The Big Bang and Theism

By:  Erick Nelson
Last Updated:  December 30, 2007
 

Most scientists agree that the Big Bang accounts for the beginnings of the universe.  They say that this event was not only the origin of the matter in the universe, but the origin of space, time, and natural laws.

 
As I understand it, there was hope that this might have been one in an infinite sequences of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, i.e. an infinitely undulating universe - however, even factoring in the "dark matter" in the universe, it is believed that the universe is expanding too rapidly, and has reached such a distance, that gravity will never bring it back. 
 
So let's agree that there was one Big Bang, about 5 billion years ago, which was the origin of the universe.  What can we infer about the cause of the Big Bang?  Philosophers of science used to say that nothing could be said about it at all, since the notion of causation would be nonsensical prior to the Big Bang - in fact, there would be no "prior" as such, since time didn't exist.  Others sometimes said that they accepted the idea that the Big Bang came from nothing, out of nothing, for no reason, spontaneously.
 
However, modern scientists are developing theories having to do with string theory, describing a situation where a "super-" universe may have spawned ours, or perhaps it was originated by a sort of collision of super-universes.  This seems infinitely better than saying that the Big Bang came out of nothing without a cause, for this proposition is the most impossible thing in the world.  One might say that an elephant popping into existence in the middle of the freeway is impossible, but that is nothing compared to saying that everything just popped into existence. 
 
What if the universe was spawned from some larger, super-universe?  One thing we can't do is smuggle in the idea that this super-"universe" would have matter and energy, natural laws like ours, be impersonal and unconscious, etc.  It has to be an unknown.  What is logically entailed by this situation are the following.  The "super-universe" must be:
This translates directly to:
It is obvious, then, that the universe must have been originated by an eternal, immaterial, supernatural, powerful entity or environment.  This, as far as it goes, agrees with the notion of a Creator. 
 
Some argue that this Creator must be intelligent and personal, based on things like (a) the "anthropomorphic" principle of fine-tuning; (b) the argument that consciousness is only explicable if it comes from consciousness.  I think that these arguments may be considered on their merits, but do not believe that a Personal Creator is entailed by the Big Bang theory.  On the other hand, it is certainly not ruled out!