Should Christians Accept the Miracle of Creation Ex Nihilo (From Nothing)?
An Exploration of What Happened at the Big Bang
This past week, I was told sticking to creation ex nihilo (from nothing) and using the Big Bang to do so is straw-manning.
Atheists are so confident the Big Bang doesnโt show nothing-to-something they practically accosted me on X when I dared say otherwise.
Well, it just so happens theyโre all wrong, and I think itโs because atheists donโt understand what Christians mean when we say creation ex nihilo.
Prior to the beginning there was God and nothing else. Whatever could be contained in God as the eternal standard is what was. The immaterial or spiritual.
He was, is, and always will be because he has no beginning and no end. Therefore, the only something was God and his perfect nature, the ground of all being.
Ex nihilo, then, describes the formation by God of the tangible thingness of the objective material universe. From no thing to some thing.
And when we examine the Big Bang, thatโs precisely what we find.
Cosmologists have only been able to measure up to whatโs known as the Planck era. A split-second sliver in time where all space, time, and matter came into existence. Which means, whatever was before was spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Dispossessed of what we could consider tangible thingness.
In this article, you and I are going to walk together through whatโs known by cosmologists, the theories atheists have provided to explain the pre-Planck state of reality, and determine why Godโs miracle of creation ex nihilo remains the reigning champion of explanations for the existence of the cosmos.
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First A Word On Cosmology
Cosmology isnโt an exact science, and atheists tend to gloss over this.
The field rests on imaging of space, interpretations of photographs and video data, and the application of mathematics, all of which require the tools of logic and reason rather than direct observation.
Empirical method, by definition, requires direct observation, controlled testing in a lab, model-building, interpretation of results, and the ability to repeat experiments. The study of cosmology is only indirectly observable, able to be modeled, and capable of interpretation, but it canโt be tested in a lab or repeatedโฆwith the exception of samples collected from other nearby planets. But the latter sample-testing only tells us how our solar system is now, not how it was in the past or what other solar systems are like.
Therefore, itโs more accurate to label cosmology rigorous philosophy employing scientific tools.
Does that mean cosmology canโt be trusted? Absolutely not.
But almost every finding in the field is filtered through interpretation. Again, without repeatable testing. Cosmologists interpret the findings of other cosmologists, who interpreted the findings of those before them, and so on and so forth.
The whole shebang gets more complex when you realize all cosmological theories are unfalsifiable in the sense of empirical study. Because theyโre dealing with the proposed history of the universe.
What this means for you is models are highly speculative, can be wrong, require revisions, and, even then, can still become entrenched via broad academic biases, which is what happens for materialist explanations (those that deny immaterial or spiritual realities) of the Big Bang.
As a reminder, here is what cosmologists, both materialists and intelligent design advocates, broadly agree on:
Space, time, and matter came into existence at the Planck epoch. A microscopic sliver of time, a split second in which the entire universe exploded into existence from a singularity. Before the Planck epoch, none of those things existed. Whatever preceded the proposed singularity, the hot dense state, was spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. An effective nothingness.
Spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Write those three words down, because every atheist alternative hypothesis has to contend with what they mean.
Keep all this in mind as we walk through their explanations against creation ex nihilo.
1. Stephen Hawking Needs an Architect
Stephen Hawking proposed the pre-Planck state consists of imaginary โcontent.โ Specifically, imaginary numbers.
Imaginary numbers are hypotheticals, potentialities, represented by the lowercase letter i. Their actuality, as in their real existence, is established only by solving complex equations.
So, they represent possibility, not fact.
The strength of Hawkingโs hypothesis is its having acknowledged the possible and produced a working cosmological model for the universe.
But it suffers from an insurmountable weakness. It doesnโt answer the question of what came before the Big Bang.
Since potentialities are not actualities, theyโre an effective nothing. You run into the enduring question of how the actual and tangible came from the abstract intangible.
Also, what Hawkingโs framework describes is a pre-Planck state made entirely of information. A blueprint encoding the instructions needed to assemble the universe. And blueprints or programs arenโt self-existent. Such specified information, by all weโve observed in this universe, comes from minds. From designers. From programmers.
Therefore, Hawkingโs model, by its own logic, implies a Mind behind the pre-Planck state. Hawking spent much of his career resisting this conclusion, but his model points there regardless.
Atheist proposals only get stranger from hereโฆ
2. Source?!!!
Some atheists have proposed energy as the answer to the pre-Planck riddle. They say energy is eternal and serves as the uncaused foundation of everything.
As youโve surely guessed, problems abound.
First, we donโt know energy is eternal. What we know is that energy is neither created nor destroyed within our observable universe.
It IS however generated, and generation requires sources.
In our cosmos, those sources are material forces functioning as emitters.
Solar energy traces to the sun.
Hydroelectric energy traces to water-fueled power.
Light energy traces to solar bodies and other heat-emitting sources.
Gravitational fields and magnetic fields are forces tied to physical bodies (planets, asteroids, stars, comets, etc.).
Every form of energy ever studied has a source. So, to assert that energy is eternal means asserting an eternal Source. And proposing that Source to be nothing doesnโt work because a nothing-source is just nothing.
