I hate dioramas. I can’t comprehend any significant value of creating a diorama (unless you are a competitive HO scale train builder….haha…sorry, Pappaw!). I digress….
A few weeks ago, I was helping my daughter work on a dinosaur diorama for school. We had taken clay and formed it around some leftover dinosaur figurines from my son’s earlier years. It was taking shape, when out of nowhere she asks me, “You believe the ‘Young Earth’ theory, right?”
I caught her off guard when I said, “Yes, and no.” Then I had to launch into a ninety-minute diatribe that I am confident fell on vacuous ears. When I was a high school principal, we needed to adopt a curriculum that would meet the four-year graduation requirement for Virginia. We considered a few religious titles, but most presented a 2 ½ to 3 year curriculum. So we opted for a conservative secular company. My only real issue was the beginning of 9th grade World History began with cavemen. Following the line of most humanists, it meandered through the potholes of human evolution to arrive at modern man.
Not fully trusting my young staff to present a sound biblical worldview, I would teach the first week’s lessons myself to be sure that children understood the biblical account. We would only touch a few pieces of what the pagan’s believe. I would start with the Big Bang Theory.
It would be impossible to explain, in totality, the big bang theory. It has many concepts and assumptions that support it. However, if you are not familiar with the big bang theory, I will sum it up thusly: Way long ago, everything contained in the universe was in a huge glob of mass called a singularity1. Hot with energy, the singularity expanded at a rapid rate creating the continually expanding universe in just seconds. As the particles expanded, they cooled and lost radiation, creating matter.
Traditionally, Christianity has outright rejected this theory. I have no issue with it. What do we know to be factual? Firstly, in 2028, the Hubble Space station provided evidence that every other known galaxy appears to be speeding away from us in every direction. In 1995, it was discovered that galaxies are moving away from the earth at an increasing speed. We know that radiation and energy dissipate and decay over time. We know that one of the [very] few constants in the universe (there are about 28) is the speed of light. We also understand that energy is created when mass is accelerated square of the speed of light (E=MC2).
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God…
The first thing that is important when it comes to scripture is found in the first words. Big Bang Theorists begin with a singularity of all universal mass. Scripture begins with God. What Big Bang Theorists simply cannot explain is the source of the singularity. Assuming that all else in the big bang and evolution where COMPLETELY true, the basic question that remains unanswered is, “where did all of the matter actually come from?” Scripture answers this. “In the beginning, God.”
God creates “the heavens and the earth.” Remember, Moses is writing this scripture under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Either he was writing as the words came to him, or he was reflecting a vision which he saw. Either way, he would need to wrote from his personal point of view given his deepest understanding of the physical or observable laws he understood. We have traditionally assumed that this first verse of Genesis refers to sky and earth itself. However, consider this, maybe God made material for the universe as His first act of creation. Read like this we get a rich interpretation of scripture and a clear explanation of the singularity:
In the beginning (not the first day), God created space, and matter. Now the ball of matter, the singularity was formless and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
However, notice that the next words (without form and void) actually depict that this had all become ruined somehow. What could have caused all created matter to become ruined? Either something in the past that we cannot comprehend happed, or we have not connected an important detail.
According to the theory of special relativity, we can come to an understanding of how a singularity is formed. The theory (oversimplifies) would explain that any object with mass at rest, would require an infinite amount of energy accelerate it to the speed of light. However, it an object could be accelerated to the speed of light, it would create a black hole that would suck in everything around it into a singularity. So, theorizing, our univserse is presumabellyt the result of our uiniverse being sucked into a black hole, and then expanded into a new universe.
Could something have created a huge black hole that ruined the universe? Isaiah describes the fall of Lucifer as this: “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth [singularity],… But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.” Jesus also comments about what He witnessed: And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”
Notice that Satan’s fall is recorded like a falling star and like lightening. We understand that angels are created beings, unlike God, who is spirit. Angels are physical, have physical properties, and can engage in physical battle, and be delayed as a result3. When this created physical being was cast out of heaven, it was epic, and at the speed of light. Satan’s ejection could have either, been the force that created the destruction to suck the entire matter of the universe into its vortex, or possibly cast down to the mass creating a ruined state of all the created material of the universe. He was banished to roam the universe as the prince and power of space, until he found an unlikely target, the pinnacle of God’s creation–man. Clearly he was cast out prior to the fall of man, since he was the instigator of Eve’s sin. Whatever the cause, this massive singularity was ruined and was now getting ready to explode.
“Let there be light”
The next verse explains the entire nature of the Big Bang Theory. God said, “Let there be light!” This was obviously not the sun since the sun, moon, and stars are created on day four. So what is this light? Let’s think again about Einstein’s theory. If God created the physical laws of the universe then we can make assumptions about His desire to operate within His own beautiful laws. God is getting ready to create worlds, the earth, all creation, and mankind. We understand from Newton’s law of motion that a body at rest stays at rest unless an external force acts upon it. God would create an ‘external force’ that still emanates throughout the universe. God said, “Let there be [ENERGY}!” Light is energy. Simple and true. God had created all the material of the universe; He had created space, and now He unleashes it all in an incredible flash of energy would cause the universe to expand rapidly, and continue to expand to this day–all at His word, and by His hand. And in this act of unleashing this energy, He begins to guide a tiny particle through space as he begins pulling the pieces into order and orbits, drawing the newly formed earth into the galaxy now known as Milky Way.
- Check out all the theories on singularity here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity
- Metric Expansion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space
- Daniel 10
