As we continue to do
science and discover more and more about nature, we find that what we discover actually
supports what the Bible has always taught about the universe! One of the most tested, and confirmed, scientific theories of our time is
that all matter, energy, and time had a beginning. Creation out of nothing is
one of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Jews and Christians have
held this view for thousands of years; despite scientists that taught
otherwise. The Aristotelian view of the
universe as eternal was the standard scientific model for 2000 years prior to
the mid to late 20th century, when we started to discover that the
universe actually had a beginning!
Thinking that the
universe was eternal in the past did create a paradox; first attributed to the German amateur astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers in 1823. His “dark night sky” paradox had, in fact, been discussed throughout
the history of science. If light had been coming toward the earth for an
infinite period of time from an incomprehensible number of stars that cover
every inch of the sky, why is the majority of the night sky dark? If the
universe has existed from infinity past, then the sky should always be filled
with light.
The
first empirical evidence against a past eternal universe came in 1914, when Vesto
Slipher showed that several nebulae (at that time, defined as “any diffuse
astronomical object”) were moving away from the earth. In 1916, Albert Einstein discovered that his equations
of general relativity actually predicted an expanding universe; implying that
the universe was not fixed and had to have a beginning! He “fudged” his
equations to make them fit the current view of a fixed, unchanging universe;
later calling that act the biggest mistake of his career.
Alexander
Friedman, a Russian mathematician working in the 1920’s with Einstein’s
theories, used the mathematics to show that the universe is expanding. A
Belgian Roman Catholic Priest, George Lemaitre,
simultaneously realized the implications of general relativity and in 1927 published his “hypothesis of the primeval
atom.” He showed how the universe had to be homogeneous with a constant mass
and a growing radius.
A few years later,
Edwin Hubble provided confirmation of what Slipher showed; that velocities of
galaxies moving away from us must result from a general expansion of the
universe. The implication here is that if the universe is expanding, then it
must, at some time in the past, have been denser. If we run the expanding
universe in reverse, then there had to have been a time when all matter was
compressed together in an infinitely dense clump.
While the debate over
whether the universe had a beginning continued, George Gamow, a chemist, showed
in 1946 that only an universe expanding from an extremely hot condition could
account for the present abundance of elements.
The smoking gun finally came in 1965
when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected radiation left over from the
creation event and showed that the universe had to begin in a very hot and
dense state. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose solidified the argument and
created some controversy when they showed in 1970 that all space, matter, time
& energy must have been created by an agent outside of space and time.
In the
last 25 years, the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer satellite), the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe)
and the Planck Spacecraft (from the European Space Agency) have all
collected data that has strengthened the hot big bang model and confirmed that the
universe had a beginning. Current Big Bang Cosmology teaches that all matter, time, and energy
were created out of nothing in a hot, dense, singularity that has been
expanding and cooling since. The data is so
strong that debate among scientists is no longer if there was a
beginning; now it is mostly a discussion over what caused the beginning.
About three thousand years
ago, the author of Genesis wrote, “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.” An excellent case can be
made that this first sentence in Genesis is describing creation ex nihilo, creation
out of nothing. God did not create out
of any pre-existing materials and the phrase “the heavens and the earth” means
everything; the entire universe. In one
sentence, Genesis 1:1 separated itself from all other creation accounts and
from almost every religion throughout history.
With majestic simplicity the author of the opening
chapter of Genesis thus differentiated his viewpoint, not only from that of the
ancient creation myths of Israel’s neighbors, but also effectively from
pantheism, such as found in Eastern religions like Hinduism and Taoism, from panentheism,
whether of classical neo-Platonist vintage or twentieth-century process
theology, and from polytheism, ranging from ancient paganism to contemporary
Mormonism.[1]
The New Testament writers
and the early Christian church fathers ascribe the existence of the universe to
God alone; God is described as the ultimate source of all existing things.[2]
Creation ex nihilo
was defended in the second century by one of the early church fathers,
Irenaeus, in Against Heresies. The Gospel of John begins with a statement
about who created and the fact that He created all things!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created
through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been
created.[3]
The
parallel between big bang cosmology and what the Bible teaches is astounding. Christian theology
teaches that all matter, time, and energy were created out of nothing by God
and this teaching was around thousands of years before science “discovered” it!
The best data we have are exactly what I would have
predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and
the Bible as a whole.[4]
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the
power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains
of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over
the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting
there for centuries.[5]
Our current model for the universe includes
the fact that space is, and has been since the beginning, expanding. Job 9:1–10 and Zechariah 12:1 in the Old
Testament teach that God “stretches
out” the universe. There is some controversy if this “stretching out” is the
same kind of expansion that current science is referring to, but it does make
you think, especially since Jewish theologians prior to 20th century
science wrote about an expanding universe.
The claim that the Bible teaches current cosmology does
not come from our present knowledge of science being read back into the
Biblical texts. Jewish and Christian scholars, using only the Biblical texts, both
described current cosmology long before the first evidence for our current
theory. In the second century, Irenaeus defended creation out of nothing. Saint
Augustine in his Confessions from the 4th century affirms the
doctrine of creation out of nothing and states that there was a beginning of
time and matter.
The following passage was written by a Jewish
Scholar, in the 12th century (notice the mention of the expanding
universe):
At the briefest instant following creation all the matter
of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a
grain of mustard. The matter at this time was very thin, so intangible, that
it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain
substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial
concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the
substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion
progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin
noncorporeal substance took on the tangible aspects of matter as we know it.
From this initial act of creation, from this etherieally thin
pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or will ever exist, was, is,
and will be formed.[6]
|
Christian doctrine for the last 2000 years has held that the
universe had a beginning. For the vast majority of this time, the prevailing
scientific view was that the universe was past and future eternal. Today, the
scientific evidence for an absolute beginning to time, space, and matter continues
to mount. Since God created the universe
and also inspired the biblical writings, we should not be surprised with this astounding
agreement between the Christian scriptures and nature.
[1] Philosophical Foundations for a Christian
Worldview, J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, 2003, InterVarsity Press.
[2]
Ephesians 3:9, Revelation 4:11, Romans 4:17, 11:36, 1 Corinthians 8:6,
Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 11:3
[3] The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard
version. 2009 (Jn 1:1–3). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.
[5]
Robert Jastrow, American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist, director of
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
[6] Nahmanides,
commentary on the Torah, 12th century
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