Blog

by Steve Risner

I feel we’re going to challenge a few folks this week and next with my two upcoming blog posts. I also feel that is a good thing. Several weeks ago, possibly even a few months ago, a friend of mine who is a Biblical creationist commented that he simultaneously believed at one time in the theory of evolution, and in what the Bible stated in terms of our origins. He said he believed this way for some time because he never actually took the time to look at both of these ideas to see if they were compatible. Once he did take the time, he quickly realized that they could not work together on any level and he was forced to make a decision—believe God’s eternal Word or believe man’s current word on origins. He chose wisely, in my opinion.

Today we’re not going to discuss biological evolution, but the Big Bang. It seems many Christians have decided the Big Bang was reality and they have accepted it while claiming to believe the Bible as well. There are a few explanations, I think, for this. One is that they just haven’t given it an honest thought. Like my friend, they just accepted both without seeing if that was consistent. However, some have thought about it and, unlike my friend, have not determined that God’s Word is the final authority. They have decided that man’s current explanation of origins is, at the least, equal to God’s Word on the subject, so they try to meld the two. This doesn't work at all, actually, and is a slippery slope that can easily lead to a loss of faith in Christ as the only way to salvation. That’s another story and I’ll not be addressing that today. What I want to discuss is the factual information behind the Big Bang and briefly touch on alternatives.

The Big Bang generally stands on 3 major ideas: the CBR (Cosmic Background Radiation), the expansion of the universe, and the abundances of the light elements (primarily hydrogen, helium, and lithium). We can throw in the cosmological principle as well. How well have these things been evaluated or validated? In fact, how can they be tested adequately at all? You may be surprised to find something a large majority of scientists and laypersons alike believe firmly has little merit when scrutinized. I hope to at least demonstrate for you that the Big Bang is not as solid as we are led to believe.

Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) has been heralded for some time as a major triumph for the predictive power of the Big Bang theory. The sad truth for this particular cosmological view is that the Big Bang did not predict the measured CBR at all. In fact, it was off by orders of magnitude. Something to note is that, long before it was measured, Sir Arthur Eddington predicted the temperature of space at 3 degrees Kelvin and refined it to 2.8 degrees later. He did this without the Big Bang. Thoughts for the Big Band and the CBR ranged from 5-50 degrees Kelvin. The actual measurement is 3 degrees Kelvin. What has been lost in most reporting of this is that the data did not match the predictions, although many will say they matched perfectly. This sort of deception has happened quite a lot with the Big Bang model. An agreement between the theory and the data is proclaimed only after the data has been used to modify the model to “predict” the measurements. The interesting thing with the idea that the universe began as an unfathomable expansion that turned into the delicately balanced universe we have observed IS that balance. If the expansion was “too smooth” it would not have allowed for any stars or galaxies to clump together. However, if it were “too clumpy” it would have had such a large gravitational attraction that the universe would have collapsed into a black hole. However, what we got was a perfect balance that allowed for the formations of massive structures but not so massive as to reverse the expansion. If the gravitational energy was just a little more or less, or the kinetic energy of the universe was slightly more or less, it would all either fly apart or contract back. How nice it balanced perfectly for us. You can read some fascinating things about the CBR and expansion/contraction online from a variety of sources. Unfortunately, you’ll likely find a lot of rewritten history as to what the theory predicted and what was observed. I don’t want to spend too much space on any one issue. Investigate further if you like.

Hopefully, I can show you how the Big Bang is far from solid science. In fact, I would suggest it’s far from science, period. It’s a belief system. Much like Darwinian evolution is based on a very real observation—that animals vary and adapt slightly—but is extrapolated far beyond the reaches of scientific inquiry. Next week we will discuss redshift, the cosmological principle, and the laws of physics. These, as well as the things discussed here, are exceptional reasons to doubt the validity of the Big Bang from a scientific stand point.

We will also discuss the theological implications briefly. But let’s take a quick peak at the Bible’s call to worship our great God with creation. Psalm 148:3-6 says, “Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.” I hope you’ll follow along next week as we continue to explore the Big Bang, which is more of a dud in terms of science.