Can the Big Bang Theory Be Reconciled with the Creation?

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PrincepsAuguste

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I have been thinking about this for a while, and the third reading at the Easter vigil further made me think on it.

The Big Bang Theory basically says that at a certain time many years ago, all there was was an infinitely tiny point. Then, this point exploded outwards very energetically and full of heat, gradually cooling and forming atoms, then elements, then combining to form galaxies with planets and stars.

I think such a theory is very reconcilable with such an idea. God came upon the speck, or the “formless wasteland,” then said “Let there be light.” And it all went on from there. God isn’t dumb. He wouldn’t have given the Genesis writers a bunch of complex blather they couldn’t understand. He just gave them a very simple account that they could understand and write down easily.

The only real stumbling block here is the literal interpretation of years and days in Genesis, because there is pretty well supported evidence that the universe is between 12 and 14 billion years old. We know this by using telescopes to measure the farthest distance we can see in light years; if the universe is accepted as the limit that light is reached, then this value will give us a way to determine how old the universe is. Genesis, if interpreted directly, says that the entire universe was ordered in 7 days. How can this be?
 
I would say that God did not ‘come upon’ that speck… rather that he created that speck and everything then flowed from there according to the laws that came from the mind of God.

As for the seven days, I’ve always found it remarkable that the early authors of the Bible managed to get the basic pattern of Creation in more or less the same order as scientists now theorise as the order in which the Universe and our world came to be as we see it. The ‘seven days’ is not so much a 24-hour day as a poetic expression of the various epochs the Universe has gone through according to the design of God.

It’s so remarkable that the early authors of the Bible came to these conclusions, without any of the scientific instruments and reasoning that we now take for granted, that I believe that the only way they could come to these conclusions (the ‘seven days of Creation’) would be if they had some form of Divine inspiration… So I’m quite satisfied with the story of Genesis. It tells me, in a poetic way, everything I need to know, from a God-centred perspective, about how everything I perceive came into being. I don’t see any dichotomy whatsoever between the Genesis account and the theory of Evolution and the Big Bang.

Incidentally, did you know that the Big Bang was first posited by a Belgian Catholic Priest? His name was Monseigneur Georges Lemaitre. Look him up online. He’s fascinating.
 
DexUK said:
I would say that God did not ‘come upon’ that speck… rather that he created that speck and everything then flowed from there according to the laws that came from the mind of God.

As for the seven days, I’ve always found it remarkable that the early authors of the Bible managed to get the basic pattern of Creation in more or less the same order as scientists now theorise as the order in which the Universe and our world came to be as we see it. The ‘seven days’ is not so much a 24-hour day as a poetic expression of the various epochs the Universe has gone through according to the design of God.

It’s so remarkable that the early authors of the Bible came to these conclusions, without any of the scientific instruments and reasoning that we now take for granted, that I believe that the only way they could come to these conclusions (the ‘seven days of Creation’) would be if they had some form of Divine inspiration… So I’m quite satisfied with the story of Genesis. It tells me, in a poetic way, everything I need to know, from a God-centred perspective, about how everything I perceive came into being. I don’t see any dichotomy whatsoever between the Genesis account and the theory of Evolution and the Big Bang.

Incidentally, did you know that the Big Bang was first posited by a Belgian Catholic Priest? His name was Monseigneur Georges Lemaitre. Look him up online. He’s fascinating.
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I had heard that a Catholic priest had posited the Big Bang but couldn’t remember the priest’s name. Thank you!
 
Did you know: the Big Bang Theory was formalized, officially, by a Belgian diocesan priest, Rev. Georges Lemaître, and was first disregarded because the very theory IMPLIES a Creator greater than the Universe itself?
 
AlexPetrosPio said:
Did you know: the Big Bang Theory was formalized, officially, by a Belgian diocesan priest, Rev. Georges Lemaître, and was first disregarded because the very theory IMPLIES a Creator greater than the Universe itself?
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You beat me to it lol.
But yes, the Pope even said that the big bang is reconcilable to the Catholic faith.
There is no official church teaching on creation, other than God was responsible, regardless of how it happened.(and that Adam and Eve were in fact real people, from whom we all descend)
 
My own view is that the Genesis account of creation is an allegorical account, and that a day means an indefinite period of time. God created the universe, of that I have no doubt, and by measuring the distance of the furthest galaxies away from us scientists have calculated that the initial explosion took place 13.7 billion years ago.Therefore, the universe is that old. Scientists have estimated the earth to be 4.5 billion years old.
 
