Big Band and Its Cosmology- Scientific Theories of the Origin of the Universe and Life

Scientific Theories of the Origin of the Universe and Life: Description and Its Reception.

Big Band and Its Cosmology

Ralte, Rodinmawia. The Interface of Science and Religion: An Introductory Study. New Delhi: Christian World Imprints, 2017.

Berry, R J. True scientists, true faith: some of the world's leading scientists reveal the harmony between their science and their faith. Oxford: Monarch, 2015.

Ross, Hugh. The Fingerprint of God: Recent scientific discoveries reveal the unmistakable identity of the creator. California: Promise Publishing, 1991. 

In 1920s Edwin Hubble discovered that there are a number of galaxies in the universe. He spotted several galaxies and could measure the distance between such nine different galaxies. With a modern telescope, we have come to know that there are some hundred of thousand million galaxies in the universe, each containing some hundred thousand million stars. Our sun is just an ordinary average-sized the yellow star among such hundred thousand million stars. Our galaxy, known as Milky Way contains about 100,000 million stars like the sun. It is estimated that there are nearly 3000 million other galaxies in the observable universe. 

A typical Galaxy has a diameter of 30 million parsecs (1 parsec is equal to slightly more than 3 light-years). The distance between neighboring galaxies could be of the order of 3 to 4 million parsecs. Such incredible known facts have come down to us. 

We will discuss various theories of the origin of the universe with a theological approach. 

Big Bang

One of the most popular theories of the origin of the universe, which is accepted by most scientists and even many Christian, is the hot Big Bang Theory. According to this theory, the Universe was created in a big bang which occurred some 10-20 billion years ago and the radiation from that super hot event, it is claimed can still be seen around in the universe coming from all directions. The term Big Band was actually coined by physicist Feed Hoyle during a radio broadcast in 1949. He favored the alternative ‘steady-state theory’ for the origin of the universe, and he used the term “big Bang’ as a derived nickname for the emerging theory of the origin of the Universe.

 What Actually means by Expanding Universe

Big Bang is the the outcome of the scientific discovery that the universe is not static or fixed but it is expanding and keeps on expanding. Though according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, implicitly Einstein believed that it is the fixed and static universe. However, a Russian physicist, Alexander Friedmann, at the beginning of 1920s proposed that based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity, that the universe is not static. But Edwin Hubble was the first scientist who established what was been accepted now as a scientific fact that the universe is not static but expanding. Hubble after a painstaking observation of a certain star called a Cepheid, after observing the different colors of lights coming from different galaxies, he came to found out that other galaxies are moving away from us and the velocity of their movement is proportional to the distance between us. The further the galaxy is from us the faster it moves away from us; at double the distance, the recession velocity will also double. Though scientists like Friedmann and Lemaitre before Hubble proposed the theory of the expanding of the universe, Edwin Hubble was considered as the one who established this fact. Stephen Hawking, also notes that “The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the twentieth century”. 

The universe is just like a balloon whit a large number of dots on its surface. When the balloon is blown up, the distances between the dots increase. As we keep on blowing the balloon, all the distances between the dots keep on increasing uniformly. If we are in any of these dots, we will see other dots moving away from us. The universe is expanding in the same fashion.

This led to the the emergence of the Big Bang Cosmology. 

Big Bang Cosmology

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole—its structure, origin, and development. Our knowledge of the universe has increased tremendously during the past five centuries. Due to the works of Copernicus and Galileo, the whole idea of the universe from geocentric to the heliocentric universe has shifted. More and more fascinating and unbelievable facts and discoveries have been revealed. 

Most cosmologists today believe that the universe came into being with the explosion of infinitely dense and infinitely small particles some 10 to 20 billion years ago. This explosion is popularly known as Big Bang. At that time all the matter in the universe was packed into a dense mass, at a temperature of many trillions of degrees. The dazzling brilliance of the radiation in this dense, hot universe led to an explosion of cosmic hydrogen bombs which marked the birth of the universe. 

George Lemaitre (1894-1966) a Belgian Priest, astronomer, and Professor of Physics was the one who proposed the famous Big Bang Theory. According to him the explosion of the universe could be traced back to a very dense state in the distant past in which the primeval atom disintegrates in an explosion giving rise to space and time and the expansion continues.

