This paper is one I wrote for a class. It was done from a Young Earth Creationist view, and I'm personally a little proud of it. It could have a lot of polish and a ton more researching, but I thoroughly enjoyed writing this paper.
The Big Bang is considered one of the largest scientific discoveries of its time, but can it be considered compatible with the Biblical Creation Account? To start off, there are 3 main types of views of the earth; young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and evolutionary creationism. “Young earth creationism (YEC) is the belief that God directly created the universe in six literal days and that the earth is relatively young.” [1] “Old earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella term used to describe biblical creationists who deny that the universe was created within the last 6,000 to 10,000 years over the course of six consecutive 24-hour days. Rather, old earth creationists believe that God created the universe and its inhabitants (including a literal Adam and Eve) over a much longer period of time than is allowed for by young earth creationists.” [2] “Evolutionary creationism (EVC) attempts to harmonize the theological teachings of evangelical Christianity with evolution.” [3] However in doing so, they intentionally or unintentionally undermine the impact of Original Sin and try to mix two very conflicting worldviews. No matter how old you think the earth is, all these worldviews are required to respond to the Big Bang Theory, however, there needs to be a clarification of terms.
The Big Bang theory refers to the model in accordance with the theory. The big bang cosmology proposed here is that everything in the universe came from nothing at a fixed point in the distant past. Some commonly associated assertations that will be rejected in this model however, such as, Scientific Naturalism, and Darwinian Evolution. [6]. Now we need to ask, is the Big Bang Theory compatible with the Bible, and if it isn’t, then is the big bang cosmology? In support of the Big Bang Theory occurring, and the existence of can be condensed in the acronym, SURGE. S-The Second Law of Thermodynamics. “[It] states that the universe is running out of usable energy.” The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. This means that the universe cannot be infinitely old, as if it was, then we would have run out of energy a long time ago. It also states that the universe cannot be eternal because we would have reached complete disorder (entropy) by now. U-The Universe Is Expanding. Edwin Hubble looked through his telescope and caused scientists to confirm that the universe is expanding and that it is expanding from a single point. This proves a beginning because if look at the expanding in reverse, then you will look back and mathematically see nothing. In summary, once there was nothing, then the entire universe seems to have exploded into being, which is commonly called the Big Bang. R-Radiation from the Big Bang. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang. Robert Jastrow says, “No explanation other than the Big Bang has been found for the fireball radiation.” G- Great Galaxy Seeds. After finding the radiation afterglow, scientists turned their attention that allegedly confirming the Big Bang. Scientists believed that if it occurred, then there should be slight variations or ripples in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation. NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) checked if the ripples existed and how precise they were. COBE found ripples that showed the explosion and expansion of the universe was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow galaxy formation, but not cause the universe to collapse back on itself. It seems that something predicted by the Big Bang again was found, so it was therefore big with scientists. E- Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. The “discovery was the beginning of the end for the idea that the universe is eternal. The theory itself, has been verified to 5 decimal places, demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter, and shows that time, space, and matter is co-relative. That is, they are interdependent- you cannot have one without the others. [4]
So there seems to be a truck ton of evidence in support of the Big Bang Theory. All of the evidence presented can for the existence of a god (not necessarily THE God.). However, it is not good to use evidence of something that is not compatible with the Bible to attempt to prove the Bible. The Theory is in a serious conflict with the Bible, and in order to elaborate on why it is incompatible, consider these three points. “1. The Bible tells us that God created heaven, earth, and everything within them in the span of six days (Exodus 20:11) and rested on the seventh day. This is the basis for our work week (Exodus 20:8). In contrast, the big bang model claims that the universe and earth formed over billions of years. 2. Genesis tells us that God created the stars on the fourth day—three days after the earth was created. In contrast, the big bang model claims that stars existed billions of years before the earth. 3. The Bible tells us that the earth was made from water (2 Peter 3:5; Genesis 1:2–9; Psalm 24:2), but the standard secular model teaches that the earth began as a molten planet which cooled over millions of years, and that the oceans were the result of asteroid or meteor impacts, or from dissolution of comets as they entered earth’s atmosphere.” [5] These are basic things that are not compatible with the Big Bang Theory.
