THE BIG BANG

As children, most of us probably spent many hours staring at the heavens, our eyes wide with wonder and our minds filled with endless questions. Questions our parents probably could not answer. How many stars are there? How far away are they? How big are they? How old are they? And many other similar questions. It is truly amazing how those twinkling little lights fascinate us as children and as adults.

The truth is, however, that even though the heavens may fascinate us, even as adults we usually know very little about them. But a lack of knowledge does not prevent us from experiencing the wonder and awe of a child when we witness such spectacular events as the crash of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter a couple of years ago, or the recent appearance of comet Hyakutake in our own skies.

Men have always felt a sense of wonder as they gazed into the heavens. As David said, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psa 8:3) There is probably little that puts man's existence into perspective better than the heavens. It makes us realize how truly small and insignificant we are, compared to God who created all of these wonders.

I only wish that those who don't know God could look into the heavens and see His signature on every star and constellation as I do. But unfortunately, the heavens have become in this century a battle ground of faith versus fact as some might describe it. The "fact" of a 15 billion year old universe, conflicting with the Bible's "myth" of a Creation 6,000 years ago.

This is certainly not the first time science and the Bible have collided head on. Countless times the Bible has been put on trial by scientists of various disciplines─archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists, biologists, astronomers, and others. But not once have they ever been able to prove the Bible wrong. But we must be careful when we compare science and the Bible. Before we too rashly criticize the scientists, we should make sure we have done our homework, and fully understand what the Bible says about the matter. Let me give you a case in point.

For thousands of years nearly everyone accepted the Bible as proof that the earth was flat. "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isa 11:12) What shape must something be in order to have four corners? Flat! Think about something round, a basketball, for instance. How many corners does it have? This argument was repeated many times by very honest people who thought the Bible supported their opinions.

Similarly, the Bible was accepted as proof that the earth was the center of the universe. "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." (Jos 10:13) The argument was simple, how could the sun stand still, unless it had been moving?

In these two famous clashes of science and the Bible, science seems to have emerged as the victor. Was the Bible wrong? Of course not, only men's interpretations of it were wrong. In the case of the flat earth, the Bible was simply using figurative language to refer to the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west.

Likewise, figurative language is used in describing the "motion" of the sun. Pick up any newspaper and I'm certain that on some page you will find listed the times of the day's "sunrise" and "sunset." Even 25 years after we sent men to the moon, we still use those archaic and frankly very inaccurate terms. Its just a matter of the terms being in common usage, they are accepted by everyone, and their true meaning is quite clear. All the Bible did was use common terms to describe common events.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have now brought us two other notable clashes between science and the Bible, Evolution and the Big Bang. A great deal of effort has been put into discrediting Evolution, which isn't too hard to do, since it is very poor science in the first place. To the clear thinking person, Evolution poses no real threat to the Biblical account of Creation. But what about the Big Bang? Other than simply saying that its wrong because it contradicts the Bible, what else can we say? Can we find evidence to venerate the Bible as in the case of Evolution?

It is extremely important that we conduct our scientific research and Biblical study independently of each other. The above examples show quite well what happens when men allow themselves to become closed minded based on their interpretations of the Bible. We should not view scientific evidence through the eyes of the Bible, trying to make the evidence produce a conclusion we feel must be the correct one. Nor should we try to make the Bible fit what science seems to be telling us.

One thing we can say for certain is that science and the Bible will ALWAYS agree. If they don't seem to agree, then it's man's fault. We may be mistaken about our scientific conclusions, as in the case of Evolution, or we may be mistaken in our interpretation of the Bible, as in the cases of the flat earth and the moving sun. But when we finally reach the correct conclusions in science and from the Bible, they will agree perfectly.

Since there is obviously no way to reconcile our current view of Creation, which gives a 6,000 year old universe, with the Big Bang, which yields estimates of 8 to 20 billion years for the universe's age, we must decide which position is in error. The answer may surprise us.

In order to compare our view of Creation with the Big Bang theory, we first need to know exactly what the Big Bang theory says. From Galileo's first telescopic observations of the heavens, in the early seventeenth century, our understanding of the universe as a whole proceeded very slowly. It wasn't until the twentieth century that we realized that our galaxy was not the sum total of the universe. That, in fact, it is only a tiny speck in a universe containing billions of other galaxies.

