Science has proven that the universe did not always exist. It had a beginning.

What’s interesting is that scientists didn’t always believe that. Just a few generations ago, general consensus was that the universe had no beginning and no end—it just always was. Evolutionists found this convenient, as it contradicted the biblical creation account.

Evidence began to refute this idea in the 1920s. Data showed that distant objects are drifting away from our galaxy. Edwin Hubble, by measuring the wavelengths of light coming from other galaxies, determined that the universe is expanding in all directions. This discovery set the scientific world on fire. After all, if the universe is moving apart, then at one time it must have been compressed in a single location. It must have had a beginning.

The big bang theory was born.

What is the theory? It has undergone significant refinement and revision over its near-80-year lifespan; today, cosmologists are developing and testing a few dozen variations of it. But in essence the idea is that, somewhere between 10 and 15 billion years ago, the entire universe came to exist suddenly, dramatically, in an infinitesimally brief moment. Theoretical physicist Brian Greene describes the “inflationary” big-bang model this way: “the size of the universe increased by a factor larger than a million trillion trillion in less than a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second” (The Fabric of the Cosmos).

Doesn’t sound very compatible with evolution, does it? It’s the extreme opposite of slow, gradual changes over billions of years. And it can’t be attributed to natural selection or other evolutionary processes that supposedly explain how advanced life came to exist without an intelligent author.

In fact, scientists first rejected the big-bang concept because it seemed too religious. Its echoes of “in the beginning” bothered them. (Their concern was no doubt heightened by the fact that the physicist who first advanced the theory, Georges Lemaître, was also a priest.) Somehow, though, atheists the world over eventually came to accept it as proof that the cosmos has no creator.

But is it?

There appears to be much solid evidence that the basics of the theory are correct. Observation confirms that the universe was far hotter in the past and is cooling as it expands. The rapid initial cooling left faint background radiation that still fills the cosmos at a highly uniform temperature. The universe’s galaxies all appear to have been formed during the window of time that the big-bang model predicts. Photos show that the farther we look out into space (hence the further back in time, since light requires time to reach our telescopes), the more densely packed the galaxies are. These are just a few of many proofs that the universe had a definite beginning.

But then big-bang theorists hit a wall. Going backward in time from the universe’s current expansion, they say it must have been more and more compressed—that, in fact, at the start it must have existed within a single point. This “singularity” is supposed to have been an infinitely small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense something. Lemaître called it a “primeval atom.”

Now—if that is right, then where did this “cosmic seed” come from? Big-bang theorists can’t explain it.

Why did it suddenly expand? This too is a mystery to them.

Adding to the difficulty is the tendency in nature for things to decay—to move from order toward disorder. Greene says this natural law would suggest that the universe in its infancy began “in an extraordinarily special, highly ordered state of low entropy.” Extraordinarily special? Highly ordered? Well then, how did it start out in such a state? Once again, science is silent.

Astronomers recognize that the term “big bang” is misleading. According to the theory, the initial event wasn’t an explosion, but an orderly expansion—more like an inflating balloon. Dr. Hugh Ross explains, “The big bang is not a big ‘bang’ as most lay people would comprehend the term. This expression conjures up images of bomb blasts or exploding dynamite. Such a ‘bang’ would yield disorder and destruction. In truth, this ‘bang’ represents an immensely powerful yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space and time within the strict confines of very carefully finely tuned physical constraints and laws which govern their behavior and interactions. The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human potential for design by multiple orders of magnitude” (emphasis mine).

Cosmologists are intently studying the beginning of time. They are staring at the sudden appearance of energy and matter. They are recognizing unimaginable order and precision in the event. They can perceive physical laws controlling it. And these potent forces become more impressive the more they are scrutinized and the more we learn. They are so complex, so incomprehensibly powerful, so potentially catastrophic, that an infinitesimal variation in any one of a number of factors would have yielded a cataclysm rather than the stunning cosmos that exists today.

Astoundingly, however, there are few who, like Dr. Ross, will admit to seeing deliberate planning, fine-tuning, and design in it!

How can scientists blithely believe that this gorgeous, life-rich planet called Earth, which circles a beautiful, stable star called the sun, which is clustered together with several hundred billion other suns in a galaxy that is just one of trillions—all came from a primeval pinprick much, much smaller than an electron or even a quark—by random chance? How can they accept the idea that an infinitely small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity which simply appeared and then exploded in a precise cosmic expansion to produce the entire universe—from the largest supernovas to the smallest subatomic particles, with all their physical properties perfectly governed by laws of physics and chemistry—came from nothing?

It takes more faith to believe that than it does to believe in an eternal, all-powerful God!

Never in human history has science treated the Creator with such contempt. Yet paradoxically, never has science discovered so much spectacular proof of His existence as in this past, most-godless century!

Open your eyes. The beautiful truth surrounds and envelops us. “The real big bang was a well-planned, deliberately executed act of creation!” the Plain Truth magazine wrote in June 1984. “How would you expect a superpowerful divine Being to bring forth an entire universe? With a small fizzle, a limp thud or a weak whimper? Of course not! The creation of the universe was accomplished with a glorious display of light, heat, matter and energy—a display that still reverberates throughout space ….”

The reality is that science is proving the Bible true. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. … For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. … Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing” (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 33:9; Isaiah 40:26; New King James Version).

God “created the heavens, and stretched them out” (Isaiah 42:5). Scientists are discovering how. Pity so few of them realize it.