Do Christians Believe In The Big Bang

God Created The Universe From The Institute For Creation Research, Podcast Hello everyone welcome to the creation podcast a show where we discuss the science that confirms scripture thank you to all of our listeners and viewers for tuning in Im your host Ivana and my guest today is Dr Jake Hebert icr research scientist and physicist. Thank you for joining us today. My pleasure Well Dr Hebert today we wanted to talk about the big bang theory so i know that neither one of us subscribes to this idea but could you give our viewers just a 30 000 foot view of what this theory entails. right  it's the idea that you know billions of years ago the universe was much smaller than it is now and for some reason space exploded. If you will it's not an explosion in the conventional sense where you have matter expanding into a pre-existing space it's the idea that space itself blew up and so the universe became much larger and supposedly you had very high temperatures at the beginning and somehow you get matter generated and here we are 13. 8 billion years later and you've got the universe as we know it today that's that's the nutshell version of the big bang.

That's pretty good. yeah so as we think about this there's, something that tells me there's a few holes in this theory, you said it's a little bit different than normal so  when we talk about this where would the material for the big bang actually have come from or what issues do you see with this. Well I think yes, that's a good question I think when you really get down to it. Those who hold to this view or any kind of atheistic, you have to really, if they're going to be intellectually consistent they have to say that the cosmos in some sense is eternal now they would claim that the origin of the universe was 13. 8 billion years ago. But you still need a little bit of, you know, they claim that their theory allows for energy to more or less be produced from nothing but even they admit you need a little bit of energy to start with. And so i think really when you get down to it I do not find it people who say the universe came from nothing I think is  ''that's really silly'' I don't think anybody can really take that seriously you have a little more respect for the claim that you know if they're going to say that the cosmos is eternal in some form uh because i think ultimately that's what you have to do and that's what the founder of I. C. R. Dr Henry Morris pointed out.

when you really get down to it all of these evolutionary explanations for the origin of the universe they all really ultimately get back to some kind of eternal cosmos because something has to be eternal it's either the universe or it's God and if they're gonna try to deny that it's God they have to say that the cosmos in some sense is eternal maybe not maybe not the same form that it is today but that you really have to have something there at the beginning so I you know some people would say, in fact there are physicists who say the universe came from nothing but I don't think you can really take that seriously yeah, wow so as scientists discover more and more about the universe and  they have to keep changing this big bang theory. So what are some of the new changes that have been made and how does that evidence add up if it does ?

Well you know they've got a number of arguments, three main arguments for the big bang two of them one of them is the fact that the universe is apparently expanding now i'm not sure i accept that interpretation of the data but you have galaxies that and when you look at the light from these galaxies, it's what we call redshifted and the typical interpretation of that is that these galaxies are moving away from us and so that's understood usually to be an argument that the universe is expanding you also have the fact that big bang does a good job of accounting for hydrogen and helium. The amounts of hydrogen and helium in the universe problem with that though is that  they've got an adjustable parameter in their model that they get to pick it to be what they want it to be so the fact that they get the right amount of hydrogen helium isn't really all that impressive when you realize that and it actually caused with that when they pick that particular value they get locked in, and it causes other problems for them later.

And finally the other argument is what they call the cosmic microwave background radiation which is thought to be this afterglow from a time about 400 000 years after the big bang now to be fair to them that's probably their strongest argument because they did predict there would be some kind of an afterglow and creationists have some different ideas about what that might be but to be fair to them that's that's probably one of their best arguments but what is striking about that is even  there are things that don't line up there are things there are details about that microwave background radiation that just don't really fit the big bang very well. And of course there's there's you know there's problems there's lots of problems with it one of my favorite and i think one of the ones that's easiest to understand for people is that when they get through doing their calculations they have convinced themselves that 95 of all the stuff in the universe is unknown it's some weird exotic substance either energy or matter that we really have no experience with and and they're  claiming that they've got a good explanation for the origin of the universe even though by their own reckoning 95 of the stuff in the universe is unknown. You know that's kind of like saying you understand the recipe for a cake but you don't know what kind of a cake it is.

if you really think about that that it's hard to take that seriously and I hope that more people catch on to that because that is a devastating uh critique of just the big bang it's very easy to understand. All right so, you've mentioned redshifts, can you explain what that is and how that fits in ? . Right well when you see a light from distant galaxies uh you have a continuous band of color but you also have these dark bands that you see okay these you know they call them absorption lines and those lines you know when you have an object that's moving away from you those lines tend to get moved toward the red part of the spectrum that's why they call it a redshift and so you know if you have something that's stationary you see those lines at one particular place but if it's moving away you see it at another location on that graph and so that's what we mean when we talk about a redshift, and so that's the  fact that you see redshifts for these galaxies is usually interpreted to mean that they're moving away from us. Okay thank you. So as we look at all these things and for us as Christians and we're trying to follow the bible. So would it make sense for a Christian to hold to the big bang ? I don't think so. now there are Christians who say that well this is God's means of creating the universe but if you take scripture seriously there's just too many contradictions. I mean there's just the sequence of events, doesn't agree. you know for instance according to the big bang. According to their ideas about how the solar system formed, they claimed the sun came first and then the earth. The stars came first most of them anyway well the bible says it's the other way around you've got the earth or the matter that would become the earth created on day one it's not until day four the stars including the sun are created. So you've got a contradiction there with the order of events. There's no hint of millions or billions of years anywhere in the bible and I don't think anybody would ever, you know, if you were just starting from scripture would ever conclude that God used a big bang to create the universe.

