In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth

I was online the other day and answered a question about global warming, “Creationism,” and free speech. The person asking the question ended his comments by saying, “All thoughts are welcome.” As always, my reply was pointed yet polite and I addressed each subject with a brief example. I then received an email from that person wherein he called me a lying, self-centered fool. He also implied I was a thief which has me kind of confused. Oh well, I guess he meant to say, “All thoughts are welcome except those that disagree with me.” Please see my last post about people who simply hate Christians. This guy clearly fits that description. He’s one of the bigots I was talking about.

I could post his question or email and dissect them to show how he was wrong but I don’t want to pick on him in particular. His response is typical of people who hate Christians so there’s no need to single him out. Instead, I want to take a moment to address this notion that anyone who believes God created everything is a lying idiot (and I’m putting that politely - what I’ve been called is much worse).

I could address a wide range of topics surrounding the creation issue but for the moment, let me just touch on the issue of the origin of matter. I’ll save evolution for another day.

Presently, there is no consensus among scientists about where matter/energy originally came from. Whenever a Christian suggests that God made it, we’re accused of believing in a “god-of-the-gaps.” That is, anything we can’t explain, we simply attribute it to God. We’re then accused of hating science, being ignorant of the facts, lying, and even abusing our children; I kid you not - I’ve been accused of child abuse because teaching my children God created us is a crime in some people’s eyes!

So, putting the Bible aside for a moment, let’s look logically at how matter could have come into being.

The current consensus among scientists is the Big Bang model of the universe. They believe everything in the universe – matter/energy, space, and time - once existed in a single point known as a singularity. For some unknown reason, the singularity began to expand in an event known as “the Big Bang.” The most obvious question is, “where did the matter come from?” We’ll, they don’t know - but they know God didn’t make it! Hmmm, if you don’t know, then how do you know God didn’t do it? They just know I guess.

There is a law known as the First Law of Thermodynamics or “the conservation of matter/energy.” Most people have heard this expressed as “matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.”

If something exists, there are only 2 possible explanations for its existence: either it was created or it is eternal. That’s it. There are no other options. Also, nothing can create itself so it had to be created by something outside of itself. Can anyone disagree with me so far?

Now if you acknowledge something is created, you’ve not really answered the question. You’ve just moved the creation a little further back in time. Who created that creator? If that creator was also created, then you just keep moving farther and farther back - a logical fallacy known as an “infinite regress.” To keep moving the creation of matter father back to other created creators doesn’t answer anything. There must be an eternal “first cause” or something that was not created. I suggest to you that there is no other option than to believe there is ultimately an eternal Creator who created everything in the first place.

Now, I’ve had staunch atheists who refuse to acknowledge this inescapable conclusion. They have said to me that matter IS eternal. What they don’t seem to realize is that they are merely ascribing divine qualities to matter. In a real sense, they are making matter their god. There is no scientific reason to believe matter is eternal – it’s simply a point of faith. It’s the atheist’s “religion.”

But there is a scientific reason to believe matter is not eternal. There is the Second Law of Thermodynamics or “the law of increasing entropy.” There are a lot of different ways to explain entropy but ultimately it has to do with the transfer of heat/energy. Let me give an illustration:

Suppose there is a completely sealed room. No heat can enter or leave the room. Inside the room are a cup of hot coffee and a cup of ice. If left alone, you know what will happen - the coffee will cool and the ice will melt. Eventually, everything in the room will be the same temperature.

The same thing is true about matter/energy. Over time, all the stars will burn out, all motion will stop, and all useful energy will be exhausted and become useless energy (unable to perform work). This is known as the “heat death” and is the unavoidable end of any system. If the universe were indeed infinitely old, the heat death would have already occurred long ago. The fact that it hasn’t already happened is proof the universe is not infinitely old.

Now, the Bible says that God rested on the 7th day of creation (Genesis 2:2) that is, He stopped creating. So the Bible agrees with the 1st law of thermodynamics that no new matter is being created. The Bible also says that “the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment” (Isaiah 51:6) so it agrees with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. For someone to not believe in God he must either believe matter was either created from nothing (a violation of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics) or it is eternal (a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).

You see then, it’s not Christians who hate science, it’s these “Big Bangers!”