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…God created the heavens…

I’m not much of a stargazer, myself, but every time I am out late at night, away from street lights and the clamor of the city, I marvel at the stars above. What a beautiful sight it is to see all of those twinkling lights far above the earth, like diamonds scattered throughout the sky (I hope that doesn’t infringe on the copyright for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). There are so many stars in outer space that I am not even going to bother repeating the numbers I have heard, it is absolutely astonishing!

With as many stars as there are just in the visible sky, we wonder, “How big is the universe?” To give you an idea, let’s look at how far away certain bodies are from Earth. The distance from the Earth to the moon is 384,000 Km; this equals 1.28 light seconds. The distance from the Earth to the sun is 150,000,000 Km; which is about 8.3 light minutes. The distance from the earth to the next nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.3 LIGHT YEARS away from the Earth (Giancoli, Douglas. 2005. Physics 6th edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. p. 915). If that does not astonish you enough, there are other stars that are BILLIONS of Light Years away! This is literally astronomical! Nobody can measure the true size of the universe. Some people believe that it is infinitely large. There is no beginning to it and there is no end. Outer space would be an endless stretch of blackness scattered with stars, planets, and galaxies. Others say that it is well contained and has boundaries. In either case the atheist must believe that the universe in one sense or another is eternal; it has no beginning and no end. The most popular secular theory seems to suggest that there are boundaries to the universe and that it continues in some sort of oscillating cycle (Morris, Henry. 2008. The Biblcal Basis for Modern Science. Green Forrest, Arkansas: Master Books. 136, 137).

Considering the implications of the Big Bang Theory, the universe would most likely have boundaries of some sort. Even so, the boundaries are suspected to be moving outward because the stars and galaxies also seem to be moving further apart! Certain scientists also believe that once the system reaches its climax, there will be a “Big Squish” that condenses all of matter into nothing again. The cycle resets itself.

I often hear atheists ask believers, “If you believe in an eternal God, why is it so hard to imagine an eternal universe?” I think that the question should be turned on its head; “If you believe in an eternal universe, why is it so hard to believe in an eternal God?” Think about it, God is a cognitive Creator, the universe is mindless. How can that which is mindless design a realm with such order?

Only an all-powerful God could have produced such a wonder as the universe, whether it has boundaries or if it is infinite. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” What is more, Genesis presents the creation of the stars as an afterthought, “He also made the stars” (1:16). In other words, despite its vastness, the creation of the universe was easy for God. So does the Bible teach that the universe is infinite or limited? I don’t know. But it does tell us that God is all-powerful, infinite, and eternal.