This startling discovery shined a new spotlight on questions such as, "How big is the universe?" and "How old is the universe?" New doubt was cast on the Biblical account of Creation in a universe so immense and complicated. But this was not all.

In 1915 the brilliant German physicist, Albert Einstein, published his most famous work the General Theory of Relativity. This theory was very far reaching in it implications, even more so than Einstein himself first realized. He sought to put his theory to the test in many different ways by applying it to a wide variety of situations. One of these tests involved applying the theory to the universe as a whole. To his great astonishment the theory predicted that the universe must be expanding! He knew, of course, that this couldn't be right.

In order to salvage his theory, he introduced into the equation something he called the cosmological constant. This constant was basically a fudge factor to force the equation to give him the answer he expected. This constant would essentially represent some unknown force which worked in opposition to gravity over large distances. Using this, he was able to simulate a static, and essentially unchanging universe, which is what he thought was the case. Einstein would later refer to the use of the cosmological constant as the greatest blunder of his scientific career.

A few years later, a man named Edwin Hubbel would change the face of astronomy forever. He discovered that the light reaching us from all other galaxies was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, in proportion to their distance from us. This implied that all other galaxies were moving away from the earth, with the most distant ones moving the fastest. He had proven that the universe was expanding after all! Of course his findings were not universally accepted at first, and even today there are a few skeptics. In fact the term "Big Bang" which was coined by physicist Fred Hoyle, was itself originally intended to be a derisive description of Hubbel's expanding universe. The name stuck, however, and now describes a nearly universally accepted view of the origin of the universe.

According to the Big Bang theory, approximately 15 billion years ago, all of the matter in the universe was in a single mass that suddenly exploded. This explosion eventually gave rise to the universe we see today. As a result of the force of the explosion the universe is continuing to expand. And according to most current theories it will continue to expand forever.

But now let us ask, is the universe really expanding? Let us conduct a little thought experiment to make things easier to understand. Consider a universe consisting of only two objects. If these two objects are placed some distance apart from each other, and are not moving initially, what will happen when we let them go? Gravity will cause the objects to begin moving toward each other. In other words, our universe would be contracting.

Likewise, if God created the universe in a static state, placed everything exactly where he wanted it, and then let go, everything would now be contracting. It is impossible to have a static universe for more than an instant. Therefore, the universe must be either expanding or contracting. And the evidence suggests that it is indeed expanding.

Should the Christian be concerned by the idea of an expanding universe? The Bible never says the universe is static, man has just always assumed that this was the case. And without the aid of technology we would never know that it is expanding. So to answer the question, no, we should not be troubled by the idea of an expanding universe. After all, as we just pointed out, it has to either be expanding or contracting, and as I will point out later, expansion is the logical choice.

We now need to change gears for a moment to introduce a very important concept. This can best be done in the form of a question. How old was Adam when he was created? This is really kind of a trick question. The instant Adam was created he had an actual age of zero, since, prior to the instant of his creation, he had never lived a single second, he had no past. However, if we were to have the opportunity to examine him we might conclude, based on our observations, that he was 25 years old. If we were somehow able to transport the newly created Adam to the twentieth century, to be examined by the most advanced medical facilities in the world, what do you think they would conclude about his age. They would certainly confirm our observations that his body was that of a fully grown man.

In this case science and observation would seem to contradict the Bible. Or do they? Actually both views are correct, its just a matter of perspective. Adam was created with an appearance of age, so the age ascribed to him depends on whether you are talking about the number of years he has lived or his physical maturity. There are actually two correct answers to the question, "How old was Adam when he was created?"

Now let us see if we can focus this same logic on the universe. First we need to understand a few things about the nature of the universe. The most important feature is that the universe is enormous. It takes light nearly 9 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth, even though it has a velocity of 186,000 miles per second. Not per hour, but per second. Light from the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, takes over three years to reach earth! Light from most of the stars visible in the sky takes between 10 and 500 years to reach the earth. The Andromeda galaxy, which is easily visible to the naked eye, lies about two million light years away. Powerful telescopes have even detected objects as far away as 8 billion light years.

