Don’t Be Afraid of the Big Bad Bang
I just began a new teaching series in Genesis at my church, and we started with a look at origins. As Christians, we have an answer to the question of where things began. The Scriptures tell us that it was God who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.
Those who reject the biblical account have to come up with another explanation, and that means the burden of proof is on them to explain how we got something from nothing. The very idea of this happening, though, is perplexing unless an intelligent being is responsible.
Something cannot come from nothing. It just isn’t possible, and it doesn’t make any logical sense. Someone who is intelligent, powerful, and volitional must have brought things into being because things do not come into being on their own.
The question of origins is a critical issue, and naturalism hasn’t come up with a viable explanation for it. Scientific naturalists have advanced theories about how they think things developed over time but have provided very little about how they think things got started.
The best attempt that they’ve come up with is a theory called The Big Bang. Now, Christians usually bristle when they hear about the idea of a big bang because they presume it is in conflict with the biblical account of creation.
However, the concept of a big bang actually aligns quite nicely with the Genesis account, which tells us that the universe came into being in an instant. We read that God spoke things into being, which describes an instantaneous event.
What evolutionists call The Big Bang, we simply call the Creation Event. It’s like looking at the same picture but only from different perspectives. And, what we can agree on is the fact that things got their start in a split second.
In an article published last year, a respected Johns Hopkins physicist Dr. Charles Bennett was quoted about some groundbreaking research that he presented at PrincetonUniversityin which he demonstrated how the universe grew to astounding proportions in less than the blink of an eye.
Dr. Bennett said, “It amazes me that we can say anything at all about what transpired in the first trillionth of a second of the universe.” His research about the instantaneous beginning of the universe aligns with and actually confirms what we read in Genesis.
The universe did, in fact, come into being in a trillionth of a second. The question is, what caused it to happen? Did something cataclysmic just explode on its own and lead to the formation of matter and eventual life? Or, did someone cause it to happen?
Something, or Someone, had to be the first cause, and that agent had to be uncaused. As we have always heard, every effect must have a cause, and if the effect is the universe, then there must be an initial cause that precipitated it.
The most plausible solution is that a free willed, intelligent, powerful being is that cause. It had to be a Designer who had not just the power to create but also the will and the freedom to do so.
My encouragement to those who embrace The Big Bang but reject the biblical account of a Creator is simply to ask themselves, what is the best explanation? Is the best, most simple answer that things exploded without cause or that someone intentionally caused it?
Scientific discovery is all about evidence, and the real scientist will always follow the evidence. And, if the evidence of origins, in fact, leads to a Creator, then why dismiss that? It seems to me that for those who want to do true scientific inquiry, they would base their conclusions not upon biases but upon facts.
All I am suggesting is that empirical students do the research that they claim to do. Look at the evidence and follow it. Apply Ockham’s Razor to the problem, and see for yourself if the simplest and best solution for The Big Bang is not creation.
And, for convinced Christians, we need to stop fearing The Big Bang. The theory isn’t that far off from the truth, and it is a big step in the right direction. Instead of looking for reasons to reject it, why don’t we look for commonalities to share with it?
After all, Paul did this very thing in Acts 17 when he affirmed that the Athenian philosophers were on the right track in worshipping an unknown god. He found common ground with the Athenians, took what was unknown to them, and then graciously explained it.
I liken the debate over The Big Bang in our culture to the unknown god in Athens. The Big Bang isn’t a bad idea; it’s just not a complete idea. That means it needs to be developed and explained, not feared and rejected.
Completely agree. Plus it seems that scientifically you can prove the universe is still expanding, thus it had to have been in one spot originally. And again, this does nothing to attempt to dispel the Biblical narrative.
Very good. Thanks for the comment, Jason!
I have several issues related to trying to see a correlation between the Biblical “Let there be light” and the Big Bang theory. One of the largest is that the Big Bang theory is highly disputed science. see this website for a few of the issues: http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/BB-top-30.asp
One constantly recurring theme in Big Bang Cosmology and Darwinian biology is that physical reality looks really old, so any respectable science must take that into account.
There are many,many problems with and counter observations to that viewpoint and Christians need to be cautious in getting on that bus.
Mike, I don’t see it that way. Everyone agrees, young or old earth folks, that the earth at least has the appearance of age. Whether it is really old or just appears to be old is up for debate.
