Although most of us living in the 21st century take for granted that the universe had a beginning, when the idea first received scientific backing, in the early 20th century, it caused quite a stir, especially among those who didn’t believe in God. Until then, most in the scientific community believed that the universe had always existed—and, therefore, didn’t need a divine being to create it.
The atheistic regime in communist Soviet Union, for instance, initially dismissed the idea because if the universe had a beginning, it meant that the universe had a cause. And, most certainly, that cause could logically point to an intelligent Creator.
Of course, for those who believed in the Bible at the time, the new theory—called the “Big Bang,” a derisive word that caught on anyway—was one they welcomed. After all, the first book of the Bible, Genesis, begins emphatically, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (1:1). Revelation, the last book of the Bible, also teaches, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things” (4:11).
God as Creator—and, therefore, being worthy of humankind’s worship—is a central and constant theme of Scripture and the Christian faith. With this new theory, it seemed that science was finally catching up to the Word of God.
A Universe from Nothing?
Realizing the implications of the Big Bang, many immediately sought to sanitize the new theory from any divine notions. Atheistic scientists and even mathematicians argued that the Big Bang could have been created out of nothing. To put it bluntly, this seems to defy all logic, as the known universe is believed to be 93 billion lightyears in diameter and contain enough matter to produce two trillion galaxies that each have, on average, a hundred billion stars (not to mention all the planets).
Somehow, all this order and beauty just popped into existence. Don’t believe that anyone could believe such a thing? The popular book A Universe from Nothing by well-known physicist Lawrence Krause is so desperate to dismiss the idea of God as Creator, it indeed posits nothing as the creator instead of an intelligent designer.
We’ll leave it to you to make your own decision about what makes more sense: that nothing created the universe at the Big Bang—or an eternally existing, infinite God created it.
Time Machine
While the Big Bang theory has been around for a while now, and for the most part is unchallenged in the scientific community, new discoveries are causing significant disarray.
Some headlines from last week read:
• “The James Webb Space Telescope discovers enormous distant galaxies that should not exist.”
• “Galaxies spotted by Webb telescope rewrite understanding of early universe.”
• “Webb telescope makes a surprising galactic discovery in the distant universe.”
The James Webb Space Telescope, by far the most powerful orbital telescope yet, has found distant objects that—according to the current understanding of the early universe—should not exist.
That this new discovery seriously challenges the latest and so-called best cosmology of how the universe was formed isn’t just some Creationist conspiracy. The scientific community openly confirms the trouble. Said Reuters News Service, “Observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are upending the understanding of the early universe, indicating the presence of large and mature but remarkably compact galaxies teeming with stars far sooner than scientists had considered possible.”
When astronomers peer into the cosmos, they are, in a sense, looking back in time. For instance, the light from the sun, which travels at 186,000 miles per second, takes about eight minutes to get here. So, when you glance at the sun in the sky, you’re actually seeing where it was eight minutes ago.
That same understanding is also applied to the distant galaxies we see in the night sky. When astronomers use powerful devices like the James Webb to peer at objects billions of light years away, they believe they are looking at the early stages of the universe. And what they’re finding—fully formed, mature, and massive galaxies like our own—violates what they believe they should be seeing. That is, the facts are overturning their assumptions.
In fact, the new evidence is said to be upending about 99 percent of the current models used to explain the Big Bang. Explains one scientist, “If the Milky Way were a regular-sized average adult, say about 5’9” (1.75 meters) and 160 pounds (70 kg), these [new galaxies would be the equivalent of] 1-year-old babies weighing about the same but standing just under 3 inches (7 cm) tall.”
Basically, that’s like a woman giving birth and within one year, her child weighs as much as she does. Obviously, something isn’t right!
Lesson to Learn
A long-held and well-established scientific theory suddenly becoming suspect, or even getting discarded, happens more in science than most people realize. When, after more than 250 years of being labeled as scientific fact, Newton’s famous law of gravity was challenged by Einstein’s General Relativity, what science could ever be said to be unchangeable and uncontestable?
While we are all awed by the incredible technology that science has produced, we must not forget that science is a manmade process and is, therefore, fallible, contingent, and, at times, wrong. We’re told that the theory of evolution, for example, is also some unassailable fact—just like the Big Bang has been for decades—when that’s not how science really works, regardless of how many people believe those theories are true.
That’s why the Bible encourages us to put our ultimate hope and trust in God and His Word: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Perhaps a modern interpretation of this verse might read: “Theories fade, science changes, but the Word of God stands forever.”
Want to learn more about that other “problem area” of science? Watch Pastor Doug’s “Evolution, Creation, and Logic,” an eye-opening presentation about the good reasons in geology, biology, archaeology, and paleontology that support biblical Creationism. Where did we come from? What are we doing here? Where are we going? Find out now!