16. Evidence of God's Existence Revealed in the Origin of the Universe

So far, we have examined the historicity and truthfulness of the Bible. You have likely realized by now the falsehood of the vague notion that the Bible is just one among many ancient religious texts filled with mystical stories. Nevertheless, if you still cannot bring yourself to believe in the Bible and Jesus, it is probably due to the enormous mountain of "science."

You may be wondering, "I now understand that the Bible records historical truth rather than mere myths and that there is indirect evidence of divine intervention. But how can I accept the Bible's claims that completely contradict modern science?" This issue should not be brushed aside lightly either. Because if the facts stated in the Bible are incongruent with or contradictory to objectively proven science, it would mean the Bible is false. The contents of the Bible may seem completely opposite to or irreconcilably contradictory to the scientific knowledge you are familiar with or learned in secondary school. Shall we take a look?

Modern science explains that the universe either formed from a "big bang" out of nothing at some specific point in the past and has been continuously expanding (big bang theory), or that the universe has existed without beginning or end and matter forms continuously to maintain a uniform density (steady state theory). However, the Bible states in Genesis 1:1 that in the beginning, God "created the heavens and the earth."

Regarding the origin of life, modern science posits that several elements in the primordial atmosphere were subjected to electrical stimuli, coincidentally forming amino acids that are the components of life. These combined to give rise to primitive life forms which then diversified into various organisms through endless evolution. In contrast, the Bible states that God created all these creatures "according to their kinds."

Not only the origin of the universe and life, but modern science seems to refute the Bible in numerous scientific fields such as astronomy, physics, geology, biology, earth science, and anthropology. If this were truly the case, even if we knew the Bible to be a historically reliable document, we would be hard-pressed to rationally accept its truth.

Therefore, from this point on, we will seriously examine whether the contents of the Bible actually conflict with modern science. Because covering all these areas would be too vast in scope, we will focus intensively on the most essential and controversial aspects regarding the origin of the universe, life, and the debate between evolution and creation.

16.1. The Origin of the Universe

How did the universe we live in, including the earth and all things, come into existence? Although you and I may lack professional scientific knowledge, there is one clear fact we can state with certainty. That is, while we cannot know precisely, there must be some "cause" for the existence of these things.

Why does a computer exist in your home? If someone claimed, "Oh, it has just always been there for no reason," you would likely scoff at such nonsense. The reason a computer is in your room is because you bought or obtained it from somewhere. The cause that enabled the computer's existence is that someone assembled its components, and the cause of those components' existence is that the materials comprising them existed.

If we keep tracing back endlessly like this, how could that absolutely fundamental material (likely at the molecular or atomic level) have come into existence? Could we say it existed originally without any reason? This applies not only to computers. What was the origin of all things in this world - water, air, mountains, fields, animals, people, earth, stars, galaxies - all of the universe?

Scientists have proposed two hypotheses regarding the origin of the universe and all things. The first theory is the well-known Big Bang theory, and the other is the somewhat unfamiliar Steady State theory.

According to modern cosmology, it is assumed that in the beginning there was nothing. No galaxies, stars, atoms, not even time and space existed. We call the point when time and space first came into being the Big Bang. Of course, before that was the world of nothingness, the unknown.

The starting point of modern cosmology was the static universe theory proposed by Albert Einstein in 1917. Static universe theory posits that "the universe is in a stationary state, neither expanding nor contracting." However, when Einstein actually applied his newly discovered general theory of relativity to the universe, he was shocked to find that it did not allow for a stationary universe.

This was because according to his theory of relativity, the universe had to be in a state of exploding outward or collapsing inward. So to explain the stationary universe theory, he intentionally modified the equation by introducing the artificial "cosmological constant."

However, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann and Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître, who closely examined Einstein's general theory of relativity published in 1916, raised objections to this.

In 1922, Friedmann published a paper stating that "the universe started from an extremely high-density state and gradually expanded while decreasing in density." In 1927, Lemaître published a paper proposing that "the universe began with the explosion of primordial atoms." However, Einstein disregarded their papers that differed from his own thinking.

Then in 1929, a shocking event occurred for Einstein. American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble announced his observation that galaxies were receding, proving that the universe was expanding. Ultimately in 1931, Einstein withdrew the cosmological constant he had forcibly introduced to conform to the conventional wisdom at the time that "the universe is infinite and static." He accepted the theory that the universe exploded and expanded.

The first scientist to calculate the appearance of the early universe was Russian-American physicist George Gamow, a student of Friedmann. In 1946, he published a paper proposing that the early universe was in a high-temperature, high-density state and expanded rapidly.

He also stated that early in the universe, the temperature was too high for heavy atoms to exist, and the hydrogen (75%) and helium (25%) that formed then comprise most of the current mass of the universe. In 1948, American physicists Ralph Asher Alpher and Robert Herman predicted that traces of the early universe's radiation (cosmic microwave background) would remain somewhere in the universe at a temperature of -268°C.

Based on the red shift of galaxies discovered by Hubble, the abundant presence of light elements, and cosmic microwave background, the Big Bang theory proposes that the universe started from an explosion at an extremely high temperature and density at a single point in the very distant past and has been continuously expanding.