But wait a minute. Where do all of these numbers come from? Astronomers throw all of the huge numbers at us, but how did they measure them? Has anyone actually been there? Have we sent any kind of spaceship there to measure these distances? The answer of course is no. Then are the astronomers just guessing?

It turns out that the distance to the nearest stars, 500 light years and closer, can be accurately determined through something called parallax. The effect of parallax is something we are all familiar with, even if the word is new to us. If you focus on an object relatively close to you and move your head side to side, the object appears to move against the background. If you knew how far you had moved you head, and how much the object moved against the background, you could calculate how far the object is from you. This is exactly what is done for stars.

As the earth moves from one side of the sun to the other the closest stars change position very slightly with respect to more distant stars. By measuring their shift and doing a little simple trigonometry we can determine how far away the star is. Beyond where parallax works there are other methods which are applied. The farther out we go the less certain we are about the actual distances. However, even at the largest distances, we know that we are at least in the ballpark.

Some creationists, well intentioned no doubt, have suggested that these objects which seem to be so distant are actually quite close. That in the past light travelled much faster than it does today, thus allowing it to cover much larger distances that it could have at its current speed. This is not only absurd, it is also quite impossible. In his Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein showed that matter and energy are inseparable. That in fact, one can be converted into the other. And the factor which relates them is the speed of light. The universe as we know it could not exist if the speed of light was altered.

So if these objects really are as far away as astronomers say, then how can all of this be possible in a 6,000 year old universe? Easy, God created a mature universe. Just as Adam was created with the appearance of having been "born" 25 years in the past, the universe was created with the appearance of having been "born" several billion years in the past.

A good example of the mature state in which the universe was created is something called the Crab nebula. This is the remnant of a supernova, a massive star which exploded long ago. The supernova was spotted by Chinese astronomers in A.D. 1054. The resulting nebula, invisible to the naked eye, was spotted in telescopes more than 100 years ago. It lies about 6,300 light years away from us. Thus, the parent star would have exploded around 5,300 B.C. But the universe wasn't created until about 4,000 B.C. This means that when the universe was created God created, not the original star, but the remnants of the star 1,300 years after it had exploded! And there are many other supernova remnants which are much older than this.

If this might seem a little far-fetched, let us look at a more "down to earth" example. When God created all of the green plants on day three of the Creation He created mature forests. These forests would have looked essentially as they do today, with the exception that man's destructive effects would be absent. When Adam took his first walk around he would have seen everything from acorns lying on the ground, newly sprouted seedlings, mature oaks, and even rotting logs on the ground. Did God create rotting logs? The insects and fungi which live in decaying plant matter had to have somewhere to live didn't they?

If we can understand the creation of a rotting log instead of an actual tree, then it shouldn't be too hard to extend things a little further and see how He created the remnants of a star, and not the actual star itself.

But what if we focus on that rotting log lying on the forest floor just as God created it. Why couldn't we turn the clock back a little bit and see what would happen? Turn it back 20 years and perhaps our log was an enormous and majestic oak tree. Turn it back another 200 years and our tree is only a foot tall. Another year back and we only see an acorn lying on the ground. Even though we are now over 220 years prior to the Creation, the laws of biology have led us to our conclusion.

And think about Adam. We now know that our DNA contains the blueprint for our entire bodies. We don't fully understand everything about its structure and function at this point in time, but we are learning more all the time. It is conceivable to be able to take a person's DNA, and with the right technology, determine exactly what that person would look like at any age. Think about what we could do if we could somehow get a sample of Adam's DNA?

If we had Adam's DNA, and the right technology, we could tell you exactly what he would have looked like at 20 years of age, at 10 years, or even as an infant. Although he never existed as an infant, the DNA in his body contains the information about how his body would have looked at that age. By simply using a little technology and following the laws of biology, we could turn the clock back on Adam. Even to a point before time actually began.

Now let us once again consider our mature, expanding universe. If we begin to turn the clock back what will happen? If we turn the clock back 6,000 years the universe would be a little smaller and would look just like it did when it was created. But what if we continue to turn the clock back? The universe would get smaller and smaller and smaller. Eventually everything would run together into a single mass. Doesn't this sound familiar? It is now quite easy for us to see why astronomers came up with the idea of the Big Bang. They observe the universe expanding and draw a logical conclusion from the evidence.