There are more problems with the theory, not just Biblically, but scientifically. There is the flatness problem, which is that the expansion rate of the universe is finely balanced with gravity, but during the Big Bang, those forces would have been exact even though physics allows for any range of possibilities. The horizon problem is a light time-travel problem. The cosmic background radiation has a very uniform temperature, yet light cannot travel such distance in the time allowed. The Big Bang also requires that the different regions of the universe started with very different temperatures. Today they all have almost exactly the same temperatures. The problem is that there has not been enough time for light to travel from two different places if they have different temperatures. The last problem is the Monopole Problem. Magnetic monopoles (particles with a single polarity) should be produced at the big bang temperatures, yet none have been found, so the universe was never so hot. In an attempt to solve these problems, the people in support of the Big Bang Theory have created “Inflation” (no, they are not the ones behind making gas cost multiple times more than it used to.) Inflation is an attempt to solve all 3 of those problems. It is an additional set of assumptions in which the universe begins to expand at a much-accelerated rate and then goes back to the normal expansion rate. This potentially could reduce or eliminate the flatness, horizon, and monopole problems. This, however, has not been proven at all to be true. It only amounts to only a story without supporting evidence. Furthermore, it has its own problems, such as what would cause it and how to turn it off in a graceful fashion? Even if they do solve them, there are more scientific problems. The singularity problem: A. Well, the existence of a singularity causes problems, since if you get an infinity in physics, you probably did something wrong. B. No known physics has been proven to even work in a singularity, and so you have to assume theories such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity could be applied, though it has been completely unproven. C. The last problem is that the Big Bang is that they cannot explain why the singularity is there, (why is the Big Bang, before it exploded, even there?) and what caused the Big Bang to BANG? Even so, the Big Bang does not sufficiently explain the origin of the universe then. The baryon number problem states that with every amount of energy, there is an equal amount of anti-matter. So that means, every time you create matter, you create an equal amount of anti-matter. The Big Bang, however, only has pure energy, but there is no anti-matter at all! Then there’s Distant Mature Galaxies, which describes the existence of fully formed galaxies, which is a surprise from the Big Bang perspective since it should have been all random, not fully formed so far out. Lastly, the Big Bang theory cannot produce elements heavier than lithium, so the first stars (Pop III) should not have any heavy elements. But ALL known stars do. The only way they can think of producing heavier metals is stars, and the star’s cores produce heavier elements. But there has been yet to find stars without the heavier elements (known as Pop III stars) out of 100 billion stars, none have any of them. [7]
So, should there be a complete disregard for any evidence of there being any big bang? Looking at the Bible, there does not seem to be a complete need to disregard the concept of a big bang. God created the planets and the universe, ex nihilo (out of nothing) during creation. For this you do not necessarily have to use the word “big bang.” God created works fine, but God creating something out of nothing is incredibly significant. Before “big bang” there was nothing, and then suddenly there was something. If “big bang” is replaced with “God created,” then we have the same story. We can use this concept as an argument against the theory that the earth is infinitely old, and that is the significance of even attempting to fit big bang cosmology. Before big bang cosmology, it was the prominent worldview in the atheistic community that the earth has been “infinitely old.” There would be no need for a creator to exist, the existence of a “beginning” has forced atheists to somehow reconcile how something could have been created out of nothing, something that impossible without God. You can argue that something happened through natural laws, but how can the thing that started space, matter, and time, be created by the things that came after it? Even so, it is still important to separate the “big bang cosmology” here with the “Big Bang Theory.”
So, in conclusion, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.” God then spoke, and created the world that was good, but sin messed it all up. Because of our fallenness we may try to interpret the world without God, or we may try to interpret Him with evidence that does not line up with His word. Even so, we can learn that even though our lens is distorted because of the Fall, God is the sovereign Lord above all, and what He says is Gospel.
[1] What is young earth creationism? | GotQuestions.org
[2] What is old earth creationism? | GotQuestions.org
[3] What is evolutionary creationism? | GotQuestions.org
[4] Geisler, Norman, and Turek, Frank. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, Crossway, 2004. Pages 76-84. (SURGE and its information came from the book.)
[5] https://answersingenesis.org/big-bang/
[6] The Big Thing About the Big Bang | Cold Case Christianity
[7] Answers Academy: Big Problems with the Big Bang Jan 12, 2010 | Answers in Genesis