Alternatives to the Big Bang?

Topic Notes

• Was there a beginning to the Universe?

Robert Jastrow, an astrophysicist and was the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said: Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world …. The essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same. Consider the enormousness of the problem: Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks what cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the Universe? And science cannot answer these questions…

• Does the Big Bang give a theological implication?
• Kalam Cosmological Argument
  1. Whatever has a beginning to its existence, must have a cause
  2. The universe began to exist
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause – a creator.
• Hawking and Krause posit that the Universe didn’t need a cause.
• In a quantum vacuum with no matter, the fabric of space will cause particles to pop in and out of existence.
  • This idea is plausible; but it isn’t testable
  • Does this idea assume that something existed before the Universe?
• Laws of Physics must exist outside of time-space
  • Does that make the Laws of Physics prescriptive?
  • If so, does that point further to a Creator?
• Science, in trying to answer questions, runs into philosophical questions. This makes philosophy just as important as science.
• What about the Digital Simulation Theory?
• What we find in Christian Theology and the scientific world align very nicely.
• Why do some Christians push back against the Big Bang Theory?
• The Bible describes a Universe that is backed by science
• Modern Science came out of a Christian worldview.
• Big Bang Alternatives:
  • Steady State Universe should look the same in all locations. This doesn’t match observations.
  • The Oscillating Universe model still has a beginning.

 

 

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