Everything in nature testifies to the existence of a Higher Power which designed and constructed it all. As Paul said, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Rom 1:20) In everything there is a logical pattern. If you examine any plant or animal, every characteristic they have has a reason and a purpose, which helps them to survive and perpetuate their species. When we gaze up at the mountains, we can know that there is a reason why every mountain is exactly where it is. Everything in the Creation follows the laws of biology, chemistry, geology, and physics.

But what about the heavens, what kind of pattern can we find there? One thing I am certain of is that God does nothing randomly or without a good logical reason. God did not sit down and say, "well I think this little star would look nice here, and this one would really look great over there." God doesn't work that way.

Let us return to the example of the oak tree once again. When God planted the forests on day three of the Creation, He did not plant a great mature oak in one place, and then move ten miles away to plant a bunch of oak seedlings. That would have made absolutely no sense. Rather, He would have planted the seedlings in the vicinity of the mature oak, exactly where you would have expected the acorns to have fallen and sprouted. Here we can very clearly see the pattern because we understand that oak seedlings come from acorns produced by mature oaks.

The pattern of the universe, however, is a little bit harder to see, but it is there all the same. Every galaxy, every star, even every grain of dust is exactly where it should be to fit the pattern. The universe testifies of a beginning, and this is one thing that bothers many scientists. If we turn the clock back 15 billion years to what they call the Big Bang, there is a major problem. If all of the matter in the universe is in one lump, just sitting there, where did it come from? Who put it there? How long had it been there? And then, who caused it to explode?

Physicists themselves tell us that it is impossible to know the state of things at the time of the Big Bang and a fraction of a second thereafter. They say that the laws of physics fall apart as we try to move back in time to the Big Bang itself. Is this perhaps because the cause of the Big Bang was beyond the scope of this physical world? Could it have been God Himself?

But how could God have set off the Big Bang 15 billion years ago, when the Creation took place only 6,000 years ago? Let me give you an illustration. If someone wants to build a house they first need a set of plans. They need to decide how big the house will be, how many rooms it will have, where all of the doors and windows will be, even where the electrical outlets will be. Then once the plans are completed, the material can be purchased, and the house can be built.

The point is, before the house could be built there had to be a plan. Then once the house is built, it itself testifies to the existence of the plan and the pattern for its construction. If the plans are lost they can easily be redrawn using the house as a model.

I believe the same thing is true of the universe. Before God created it He had a plan or a pattern for its "construction." Where did this plan come from? Remember it has to follow a logical pattern and not be haphazard. I believe God's plan was based on what the universe would look like if a Big Bang had occurred. In other words, I think He used the concept of the Big Bang, or at least something very similar to it, as a model to create His blueprint, and then created the universe in a mature state as it would have looked some 15 billion years later.

It is the same thing that God did with Adam. Since DNA is the blueprint of our bodies, God first had to decide on what Adam's DNA would be. Then, having the pattern He could set about to create him. The first part of Adam's life where he went from fertilized egg, to fetus, to infant, to adolescent, to adult took place only in God's mind. Having the blueprint, or DNA, in hand, He could then move the clock forward and create Adam in a state of maturity.

Did the Big Bang ever actually occur? The answer is an absolute and unequivocal no. There was no time for it to have occurred since the Creation took place only 6,000 years ago. However, all of the mounting evidence which points to the Big Bang as the origin of the universe is probably essentially correct from one perspective. If this is the model or blueprint used for the Creation, then it is understandable why the evidence points in that direction. It should actually reassure us that scientists have found a pattern in the universe. This proves that our existence is not a random accident, but was planned by a Higher Power.

The old idea of a static unchanging universe not only contradicts the evidence, but also the overall pattern of the Creation. Everything we can see around us has a beginning and an end. All plants and animals are born in some way, live for a while, and then die. Even stars are born and then die. All of this is testimony to the temporary nature of everything in the Creation. To have a static and unchanging universe would run against the pattern. Only in heaven can anything last forever.

