I left you with an extremely brief explanation of the Big Bang. Let’s go back. This tiny, infinitely dense item spontaneously expanded. There are three important questions. 1.What is it? 2.Where did it come from? 3.And finally, how could matter the size of the entire universe be packed into that small of an area? 1. It is the primitive universe packed into an immensely dense ball. The way it fits into this ball is intense pressure. Where this pressure comes from is unknown but may be like a black hole. In a black hole, the larger the mass, the greater the intensity of the gravitational pull. Gravity is the attraction of objects to mass (i.e. mass to mass). So infinite mass would have infinite gravity causing huge pressure on itself (or so the idea goes).
I think I sort of answered numbers one and three above but let’s consider number two. Where did this come from? Another way to ask that is, “why does this matter exist?” Science’s way to answer the question why is only Newton’s 3rd law or “cause and effect.” Cause and effect either breaks down with the origin of this atom (because where did it come from…what is it’s cause?). Some say it is the result of the last Big Bang where things expanded and then contracted back on itself leading to “our” eventual Big Bang (meaning Big Bang’s have happened before and will happen again). This answer, though, only delays the question’s answer. Where did the first atom come from to explode? Where does matter come from? Either something has always existed or things appeared out of nothing.
Something has always existed, whether its some form of mass or energy or God is debatable. Nothing + Nothing = Nothing (0+0=0). There is an idea within Christianity that teaches “creatio ex nihilo” (creation out of nothing). This says that the substance from which everything exists is out of just God’s spoken word. God didn’t cut a piece of himself off and then create (panentheism). Christianity has an answer for where the original things came from. This problem has been known for centuries. Whatever got things started has been known as “first cause” or if you believe it was a being it can be called “The Prime Mover.” Either you admit a God created things or you’re saying that things have always existed. Which is easier to say: God has always existed or matter has always existed? The choice is obvious to me.
So could “let there be…” actually be the Big Bang? Could God have chosen to create this way? I think he actually did. However, the Big Bang theory is just the current idea. Who knows if it will be “correct” in thirty years? As of right now, I think it is what God did. The fact that it took billions of years to get to where we are now is not a problem. God exists outside of time (except in the Incarnation), so it’s not like he was sitting around staring at his watch yelling, “Are we there yet?” If you think that God just created it as it is now, then how does light get to us from billions of light years away? A light year is the distance light (which travels at theoretically the fastest speed possible) travels in a year. If something is a billion light years away, then it takes a billion years to get to our eyes. So if we see it, then it had the time to get here. The only way around this, is to say well God created things in motion or mid-process. (I’ve talked about this before. It’s my idea that just like Adam was created fully-grown [meaning he didn’t experience childhood yet his body appeared to have been normal and gone through those processes], so too was the earth created. So the earth was created mid-process meaning it had oil, oceans, mountains, etc. These are all things that the earth brings about naturally, but if made “brand new” like a baby, then it wouldn’t have these things). So for scientists to say the earth is billions of years old only makes sense just like if they had examined Adam, he would have looked 20 years old (or whatever he was). So if you argue that that is also true for why light has had time to get here, then fine. But if you don’t, and you insist that everything is literally 10,000 years old and there was no “mid-process” work going on, then light shouldn’t have had time to get here from distant stars.
The universe isn’t constant. It had a beginning, and isn’t it interesting that we already knew that?
So why such a large universe then? God really only needed the sun, moon, earth, and stars. The sun was needed for light and warmth. The moon effects our tides, provides light at night by reflecting the sun’s light, and we don’t know what future benefit it will provide. The earth was needed for reasons I can’t explain, but maybe Captain Obvious could help you with that one. Finally, the stars aided navigation and provided some light at night. So, I believe the universe is as large as it is because it’s a demonstration of who God is. Just like humans tell us a lot about who God is, so to does the rest of his creation. The universe is unimaginably large. It shows us that every time we think we’ve got things figured out, we learn that God is bigger and greater than we thought. We may even get to explore the universe in the next life. After all, we’ll have the time.
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