Problems with the Big Bang
Because of the popularity of the Big Bang theory, many people do not realize that not all scientists accept this explanation of the origin of the universe. In May 2004, a group of thirty-four secular scientists challenged the Big Bang theory in an open letter published in New Scientist and on the Internet.14 By late spring 2009, 218 scientists and engineers, 187 independent researchers and 105 other people had added their signatures to this letter. In this letter, the thirty-four scientists addressed a number of problems associated with the Big Bang hypothesis. The letter begins,
The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed—inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory.
The letter then goes on to address other problems with the Big Bang theory, some of which I allude to below.
Cosmologists maintain that the Big Bang hypothesis makes two major predictions and that these have been observed and, as a consequence, have proved the Big Bang to be true. Let us look at both of these in order to determine whether these observations really do prove that the Big Bang happened or can be interpreted in other ways.
The first prediction concerns what is called the ‘red shift’. If the universe is expanding, as predicted by the Big Bang, the galaxies should be moving away from one another at velocities proportional to the distances separating them. In 1924 the American astronomer Edwin Hubble invented a method for measuring the distances of galaxies. He also observed that, when the light coming from these distant galaxies was studied using an instrument called a spectrometer, the emission or absorption lines of the elements were not seen at their usual wavelengths, but were shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. Hubble and many other astronomers claimed that this ‘red shift’ is directly proportional to the velocity with which the galaxies are receding. It is found that, the more distant the galaxy, the greater is the observed ‘red shift’—that is, the greater is its velocity—exactly what would be expected if the Big Bang were true. On the face of it, this seems to prove the Big Bang theory. But this observation that the universe is expanding is something that is taught in the Scriptures. The Bible teaches in a number of places that the universe has been ‘stretched out’ or expanded. For example, in Isaiah 40:22 we read that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell. Such verses of Scripture actually hint that the universe has increased in size since its creation—God has stretched it out, causing it to expand. The red shift, therefore, has nothing at all to do with the Big Bang—it is confirmation of the stretching out of the universe by the hand of the Creator.
The second prediction of the Big Bang hypothesis concerns the existence of what is called the ‘cosmic microwave background radiation’. We saw above that, according to cosmologists, when the universe was about 379,000 years old, electrons and atomic nuclei combined into atoms (mostly hydrogen), and the radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space largely unimpeded. This relic radiation is what is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation. In June 1965, using a very sensitive radio-telescope, two researchers from the Bell Telephone Laboratories discovered microwave radiation coming apparently uniformly from all directions in space.15 This cosmic microwave background radiation corresponded to about 3.5 K (about –270oC). The two scientists involved, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which was deemed to be the ‘echo’ of the Big Bang.
But is the cosmic microwave background radiation connected with the hypothetical Big Bang? In 1926, the famous British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington had already provided an accurate explanation for this temperature found in space.16 He showed that this phenomenon was not due to some ancient explosion, but rather was simply the background radiation from all of the heat sources (mostly the stars) that occupy the universe. He calculated the minimum temperature to which any particular body in space would cool and showed that it would be 3.18 K (later refined to 2.8)—essentially the same as the observed ‘background’ radiation that is known to exist today. Despite the strong opinions of the cosmologists who believe in the Big Bang, the idea that the cosmic microwave background radiation proves the Big Bang is not as reliable as they would like us to believe. This is borne out by a comment from evolutionist Karen Fox, who in 2002 confessed, ‘This radiation [cosmic microwave background radiation] in and of itself doesn’t require the big bang theory per se to be correct.’17
There is therefore no scientific proof of the Big Bang hypothesis—the fact that the galaxies appear to be receding from one another has a biblical explanation, and astrophysicists such as the late Sir Arthur Eddington have provided other scientific explanations for the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Earlier we saw that over 500 scientists and engineers have drawn the scientific community’s attention to the fact that the Big Bang hypothesis relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities that have never been observed. Inflation, dark matter and dark energy are among these entities. In addition, there are another four scientific problems with the Big Bang:18
The missing monopoles. Monopoles are hypothetical massive particles that are just like magnets but have only one pole. Cosmologists maintain that many monopoles would have been formed in the high temperatures of the Big Bang and, since they are stable, they should still be in existence today. Yet none have been found, despite intense searching. The only logical conclusion that can be reached is that such high temperatures as those postulated in the Big Bang have never occurred, which in turn means that the Big Bang never occurred.
The flatness problem. The expansion rate of the universe appears to be very finely balanced with the force of gravity—this condition is known as ‘flat’. If the universe were the result of the Big Bang, it is difficult to imagine how such an unlikely condition could have transpired.
