The Origin of the Universe
... sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16God made the two great lights -- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night -- and the stars. 17God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18to rule over day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-1:19) The undifferentiated primordial light is now divided into heavenly bodies, by whose movements time is measured. This is the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. God purposely creates these masses so that they can be used to navigate and to tell time. These celestial objects will act as indications or signals. 20And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." 21So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." 23And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. (Genesis 1:20-1:23) The word "created" is only used three times in the creation story: the first instance is Genesis 1:1 with the creation of the universe as a whole, the second is Genesis 1:21 with the creation of masters of the waters, and the third is later in Genesis 1:27 with the creation of the masters of land, human beings. This could be showing the power of God and the pure connection between all that has been created by God. Any Christian could use the special interdependence between themselves and the universe to strengthen their faith. God is all powerful and would not have created such objects without a purpose. 24And God said, " Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. 25God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-1:25) It is interesting to compare the order of life forms in the creation story to the modern theory of evolution and find the two are very similar: vegetation, swarming creatures, fish, birds, animals (mammals), and finally human beings. 26Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." 27So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-1:31) Many scholars have questioned why plural forms (...us...our, Genesis 1:26) are used in this passage. The plural form here is does not indicate that there are multiple gods. This language use gives evidence of God and the retinue of the divine court. The second time the plural form is used, it talks about human being made from the image of God. The human image resembles a divinity without image in a type of paradox. The biblical narrative was not hesitant to depict divine manifestation in human form. God gives human beings rule over all other living things. God gives these gifts to human beings to live, and gives to those living things (animals) plants to live. Gender is divided in this passage. Man and woman are created in the image of God, who is beyond gender. Throughout the Bible, God is depicted as a male, but in actuality God is more than just male or female. 2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2And on the seventh day God finished the work that he done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work he had done in creation. 4These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. (Genesis 2:1-2:4) The culmination of the creation story is the Sabbath, or day of rest and worship, on the seventh day. This is the origin of Sabbath, and it is placed at the end of the week on the seventh day, or what is now Sunday. This history tells of the beginning of the earliest generations of the world and humankind as background for the call of Abram in Genesis 12:1. Many times human events are shown pessimistically. Through its misdeeds humankind brings God's curse upon itself and all life repeatedly. The hope for a divinely blessed blooming of life never dies in the eyes of Christians. God does not abandon the earth at any time, nor will he ever. The creation story is a type of preface to, not only Genesis, but to the entire the Bible. Describing the birth of the cosmos and its centerpiece, earth, the story shows God cleverly arranging the events of creation. Each phase of creation follows the same basic pattern given on day one: command of God, result, God's approval, the numbering of the day. It is, however, without monotony. Some scholars compare creation to a musical theme with variations. The story shows the world gradually becoming more fluid and complex. On the sixth day, the world is ready for self-perpetuation through procreation. Given this beautiful account of how life began, Christians see the creation of the universe as a gift and miracle from God. Many other religions (monotheistic) have a similar view of creation. Taking, for example, Judaism, which believes in the Old Testament of the Bible where the chapter Genesis is located. In any monotheistic religion, there is a divine being that creates the universe and life. There are those who do not feel that this is a valid conclusion to how the universe began. The Big Bang Theory is the main scientific theory about the origin of the universe. According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter in all directions. Before the creation of the universe, the entirety of the universe is compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. This was known singularity. This was the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to prevailing cosmological models to explain our universe, and ineffable explosion, that was infinitely dense and trillions of degrees in temperature, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. For the next 300,000 years the universe then began to expand and cool. The expansion allowed for light and manner to go their separate ways as radiation became less and less dense. Matter and radiation were no longer bonded, and the oldest fossils in the universe were born. This was also the time when stars were born and died, the sun and the earth are formed, and life arises on earth. There are many problems in this theory, though. The Big Bang Theory speculates that the marvelously ordered universe randomly resulted from a gigantic explosion. There has never been an instance in human experience when a chaotic explosion gives rise to something intricate that operates purposefully. If the universe began with an explosion, one would think that matter and energy would have been propelled out radially from the explosion center. How then does the universe have curving and orbiting motions, e.g., the sun revolving around the sun? Where exactly did the "cosmic egg" come from? Surely it had to originate from somewhere. This egg had to be created by something greater than everything. Some scientists speculate that the egg always existed. They say that the egg resulted from the collapse of an earlier universe. This would assume that matter is eternal. Our knowledge of physics has already proven that matter is not. There are also countless contradictions between the creation story and the Big Bang Theory. The Bible teaches that the entire universe, including the earth with its plants and animals came into being during six, literal days of the creation week. The Big Bang Theory postulates eons of time. There may have been a vast "gap" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, which would accommodate the alleged time involved in the expansion and development of the universe following the Big Bang. The "days" of Genesis were not "literal" days. There also may have been gaps in between the days of the creation week. The Big Bang Theory allows that the sun was formed long before the earth was. The Bible says that the earth was created first, and the sun came later. This point can also apply to the creation of the stars. The Bible states that the stars were created after the earth, while the Big Bang Theory states otherwise. The Big Bang Theory also says that the universe started with a chaotic explosion which then...