It is within this context that I find it useful to ponder the nature and significance of Big Bang. How can something, anything, be created out of nothing? As I see it, if I am going to have the greatest personal opportunity to glorify God in the answer, then the mechanism will have to be exceptionally nifty. Indeed it is, and remarkably simple--at least in concept.
..... To grasp that concept, we first need to look at an equation derived by Albert Einstein a century ago. Einstein's equation, e = mc², tells us that it's possible for energy (e) to be converted into mass (m), and vice versa. The c in the equation is the speed of light, which is a very large number. The square of the speed of light is an extraordinarily large number. What this equation says is that, to create the mass of the universe, all that is required is an unthinkably large amount of energy. The idea that such an amount of energy could have arisen spontaneously is totally beyond reason. So, the only logical conclusion is that, before the Big Bang there was only God--the ultimate source of all energy--and, at the instant of the Big Bang, God used some of that energy to create the heavens and the earth.
..... Of course, the Big Bang remains just a theory. We'll never know for sure exactly what happened back then. But, acknowledging that does not in any way diminish the usefulness of the theory in explaining how the created universe came to be. As a philosopher of science, I use two criteria to determine whether or not I can support a theory like this, when the theory attempts to explain things that happened long ago and uses evidence that is solely inferential. One of these criteria is logical; the other is theological. Logically, I need to establish that the theory makes sense as I try to integrate it into what I currently know about how the world is put together and how it works. Theologically, I need to determine that it helps broaden my concept of a Creator God whose work is marvelous to consider and worthy of my highest praise. Of course, as scientific theories change with the introduction of new insights, my own thinking about the details of creation may change with them. But, the criteria I will use for assessing their usefulness for that purpose will remain the same.
..... So, taking into consideration everything we know at this time, I consider the Big Bang theory to be the most useful explanation for the ex nihilo creation of the universe. It makes the most sense; and it is nifty, just the sort of thing one might expect from a praiseworthy Creator. Of course, if the creation of the "heavens and the earth" began more than 10 billion years ago, then the six-day account in Genesis cannot be considered an accurate explanation of creation chronology. As I indicated earlier, some biblical revelations make use of metaphors; that is, descriptions of events that are not themselves factual but employ illustrations to depict the facts in concept. The use of such metaphors does not subvert the fundamental truth of scripture. They just simplify the accounts, where the details of those accounts are beyond the scope of the revelation and add nothing to its purposes. Clearly--at least to me--the Genesis account of the creation is such a metaphor.
..... For some people, however, the identification of certain biblical revelations as metaphors presents a significant problem. Once such identifications are allowed, they argue, how will their use be regulated? Who will judge the distinction between fact and metaphor? How can we witness to the truth of biblical accounts, if some of those accounts are not really true, but are simply illustrations alluding to truth?
..... These are certainly valid questions. I have had to ask them myself as I struggled to consolidate my years of study of the created world with my belief in biblical revelation. For me, the only path to that unity is the recognition that God revealed himself to us not only through the words of scripture, but also through creation itself..."all that has been made," as Paul advised the Roman church. Biblical metaphors tell us stories describing basic truths. Nature itself fills in the details. The basic truths remain without error. The details provide us an ever-expanding appreciation of Gods "eternal power and divine nature."
..... The Big Bang and what it produced provide the opportunity for just such an appreciation. They are nifty. To appreciate how really nifty, we need to look in greater detail at what it produced. God didn't just create random bits of stuff when he poured all of that energy into the Big Bang. He created the stuff out of which natural order would emerge.
..... In freshman chemistry we learned that they call this stuff matter, that the basic units of matter are atoms and that these atoms are composed of elemental particles such as electrons and protons and neutrons. We also learned that the structure of atoms and their behavior in relation to one another follow very precise rules. These guiding principles--such as exclusionary rules, rules of symmetry and conservation rules--all serve to specify the limits of interaction among sub-atomic particles and, thus, among the atoms themselves. These rules did not arise by chance. They were all part of the plan The Creator used to make everything from nothing.
..... Let's take a look at just one of these principles and see if we can use it to gain a little better perspective on what went into the planning for what the Big Bang produced. The "exclusion principle," articulated by Wolfgang Pauli in the 1920s, specifies that no two electrons can be in the same electronic quantum state. For those readers for whom the details of atomic structure are mysteries they would rather avoid, let me simply point out that, without the requirements of the exclusion principle, the orderly structure of atoms--and their ability to combine to form useful compounds--would be impossible. Perhaps of greater importance from our perspective is the fact that no explanation can be found for the requirements of this principle. It is regarded simply as an independent, fundamental postulate of wave mechanics. It is just there; and it has been there since "the beginning."
..... It is certainly reasonable, then, to ask why matter was created subject to the requirements of these fundamental guiding principles. Out of all the possible ways in which the energy invested in Big Bang could have been converted into matter, why did the elements of matter end up with the structure they have and obedient to these rules? My answer is that the composition of atoms, and the principles that regulate their structure and behavior, specified from the very beginning what the creation would ultimately produce.
..... Because of these attributes, the events of creation--even a fraction of a second after the Big Bang--were already determined. An orderly universe was inevitable because of what was there in the beginning. The universe exists as it is today because The Creator made stuff that obeyed his rules. So, as I see it, God did not directly create "the heavens and the earth," that is, nature as it reveals itself to us today. What he created was raw material out of which the universe could be assembled...and rules that assured that the assembly would proceed according to his plan. It is this concept of the creation that gives me personally the most satisfying opportunity to glorify God as The Creator; and it is this concept that I will be using to explore with you the details of the creation.