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Did God use a big bang?

Trying to ‘fit God’ into a secular construct

Rick L, U.S., wrote in response to the article Multiverse Theory:

123rf.com/Gennadiy Kravchenko

I would summarize by saying it takes more faith to believe in Multiverse theory than it does to believe in God. Ockham’s Razor as you reference.

I am not as emotive about it. I welcome the chance to ponder the universe and try to explain the physical laws we see. Science is my friend. I don’t see it as a snub of God. I’m sure He can take it.

I would have to agree that this theory is philosophical and not scientific. It can never be tested or proven to be true or false. I think there may be some merit to the expansion theory. I like it.

I am willing to entertain the Big Bang Theory. I don’t think it threatens God’s hand in creation. Science may eventually explain how everything was created all the way back to a singularity. That’s great, it just explains God’s method. The Big Bang Theory still won’t explain why the singularity was there in the first place or what preceded it. So, God will always be the final answer.

Gary Bates, the author of the aforementioned article, responds.

Dear Rick,

Thanks for your email. However, may I gently suggest that (per our feedback rules) that before you contacted a biblical (young-earth) creationist site, with your views on how God may have used something like the big bang, that it would have been helpful to peruse our site. For example, simply typing ‘big bang’ into the search engine, reveals a plethora of articles on the subject including a very good summary of the problems with the big bang called The mind of God and the ‘big bang’. However, I have responded in a manner that will allow you to access more information via the links in this article. I hope, in the interests of being fully informed, that you will take the time to read them. I mean this with the greatest respect, of course. We aim to be a service to Christians and specialize as an information ministry in this regard. This site contains lots of information.

The big bang wholly fails on two scores.

1. It fails theologically.

The order of creation completely contradicts the order of creation as specified in Genesis chapter one. See Chronological order in Genesis 1: Big bang beginnings and days before the sun. For example: Contrast the differences below from our article Two worldviews in conflict: Evolution is absolutely opposed to the Bible.

Compare the following:

The Big Bang order of appearance
(also for ‘progressive creation’)
The order of appearance in Genesis 1
1. Matter always existed or just appeared 1. God created matter
2. Sun/stars existed before Earth 2. Earth created before sun/stars
3. Sun is Earth’s first light 3. Light created before sun
4. First life = marine organisms 4. First life = land plants
5. Reptiles pre-date birds 5. Birds pre-date land reptiles
6. Land mammals predate whales 6. Whales pre-date land mammals
7. Disease/death precede man 7. Disease/death result from man’s sin

Moreover, the big bang is a secular hypothesis that seeks to explain the universe without God (despite the views of those Christians who want to accept it). As such, it has its place in the General Theory of Evolution (GTE) which is more than just the molecules to man idea. It has to explain where a universe came from in the first place. See Physicists: The universe had a beginning. In his classic book, Refuting Compromise, Jonathan Sarfati wrote in chapter five, (remember that the big bang puts stars before day four when Genesis one says they were created):

“Some assert that what really happened on this fourth ‘day’ was that the sun and other heavenly bodies ‘appeared’ when a dense cloud layer dissipated after millions of years. This is not only fanciful science but bad exegesis of Hebrew. The word ‘asah means ‘make’ throughout Genesis 1, and is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘create’ (bara’)—e.g. in Genesis 1:26–27. It is pure desperation to apply a different meaning to the same word in the same grammatical construction in the same passage, just to fit in with atheistic evolutionary ideas like the big bang. If God had meant ‘appeared’, then He presumably would have used the Hebrew word for appear (ra’ah), as He did when He said that the dry land ‘appeared’ as the waters gathered in one place on Day 3 (Genesis 1:9). We have checked over 20 major translations, and all clearly teach that the sun, moon and stars were made on the fourth day.

I thoroughly recommend this book as it is very thorough in its discussions on the big bang, and much more.

2. It fails scientifically.

The big bang of today is nothing like the big bang of, say, 20 years ago. In fact, it would be fair to say it is constantly being revised and changed. This illustrates the philosophical nature of the theory and that it is not the great ‘scientific fact’ that many believe it is. There have been many attempts to salvage the big bang with so called ‘fudge factors’, including the completely ridiculous Multiverse Theory, along with String Theory, and Dark Matter/Dark Energy, and so on.

Are you also aware that hundreds of secular cosmologists are also petitioning to have the idea of the big bang removed from evolutionary cosmology? See Secular scientists blast the big bang. Also, that there have been two international (secular) conferences called ‘Crisis in Cosmology’ whose thrust was to encourage fellow scientists to abandon the big bang and come up with another model. University physicist and CMI associate, Dr John Hartnett, attended the second one. His report is here.

It therefore seems ironic that Christians would acquiesce to the ever-changing alleged ‘science’ of the big bang. If one purports to be a Christian, and thus, follower of Christ, implicit in that is to believe what Christ (and His apostles) believed. There are over 100 references to Genesis in the New Testament. So Jesus and the apostles clearly understood Genesis as a historical document without the need for the application of ‘modern’ science to help us decipher its ‘hidden meanings’. If one does not find the words ‘big bang’ or ‘billions/millions of years’ in Scripture, then it reveals (and perhaps most don’t realise this) that one’s authority is not Scripture. It is the secular interpretation of the universe (i.e. secular science) that becomes one’s starting point. That wrong ‘authority’ is then being applied or imposed on the biblical texts.

I pray that all this will be helpful to you. Of course one could argue that just because the terms ‘big bang’ and ‘millions of years’ are absent from Scripture, it doesn’t mean that they are not valid. However, their absence is only one clue we have that they are not biblical. As I showed earlier the chronology of the big bang contradicts Scripture. This is something we can strongly infer from Scripture rather than inferring into it.

First published: 6 October 2012
Re-featured on homepage: 9 October 2021

Helpful Resources

Alien Intrusion
by Gary Bates
US $16.00
Soft cover
Refuting Compromise
by Dr Jonathan Sarfati
US $17.00
Soft cover
Dismantling the Big Bang
by Alex Williams, John Hartnett
US $20.00
Soft cover