And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light

Yeahhhh, verse 3. Makin' progress. Last week, I addressed why and this week, I want to get into how a little bit, even though no one really knows for sure. The creation account is a problem for many. That there are so many types of creationists (young Earth, old Earth, gap, day-age, progressive, and intelligent design) and theistic evolutionists means that there has to be a lot of maneuvering on the part of Christians to get this to make sense. None of these are perfect and all have areas with unanswered questions. I think the best way is to go along with modern science as much as possible, because it’s done a heck of a lot for, you know, medicine and inventions and stuff.

Some go as literal as possible, but I think the majority of Christians point out that the word “day” in Genesis 1 could also mean era and then they go right to 2 Peter 3:8. That’s the way Augustine took it. Many Christians posit that Genesis 1 is not a literal account but a poem or some sort of similar literary device. Many people retort that the repetition and style in the so-called “creation poem” is unlike other poetry in Ancient Israel or the rest of the Bible. But do all poems have to fit the most popular style of the day? You have to admit that after this chapter concludes, the style of the writer changes. The repetition ceases and it’s not like a structured song anymore by the time Adam shows up. These are both decent theories.

The thing Christians have going for them in any creation debate is the precise nature of the universe. That horse has been beaten to death, because it is such a good horse, so I won’t go into it here. (If you are curious about the level of precision, I really enjoyed Rob Bell’s “Everythingis Spiritual” It’s nerdy, especially when he goes into quantum physics, but it’s also entertaining and mind-blowing, if you have about an hour. Also, it’s really nice that, in Christianity, the world came to be through loving creation, rather than some war between gods, conflict, or randomness. The Jewish scriptures are unique in that way.

Sometimes science works for Genesis 1, rather than against it. Example: the Big Bang Theory. It would be MUCH better for atheists if the universe had gone on forever and not had a moment of creation. Lots of religions posit that and, until evidence for the BBT mounted, many scientists thought the universe was infinite as well. Now, we have the second law of thermodynamics (a physics law) predicts that all existing matter had a beginning, because it says that things break down.We've grown up with the BBT and forget that it wasn't always accepted. We take it for granted. The Big Bang marks the instant at which the universe began, when space and time, came into existence, and all the matter in the cosmos started to expand, according to a website. Before that? Who knows.

Evidence for the BBT: Hubble saw through his telescope that galaxies are hurtling rapidly away from each other and space is expanding. This is happening because everything was flung apart by an explosion. There is some debate over whether the BBT involved an explosion in the beginning, but there is still radiation in the universe from some sort of explosion that send the galaxies whizzing apart. Traced back with math and stuff, the galaxies were shown to have had a common point of origin 15 billion years ago. There was a moment in which all the universe’s mass was compressed into a dense point, smaller than a single atom. Then, in the Big Bang, the universe was filled with light. 

So, the material universe was created in this burst of light and energy, and material had a nonmaterial cause. The Big Bang created all the laws of space, time, and physics. Everything the scientists study now, including the means by which they study it, express their findings, and all they can put under a microscope came into being at a single moment of creation. They can only see the bubble that they admit was created at a certain point in time. The knowledge of science starts at the Big Bang and cannot see anything that happened before that point. Does that sound bad for Christian creationists? Nope. The Bible is relatively unique in saying the universe had a definite beginning (God created the heavens and the Earth). The Eastern religions say that time stretches back indefinitely, in cycles. In other ancient religions, Earth had a beginning, but not the universe.

Genesis 1 was controversial in the ancient days too. The way this God did things was not the way other ancient gods did things. The Bible could have avoided all this hoo ha and started with the Eden. leaving this creation out, but it didn’t, because it was sure there was a definite, light-filled beginning out of nothing, despite no one else seeing it this way. 

Even better, the order of things coming about in Genesis matches the order in modern science. The Big Bang shows that there was light before the sun, just like in Genesis. We’re pretty sure the wise men of the ancient days were saying, “Look, I just don’t see how you can put light and days in your story before the sun shows up. It makes no sense!” And it didn’t make sense. Until modern science caught up. This happens multiple times in the Bible, and I will be sure to point out the ones I know about as we go on. There might be other things we as a society have yet to catch up on.

I’m open-minded on this whole thing. Whatever theories are true, I still believe in salvation, God, love, the afterlife, order in the universe, laws of the universe, that God caused the universe to come into being, and the general wisdom of the Bible. Whether it’s a poem or the word “day” should be “era” doesn’t matter to me, because 99% of the Bible makes so much sense when compared with the world around it. It is absolutely dead-on when it comes to describing the human heart. Now, we see it making a call that took scientists thousands of years to agree with. There are going to be times when we don’t know exactly what happened, how it happened, or if science interpreted it right. But since the 99% is so accurate, that’s earned the Bible a lot of credit when it comes to the 1% I don’t get yet. 

This post only scratches the surface of scientific debate and apologist stuff, so if this topic interests you, there are thousands of things written on it, from all perspectives. Please, add your thoughts and arguments, if you have them. I'm thinking about moving to the part where people show up, if this creation business is getting boring.