Genesis and the Big Bang (Part 8)

(Gen 1:5), “…one day.”  The creation of the universe brings about the creation of time, “one day.”  Many have rejected the creation story based on the apparent conflict between the six days of creation in scripture and the 15+/- Billion years currently accepted (2015) by scientists.  Some believing apologists such as Hugh Ross read the word for day “yom” as a long but finite period of time, such as “the day of the wrath of the LORD,” (Ezek 7:19).  “If Moses wanted to communicate a creation history consisting of six eons, he would have no other option but to use the word ‘yom’ to describe those eras.” [1]  Following this legitimate reading of the text, each day represents an age of the creation process.

The Jewish Sages (Rashi, Maimonides, and Nahmanides), and a number of Christian Scholars, have interpreted the creation days as 24-hour days, (Ex 31:17). Prior to Einstein's Special (1905) and General (1916) Theories of Relativity, “time was always considered to be absolute…Moreover, time and space were thought to be unconnected – one did not influence the other.” [2] 

“It took Einstein and the law of relativity to teach us that there is no absolute passage of time.  It is as flexible as the possible differences in the force of gravity and the speed of motion across a boundary separating the observer from the observed…The passage of time on any one star could be as different from the passage of time on other stars as six days is different from 15 billion years." [3]

Einstein’s theories interconnected time and space; the creation of space also brings about the creation of time.  Einstein’s theories lead to the understanding that time is relative to the perspective of the observer, a fact alluded to in scripture, “A thousand years in Your eyes are as a day that passes,” (Psa 90:4)(2 Pet 3:8).

“According to Einstein’s law of relativity…it is impossible in an expanding universe to describe the elapsed time experienced during a sequence of events occurring in one part of the universe in a way that will be equal to the elapsed time for those same events when viewed from another part of the universe.” [4]

The words of Einstein are difficult to comprehend, except to say that objects moving close to the speed of light and experiencing different gravitation effects experience different elapsed times.  For example, “A clock on the Moon runs more rapidly than the same clock when on the Earth because the Moos has less gravity than the Earth.” [5]  A short duration of a few minutes on an object moving at the speed of light in deep space absent gravity, may be the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of years from the perspective of a position at rest in a strong gravitational field.  Do not ask me to explain how this happens, except to say that the principle has moved from theory to scientific fact, both tested and verified.

In one real life application of relativity, the atomic clocks on Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites must be adjusted relative to their counterparts following the satellites on earth.  Special Relativity predicts that the on-board atomic clocks on the satellites should fall behind clocks on earth by about 7 nanoseconds per day due to the speed of the satellites (~14,000 km/hr).  Further, the satellites operate in orbits high above the earth (20,000 km high) where the curvature of space-time due to the earth’s mass actually increases the speed of the satellite atomic clocks by 45 nanoseconds per day.  The combination of these two relativistic effects means the clock on the satellite should tick faster than identical clocks on the earth by about 38 nanoseconds per day.  If these effects were not taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS satellites would be false after only two minutes, and off by 10 km/day.  Before launch, the atomic clocks in these GPS satellites were intentionally slowed down to take into account the General Relativistic effect when in orbit. [6]

Only in the last 100 years have we come to appreciate that time is dependent on the perspective of the observer.  The creation story is told from the perspective of God moving at the speed of light in the vicinity of a seemingly infinite mass.  These conditions would experience a significantly slower time compared to another observer on earth today.  The fact that scientists assign any finite time to the creation of the universe establishes a beginning and the opportunity to discuss a Creator.  Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, made the following observation related to the creation,

“If a person does not believe in God and in creation, and assumes the world to be something which ‘just happened’ and that everything in it is the result of undersigned, natural consequences of physical laws, then it is meaningless to talk about a goal and purpose of life.  ‘Goal’ and ‘purpose’ of man presuppose a Creator and a design for the universe which make it purposeful.” [7]

For the moment, this is the end of my reflections on the Big Bang.  I only made it through one day, but might choose to pick up on the subject at a future date.  I'm ready to move on to another subject and I am sure you are also.   Next subject...Jubilee.  All the best, Scott

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[1] Navigating Genesis, Dr. Hugh Ross, 2014 Edition, page 35

[2] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 34

[3] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 157

[4] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 50

[5] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 43

[6] http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

[7] Lights Along the Way, Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., 1995 Edition (Artscroll), page 59

Genesis and the Big Bang (Part 7)

(Gen 1:5, 1:8, 1:13, 1:19, 1:23, 1:31) “…And there was evening and morning...”  Moving from evening to morning gives insight into the direction of creation.  The Hebrew word for evening is “erev” and its root means “mixed-up, stirred together, disorder”.  Morning, is “boqer”, and its root means “discernable, able to be distinguished.”  More than establishing the sequence of the Hebrew day, the text is telling us something crucial about the flow of matter in the universe.  Contrary to the laws of thermodynamics, the universe moved from “disorder” to “order” during each day of creation.  

