The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe. At [the Big Bang], the Universe was in an extremely hot and dense state and began expanding rapidly. After the initial expansion, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons. Though simple atomic nuclei formed within the first three minutes after the Big Bang, thousands of years passed before the first electrically neutral atoms formed. The majority of atoms that were produced by the Big Bang are hydrogen, along with helium and traces of lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies, and the heavier elements were synthesized either within stars or during supernovae.
The Big Bang theory does not provide any explanation for the initial conditions of the universe; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on. (Wikipedia)
At a point in time, about 13.7 billion years ago, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density, and intense heat called a singularity. Suddenly, that singularity began to expand and the universe came into being. Singularities are zones which defy the current understanding that we have of physics. They are believed to be at the core of most black holes. A black hole is an area of intense gravitational pressure. That pressure is theorized to be so intense that finite matter is actually compressed until it has infinite density. This area of infinite density is called a singularity. Our universe is thought to have begun as one of these infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularities. The where and why of it all we still don’t have a firm grasp of, but the big bang is the point at which that singularity suddenly began to expand and created our universe as it moved outwards. (UniverseToday.com)
“Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them.” (Stephen Hawking)
[My only question for someone who believes in the Big Bang Theory is ‘how exactly did that initial Big Bang occur if there was supposedly ‘nothing’ prior to it? But, if there was ‘something’ prior to it, what exactly was it? And, when and how did ‘it’ begin?]
(The following are excerpts from the book “Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics” by Norman L. Geisler.)
Big bang cosmology is a widely accepted theory regarding the origin of the universe, according to which the material universe or cosmos exploded into [existance] some 15 billion years ago. Since then the universe has been expanding and developing according to conditions set at the moment of its origin. Had these conditions been different in the slightest degree, the world and life as we know it, including human life, would never have developed. The fact that conditions necessary for and favorable to the emergence of human life were determined from the very instant of the original cosmic explosion is called the anthropic principle.
British astronomer Stephen Hawking stated the issue well: “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be” (Brief History of Time). Robert Jastrow was one of the first to address this issue in his book, God and the Astronomers. This agnostic astronomer noted that “three lines of evidence – 1) the [expansion] of the galaxies, 2) the laws of thermodynamics, and 3) [background radiation echo] – pointed to one conclusion: the Universe had a beginning”.
The second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy. It asserts that the amount of usable energy in any closed system is decreasing. This must be held in tension with the first law of thermodynamics, the law of the conservation of energy, which states that the amount of actual energy existing within the universe changes form, yet remains constant. As energy changes to less usable forms of energy, the closed system of the universe is running down; everything tends toward disorder. Now if the overall amount of energy stays the same, but the universe is running out of usable energy, then the universe began with a finite supply of energy. This would mean that the universe could not have existed forever in the past. If the universe is getting more and more disordered, it cannot be eternal. Otherwise, it would be totally disordered by now, which it is not. [The Universe] must have had a highly ordered beginning.
Evidence reveals that the universe is not simply in a holding pattern, maintaining its movement from everlasting to everlasting. It is expanding. It now appears that all of the galaxies are moving outward as if from a central point of origin, and that all things were expanding faster in the past than they are now [(e.g., the ‘expansion of the galaxies’)]. As we look out into space, we are also looking back in time, for we are seeing things, not as they are now, but as they were when the light was given off many years ago. The light from a star 7 million light years away tells us what that star was like and its location 7 million years ago; [we are not seeing that star as it actually is today].
Another astronomer, Victor J. Stenger, stated that “the universe exploded out of nothingness”. This explosion, called the big bang, was a beginning point from which the entire universe has come. Putting an expanding universe in reverse leads us back to the point where the universe gets smaller and smaller until it vanishes into nothing. By this reckoning the universe, at some point in the distant past, came into being.
[Another] line of evidence that the universe [had a distinct beginning] is the background microwave radiation “echo” that seems to come from the whole universe. It was first thought to be a malfunction or static of the instruments, or even the effect of pigeon droppings. But research has discovered that the static was coming from everywhere—the universe itself has a low-level radiation signature emanating from some past catastrophe like a giant fireball. Jastrow concludes, “No explanation other than the big bang has been found for the fireball radiation. The clincher, which has convinced almost the last doubting Thomas, is that the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson has exactly the pattern of wavelengths expected for the light and heat produced in a great explosion.” (Jastrow, “A Scientist Caught,” 15).
According to the predictions of the big bang theory, there should have been a great mass of matter associated with the original explosion of the universe into being, but none was found. Then, by use of the Hubble Space Telescope (1992), astronomers were able to [find] the very mass of matter predicted by big bang cosmology.
Some cosmologists argue for some kind of rebound theory whereby the universe collapses and rebounds forever. They propose that there is enough matter to cause a gravitational pull that will draw together the expanding universe.
