Genesis and Creation (13) - Uneven Expansion

The second problem with the big bang is explaining how exploding energy expanded unevenly and formed into clumps of matter that would eventually become stars and planets. The accepted explanation is a disturbance at the beginning of the big bang, but this had to be exactly right to produce the universe that we live in.

The first chapter of Genesis avoids this problem, because God created space on the second day, his second burst of activity. We do not know how he did it, but many biblical passages speak of his stretching out the heavens.

It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts (Is 45:12).

He made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding (Jer 51:15).

This suggests that God did stretch out the stars in an expansionary process, like the one that astronomers have observed.

God stretched out the heavens in divine day. We do not know what that means in terms of human time. Scientists say that the big bang occurred many millions of year ago. However, they are not really talking about time, but the immensity of the change that has occurred since. They are saying that if things changed at the same rate as they are changing now, the universe would have taken millions of years to change from a compressed point of singularity into it its current state. The emphasis is on the immensity of the change.

However, God is not limited by the way that change is currently occurring. He could have spread out the heavens instantly, if he wanted. On the other hand, he may have started with a few stars and planets and then gradually added more and more, like a juggler throwing up additional balls. The important thing is that he created space and all it contains in a single action. What a God! God saw that it was good. I think he was saying, “Wow, that looks amazing!”

God is Absolute
The only constant in modern cosmology is the speed of light. I find this slightly odd. The truth is that God is the only unchanging absolute in this universe. Therefore, there is no reason why we should assume that the speed of light is absolute. Some scientists are beginning to explore the possibility that the speed of light is slowing over time. I am not sure where that will lead, but I know that any cosmology that assumes the speed of light and absolute is constant is flawed.