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Why We Should Be Cautious Using the Big Bang Argument

Since it was proposed by Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Big Bang has been common in discussions of the existence of God. The reasons are obvious. The Big Bang looks like a plausible beginning for the physical universe. Things that begin need causes. The beginning of the physical universe would need a cause, which would seem to lie outside the physical universe. This coheres well with the Christian claim that God is a non-physical being who created the physical universe. The argument has been... Read More

Big Bang or Big Bloom?

Big Bloom

In science today, we are under the tyranny of an image, the image of an explosion—the Big Bang. Ironically, this term was not derived from evidence but from contempt. Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), the celebrated astronomer, was so incensed at the notion that the universe might have a beginning that he began to refer to proponents of this view as believing that the universe started in some kind of a “big bang.” He was quite surprised when the fires of his sarcasm, rather than withering... Read More

Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

Creation

Why is there something rather than nothing? This question, usually thought to fall strictly within the purview of philosophy and theology, has recently received attention in the world of popular science thanks to books by Stephen Hawking and Lawrence M. Krauss. Interestingly, these authors propose something similar to what Christians have always believed—that the universe came into existence out of nothing, or ex nihilo—but they think this could have happened spontaneously, or without... Read More

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