Logically and mathematically the evidence for the big bang suggests that originally there was no space, no time, and no matter. Hence, even if the universe were somehow going through expansion and contraction from this point on, at the beginning it came into existence from nothing. This would still call for an initial Creator.
Hannes Alfven proposed a plasma cosmology, according to which the universe is composed of electrically conducting gases which indirectly produce a repelling effect of galaxy superclusters, causing the observed expansion. However, the expansion does not start from a single point; it has a sort of partial big bang and then contracts to about one-third the size of the present universe. Then some unknown principle kicks in and blows it apart again, thus maintaining an eternal equilibrium. Like other expansion-contraction views, it is contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. It speculates without evidence that the universe never wears out but continually recycles old forms of energy. Plasma popularizer Eric Lerner proposed a “starting place” for the cosmos when it was “filled with a more or less uniform hydrogen plasma, free of electrons and protons” (Heeren, 81). When asked what brought this plasma into being, he admits that “we have no real knowledge of what such processes were” (ibid., 81).
Einstein failed to find an explanation of his general relativity equation that would not require a beginning or a Beginner for the universe. He later wrote of his desire “to know how God created the universe” (ibid., 84). Indeed, even Hawking raises the question of who put “fire into the equations” and ignited the universe (Black Holes, 99).
Some atheists argue that there is no need for a cause of the beginning of the universe. They insist that there is nothing incoherent about something spontaneously erupting into existence from nothing. Several points are relevant in response to this objection.
First, this contention is contrary to the established principle of causality which affirms that everything that comes to be had a cause. Indeed, even the skeptic David Hume confessed his belief in this time-honored principle, saying, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause” (Hume, 1:187). It is counterintuitive to believe that things just pop into existence out of nothing, willy-nilly. Reality does not work that way in our experience.
The idea that nothing can cause something is logically incoherent, since “nothing” has no power to do anything—it does not even exist. As the Latin axiom put it: Ex nihilo nihil fit: From nothing, nothing comes. When one examines the “nothing” from which the universe allegedly came without a supernatural cause, it is discovered that it is not really nothing. Isaac Asimov speaks of it as a state of “existence” in which there is “energy” (Asimov, 148). This is a long way from absolutely nothing. Even in physical terms it is not really nothing. Ed Tryon who originated the idea (in a 1973 Nature article) recognized the problem of explaining creation from pure nothingness, since the quantum effects require something more than nothing—they require space, something physicists now carefully distinguish from “nothing” (see Heeren, 93). As Fred Hoyle noted, “The physical properties of the vacuum [or “nothing”] would still be needed, and this would be something” (Hoyle, 144). Moreover, general relativity reveals that space in our universe is not mere nothingness. As Einstein wrote: “There is no such thing as an empty space, that is, a space without field. Space-time does not claim existence on its own, but only as a structural quality of the field” (Heeren, 93). Cosmologist Paul Davies points out that when a physicist asks how matter arose from nothing “that means not only, how did matter arise out of nothing, but ‘why did space and time exist in the first place, that matter may emerge from them?” As space scientist John Mather notes, “we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn’t even make any sense, in English. . . And I certainly don’t know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can’t even state the concept” (ibid., 93-94).
George Smoot, principal investigator with the COBE satellite, said, “It is possible to envision the creation of the universe from almost nothing—not nothing, but practically nothing” (ibid., 94). So, the “nothing” of which some scientists suggest that the universe could spring without a supernatural cause is not really nothing—it is something. It involves at least space and time. But before the big bang there was no space, no time, and no matter. Out of this “nothing,” only a supernatural cause could bring something.
The combined evidence for a big bang origin of the cosmos provides a strong case for a beginning to the universe. No viable scientific alternatives have been found. But, if the universe has a beginning, then, as Hawking admitted, the evidence would point to existence of a Creator. It follows logically that whatever had a beginning had a Beginner. Astrophysicist Arthur Eddington summed up the attitude of many naturalistic scientists when he wrote: “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me. . . 1 should like to find a genuine loophole” (Heeren, 81).
At first Einstein refused to admit that his own general theory of relativity leads to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning. To avoid this conclusion, Einstein added a “fudge factor” in his equations, only to be embarrassed when it became known. To his credit, he eventually admitted his error and concluded that the universe was created. He said, “I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this of that element. I want to know His thought; the rest are details” (cited by Herbert, 177).
Jastrow adds some embarrassing words both for skeptical astronomers and liberal theologians: “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commence suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy” (“A Scientist Caught,” 14). He further observed that “Astronomers now find that 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. . . . And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover” (God and the Astronomers, 15). Thus, he notes that “the scientists’ pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation.” And “This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”‘ (“A Scientist Caught,” 115).
Jastrow ends his book with noteworthy words: “For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain 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” (God and the Astronomers, 116).