However, professors at Cambridge University's astronomy department including Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold were dissatisfied with the Big Bang theory. If we rewind the timeline of the universe, the primordial universe would have all matter (everything in the current universe) converging at a single point of extreme high temperature and density. They found this difficult to accept as it could not be explained by physics at all. So in 1948, they proposed the 'Steady State theory.'

Steady State theory claims that because the universe is uniform and isotropic in space-time, it always looks the same in the past and present, without beginning or end. It also asserts that the universe expands at the same rate in all directions, thus satisfying Hubble's Law. In this way, Steady State theory, which agreed well with observations and avoided the singularity problem, competed amicably with the Big Bang theory, garnering the support of scholars.

However, decisive evidence emerged to support the Big Bang theory that had been facing humiliation. In 1964, German-American astrophysicist Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, working at Bell Labs, discovered the cosmic microwave background predicted in 1948 by Alpher and Herman.

The temperature of the cosmic microwave background was -269.5°C (3.5K), differing by only 1.5°C from the prediction. For discovering the cosmic microwave background, considered the greatest observation since Hubble's discovery of the expanding universe, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. This was a discovery that directly refuted Steady State theory.

Moreover, the hypothesis (of course lacking objective evidence) proposed by Steady State theory - that new matter would continuously emerge from "nothing" to fill the expanding universe - was not accepted. This was because it faced inescapable criticism for violating the first law of thermodynamics which states that matter cannot be newly created or destroyed.

As a result, Steady State theory was discarded in modern astronomy and the Big Bang theory became established as the standard model rationally explaining the origin of the universe.

It may seem complex, but to summarize:
The Big Bang theory and Steady State theory were in opposition regarding the origin of the universe. However, as scientific evidence came to light, Steady State theory was rejected and the Big Bang theory became the established explanation for the origin of the universe.

Importantly, the core of the Big Bang theory signifies that the universe has a "starting point," not that it has "always" existed without beginning or end. In contrast, Steady State theory implies that the universe "has existed originally, so it has no inherent cause."

You may be wondering what in the world these ambiguous facts have anything to do with God creating the heavens and the earth. However, they are extremely closely related. Because whether the universe has a starting point or has existed without a starting point is precisely the criterion for judging the truth or falsehood of the fact that God created the universe.

16.2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument

To connect these seemingly unrelated things, we must first understand the logic called the "Kalam cosmological argument."

The Kalam cosmological argument is as follows:

Major premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Minor premise: The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Everyone accepts the major premise as true. The most problematic in cosmology was not the major premise but the minor premise. What matters is whether "the universe began to exist (that is, did the universe have a starting point in the past)" or has it "existed originally." Even in ancient philosophy before the scientific establishment of the Big Bang theory, there was conflict between the view that the universe "existed originally" without a starting point and the view that "the universe has a starting point and cause."

Thus, while everyone commonly accepted the major premise, opinions differed on the minor premise, so no conclusion could be drawn on whether the universe had a cause. However, in the 20th century, the Big Bang theory became recognized as the established explanation through astronomy and physics. Accordingly, it was scientifically proven that "the universe definitely had a starting point."

Therefore, we can arrive at the logically valid conclusion that since everything that begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist, the origin of the universe must have a cause.

This fact dealt an enormous blow to atheists. Those who argued the hypothesis that the universe would have no beginning or cause were in fact atheists. The reason they made this claim was because only by claiming this could the universe exist for no reason, allowing them to maintain their assertion of the nonexistence of God.

To refute the Big Bang theory and provide an explanation congruent with the atheistic worldview, they subsequently proposed various theories such as the oscillating universe theory, cyclic universe theory, and inflation theory. However, none of these had scientifically proven evidence and were revealed to violate currently known scientific laws. Thus, they are now regarded as merely one among many interesting diverse theories.

According to the Big Bang theory and the Kalam cosmological argument confirmed by it, there exists some point in time when time, space, and matter began to be created. Ultimately, this also signifies the existence of a cause for the beginning of time, space, and matter. Therefore, because this cause must be an entity transcending time, space, and matter, it supports the existence of "God."

Some argue as follows: If everything must have a cause, then what is the cause of "God" himself? However, there is a critical logical fallacy in this reasoning. That is, it is not that "everything" has a cause, but that everything that "begins to exist" has a cause.

"God" is an entity transcending time, space, matter, and non-matter, without a point of beginning to exist. He is a "transcendent being" who has existed originally and is himself both cause and effect, so this logic is invalid. All these attributes of God exactly match the attributes of the "God" described in the Bible.

Many people claim that the Big Bang in the Bible is a scientific fact while creationism is a myth, so they are completely unrelated and conflicting. But this is absolutely not the case. Of course, the Bible does not describe the specific physical laws by which God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.

However, this does not mean the Big Bang theory conflicts with or refutes the Bible at all. The Bible clearly states that "in the beginning" God created the heavens and the earth. By clearly indicating that the universe had a starting point and that the transcendent being "God" is the cause of that beginning, it supports the "beginning of the universe" and "existence of God" derived from the Big Bang theory and Kalam cosmological argument.

In other words, the fact that God's process of creating the heavens and the earth manifested as the phenomenon of the "Big Bang" is not a mutual contradiction but a point of mutual support and harmony. In this way, atheists tried to mobilize science in the past to prove their claims. However, as scientific facts have come to light, the ironic situation has arisen where atheists must distort science to prove their claims.

Next time, we will examine the scientific truth about the origin of life and the theory of evolution.