“Each ‘day’ marked an epoch, a flow from disorder toward increasing order in the material of the universe.  This transition from disorder to order is hinted at in the evening to morning phrasing of the biblical test.  The root mean of the Hebrew word for evening is ‘disorder’ and for morning is ‘order’.  ‘And there was evening and there was morning’ is telling us that in each ‘daily’ episode, at a specific location within the universe, order was imposed by God on the disorder that existed.” [1]

The total entropy (disorder) of an isolated system, such as the universe, never decreases because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium.  Stated another way, the universe will always move from order to disorder when left to its own forces.  Yet, the sequence of events following the Big Bang show the universe moving from disorder to order, from a planet hostile toward life to a planet capable of sustaining life, from the formation of simple life forms to the creation of man.  Following the pattern of creation, the believer is called to walk after God (Duet 5:33), “making the most of your time, because the days are evil,” (Eph 5:16).  The believer has an obligation to bring order to the world as God performed during creation.

The seventh day of creation is the only day that is not followed by the phrase, “there was evening and morning.”  Since all is “very good” (Gen 1:31), at the end of the sixth day, there may be no disorder to overcome at the beginning of day seven.   “The Onkelos (an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew text) translates Genesis 1:31 as, ‘And God saw everything that He had made and behold it was a unified order.’…From the parallel use of ‘good’ in Exodus 33:19 and Genesis 1:31, it appears that ‘all My goodness’ refers not to a quality of God but rather to the very nature of the creation, the exquisitely balanced, or orderly, interrelationships therein.” [2]

Since the seventh day is seen as a picture of the Millennial Kingdom, the absence of the phrase “evening and morning” on day seven could be construed as a picture of exceedingly great revelation of the Creator in the days of the Millennial Kingdom and the never ending days in the world to come.

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[1] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 156

[2] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 165

Genesis and the Big Bang (Part 6)

(Gen 1:4), “God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light day, and the darkness He called night…”  After the expansion of the universe had proceeded, light separated from the darkness.  Only recently have scientists come to understand that darkness is not just the absence of light, but that a physical “darkness” exists in the universe, commonly referred to as black holes.  Long before scientists discovered the existence of black holes, Isaiah wrote that God is, “The One forming light and creating darkness,” (Isa 45:7).  If darkness had simply been the absence of light, then no creation would have been required.

In scripture, the original light of the Creator is seen to diminish during the progression of the creation story.  By the fourth day, the sun, moon, and stars become the predominant lights.  The Hebrew sages saw this sequence and suggested that the light from the Creator diminished by one-seventh for each day of creation.  By the time man is created, near the end of day six, the illumination of God in the creation has diminished to one-seventh of the strength at the beginning.  This understanding is derived from the words of Isaiah who prophesied of a future time when...

“The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted,” (Isa 30:26). 

The diminishment of the original creation light was seen by the Sages as a metaphor for the Creator in the present age.  The LORD God willingly “veiled” His original presence, as the Psalmist wrote, “He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.” (Psa 18:9-11).  At some future date, the glory of the LORD will provide sufficient illumination to negate the need for the sun and the moon, (Rev 21:22, 22:4-5).  This “veiling” of God in the present world permits mankind to act with freewill so we can both earn rewards and be held accountable for our actions on this earth.

The study of light is also a fascinating topic.  Sometimes light acts as a particle beam, while at other times acting as a wave.  In the late 1880’s, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley recorded no effect on the speed of light whether it was measured in the direction of the earth’s rotation, counter to the earth’s rotation, or perpendicular to the earth’s rotation.  This was considered an amazing find, one that was beyond explanation at the time.  Two decades later, Albert Einstein “had the courage to state that regardless of the velocity of the observer, toward or away from a source of light, the speed of that light remains constant…It defies all logic.” [1]   

Scientists now accept the speed of light as an unchangeable constant, independent of the speed of the object emitting the light or the speed of the observer.  The speed of the moving object or the observer causes a shift in the frequency of the light waves so that the speed of light remains constant.  This frequency shift produces a change in the color that is observed to determine if the object is moving toward or away from the observer.  In this way, scientists are able to determine that the universe is expanding as they observe the “redshift” of distant galaxies moving away from the earth.

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[1] Genesis and the Big Bang, Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D., 1990 Edition, page 42