The missing anti-matter. As we have seen, according to the Big Bang hypothesis, matter (in the form of hydrogen and helium) formed from energy as the universe expanded. However, whenever matter is formed from energy, anti-matter is also produced. Anti-matter has similar properties to matter except that the charges of the particles that compose it are reversed. This means that equal quantities of matter and anti-matter should have been produced in the Big Bang and this should be observed today—but it is not! The visible universe is composed almost entirely of matter, which, in fact, is exactly what we would expect from what the Bible teaches. God created the universe composed of matter. If it were composed of equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, as required by the Big Bang, then, when the matter and anti-matter came together, they would violently destroy each other and life would not be possible. The fact that the universe contains life—at least in this corner of the universe—suggests that the Big Bang never occurred.
The missing Population III stars. The Big Bang hypothesis can only account for the existence of the three lightest elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium. The heavier elements are thought to form in the final stages of a star when it explodes (that is, in a supernova). Socalled second-and third-generation stars are thus said to be ‘contaminated’ with small amounts of these heavier elements. Now, if the Big Bang had occurred, the first stars that formed in the universe would comprise only the three lightest elements. According to cosmologists, these so-called Population III stars should still be around, yet no such stars have ever been found! This is more evidence to suggest that the Big Bang never occurred.
Although cosmologists would have us believe that there is overwhelming evidence
for believing that the Big Bang occurred, we have seen that, in reality, this is not so. Not only is there no explanation of how something (the universe) can come from nothing, but there is no evidence for the account of the history of the universe as told by the cosmologists who believe in the Big Bang. Without any evidence to substantiate their claims, they confidently tell us about inflation, which has never been seen, and about dark matter and dark energy, which have never been observed. The same cosmologists ridicule the idea of a Creator who stretched out the heavens, causing the universe to expand. They dismiss the explanation of the cosmic microwave background radiation that shows that it has nothing at all to do with the Big Bang but is a result of the minimum temperature to which any particular body in space would cool. Yet they can provide no explanation for the missing monopoles, the missing anti-matter, the missing Population III stars and the problem of the ‘flatness’ of the universe. The only conclusion that can be reached is that the Big Bang hypothesis does not stand up to scientific investigation and so should be dismissed as nothing more than the ‘fairy story for grown-ups’ that it is.
Before leaving this section, however, it is worth considering that there are in fact only four possibilities to explain the origin of the universe:
It has always been here.
It is not really here—it is an illusion.
It came from nothing, naturally.
It came from nothing, supernaturally.
Let us look at each of these possibilities in turn and see what conclusions we reach.
The first explanation is that the universe has always been here. If the universe had always existed, however, it would be infinitely old, and by now everything would have ‘wound down’ and nothing would be happening. In other words, by now there would be no energy left to do useful work as predicted by the second law of thermodynamics. Clearly, things are still happening in the universe—for example, I am alive and sitting in my house while writing this paragraph, and the sun is shining between the showers of rain. The fact that things are happening proves that the universe has not always been here—it must have had a beginning.
The second possibility is that the universe is not really here at all but is an illusion. This explanation is really ridiculous, because we have to exist in order to deny our existence!
The third possibility is the one that we have been considering in the last two sections of this chapter—that the universe arose naturally from nothing. We have seen that this, too, is a ridiculous explanation; we have seen that the account of the Big Bang is more like a fairy story for grown-ups than a sound scientific explanation of the origin and history of the universe.
We are therefore left with the fourth and only logical explanation for the origin of the universe—that it came supernaturally from nothing; ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, as it says in the first verse of the first book of the Bible.
One or many universes?
We have seen, then, that the universe is incredibly vast and that it contains an unbelievable number and variety of stars. We have also seen that there is no adequate scientific explanation for the origin of the universe. Despite the fact that there is no scientific explanation or justification for the existence of our universe, some astronomers are not content to believe that there is only one universe, but now imagine that an infinite number of universes exist at the same time! This concept is called ‘multiverses’.
The question that needs addressing is: Where do astronomers get the idea of multiverses from? Dr Craig Hogan, a cosmologist at the University of Washington, has answered this question by referring to the concept of the Big Bang origin of the universe—the belief, as we have seen, that the universe in which we live arose naturally out of nothing. Hogan has suggested that ‘Once you’ve discovered it’s easy to make a universe out of an ounce of vacuum, why not make a bunch of them?’19
The consequences of such an idea have been spelled out by Marcus Chown, the New Scientist’s cosmology consultant, as follows:
Far, far away in a galaxy with a remarkable resemblance to the Milky Way, sits a star that looks remarkably like the Sun. And on the star’s third planet, which looks remarkably like the Earth, lives someone who, for all the world, looks like your identical twin. Not only do they look the same as you but they are reading this exact same book—in fact they are focused on this very line. Actually, it is weirder than this. A whole lot weirder. There is an infinite number of galaxies that look just like our own galaxy, containing an infinite number of versions of you whose lives, leading up until this moment, have been absolutely identical to yours.20
Marcus Chown informs us that this is not science fiction but an ‘unavoidable consequence of the standard theory of our Universe’.21 By this, he means that the idea of the existence of multiverses is the result of the Big Bang that apparently caused our universe to come into existence. This means that, if you accept the Big Bang, you have to accept the idea of there being an infinite number of people who are identical to you existing in an infinite number of universes. And they will be reading this same book at the same time as you are reading it, and this same book will have been written by an identical Dr Monty White in these parallel universes!