Beyond the source problem, eternal energy runs into the issue of infinite regress: an unending chain of causes with no beginning. A chain with no beginning never starts, which means nothing ever changes.
Especially in the case of inanimate matter or forces.
Energy has no agency. Energy doesnโt decide, initiate, create, move, or act on its own. Energy just is. An infinite chain of impersonal, non-agent energy would therefore remain infinite, impersonal, non-agent energy.
But atheists donโt want to fess up to that flaw because of the implied resolution.
The only category of thing ever observed producing, creating, and changing is sentient agents. So the eternal source of energy, if you follow proper methods of observation, has to be eternal, immaterial, personal, and sentient.
Orโฆyou knowโฆGod.
But what about black holes? Do they solve the riddle of the Big Bang without God?
3. Swirling Vortex of Death
The third hypothesis materialists love suggests the universe originated from a black hole.
Pop science and science fiction have given this idea enormous exposure. As soon as I started this section, you thought of films like Star Trek and Interstellar where black holes are wormholes jumping through or twisting spacetime.
Such portrayals might fly in science fiction, but the reality of black holes is much different.
A black hole is a rip in the cosmos caused by catastrophic gravitational collapse from a dying star. Black holes pull everything within reach into permanent nothingness. They ERASE matter, energy, space, timeโฆanythingโฆincluding themselves. Like demonic vacuums to hell.
Time dilation theories have kept fictional representations of black holes alive, like revolving universe models and the multiverse theory. Also popular in fiction but found nowhere in reality.
No cosmologist has produced evidence of alternate universes existing alongside or prior to our own. Ever.
However, letโs play devilโs advocate and say multiple universes do exist.
In that case, the multiverse hypothesis doesnโt explain how all these universes are popping into existence, since each would have its own pre-Planck state if it began. What came before remains a mystery.
And black holes only muddy the water.
Since a black hole destroys existence itself, none has ever been witnessed making anything. Also, for a black hole to form, gravity must exist first, and gravity depends on material sources. But:
No material existed prior to the Planck epoch
No material means no gravity
No gravity means no black hole
Hence, we have an unresolvable chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Rendering a black hole implausible as the origin of our universe.
Atheists have one more cop-out, thoughโฆ
โI Donโt Knowโ Isnโt An Option
One particular atheist thought he was clever in my comment section by saying, โWe donโt know what happened prior to the Big Bang, and neither do you. Get used to it.โ
Agnosticism. Say โI donโt knowโ and be comfortable leaving the question open.
But thatโs intellectual laziness.
Agnosticism feels like neutrality but is really indifference, and indifference seeks no answers because itโs indecisive. If pushed into a corner, indifference would curl up and die like a weak-skinned armadillo.
Lack of curiosity and adventure kills.
Imagine our ancestors had collectively settled for indifference on the hardest questions. Nothing wouldโve been accomplished. Barbarians would still govern every corner of the earth with minimal technology and zero civility. The same unanswered questions of our origin and purpose would hang over every generation with no forward progress.
You and I are taught progress matters. Are we just tossing that out the window now?
The reason some atheists suggest embracing agnosticism is because they donโt like where the answers lead. The destination. They would rather stay locked up in a comfortable, lukewarm materialist cage than consider the option of God Most High.
Indifference is where knowledge dies.
Discoveries, on the other hand, are driven by creative decisions by those who believe thereโs a destination and are ready to accept whatever that destination may be. By people who refuse to accept โI donโt know.โ
Lewises and Clarkes roughing and toughing wild terrains with sleepless nights, endless imagination, insatiable hunger for the truth, and a willingness to accept and overcome whatever costs may arise.
So far, the people in history with the biggest spine for adventure, who have made the greatest contributions ever known, have been Christians because we know the Maker, love him, and crave to learn more and more about the incredible universe heโs created.
Ballโs in Godโs Court
Since the alternatives have been examined and found wanting, only one option remains: A spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal, intelligent, powerful God made the cosmos with purpose and intelligibility. Built a readable universe for the sentient creatures inside it (us) to explore, study, comprehend, and relish.
By design.
Why is anything legible at all unless the intent was for someone to understand the creation? The universe didnโt have to be ordered. Laws of mathematics didnโt have to describe reality with precision. Human minds didnโt have to be capable of understanding cosmic structure.
The fact these things align points toward a Mind who made the cosmos to be known. Especially by those minds mirroring his own Mind. His own imagers.
Atheists rage and resist said conclusion with ferocious energy like rabid dogs because a God fitting the description derived from cosmological study matches the God of the Bible. The Christian God. Christ Jesus. Whom many have despised with fierce and genuine passion since his incarnation into human history.
Like Greco-Roman pagan counterparts, they hate the eternal King because a personal, transcendent his existence means good and evil are real. Moral obligations are non-negotiable. And since no one defines stable ethics on personal grounds, we canโt just do whatever we want. We donโt get to be God.
Humanity violated Godโs law in the Garden of Eden, and the consequence was sin and death unleashed into a creation. Chaos into order. Nothing into something. Entropy. The slow erosion of everything, perverting and consuming from within, starting at the depths of the human soul. Consumed by pride and coveting his holy throne.
A miracle made the cosmos. A curse slowly kills it.
And from this curse, we all need a Savior.
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