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Creation
A Christian witness to God's Great Story must be consistent with what is definitely known about the universe.
The incontrovertible scientific evidence is that the universe is somewhere around 13.7 billion years old. The number of stars above our heads is beyond imagination. Yet, Christians assert that a Jewish peasant who lived 2,000 years ago on our dust-speck of a planet is the Alpha and the Omega of it all.
To postmodern people, such an assertion about Christ appears strange and unbelievable, given the current understanding of the age and size of the universe. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a belief in the Incarnation is consistent with a universe that is both old and large. Seven Literal Days of Creation? Many Christians devoutly believe that Genesis 1 describes how the world was created in seven literal days about 6000 years ago. While we can respect this view, it forces us into a Christian worldview that is difficult to defend to a postmodern audience. Despite the assertions of some Christians, there is no peer-reviewed and definitive scientific evidence which supports this traditional interpretation of Genesis 1. However, there is another way of devoutly understanding Genesis 1 — namely, it was never intended to be a scientific description of the origins of the world. Instead, it was written to be a powerful affirmation that the Lord God, and only the Lord God, created everything.
The context of Genesis 1 is that the Hebrews were surrounded by other peoples who had their own creation stories — stories which affirmed that other gods created the world. The Hebrews needed a strong statement that only the Lord God created the world.
When we read Genesis 1, the question in our minds is, "How was the world created?" But when the first readers of Genesis 1 heard the text, the question on their minds would have been, "Who made everything?" They were not interested in knowing how, but who.
If this interpretation is correct, then what are we to make of the seven days of Genesis 1? How are we to interpret them?
The account itself seems to suggest that the days are not meant to be a literal description of time. Day 1 ends with the coming of evening, yet the sun was not created until Day 4. This inconsistency suggests that there is a different literary intention here besides a listing of literal days.
A clue to the proper interpretation of the text is found in Genesis 1:2. There, chaos is described as being "formless and empty." This suggests that creation will be described as the reversal of chaos — namely, the making of forms and the filling of those forms.
As we look at the seven days of creation, this is exactly what we find.
Days 1-3 are the days of forming; Days 4-6 are the days of filling what had been formed. There is a natural parallelism that exists between the days:
Day 7: chaos banished, continuing rest before God, permanent state, humanity’s intended place
This way of understanding the days of Genesis 1 has been called the "framework hypothesis." The days are frames that describe the progressive creation of forms and the filling of those forms. This interpretation of the days as a framework explains the logical inconsistency of the creation of the sun on Day 4, which we mentioned.
The framework hypothesis also implies that the seventh day is the completion of creation. Chaos — formlessness and void — has been driven back. The seventh day continues on until sin enters into creation. Then, chaos begins creeping back into the world, culminating in the return of the waters of Genesis 1:2 in the flood of Genesis 6-9.
Genesis 1, then, is a powerful monotheistic statement presented in a framework of a week of creative activity. It describes creation as a reversal of the "formless and empty" chaos described in Genesis 1:2. And it affirms that the Lord God created everything, even the sun, the moon, the sea and cattle — entities that are specifically mentioned and that were also specifically worshipped as gods by neighboring peoples. Genesis 1 is not answering a scientific question. Indeed, the discipline of science did not come into being until the 17th century. However, in affirming that the transcendent God created the world, Genesis 1 does make a statement of scientific importance. It tells us that the world does not exist in and of itself. It has been created by God. Once we free ourselves from the necessity of defending a universe that is only a few thousand years ago, we are able to marvel at the scientific data which now seems to support creation. Let's explore some of that information. Sir Isaac Newton and Edgar Allen Poe Present-day scientific thinking about the origin of the universe goes all the way back to Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century. In 1692, Richard Bentley, a scholar at Cambridge University, wrote Isaac Newton a letter. Bentley asked Newton the simple question: “If the universe is infinite and the effect of gravity pervades throughout the universe, then why has not the entire universe collapsed on itself long ago?” In reply, Newton came to realize that such a system would be extremely unstable. But he had no scientific reply to Bentley's question. Bentley and Newton assumed the universe to be infinite and static. It never occurred to them that the most obvious solution to their conundrum is that the universe is finite and expanding. In a surprising twist of history, Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49), the macabre poet, was the first to suggest an "explosive" start for the universe. In an 1849 essay called Eureka: A Prose Poem, he reasoned the universe should have collapsed from its own gravity unless some force kept it apart. He concluded that God must have flung the entire universe out in an enormous “explosion” at creation. [1] No scientist, however, took Poe seriously. Things