The Bible Stands Alone
Why It must be the Inspired word of God
BOOM...what was that? Was it the big bang? Sure. What else? The confirmation that the Bible, out of all the world's holy books, is the only book to stand alone declaring space, time, matter, and energy came into being at a single moment, and that our universe is in a continual state of expansion? This so happens to also be the greatest book of all time? This is powerful...
Do you believe in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything? If you are a naturalist, that is the viewpoint you are left with. Why? Because the established scientific data is heavily favoring, and continuing to support that the universe had a beginning in which space, time, and matter all came into existence at a single event known as the big bang. Because the universe did not always exist, it could not bring itself into existence, and that is the critical issue for those who speak of a reality that is purely materialistic.
Here are some quotes from big names who assert the idea that the universe came from nothing:
"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice." Richard Dawkins
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing...Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." Stephen Hawking
What Stephen Hawking failed to acknowledge in his quote is that gravity is actually something. We may know how the force of gravity affects our universe, but to this day scientists still do not know what causes it.
Ironically, gravity helped become the pulling force of the idea to the beginning of the universe when Einstein published his theory of General Relativity in 1915. This notion ultimately led atheist scientists to come up with philosophical incoherent ideas to avoid a theistic (personal God) interpretation of the beginning of the universe.
Big names such as Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking both held a naturalistic word-view where all we have is the material world, and that we live in a static universe that has always existed.
What was discovered in the early 1900s was about to rock the scientific community forever.
Edwin Hubble, known for having the Hubble telescope named after him, was regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time. Why? Because what he helped establish in the early 1900s, via these large dome telescopes, was that our Milky Way galaxy was not alone, but rather there are many, many more in the vastness of our universe.
Even more importantly, he observed that these galaxies were moving away from us, heavily hinting at the idea that we live in an expanding universe. And thus it must have a beginning from which it expanded.
This is known as "Red Shift". The light coming from the distant galaxies were redder in its hue, and this would not occur if the galaxies were stationary in relationship to us. It is in comparison to the sound of a train horn as its distance lengthens known as the "Doppler Effect". As the wavelength stretches out, the whistle will drop in pitch.
Hubble invites Einstein out to California in 1931 to see the evidence for himself through his telescope. This ultimately results in Einstein coming out to the media stating, "I now see the necessity of a beginning."
Einstein later admits that his cosmological constant, his little fudge factor, where he worked the mathematical calculations in his favor for there to be a static universe, was the greatest mistake of his scientific career.
Did you know that the Bible mentions in seven places that the universe is in a continuous state of expansion? We find this in Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 51:13, and Zechariah 12:1. The Hebrew verb being used in these verses is "natah", in the form of Qal active participle, which means "the stretcher out of them" (the heavens) and implies continual or ongoing stretching.
Here are a couple of examples displaying the Bible's predictive power for future scientific discoveries:
"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
“I am the Lord, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself" (Isaiah 44:24).
"Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain" (Psalm 104:2).
Astronomer (Ph.D.) Hugh Ross states, "Now that had a huge impact on me as a 17-year-old because I recognized that no scientists have even dreamed of the idea of an expanding universe until Elbert Einstein produced his theory of General Relativity. And George Lemaitre and Edwin Hubble discovered that indeed observations show that the universe is expanding. For thousands of years, the Bible stood alone as the only book of science, philosophy, or theology, that declared that we live in an expanding universe."
"...I was reading the Bible for the first time, at the same time that physicists in Britain were developing the first of the space-time theorems...This is the one that put Stephen Hawking (shown left in photo) to worldwide fame.
He and Roger Penrose (shown right in photo) back in 1970 published this theorem in which they were able to demonstrate based on only two conditions. If the universe contains mass, and we all are living proof that the universe contains mass...and if the equations of general relativity reliably describe the movements of bodies in the universe, then Hawking and Penrose proved that the universe has a beginning, that includes the beginning of space and time itself. As Hawking later boasted when he was interviewed for Readers Digest, "we proved that time was created."
"Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began" (Titus 1:1-2).
"...Hawking not only proved that time was created, he proved that the Bible, out of all the world's holy books, got it right.
What I found in the non-biblical religions of the world, they tell us that god or god's, or cosmic forces create within space and time, they eternally exist. As I mentioned earlier, that is what the great philosophers said. But the Bible stood alone and said no, space and time don't exist until God creates the universe. Now we have these space-time theorems that actually prove that that indeed is correct."
One of the world's most renowned atheist Lawrence Krauss, in his book "A Universe from Nothing", writes, "we can no longer avoid a deistic (a non-personal God) interpretation of reality". This is a result of the space-time theorems that forces us to conclude that there must be a God beyond space and time who created the universe.
"The battlefield in science today is not against the existence of God, but rather against the existence of a personal God." - Hugh Ross
How has scientific data progressed in this generation regarding the existence of a cosmic beginning of our universe? On April 24, 1992, an American research team discovered what Steven Hawking had said to be, "...the discovery of the century, if not of all time", making headlines around the world.
What prompted Hawking to declare such a statement? A team of astrophysicists had reported the latest findings from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, revealing confirmation of the hot big bang creation event.