Those who seek to discredit God and the Bible are quick to champion Evolution, which provides them with an alternative explanation to how life got here. But they are not so quick to crow about the Big Bang, because it requires the hand of a Higher Power to work.

Now let us turn our attention away from the heavens and toward the earth, where we also face some serious challenges. The Bible tells us that the earth was created 6,000 years ago, and yet geologists look at the earth and tell us that it is about 5 billion years old. Which side is right in this case? Again, it is a matter of perspective. The earth was created 6,000 years ago, but would it have been logical for God to place an earth, with no apparent age, in a universe with an apparent age of 15 billion years? That would have been completely inconsistent and against the pattern. So if the rocks say the earth is 5 billion years old, I have no problem with that at all. I just understand that this is their apparent age, not their actual age.

Now to the more critical issue, what about life? Its fine if the earth and the universe as a whole appear to be very ancient, but if the evidence suggests that life existed more than 6,000 years ago, then we have a very serious problem. The Bible is very clear that life began on the earth only 6,000 years ago. And this time apparent age cannot rescue us. There is no way to give an apparent age of 3 billion years to the beginning of life. Does the evidence suggest that life did begin 3 billion years ago? Scientists say it does, but I believe there is a major flaw in their reasoning.

The primary method they use to determine the age of anything that was once alive is called carbon-14 dating. You may also hear it referred to as radiometric dating or radiocarbon dating. I first need to give you the basics about how this method works, then tell you what is wrong with it.

The earth's atmosphere consists primarily of nitrogen, about 78%. As cosmic rays enter the upper atmosphere they can cause a reaction which results in a nitrogen atom becoming a C-14 atom. C-14, unlike typical C-12, is unstable, and will eventually change back to N-14 through a process called beta decay. This change, however, usually takes thousands of years.

During the lifetime of a C-14 atom it can very easily combine with oxygen in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide, which is chemically identical to carbon dioxide formed from C-12, can then be taken in by plants through the process of photosynthesis. In this way all plants come to have a very small fraction of C-14 in their tissues. Animals who then in turn eat these plants, also get C-14 in their bodies. At present all plants and animals on earth have essentially the same concentration of C-14 in their tissues.

When a plant or an animal dies the C-14 in their bodies is no longer replenished, so that as atom after atom decays back to nitrogen, the ratio of C-14 to C-12 becomes smaller and smaller. C-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. This means that if you start with 10 pounds of it, 5,730 years later you would have 5 pounds. 5,730 years after that you would have 2.5 pounds and so on, until eventually all of it would be gone.

Currently there are about 1.3 C-14 atoms for every 1 trillion C-12 atoms. This is a very small number, but is easily detectable because of its radioactivity. In using the method to determine when something died, the assumption must be made that the concentration of C-14 was the same then as it is now. Without knowing the ratio of C-14 to C-12 at the time when something lived the method is completely worthless. To make it easy scientists assume that the concentration of C-14 has been constant for tens of thousands of years. Whether or not this is true, is the crucial part of the issue.

Prior to the flood the world was very different than it is today. Most of these differences can be attributed to a protective vapor canopy which was suspended high in the atmosphere. One thing this vapor canopy would have done is block cosmic rays. These rays were prevented from reaching low enough in the atmosphere to produce any appreciable amounts of C-14. This means that anything which lived prior to the flood would have had very little, if any, C-14 in their tissues. And after the flood the amount of C-14 would have slowly built up, meaning that for quite some time all living things would have had much less C-14 in their tissues than scientists are assuming. All of this means that scientists are deriving ages with this method which are much older than they really are.

C-14 dating does not prove that life has been here for more than 6,000 years, nor does any other dating method. The earth and the rest of the universe do show great age, but this is to be expected. The one thing we do know for sure is that God created everything 6,000 years ago. And we know too that someday he will return and destroy it all (II Pet 3:10-12). Whether God did or did not use something like the Big Bang as a pattern for His Creation will matter little once all of it is destroyed. But for now we must seek to hold our own against a world which is constantly casting derision on the Bible we hold so dear.

Regardless of how He created the universe, we do know for certain that it was God who created it. And what a marvelous, awe inspiring work of art He created!