began to change with the coming of Albert Einstein. In 1905, Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity, which states that matter is only another form of energy and space and time are interlinked together as space-time. In 1915, Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, which expanded his previous work by integrating gravity into it. In the General Theory of Relativity, gravity is described as the curvature of space-time in the presence of mass. In 1917, Einstein began to apply his new thinking to cosmology. Like Newton and Bentley and practically all the scientists of his own time, Einstein assumed that the universe had always been in existence and was essentially homogenous. Einstein tried to use his equations to describe this "steady-state" universe. The equations, however, would not fit. Instead, they suggested that the universe was not a steady-state at all. A static universe should have collapsed in on itself long ago. Einstein decided there must be a hidden force, which he called the "cosmological constant," that keeps the universe from collapsing. (2) He did not, at first, think that the universe might be expanding since the concept was so revolutionary for his time and it also implied that the universe had some type of a beginning. But by 1924, the first solid evidence of an expanding universe was discovered. Observations conducted on around forty galaxies revealed that almost all of them had a red shift in the wavelength of their light, indicating that the source is moving away from the observer, due to the Doppler effect. A researcher named Wirtz discovered that the fainter the galaxy, the higher the red shift — suggesting that farther galaxies were moving away from us at a faster rate of speed. (3) Hubble later provided the definitive confirmation of Wirtz's observation. A young Belgian priest and astronomer named Georges-Henri Lemaître learned of Hubble's unpublished work and, in 1927, concluded from it that the red shifts indicated an expanding universe. Lemaître worked the expansion backwards in time and developed the earliest formulation of the Big Bang theory. By the time Hubble finally published in 1929, Lemaître's theory had become widely accepted by the cosmological community and Hubble’s observations provided the first data of confirmation. Hubble's data was a convincing defeat for the steady-state universe. Einstein began to talk about “the necessity for a beginning.” Such a conclusion was logical. If the universe appeared to be expanding outward, then it must be expanding out from something — a beginning when everything was together. The Bell Labs The next major confirmation of the Big Bang model came in 1964. Two Bell Lab scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were testing a special microwave antenna. To their surprise, wherever they pointed their antenna into space, it always picked up background radiation. They eventually concluded it came from the cosmos itself. If the universe had been almost infinitely hot in the beginning, then we would expect some of this heat still to be left over. This left-over "heat" is the radiation which Penzias and Wilson discovered. Their observation of the temperature, around 3.5° K., closely matched a 1948 prediction of how hot the primeval radiation would be. The NASA Confirmation The radiation that Penzias and Wilson observed was uniform in all directions. However, if the radiation really did come from the Big Bang, then theory predicted that it should not be completely uniform. The cosmic background radiation we detect today reflects the emerging state of the universe at 300,000 years, when the universe cooled enough for radiation to exist. The background radiation should show the primeval wrinkles that would later develop into the large-scale structures of the today’s universe. Penzias and Wilson had been unable to detect these slight variations because their equipment was not sensitive enough. But in 1993, a NASA team led by George Smoot used the COBE satellite (Cosmic Background Explorer) and found these wrinkles in the radiation. So ecstatic was Stephen Hawking over the discovery that he spoke in hyperbole and called it the "scientific discovery of the century, if not all time." The results of the COBE team provide the strongest confirmation to date of the Big Bang theory. An even more sensitive series of measurements was done by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in 2003. It is the picture found at the opening of this article. For more, see the Wikipedia articles on these probes: COBE and WMAP. In addition to these discoveries, many other observations are now being made that appear to reinforce the general Big Bang model. The Big Bang and Genesis When many people hear of the Big Bang they immediately want to know if there is a parallel with the creation story in Genesis 1. In answer, we have to reaffirm that Genesis 1 is not a scientific description of how the universe was created. It does, however, tell us that the universe was created. Therefore, while the cosmological data today does not conclusively prove the existence of God, it is consistent with this thought. Some Christians believe that what is known as the "singularity problem" proves the existence of God. The singularity problem is this: when the expansion of the universe is run back in time we arrive at a universe of infinite density compressed into an infinitely small point — what physicists call a singularity. The presence of this singularity cannot be explained by standard physics, so some conclude that it must indicate God's hand. (4) However, it is unwise to use this as a proof of God. This "God of the gaps" approach — which attributes the unexplained in science to God — has been used a number of times through history with unfortunate results. First, it causes Christians to regard science as a threat. And, secondly, if someone