Time's Arrow

In previous posts I have written that the current scientific consensus regarding the beginning of the universe is consistent with the doctrine of creation. But how consistent are scientific and theological perspectives on the end of the universe?

We are currently living in the Stelliferous Era, the age of starlight. This will eventually come to an end as larger stars explode or collapse over billions of years while small red dwarf stars burn slowly through their remaining fuel over trillions of years. Ultimately though even the red dwarfs will fade and become white dwarfs.

British physicist Dr. Brian Cox describes what will happen next:

A black dwarf will be the final fate of those last stars, white dwarfs that have become so cold that they barely emit any more heat or light. Black dwarfs are dark, dense decaying balls of degenerate matter. Little more than the ashes of stars, their constituent atoms are so severely crushed that black dwarfs are a million times denser than our sun...

We think that the matter inside black dwarfs, the last matter in the universe, will eventually evaporate away and be carried off into the void as radiation, leaving absolutely nothing behind. With the black dwarfs gone, there won't be a single atom of matter left. All that will remain of our once rich cosmos will be particles of light and black holes. After an unimaginable length of time, even the black holes will have evaporated and the universe will be nothing but a sea of photons, gradually tending towards the same temperature, as the expansion of the universe cools them towards absolute zero...

It's what's known as the heat death of the universe, an era when the cosmos will remain vast and cold and desolate for the rest of time. There is no difference between the past, the present and the future. There's no way of measuring the passage of time because nothing in the cosmos changes, the arrow of time has simply ceased to exist.

Although we do not know the final outcome of all things with certainty it seems to me this scientific view is consistent with a “conditionalist” or “annihilationist” theological perspective. Arguably Luther held some form of this view as evidenced by his rejection of the innate immortality of the soul - anything that is not in the end restored with God in eternity will pass away.

Whether one believes in our Christian God or not the ultimate fate of all things in this world is the same.