Excerpts from a writing project so far, God with Ten Words
__________________________Belief in ex nihilo creation fits very nicely with what physics currently believes. The landscape can change, but it is a very satisfying agreement at this moment in history. For one, physics agrees that the universe had a beginning point. Interestingly, most of the famous physicists of the mid-twentieth century did not like the idea that the universe had a beginning because it played too neatly into the idea of a Creator. The term “Big Bang” was originally a term of derision, not from Christians, but from scientists.
In the 1950s, the favorite theory among physicists was what was called the “steady-state” theory. Championed especially by a man named Fred Hoyle, it argued that the universe did not have a beginning but that matter was constantly “coming and going” from the universe, as it were. When a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître pointed out that Einstein’s equations could support a beginning, his hypothesis was fairly strongly rejected.
Sometimes I hear Christians express a negative view toward the idea of a “big bang,” but I believe they are mostly opposing the atheistic version of the theory. The idea that God started the universe with a bang fits extremely well with the way most Christians understand Genesis 1:1 and creation out of nothing. In short, while we might debate about how long ago it was, the latest theories in physics of the universe’s beginning fit very nicely with our sense that God created the world out of nothing at a specific point in time in the past.
1 comment:
Those who attack the idea of a "big bang" don't usually know much about it (surprise!). They should be aiming their shots at naturalism, not the big bang.
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