Scientists praised this discovery with great admiration. Michael Truner, an astrophysicist with the University of Chicago and Fermilab, stated the discovery is, "unbelievably important," further stating that the "significance of this cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology."
George Smoot, the University of California at Berkeley astronomer and project leader for the COBE satellite, shared, "What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe." Further adding, "It's like looking at God."
A theistic interpretation for the cause of the universe expanded like the heavens. Frederic B. Burnham, a science historian, declared that the community of scientists was opened to consider the concept that God created the universe "a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last hundred years." ABC's Nightline host, Ted Koppel, began his interview of an astronomer and physicist by quoting the first two verses of Genesis.
"In the wake of this discovery, it was increasingly common for astronomers to draw theistic or deistic conclusions, so much so that the late Geoffrey Burbidge, of the University of California at San Diego, even complained that his fellow astronomers were rushing off to join "the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang." - Hugh Ross The Creator and the Cosmos
Launched in 2009, The Planck satellite, developed by the European Space Agency, has produced the most detailed map of the universe ever created. This satellite is able to capture in great detail the radiation of an extremely cold glow leftover from the big bang.
Scientists are able to see the cosmic background radiation of the big bang event down to a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old. This has been referred to as the "smoking gun", even in a literal sense, for the cosmological big bang event.
Now that we have established some of the overwhelming evidence that the universe had a beginning (I say "some," because there is more not shared in this article), it is fascinating to see what the first words of the Bible are:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).
The Hebrew verb translated "created" in Genesis 1:1 (bara'), used in six other places in the Old Testament (Genesis 2:3, 2:4, Psalm 148:5, Isaiah 40:26, 42:5, 45:18), has as its primary definition "bringing into existence something new, something that did not exist before."
"What does the Bible mean by the heavens and the Earth? ...The Old Testament never uses the word universe... In Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament is written, there is no word for universe. Instead, they have this phrase, "the heavens and the Earth", with a definite articles. Shows up nine times in the Old Testament, and always means the totality of physical reality. Not only all matter and energy but even space and time itself." - Hugh Ross
So where does this leave us? We know that anything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it has a cause. What kind of cause must this be to bring in space, time, and matter? It logically follows that this cause must be space-less, timeless, and immaterial; a cause that can transcend all things that the universe is made up of; a personal cause having a free will of the mind to be able to bring into existence creatures that exhibit these attributes.
The Bible makes it clear of a transcendent creator by stating that the physical reality that we can detect did not come from that which we can detect.
"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible" (Hebrews 11:3).
What more does the Bible say concerning the nature of God as being transcendent?
"'Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?' says the Lord;
'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:24).
"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24).
"...who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen" (1 Timothy 6:16).
One famous philosopher Aristotle proposed the concept that there must be a prime mover, a primary cause. In other words, an uncaused cause.
It is logically incoherent for there to be an infinite regress of causes, as you could never land on any foundation for the truth of why there is something rather than nothing.
What does the Bible say concerning the nature of God as an uncaused being?
"Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable" (Isaiah 40:28).
"Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God" (Psalm 90:2).
These are the characteristics of a being who is capable of transcending the universe, and who has the power to cause space, time, and matter to come into existence at the beginning of time itself. Who Himself is uncaused, fulfilling the philosophical reasoning behind the necessity for there to be an uncaused cause; being personal in nature by revealing Himself not only through His Word but by His creation.
"Researchers who believe in a personal Creator (and many do) thank their Maker for Earth's placement in one of the darkest regions of the universe. Not only are the quantities and locations of the various kinds of dark stuff exactly what advanced life needs, but because of Earth's dark cosmic location, the lights of the universe don't blind us or limit our view. Astronomers can see virtually all of the heavens' wonders, including the entirety of the cosmic history.
"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalms 19:1).
This visibility is possible because Earth resides in a very dark place. In fact, Earth's solar system resides in the darkest part of the Milky Way Galaxy's life-habitable zone. And the Milky Way resides in the darkest life-habitable region of its galaxy cluster, which occupies the darkest life-habitable region of its supercluster of galaxies." - Hugh Ross Why the Universe Is the way It Is
Because of these arrangements ordained by the Creator, not only are we humans able to exist, and even more, having the capacity to comprehend the visible universe around us, we are able to observe the universe from the cosmic creation all the way through, to see that the Bible got it right out of all the worlds holy books (and all other books that preceded these scientific discoveries made know in the 20th century).
It is as if there is a God who purposed it all in this so we may discover Him not only through His Word, but by His creation, so we may come into a personal relationship with the one Who made it all.
If there is a God (there is), we would expect Him to be personal, because we as His creation are personal. Wouldn't He have reached out to us by now? Wouldn't His word be the most translated and read in the history of the world, full of predictive prophecies? Wouldn't His word align with what we find in nature, the One who made all things? The Bible is that word.
Have you ever heard of or played the popular board game called "Guess Who"? If so, you may remember the strategic object of that game was to carefully ask the right question that would knock down the most faces in one turn. This would bring you closer to the truth of the face on your opponent's card.
What this article does is just that. This information knocks down all the world religions leaving only one left standing.
Guess who? Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. No other compares. The Bible stands alone.
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Robert Jastrow, astronomer