Kent,
I would like to expand this thought at a later time, but what would be the difference in appearance of a 6,000 some odd year old earth that had gone through a cataclysm and a multi-billion year old earth? I would assert that what we actually observe isn’t driving the assumption of age. A philosophical presupposition to a multi-billion year old earth is bludgeoning uncooperative physical observations into its camp. Without the presupposition the facts, as facts, don’t force the conclusion of billions and billions. In fact, an inductive hypothesis can be invalidated by a SINGLE counter observation and there are MANY more than one. Now, I’ll grant that disproving one hypothesis does not then prove another, but the ease with which the counter observations are simply ignored by the billions and billions crowd show that the issue isn’t observational, it’s pre-suppositional.
Mike, I agree that presuppositions drive people’s conclusions. After all, if we start with the wrong hypothesis, then we will always come to the wrong conclusion. However, I think we want people to test the hypothesis about what caused “The Big Bang”? A friend sent me this link to an article that expresses why this is good…http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21328473.500-the-genesis-problem.html.
I would also like to develop the idea the Craig and others are on a slippery slope by attaching any theological discussion to the Big Bang theory because that theory has HUGE problems due to observation that has been conducted. No good would be served by attaching any level theological legitimacy to a theory that, 50 years from now, will be considered ludicrous.
Again, I want to suggest that this article expresses why I disagree. http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21328473.500-the-genesis-problem.html
The appearance of age is a human construct based on the uniformitarian principle which says that the rates that are occurring today are unchanged from the past OR the present is the key to the past. For example, why do some scientists say that the Grand Canyon is old? They base it on the thickness of the various rock layers and the time it took to lay them down according to today’s deposition rates and the rate at which the Colorado River would have carved thru the rock. Therefore, the observation that the Canyon is old is biased by the application of the uniformitarian principle. There certainly wasn’t any reference point to show old vs young. Perhaps a better example would be Mt. St. Helens. If scientists were to apply the uniformitarian principle to the aftermath of the eruption, it would show hundreds of thousands or millions of years and not the less than 35 years that is the actual age. So, while the canyons of MSH appear old (according to the uniformitarian principle), they are not.
Viewing the Earth thru the lens of the uniformitarian principle rules out the possibility of a Noah’s flood which covered the entire globe. (Proponents of the Day-Age creation theory do not believe Noah’s flood was worldwide which is one reason they believe the Earth is very old.) However, if we take the Bible literally, Noah’s flood did cover the Earth and radically changed the landscape and likely the entire environment. Let me put it this way. Noah’s flood is like a person who lives a hard life – outdoors in an Arizona sun, drugs, alcohol, fights, etc. They are not as old as they appear. The flip side is someone who takes care of themselves, lives an easy life in Hawaii, gets pampered, etc. They are older than they appear.
While the age of the Earth is debated in scientific circles, Bible believing Christians must keep in mind that old-Earth science does not comport with the Bible, i.e., the account of Noah’s Flood, and that scientists are always biased.
Woody, my only concern with your comment is the last sentence, which seems to drive the unnecessary wedge between science and Scripture. Science and Scripture are in agreement. The problem is our own fallen and faulty interpretations of one or both.
I have a theory about why things appear to be old and unfortunately I don’t think this theory could ever be tested. I believe that Adam and Eve were created to live forever which would mean than the earth and the sun would have to last forever as well. When sin entered the world and death became part of life I think the laws of the universe changed and the sun will now eventually burn up some day as the 2nd law of thermodynamics verifies. So for the universe to be everlasting and then not then is a drastic change and accounts for the aged effect. Could be total looneyville but it is an idea.
George, that’s an interesting theory. Maybe you can test it out right here on this post. Thanks for the comment!
I’m no scientist, but naturalism can’t seem to account for a lot of things, even when viewed against basic scientific laws. The law of conservation of energy states that energy can’t be created or destroyed. So how did this happen in the Big Bang if it wasn’t caused by something/someone that exists outside the laws of the universe? I’ve heard people suggest that the universe has just always existed then. But similarly, the second law of thermodynamics states that eventually over time, all energy will reach a state of entropy resulting in heat death… so if the universe is “infinitely” old, why haven’t we reached heat death yet? It seems both of these conclusions lead to something supernatural beyond the constraints of scientific laws and time that exist within our universe…
Yes, very good, Scott. Those are valid points. Appreciate the comment!