now know that the way Moses described the physical situation in the first verses of his creation narrative is correct in every detail. He used common words, words that one may understand in their ordinary, literal meaning, to describe an event no one has ever seen. What he here calls night and evening is simply darkness prevailing throughout the universe for an unspecified period of time.
No one knew anything about particle production before the 20th century. Yet thousands of years before, Moses said that the darkness came first, before there was any light. Small minds may dismiss this insight as trivial, but so great a mind as that of Augustine did not. Augustine said, “What can darkness be, but absence of light?”[i] But he noted carefully that Moses says the Earth existed in a formless, empty, dark state before there was light. Later Augustine said that the created heavens were very nearly like God, and the Earth was very nearly like nothing.
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book XII, Chapter iii, Section 3.
If darkness is merely the absence of light, then darkness is nothing. “Nothing,” the absence of anything, needs no creation. A story of creation should not start with nothing, but with the first act of creation. One may take the first line of Genesis, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, as a summary of the creation narrative, and verse 3 as the first act of creation, And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. But then what does one do with verse 2, which describes the condition of the Earth before there was light? The Earth was formless, empty, and dark, but it was not mere nothingness! It therefore makes much more sense to consider the first line as the narrative of an act of divine creation at the very beginning, and the appearance of light at a later time as the first visible result of formation.
Cosmic rays are a kind of darkness that can produce material. At the beginning, before there were particles, cosmic rays consisted only of gamma rays. Gamma rays were the original darkness that produced subatomic particles.
The above analysis is not mere speculation. We are basing it on a theory that many experimenters have proved correct in many different laboratories and with many different kinds of instruments. We still call ideas and formulas “theories” even after they are well established as laws of physics. We now know that energetic darkness can make material particles. The idea that the particle creation process we have observed in laboratories is the same process that prevailed in the early universe is an additional theory. We haven’t directly observed the processes of the early universe. However, the results of those processes are quite consistent with the processes and results we can observe in laboratories. This encourages us to pursue the idea that the material of the universe came from energetic darkness.
Why Darkness Comes First
Moses thought of darkness as the beginning of a day.
Ancient peoples used the phases of the Moon to measure time intervals longer than a week and less than a year. It is difficult to say on exactly which night the Moon is at its fullest. People who use lunar calendars avoid this difficulty by starting the month at the first appearance of the new Moon. At first appearance the Moon is a thin crescent that sets in the west at twilight just after the Sun goes down. We understand that the new Moon follows the Sun across the sky all day, but during broad daylight the thin crescent of the new Moon is invisible. Therefore the lunar month must start after sunset just before the first stars come out. It seems illogical to have the month start at one time of day and the day at another. Therefore people who use lunar calendars usually start the night-and-day cycle with darkness, at sunset. The Egyptians may have had this practice even before the Hebrews. Moses accepted this arrangement. We read in Leviticus 23:27, 32: The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly… 32 It is a Sabbath of rest for you.… From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your Sabbath. The regulation for the Day of Atonement shows clearly that in ancient Israel days began with darkness. Today Jews and Muslims follow this practice.
It has taken humankind a very long time to discover a kind of darkness that is energetic enough to shine and give rise to something material. Moses’ master stroke of genius was to understand that the Earth existed in darkness before there was light. We are hardly the first to recognize the greatness of Moses’ ideas. Three Bible writers studied the creation narrative and gave their own interpretation. Each one adds a valuable insight to the creation story. In the historical order of their writings, they are the prophet Isaiah, Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul, and the apostle John.
There are many words for darkness in English. A thesaurus lists night, dusk, gloom, dimness, shadows, shade, and obscurity as synonyms. In Hebrew there are about 30 different words that translate as dark or darkness. Isaiah, Paul, and John must have known all of these. Paul and John would have known several additional Greek words for darkness. Other ancient people did not distinguish so many kinds of darkness.
Isaiah on Darkness and Light
Isaiah expressed his ideas in some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, notably from chapter 40 through the end of the Bible book that bears his name. Modern poets enjoy what they call “poetic license.” People today don’t try to interpret modern poetry literally. But were ancient poets aware of the license modern people are willing to grant them?
