Creation

             For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

                Oh boy. Say something like this to many people and you’ll get laughter, eyerolls, and possibly argumentation that probably includes lots of name-calling and gaslighting. But if you ask them how the universe began, they are likely to say that 1) it didn’t, it’s always existed, 2) the Big Bang, or 3) some combination of the two in which the universe cycles through multiple Big Bangs with billions of years of development and destruction between them. Mind you, there is no good evidence for possibilities 1 or 3. Most cosmologists claim that some variation on the Big Bang theme is best answer to the question of how the universe began. And the Big Bang itself is described as a rapid, sudden expansion of a singularity of great heat and density. In other words, it was an explosion.

                How often do explosions happen in nature? How many of them have a directly positive, developmental  outcome? I’ve seen some amazing videos of implosions and other controlled explosions, but the point is always that they are controlled. Something sets them off and shapes them in a way that produces a desired outcome. And perhaps more importantly, they are deliberately set off. So, what destabilized the singularity, causing it to explode? We have no way to really know. We can guess what might have set it off, but the evidence of what did set it off disappeared with the Big Bang itself. But here’s the thought that comes to mind. The whole point of an explosion is that a comparatively small disruption in the status quo results in a massive release of energy. The flame of a burning wick is enough to set off dynamite. So, at least in theory, the amount of energy needed to set off the Big Bang did not need to be great. You don’t need a “Big Bang” to set off the Big Bang. Just enough to destabilize the balance of forces maintaining the status quo. Like the energy of a word, because, after all, sound is energy. And that’s precisely what Scripture claims – that the universe came to be because of words, and through a series of words, that great energy was directed.

But, to have that Big Bang result in physical laws that can allow the existence of life takes more than just a random explosion. Some folks will claim that there are billions of universes being created all the time, and ours “just happened” to end up with the parameters that allowed life to develop. But there is no positive evidence of those other universes or that there was no direction or control exerted over how that explosion took place.

                The passage above claims that God’s eternal power and divine nature are evident in nature. Many scientists who reject the idea of God still speak in anthropomorphic language: the universe decided, etc., and many admit that the universe looks as if it was designed. Rather than accept what their supposed intelligence tells them, they reject it in favor of something for which they have neither explanation nor proof.

                God doesn’t need to prove His eternal power or divine nature through massive shows of power. His judicious use of that power in small but controlling ways is an even better bit of evidence. Those who reject what they cannot seem to avoid claiming bear the responsibility of significant proof that things are not as they seem. So far, they have told very detailed stories, but haven’t provided any evidence that could not equally (and perhaps more easily) be attributed to an intelligent but non-physical being. This brings me back to my two questions for those who claim evolution is proved and that God is not. 1) What would constitute proof of a non-physical life form? 2) What is there in all of the universe that could not be as it is if it were created by an intelligent, non-physical life form? IF they cannot or will not answer the first question, they have no basis on which to evaluate whether the evidence points in that direction or not. If they cannot answer the second question, the possibility that the universe was created is still a viable explanation, and evolution cannot be proclaimed to be the only possible explanation