The Big Bang

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:2-3

As a kid growing up in a conservative Christian environment, I remember rejecting science’s view of a universe that was 13 billion years old. So naturally, I rejected the big bang theory as a godless hypothesis. Later though, while reading Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, I learned how scientists have observed the universe to be expanding and, tracing back the expansion through time, theorized that the entire universe began as a singularity – a point of infinite density and heat, which contained all the matter in the known universe. The laws of physics as we understand them don’t work for this singularity whose nature is difficult for our minds to grasp.

Then, in one trillionth of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, inflating faster than the speed of light. At one moment, there was nothing but the singularity and the next, the universe just existed. Originally, matter was scattered, and the universe was dark – without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Then though, that matter coalesced in some places to form stars – Let there be light. Planets formed and galaxies and solar systems came into being.

That’s the big bang theory and to me, it sounds a lot like the first three verses of Genesis. When I read scientist’s explanation of a singularity of infinite denseness, power, and heat, which we simply cannot understand or grasp, I know that singularity to be God. When I read how the universe exploded out of this singularity in a manner that defies our current understanding of physics, I hear the echoes of God’s voice, speaking the universe into existence.

I have a friend who frequently reminds me – All truth is God’s truth. If something is true, it’s because God made it to be true. If a scientist who doesn’t know or claim to follow God finds that truth, that doesn’t make it not true. We may argue about the timing of the big bang. Scientists believe this event was more than 13 billion years ago, which young Earth creationists will reject, but I’d point out that there is no specific quantity of time assigned in Genesis 1:1-3. We’re not told how long the world was formless and void and we weren’t there.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If science describes that as a big bang, then I’m fine with that, knowing that this singularity was God, and the big bang was his voice, speaking the universe into existence.