Well now that I know it was thought up by a Catholic priest, I am in a good mood! 😃

Anyway, yeah it can because God created that speck that exploded.
 
Yes I was going to bring up that it was a Catholic priest but you all beat me to it.
 
PrincepsAuguste said:
I have been thinking about this for a while, and the third reading at the Easter vigil further made me think on it.

The Big Bang Theory basically says that at a certain time many years ago, all there was was an infinitely tiny point. Then, this point exploded outwards very energetically and full of heat, gradually cooling and forming atoms, then elements, then combining to form galaxies with planets and stars.

I think such a theory is very reconcilable with such an idea. God came upon the speck, or the “formless wasteland,” then said “Let there be light.” And it all went on from there. God isn’t dumb. He wouldn’t have given the Genesis writers a bunch of complex blather they couldn’t understand. He just gave them a very simple account that they could understand and write down easily.

The only real stumbling block here is the literal interpretation of years and days in Genesis, because there is pretty well supported evidence that the universe is between 12 and 14 billion years old. We know this by using telescopes to measure the farthest distance we can see in light years; if the universe is accepted as the limit that light is reached, then this value will give us a way to determine how old the universe is. Genesis, if interpreted directly, says that the entire universe was ordered in 7 days. How can this be?
Click to expand...
…not being a historian/scolar/scientist/etc… I can only tell you from my pedestrian view that there is quite possible more than a grain of truth to that theory (Big Bang).

I find it very interesting that such complex theories and scientific facts/discoveries initiate firstly in the mind of man way before any recorded fact/discovery… the Big Bang Theory was introduced by, of all people, a Catholic Monk (don’t ask me to go further into that… I’ve gleemed it from a program televised on EWTN); I suspect that Genesis 1 was the precursor of that thought that erupted into the Big Bang:
3 God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light… Evening came and morning came: the first day… 13 Evening came and morning came: the third day… 14 God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night… God saw that it was good. 19 Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.
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…so Day 1 of Creation Yahweh God Spoke: “Let ther be light” (a fantastic explosion of energy that could well be the origin of both the Universe and the spiritual beigns known as angels) is quite different from Day 4 where very specific lights were Created (Sun, Moon, Stars); Day 1’s Creation is (you’ve guessed it!) a singularity…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_theory
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After its initial expansion from a singularity, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons. While protons and neutrons combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would take thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms. (Excerpts of Big Bang Theory)

…while it is true that if we limit the period of Creation to seven-twenty-four-hour periods we would run into all sorts of time and quantum physics & mechanics amongst others… but if we pay close attention… we find that Scriptures do not state such thing:
Solar day: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day
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The average length of a solar day on Earth is about 86,400 seconds (24 hours) and there are about 365.2422 solar days in one mean tropical year. Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation[4] with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed), is called stellar day.

What we know from Scriptures is that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were nor brought into existence till Day 4–this means that the expression “Evening came and morning came” is in reference to a time period (a Day of Creation) that could expand into eons… time is irrelevant to God:
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (2 St. Peter 3:8)
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Maran atha!

Angel
 
PrincepsAuguste said:
Can the Big Bang Theory Be Reconciled with the Creation?
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AlexPetrosPio said:
Did you know: the Big Bang Theory was formalized, officially, by a Belgian diocesan priest, Rev. Georges Lemaître, and was first disregarded because the very theory IMPLIES a Creator greater than the Universe itself?
Click to expand...
No problem reconciling this at all. God said, “Let there be,” and BANG! There it was.

😃
 
I for one am a believer in guided evolution and the creation-bang as I like to call it. God knew that the ancient peoples wouldn’t understand astrophysics or the concept of super-forces, evolution, etc. and he thus told them of his creation in a way they could understand.

Besides, when an all-mighty, ever-living, being like God says “Let there be light!” I’d imagine it’d make a pretty damn loud bang!😃
 
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