Big Bang or Big God

Text: Various

Proposition: The concern mankind has over origins is also a concern he has over outcomes, if there is an eternal cause to begin then there is also an eternal ending.

Introduction: Evidence always demands a verdict. If you were to go home after church today and as you opened the door you saw pink and orange and blue paint splattered everywhere, I mean everywhere, what would you think? Had the paint just appeared through wall? No, it is clear that it had been splattered with great force all over the place. There are really two observations that you come to. All the paint must have originally come from a concentrated place, a can of blue paint, a can of orange and a can of pink. The second observation is just as unavoidable, someone has caused the paint to move from the can to being all over your house? The evidence of the splattered paint demands the verdict of where did it come from and what caused it to get this way.

This morning we are going to begin the first of a series of sermons called Hot Potatoes, issues that we run into all the time which can seemingly create stumbling points for faith. Today let’s look at Hot Potato #1, Creation verses the Big Bang Theory, or, ‘where did it all come from and what caused it to get this way.’

The evidence will demand a verdict.  

I. Where Did It All Come From, the Cause Behind Because?

A theory is a reasonable assumption of what has happened with the acceptance of the fact that you weren’t there to see what actually happened. In addition to this some theories are based on non reproducible events. Both Creation and the Big Bang are non reproducible events, we can’t synthesize them or re do them to show what has happened so we make an assumption and then by faith stand on that assumption. So both Creation and the Big Bang are statements of faith not science or reproducible, observable fact. So if both are in actuality statements of faith which one is best supported by the evidence?

Let’s begin with a basic description of what the Big Bang theory is based on.      

The Big Bang wasn't a sudden explosion of matter in some distant part of space billions of years ago. According to this theory, all space, time, matter and energy came into existence together in that “bang.” Before the Big Bang, there was no time. There was no space. Then, suddenly, an exceedingly dense, incredibly hot, infinitesimally small ball of something appeared somewhere, somehow and began to expand rapidly in a millisecond.The premise of the Big Bang is that everything… literally everything in the entire cosmos, was once encapsulated egg like in something the fraction of the size of a proton. The Big Bang theory leaves something essential on the table , it leaves unanswered the question, ‘Where did the egg, that tiny proton sized participle of energy come from?’ Its’ answer to that question is, ‘From nowhere and out of nothing by no one.’ One mini second it was suddenly there and then some massive reaction inside the egg took place and it exploded creating space and time and matter and life.

The contrast to that from a Biblical perspective is that all space and time and matter and life had a specific beginning point. It had intelligent design that moved from a place of all power, knowledge, presence, to a place of instant complexity that reflected the cause or source as being of infinite complexity. Intelligent design pointing to an intelligent designer is what the Scripture directs us to.

Origins is a huge issue not because we need to know where we came from but rather because it is directly connected the reality of a Creator. Origins are all about the question of the existence of God. How I answer the question of origins will reveal the existence of which ‘God’ I will have to give credence, belief and account to. An origin always implies an outcome, in this case the outcome is the eternal state we call heaven or the eternal state we call hell. If a person accepts the theory by faith that there is a Creator then their life is no longer their own and therein ‘lays the rub’.

II. What Caused This, How Did It Happen?

Some have wondered if it’s possible to blend the theories of the Big Bang and Creation postulating that perhaps God caused the Big Bang. What becomes evident is that the two are quite different in what they describe.

One demands billions of years, the other 6 days.

The order of events is almost backwards. In the Big Bang the waters were the last to be formed, in Creation it begins that way.

In the Big Bang theory the stars come into being first then comes the earth and plant life. Amazingly the order in Creation places the creating of plants and dry land before the creation of the Sun, Moon and Stars meaning the warmth to sustain and light to nourish had to come from another source for that first 24 hour period. The order is intentionally out of sync with what we’d expect because it is meant to proclaim the existence and power and glory of God in how He speaks out Creation. There is a great difference between chaos verses order and design. I read a quote recently that said, “Never in the history of human experience has a chaotic explosion been observed producing an intricate order that operates purposefully. An explosion in a print shop does not produce an encyclopedia. A tornado sweeping through a junkyard does not assemble a Boeing 747.”

The Big Bang theory believes that all things began from a small mass of energy composed of Hydrogen and Helium, it was from this energy that matter was created. In other there was no matter at the very beginning, only energy. “Experimental physics tells us that whenever matter is created from energy, such a reaction also produces antimatter. Antimatter has similar properties to matter, except the charges of the particles are reversed.” The antimatter is always directly proportional to the matter, so the question for the Big bang proponents is, ‘Where is the antimatter, the matter that is the polar opposite of normal matter and which would annihilate the matter if it contacts matter?’ Creation begins not with energy but with matter. “Big bang cosmology postulates a universe that is nearly twenty billion years old, with the human race evolving only three or four million years ago. According to this view, a vast period of time separates the origin of the universe from that of mankind.” –Wayne Jackson, Creation Courier. The Biblical record holds that mankind was created at the same time as the earth, you can’t harmonize the Biblical history of man from our time to Christ to Abraham to Adam with a view three or four million years of human existence.

The Big Bang theory is beginning to crumble in the Scientific world, the very evidence or lack of it is causing this theory to loose credibility.

“Astrophysicist Dr. Robert Jastrow phrased it this way in his book God and the Astronomers (New York, W.W. Norton, 1978, p. 116): “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. Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth.”

This is how the Scripture describes those scientifically proven facts to look like:   Hebrews 11:3 …By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Ex Nihlo or ‘out of nothing but His spoken Word’ the Lord created everything.

Romans 1:20 … For his invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Psalm 19:1...The heavens declare the glory of God and firmament shows His handiwork. We know the moons effect of the earth creates tides in the oceans but those very tidal pulls actually spiral the moon away from the earth about an inch and half a year. Over 6000 years of creation history that would mean the moon used to be 800 miles closer to earth. If the earth is 1.4 billion years old that presents a real problem. The heavens themselves declare His handiwork.

Psalm 90:2…Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Colossians 1:16…For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

That’s the evidence, it demands a verdict. It proclaims the origins, it speaks to the process, it points you to Jesus Christ, the Creator and calls you to know Him more.