Creating the Darkness
Isaiah reports that God made a remarkable statement. God says, I form the light and create darkness (Isaiah 45:7). Surprisingly, this statement can be interpreted literally. This means that the statement makes sense when each word is given its simple, ordinary meaning.
The Hebrew word בָּרָא bara´ translated create refers to creation as a primary work. There is no reference to a consumable resource. Here God says through Isaiah that He creates darkness.
The kind of darkness Augustine defined can never produce light. Under his definition, light is something, but darkness is nothing. If we were to follow Augustine’s line of interpretation then Isaiah would have God saying, “I create the absence of light,” or worse, “I create nothing.” But this makes no sense. “Nothing” has no need of a creator. God created everything that exists. “Nothing” does not exist, and no one created it. But according to Moses, just after the beginning, darkness was an existing, substantive part of the heavens and the Earth.
Dark But Not Evil
The preceding line of analysis started going astray when we introduced a restricted definition of darkness, the one that Augustine proposed. Other interpreters have tried a different approach. They spiritualize the darkness and call it evil. In many places in the Bible darkness is a symbol of evil. But if we read Isaiah 45:7 that way, we have God saying that He creates evil.
Some translations, including the King James Version, do have God saying I make peace, and create evil in the next line. But the New International Version translates the phrase as I bring prosperity and create disaster.
That cannot be. In Moses’ narrative of creation God frequently pauses to evaluate what He has made and everything He has made is always good. In Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had God made, and it was very good. Everything God made includes the darkness. Therefore the darkness God created was also good. Some people spiritualize the darkness of Isaiah 45:7 and take it as evil, but that leads to logical difficulties.
The simplest interpretation of the light and darkness of Isaiah 45:7 is physical and literal. Isaiah is talking about the kind of darkness and light that a child with seeing eyes understands.
In Genesis 1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. The light did not eliminate the darkness. God kept both the darkness and the light, but He separated them. Separation can be done in time or in space or both. The darkness and the light were both good. We will later analyze other kinds of darkness and see why they are good, too.
Formless, Empty, and Dark
Isaiah doubtless meditated on Genesis 1:1‑3 when he wrote that God creates darkness and forms light. In the beginning when the heavens and Earth were created, they were at first formless, empty, and dark, but they existed. What created objects are formless, empty, and dark? Augustine says he tried a long time to imagine a formless object and gave up.[i] Science at last knows the answer. Such created objects are found in nature. Physicists can also make them in the laboratory.
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Books XII and XIII, passim, especially Chapter vi, Section 6.
What are they? They are electromagnetic rays that vibrate very rapidly. A laser emits light rays that all travel in nearly the same direction. A laser beam has a very definite form. The form is the form of a beam of light, a bundle of rays that go in the same direction. Most light sources emit light rays that go in all directions. Their light is formless. Likewise, natural gamma rays travel in all directions. Such gamma rays are created, existing, dark, and formless.
We tend to think of outer space as an empty vacuum, punctuated here and there with planets, stars, and galaxies. Yet space is not empty, filled with nothing. We say that the light from distant galaxies comes through empty space. But while the light is coming, is the space empty? Space contains the light in transit and is therefore not really empty. Gamma rays travel through empty space, just as light does when it comes to us from the stars and galaxies. Light rays and gamma rays can exist in regions devoid of matter. They are, however, very real. Energy can exist in “empty” space.
Light rays are visible, but gamma rays are dark. Human eyes cannot respond to vibrations that are so rapid. A region filled with gamma rays is therefore an existing object that is formless, empty, and dark. The Bible says that the Earth was formless, empty, and dark. The unformed Earth at first existed in empty space as dark but detectable energy.
Isaiah adds to the confirmation we found in the books of Moses. Neither one knew anything about particle production from gamma rays, but they make an exact description of energetic darkness the beginning of the narrative of the formation of the Earth. We are already far beyond simple coincidences. Somehow Isaiah and Moses avoided error when they spoke of the beginning. If God’s Spirit did not guide them, how did they describe the beginning so accurately?