It's just really you know the big the one thing that i think kind of  was the impetus for the big bang was the inference that the universe is expanding because that you know if you're if you believe as a uniformitarian that there's no God and that everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation, and you think the universe is expanding, well it's perfectly natural to run the numbers backwards and imagine that everything came together, from a you know, either a point or a much smaller volume sometimes billions of years ago in the past but you know if you're a Christian you don't have to make that assumption even if you assume that the universe is expanding. You could argue that maybe God created a full-blown universe, but He imposed an expansion on it for some reason. I think it's also worth pointing out that there are tests that you can do to see if the redshift is really caused by an expanding universe. There's a test out there called the tolman surface brightness test. And what i find interesting about it is as far as i know no one is claiming that it provides unequivocal support for the big bang. There was a famous astronomer named Alan Sandidge who did this test years ago and he was a Christian. But he believed in the big bang and he said well it's consistent with the big bang if you make this extra assumption.

Now more recently there was a prominent big bang critic named Eric Lerner who's not a creationist but he says it doesn't that that surface brightness test doesn't support the big bang now you know I haven't, I haven't done those calculations myself I mean for all I know he could be completely messing it up. But if he's right I find it striking that nobody, even the big bang supporters are claiming that you've got this slam dunk argument, you know that it's a  clear-cut win for the big bang. So I think you know, and other creationists may disagree but I think we ought to be open to the idea there may be some other explanation for those redshifts. I'm not sure we should just automatically concede of the idea of an expanding universe. I may be in a minority in that position but I think creationists need to be willing to consider other possibilities. Yeah so it seems that even with these ideas with the big bang, like there's always, there always has to be another supplement oh yeah see that's the problem they always run into is that. It's interesting you know when they were constructing the big bang there were three big problems they had with the big bang. okay two of those problems could have been solved if they would just acknowledge design or fine-tuning now remember I don't believe in the big bang okay, I don't think Christians ought to accept it.

But when they're developing their theory they come to these points where you have to have fine-tuning you have to have design and but they don't want to do that so it never fails, they will you know, come to this place where they have an option they can either choose to acknowledge design, acknowledge that this is wildly improbable, that the conditions were just right for this. Or they can try to come up with some ad hoc explanation to explain the apparent design. Well they always come up with some ad hoc explanation but what happens is those ad hoc explanations cause more problems and so you need more ad hoc explanations to get around those and it just keeps getting more and more convoluted and I think most of the weirdness, maybe not all, but most of the weirdness of modern cosmology, if you trace it back you can trace it back to the big bang. You know this idea that 95 of the matter in the universe is some weird exotic stuff we've never seen before that is coming from the big bang, that is not coming from some kind of census.

They've done of all the particles in the universe, I mean, come on they haven't calculated, counted all the particles in the universe added them up and figured out what's what. No the big bang, if when you follow that logic through you have to say 95 of the stuff in the universe is this weird exotic stuff. You know this idea that there are other universes out there, that's coming from the big bang. That's specifically coming from what they call inflation theory and inflation theory is what they tacked on to the big bang to solve those three big problems I was telling you about about. They could have just said well maybe, just God made it this way. maybe there's some fine-tuning here. We can't explain it, you just have to accept it, but they chose not to do that, and they do that, I mean without fail they will always swerve to avoid that conclusion. and I personally think God has designed everything in a way that any attempt to explain the universe naturally is doomed to fail.

You're going to run into problems it may not be the same problems confronting the big bang for instance. Maybe you have these people who believe the universe is eternal, you know what they call a steady state universe. But you're gonna run into problems and I think it's absolutely impossible to avoid the conclusion that a miracle, or miracles of some kind were involved in the creation of the universe. I don't think you can do it and I think any attempt to explain the universe naturalistically is doomed to fail. Okay so, then if the big bang is a bust, then what is the evidence actually pointing to ? . Well let me let me give you an example the stars. They have a hard time accounting for the origin of stars or at least the ultimate origin of stars. because their stories about star formation require one of two things they either require. Dark matter okay, which nobody knows what it is, and a lot of us are doubtful that it even exists.

Or it requires at least one generation of stars to already be in existence. okay so if if your theory for star formation requires a previous generation of stars, where did that first generation of stars come from ? . So really when you get down to it the very fact that stars exist is an argument against the big bang. The fact that we have these these you know they have a hard time explaining the origin of stars and galaxies, and you know I think the very fact that we see stars in the universe is an argument against the big bang. Because it's surprisingly hard to get stars formed. Now to be fair, there are some creationists who think maybe star formation might theoretically be possible today. I'm a little skeptical of that but there are some creationists who think that. But you still have to get, where did that first generation of stars come from ? And if you don't have, if you've got no way to produce that first generation of stars without a previous generation of stars or dark matter, which again we don't know what it is, we don't even know if it exists, you don't have a good explanation.

And so the very fact that there are stars out there is a testament that God created them. making stars is a lot harder than people think. That's what I hear you know, it's like people think, oh it's just a big ball of,,, yes how hard can it be you know, but it but it's surprisingly tricky. Yeah wow that is incredible thank you so much for your time Dr Hebert I think we have a better understanding now of why the big bang theory doesn't quite fit within a biblical worldview. But to all of our viewers and listeners thank you for joining us you can find this podcast on youtube and our other places where you find podcasts if you have any other questions or topics that you'd like to know more about please send us a message on social media and be sure to leave a review and a rating for us so that others can learn more about us and this podcast and don't forget to subscribe for future episodes but i'm Ivana and we'll see you next time on the creation podcast. ​https://www.icr.org/