Biblical Claims for a Transcendent Cosmic Beginning

All these scientists, however, were upstaged at least 2,500 years earlier by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other Bible authors. The Bible’s prophets and apostles stated explicitly and repeatedly the two most fundamental properties of the big bang, a transcendent cosmic beginning a finite time period ago and a universe undergoing a general, continual expansion. In Isaiah 42:5 both properties were declared: “This is what the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out.”

The Hebrew verb translated “created” in Isaiah 42:5 is ‘bara’ which has as its primary definition “bringing into existence something new, something that did not exist before.” The proclamation that God created (‘bara’) the entirety of the heavens is stated seven times in the Old Testament (Genesis 1:1, 2:3, 2:4; Psalm 148:5; Isaiah 40:26, 42:5, 45:18). This principle of transcendent creation is made more explicit by passages like Hebrews 11:3 which states that the universe that we humans can measure and detect was made from that which we cannot measure or detect. Also, Isaiah 45:5–22, John 1:3, and Colossians 1:15–17 stipulate that God alone is the agent for the universe’s existence. Biblical claims that God predated the universe and was actively involved in causing certain effects before the existence of the universe is not only found in Colossians 1 but also in Proverbs 8:22–31, John 17:24, Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2, and 1 Peter 1:20. 

Biblical Claims for Continual Cosmic Stretching

The characteristic of the universe stated more frequently than any other in the Bible is it's being “stretched out.” Five different Bible authors pen such a statement in eleven different verses: Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13, Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15, and Zechariah 12:1. Job 37:18 appears to be the twelfth verse to make this statement. However, the word used there for “heavens” or “skies” is shehaqîm which refers to the clouds of fine particles (of water or dust) located in Earth’s atmosphere, not the shamayim, the heavens of the astronomical universe. Three of the eleven verses—Job 9:8, Isaiah 44:24, and 45:12—make the point that God alone was responsible for the cosmic stretching.

The biblical claim for simultaneously finished and ongoing acts of creation, incidentally, is not limited to just the universe’s expansion. The same claim, for example, is made for God’s laying Earth’s foundations (Isaiah 51:3, Zechariah 12:1). This is consistent with the geophysical discovery that certain long-lived radiometric elements were placed into the earth’s crust a little more than four billion years ago in just the right quantities so as to guarantee the continual building of continents. 

Biblical Claims for Cosmic Cooling

Finally, the Bible indirectly argues for a big bang universe by stating that the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, and electromagnetism have universally operated throughout the universe since the cosmic creation event itself. The principle here is that any physical system that continually expands under the operation of the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, and electromagnetism must be cooling down. That is, it must be much hotter in the past than it is in the present.

In Genesis 1 and in many places throughout Job, Psalms, and Proverbs we are informed that stars and living organisms have existed since the early times of creation. Even the slightest changes in either the laws of gravity, electromagnetism, or thermodynamics would make the stars that are necessary for physical life and physical life itself impossible. 

Theological Reaction to Big Bang Cosmology

Though the case for the big bang, that is, a transcendent cosmic creation event, rests on compelling, some might say overwhelming, evidence; the theory still has its critics. Some skepticism may be attributable to the communication gap between scientists and the rest of the world. Some of the evidence is so new that most people have yet to hear of them. Some of the evidence, including the older ones, are so technical that few people understand their significance. The need for better education and clearer communication remains.

Communication and education gaps explain only some of the skepticism, however. Spiritual issues are also involved. The few astronomers who still oppose the big bang openly object not on scientific grounds but on personal, theological grounds. 

In Hugh Ross book, The Fingerprint of God, argues that, astronomers’ early reaction to findings that affirmed a cosmic beginning, hence Beginner. Some openly stated their view of the big bang as “philosophically repugnant.” For decades they invented one cosmic hypothesis after another in a futile attempt to get around the glaring facts. When all their hypotheses failed the tests of observational checks, many of those astronomers conceded, perhaps reluctantly, the cosmic prize to the big bang. 

Today, only a handful of astronomers still hold out against the big bang. Their resistance, however, is based not on what observations and experiments can test but rather on what observations and experiments can never test. Though their articles appear in science journals, they engage in metaphysics rather than in physics, in theology (more accurately, anti-theology) rather than science. The powerful new evidence is that the CAUSE of the universe transcends matter, energy, and the ten space-time dimensions associated with matter and energy. The new science reveals not only that a god exists but exactly what kind of God created the universe.