Is there any evidence that these parallel universes exist? An interesting consequence of believing in the idea of multiverses is that it is impossible to move from one universe to another universe, despite some ingenious science-fiction stories about transferring to a parallel universe.22 As it is impossible to observe one of these universes from another universe, multiverses are therefore beyond the realm of scientific experimentation. This means that no scientific tests can be conducted to determine whether or not such multiverses exist; no falsifiable predictions can therefore be made—such predictions being the backbone of scientific endeavour. The idea of multiverses is, therefore, nothing more than wishful thinking, and is not supported by any scientific data.
It is my experience that many Christians, when confronted with this scenario of multiverses, are confused and simply do not know how to respond. They feel that their understanding of the origin and nature of the universe is so woefully inadequate that they are not able to argue against multiverses, and so perhaps think that clever scientists have proven the existence of their doppelgängers. However, we must be biblical in all our thinking, so we must argue biblically. The Scriptures tell us quite plainly in Romans 6:10 and in Hebrews 10:10 that the Lord Jesus Christ died once—here on planet earth—to save us from our sins. There were not an infinite number of Sons of God dying an infinite number of deaths for an infinite number of sinners on an infinite number of earths! Although this is a spiritual argument, it is another strong argument for the non-existence of multiverses.
The understandableness of the universe
Have you ever wondered why it is that you can understand the universe in which we live? Why is it that you, the reader, can grasp the description of the universe that I wrote above? What makes the universe understandable? These are not idle questions and they do have a rational (as well as a spiritual) answer. But before we look at the answer, let me tell you that if you have ever asked such questions, you are in good company; the famous physicist and Noel laureate Albert Einstein also pondered this when he proclaimed that ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible’.23
This means that, when we investigate the universe, no matter how mathematical, esoteric, complicated or counter-intuitive is the description or explanation of a particular observable fact, we are able to figure it out and make sense of it. We use intelligence, intuition and imagination in order to understand it—and that is what makes us human. That is what makes us different from animals; a pet dog or cat, for instance, has no interest in understanding the universe in which we live. Why is this? The reason is that members of the human race are not like the animals, but are made in the image and likeness of God; therefore it is reasonable and logical for us to be able to comprehend the universe
which God has created.
It is interesting to note, however, that the God who created the universe is himself incomprehensible—he can never be fully understood. Yet, at the same time, he is knowable. In one sense, there is no answer to the question that Isaiah asked: ‘To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?’ (Isa. 40:18). Yet the Lord Jesus Christ prayed in what is the real Lord’s Prayer in John 17: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’ (John 17:3).
Christians have always been aware of these two apparently contradictory notions: that God, who is incomprehensible, can be known. The early Christian Fathers, for example, spoke of the invisible God as an unbegotten, nameless, eternal, incomprehensible, unchangeable being, and yet, at the same time, confessed that God reveals himself in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore can be known unto salvation. God can be known, but it is impossible for men and women to have a knowledge of God that is exhaustive and perfect in every way. Yet it is possible for us to obtain a knowledge of God that is perfectly adequate for the realization of the divine purpose in our lives. True knowledge of God can be acquired only from the divine self-revelation (that is, God’s communicating knowledge of himself to men and women) and only to those who accept this with childlike faith. Christianity necessarily presupposes such a knowledge.
We read in the Bible that God has revealed himself to us through various names, yet the Bible often speaks of the name of God in the singular (for example, in the third commandment found in Exod. 20:7). In such instances, ‘the name’ stands for the whole manifestation of God in his relation to his people. The simplest name used for God in the Old Testament is the Hebrew El, and this conveys the meaning of being first, being Lord, of being strong and mighty. The name Adonai points to God as the almighty Ruler, whereas Shaddai and El Shaddai are used to show that God possesses all power in heaven and on earth. Through the name Yahweh, God reveals himself as the God of grace. In the New Testament we find the Greek equivalents of the Old Testament Hebrew names. For El we find Theos, which is the most common name for God; Yahweh and Adonai are usually rendered Kurios, which is derived from the Greek word kuros, meaning ‘power’. We also find that Pater, meaning father, is used repeatedly in the New Testament.
What About Origins? (CreationPoints) Page 14