does succeed in explaining the "gap," does this mean — gasp! — that God does not exist? In truth, God works through natural processes all the time. So, instead of trying to find God in a gap, perhaps it is better to see God in the magnificence and intricate balance of the whole of creation. New physical theories are being developed to resolve the singularity problem. If physicists succeed in this, it will not mean the end of God. It will only mean that someone has described how the universe was once extremely small in the beginning without being infinitely dense. Our goal should not be to find scientific proof of the existence of God. It should be to show how belief in God is consistent with what we definitively know about the universe. Dealing with Speculations In dealing with cosmology, there is a big difference between verifiable physical theories and pure metaphysical speculations. Cosmology is full of all kinds of free thinking that sometimes gets reported in the press as fact. For instance, in 1984 Stephen Hawking announced that something he calls “imaginary time” explains how the universe began. (4) The universe had no beginning, he claims, rather, it is completely self-contained. But as Eric Lerner responded, "His analogy ... is just a word game to minimize the theological implications of a beginning and end to time." (5) Leon Lederman, a leading particle physicist of the twentieth century, was even more blunt: "When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up. We are in the realm of philosophy." (6) There is a difference between physics and metaphysics. A physical theory seeks to describe reality in an observable and verifiable manner. A metaphysical speculation, on the other hand, is just a personal guess. Some of these metaphysical speculations may use scientific language and mathematical equations, but they are only speculations. To date, the biblical view of creation is entirely consistent with the hard data. The age of the universe, then, does not provide an argument against the Christian belief in creation. Arguments of Size But what about the size of the universe? Could that be an argument against a Christian worldview? We are told that Christianity must be false because we live on a dust-speck of a planet surrounded by an enormous universe. This argument against Christianity sounds convincing, but we should recognize that it is an argument of size. According to the rules of logic, all arguments of size are logical fallacies. Something is not true or false just because it is large or small. In the 1930’s, when the Nazi Party in Germany was seeking to gain followers, they staged huge, impressive rallies in stadiums. The flags, the bands, the marching formations, the sheer quantity of people singing Deutschland Über Alles, the impassioned speech of Hitler — all served to mesmerize the people. Those who witnessed such spectacles came away saying it was very hard not to believe. Propaganda often uses size to convince people that something is true. But an argument of size, whether it is Goebbel’s propaganda or a cosmological argument against Christianity, is always a logical fallacy. Truth has nothing to do with size — with how loud people sing a national anthem, or how loud their voices rise when they argue, or how big is their army. Truth is about truth, not size. No matter how big or loud or powerful something might be, that should have nothing to say about truth, according to the rules of logic. Size might affect us emotionally, but it has nothing to say to us logically. Playing the Game in Reverse Secularists use the size of the universe to discredit Christianity. However, theists can argue in the opposite direction. In recent decades physicists have noticed that the universe seems precisely tuned to support carbon-based life. Even if one of the many fundamental constants of nature were to be changed just a little, life simply would not exist anywhere in the universe. This has been called the Anthropic Principle. Here is how the scientist George Smoot presents the Anthropic Principle: For instance, if the strong nuclear force had been slightly weaker, the universe would have been composed of hydrogen only; slightly stronger, and all the hydrogen would have been converted to helium. Slight variation in the excess of protons over antiprotons — one billion and one to one billion — might have produced a universe with no baryonic matter or a cataclysmic plenitude of it. Had the expansion rate of the universe one second after the big bang been smaller by one part in a hundred thousand trillion, the universe would have re-collapsed long ago. An expansion more rapid by one part in a million would have excluded the formation of stars and planets. (7) That is just a little of the fine-tuning that has gone into the universe. Stephen Hawking remarks that "the odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the big bang are enormous." Sir Fred Hoyle, the noted cosmologist, did research into the “resonant states” of carbon atoms. He found that carbon, which is the basis of terrestrial life, is a very difficult element to form. Carbon is made inside stars and its formation depends on the internal resonances of carbon and oxygen nuclei. These resonances are so exact that, if they were just slightly different, carbon would not form and we would not exist. Hoyle says that his atheism was shaken by this discovery. (8) Hugh Ross goes further. He presents another, detailed list of the conditions necessary for life and concludes that the probability against all of these conditions happening is so great that we should not even exist. (9) Secular cosmologists respond that our universe only seems perfectly made because, out of the endless myriad of possible universes, one had to emerge with just the right laws of physics to admit life. Some of the latest cosmological theories state that our universe is just