Creation, The Big Bang and Eternity

Scientists are ecstatic over the discovery of gravitational waves in the universe.  Last week, on February 11, scientists documented their existence for the first time.  According to the reports, scientists may be able to “look into” or “listen to” the history of the universe as far back as one second after the “Big Bang," approximately 14 billion years ago.  

But what happened before that split second in time?

One of the foundational elements of theology is the idea that God is eternal.  He has no beginning and no end.  If that is the case, we have to ask, “What was before the ‘Big Bang’?”  After all, if God is eternal, 14 billion years are less than a blip on His screen. The Bible says, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8).

We don’t know what happened before the "Big Bang" or Creation. Nor do we know what happens after the universe comes to an end, another fact science recently confirmed. In August of last year scientists discovered that the universe is winding down and will cease to exist. The universe definitely has a beginning and an end.

What we do know is that the universe exists now.  We know that a fragile planet, delicately rotating on its axis around an insignificant star in a remote corner of a minor galaxy somehow spawned the mystery of life as we know it. How can this possibly be?

We have one of two conclusions.  Either the mystery and majesty of life on Earth is a random accident, or, it is an extravagant miracle produced by the mind of God.  Einstein, who predicted  gravitational waves one hundred years ago once said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

I choose the latter.  It makes more sense to me.  Every morning when we wake to the rising sun and behold the beauty of the earth, we behold the miraculous.  Einstein is also credited with the observation, “"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Perhaps the poet-king David expresses it best, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that you thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than God, and you crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:3-9).