one in an endless foam of universes — a "multi-verse." This multi-verse may exist but, at present, it totally lacks observational proof. If cosmologists restrict themselves to the observational data, then they are restricted to a universe that appears uniquely designed. And certainly, even if the multi-verse exists, it is hardly an argument against the existence of God. Another argument of size used against Christianity says that Christianity is false because it is so new. Its newness is likened to the thickness of the paint on a skyscraper's roof, the height of the skyscraper representing the rest of all time. But advanced civilization itself is new. The universe has to be both old and large before advanced civilizations can become possible. The heavy elements within our bodies were originally cooked up in older stars that died long ago in explosive deaths that dispersed those elements into interstellar space. Only after those stars had lived and died eons ago was it possible for advanced life to have a chance at forming. Thus, the age of the universe is not an argument against the present existence of Christianity. Neither is the size of the universe an argument against human significance. Just contrast a child with a star. Which is more significant — an enormous star flailing radiation into space, or a child? Impressive as the star may be, it really is just a big, dumb ball. It does not know how to count to two, although the child does. In the sight of God a single person is of an entirely different order of creation than all the stars, black holes and quasars put together. Christianity speaks to the significance of the individual human being as a unique creation of God. We are going to bounce back and forth with these arguments of size for years to come. In the end, it's still a faith commitment we have to deal with. If you are like George Ellis from the University of Cape Town, you will say, as he does, "There is a huge amount of data supporting the existence of God." (10) And there is. The wise person will give place for a Designer. Considering the time it takes for heavy elements to be cooked up, our human civilization may be one of the earliest advanced forms of life this universe has ever witnessed. And given the amount of time that is required for life to develop on our planet, we should not have expected Christ to arrive much before he did. He came after human civilization had transformed itself from hunter-gatherer to agrarian and pre-industrial. If Christ was born much sooner, he would have been remembered as a mythical figure, rather than an historical one. He came after writing was invented, which made history possible. He came after the alphabet largely replaced the cuneiform tablet and the hieroglyph, allowing ordinary people, not just the scribe, to read that history. The social transformation from hunter-gatherer to agrarian allowed a vast empire, the Roman empire, to form. The Pax Romana, the enormous Roman system of roads, and the unifying influence of Latin and Greek, allowed for the Good News to spread rapidly once Christ came. If Christ had come much sooner, Christianity would just have remained a tribal faith. As it was, it became a global faith for all people. Christ was born when developments in human knowledge, government and travel first allowed his coming to be for all nations. He was not born in an obscure place, but in Judea, at the crossroads of three continents, allowing the Message about him to go out into the corners of the earth. He was not born in just any old time. It was the fullness of time. Paul writes in Ephesians 1 that God has had a plan for his creation but it has remained "a mystery" for most of time. Only now, with the coming of Christ, are we beginning to understand God's hidden purposes.
For Further
Reading
Lee Strobel offers a popular treatment of scientific apologetic thinking.
(1) Poe almost had it. Despite its leading name, the Big Bang theory does not describe an explosion. This is because, in the beginning, there was no space for an explosion to take place in. The “explosion” is the expansion of space itself. So, when the question is asked, “Where did the Big Bang take place?”, the answer is, “Everywhere.” (2) Einstein later called the cosmological constant his “greatest mistake.” However, in 1998 scientists reconsidered the cosmological constant to try to explain why the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating with time. (3) In an expanding universe the farther away an object is, the faster it appears to recede. (4) Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (London and New York: Bantam, 1988), 140-141. While Hawking and Penrose may have created a theory that eliminates the presence of a singularity, they have not eliminated the possibility of transcendence. They still fail to explain why physical law itself exists.
(5) Eric Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Times Books, Random House, 1991), 161-162.6)
(6) Leon Lederman, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question? (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 1. It is true that we have some good idea, from the Big Bang theory and from experiments done in astrophysics and particle science, of what happened in the first few micro-seconds of the formation of the universe, but not before.
(7) George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1993), 293.
(8) Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 304-305.
(9) Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God, 2nd. ed. (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Navpress, 1995). See especially chapters 14 and 15. His organization, Reasons to Believe, also conducts seminars and hosts an apologetic website at www.reasons.org.
(10) W. Wayt Gibbs, “Beyond Physics,” Scientific American, August 1998, 21.
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Cosmology
