• The set of beliefs we have about reality, and our place in it – is our worldview foundation.
• Everyone has a worldview, and choices, responses, goals, priorities, etc., are based on it.
• Different worldviews have similarities, but contradict each other on the biggest questions in life.
• Since only 1, at most, fits reality, whenever worldviews contradict each other, those not founded on reality will drop you at times during life, and possibly eternally, into unexpected consequences.
• What worldview fits reality – which one is true – you can check. The most effective method is the same approach as the scientific method and what we have used since childhood. Let’s begin …

Did the universe have a beginning, or did the universe always exist?

Below is what each worldview model claimed before all the tests came in.

Agnostic Model – Agnostics either claim they do not know, side with the general understanding of the time that there was no beginning, or they claim we can never know if there was a beginning or not.

Atheist Model – There was no beginning. Time and space always existed and always will. This was accepted as fact by the scientific community, and was a primary belief of atheism.

Biblical Model – There was a beginning to space and time. Written thousands of years ago, the biblical model provided a set of specific claims, which went against the other worldview models.

(1) The universe, and all that is a part of the universe, had a beginning.

The biblical concept known as creatio ex nihilo comes from passages such as Genesis 1:1, which used the Hebrew word bārā’ for “created.” According to Strong’s Concordance and Hebrew linguistic scholars, this word means “to bring into existence something new,” which had not existed before, and an action only done by God. (Strong’s Concordance 1254, as cited by BibleHub: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1254.htm)

Moreover, the first verse also uses the compound of Hebrew words “shamayim” (heaven) with “aretz” (earth), and in every instance this compound refers to everything of the entire Universe or nature. Further verses, such as Psalm 148:5, Isaiah 45:18, Colossians 1:15-17, and John 1:3 also records everything aside from God was created, was caused, and has a beginning.

(2) Time itself had a beginning.

This claim is given in numerous passages, including Genesis 1:1, Hebrews 1:10, Jude 1:25.

(3) Space and time began together.

Genesis 1:1 noted the divine creating of the universe happened at “the beginning” of time. Also, John 1:1-3 and other passages refer to the beginning of time.

(4)-(5) The universe came from not anything visible, or of this universe.

See Genesis 1:1, Hebrews 11:3, John 1:3.

(6) The universe follows fixed laws.

Seven times God compares his unchanging self with the unchanging laws of nature, for example, Jeremiah 33:25-6.

(7) The cause of the universe is given very specific properties.

This topic is especially thought-provoking, and will be covered in the next blog, The Biggger Cause.

(8)-(10) The Universe decays and also expands; the expansion occurred in the past, present and future.

Passages such as Psalm 102:25-26 and Romans 8:20-22 claim all of creation is subject to a law of decay.

Eleven verses provided by five different biblical writers (Job 9:8, Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13, Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15, Psalm 104:2, Zechariah 12:1) claiming the heavens undergo expansion. The reason this is missed by some is the translation for the ancient Hebrew word is typically given as “stretching out”, but it literally means expansion.

Some will argue it is just a figure of speech and people today attempt to inappropriately fit the new science discovery into the biblical text. Forcing science ideas into the Bible where they do not fit is ethically and logically wrong to do, but natural and necessary where the study of the natural world and biblical text match. Regarding the expansion of space, what evidence do critics provide to support their claim the expansion of space is artificially forced into the Bible?

Furthermore, such a claim may be invalidated by the stunning inclusion in the biblical passages of all three verb tenses. The Qal active, Qal inactive, and Qal imperfect participles of the verb natah (expand), is recognized not only by translators today, but also Jewish theologians and scholars living and writing 800-900 years ago, centuries before the expansion of the Universe was discovered by science, to mean the biblical text actually claims the heavens were expanded, are expanding, and will continue to expand.

These predictions are specific, and set up to clearly verify or reject.

Buddhism, Hinduism – Time and space always existed, just recycled.                                            

Others – There are other models, and if yours is not included, then add it in here.

Okay, the different worldviews made their claims, which one fits reality, does any set itself apart?

Answer: The Universe had a beginning. From Edwin Hubble to Albert Einstein and other Nobel prize winners, many sources of evidence, such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, “ripples” of the Big Bang, and common sense will be given in the point below. Bottom-line: to not believe in the beginning of the Universe, one would have to go against ALL the evidence.

Here is just one point: The stars of the Universe run on fuel (hydrogen mostly). Every second through nuclear fusion, the sun turns ~600 million tons of hydrogen into 594 million tons of helium, and releases most of the remaining four million tons of matter as energy radiation and light. If every star we know of runs on hydrogen (and later on some heavier elements too before dying), then what would happen to the fuel supply if the Universe did not have a beginning, and was burning this fuel forever? Clearly the Universe would have RAN OUT OF GAS. Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin summarizes: “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is now no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

Answer: The Bible predicted it. Compare what science now knows to the biblical predictions.  

SCIENCE NOW SAYS THE SAME THINGS THE BIBLE PREDICTED THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO.

Atheists must have a much better marketing team than Bible-believers, as there is no valid explanation why so many people think the beginning of the Universe is evidence for atheism or against the Bible. Let’s make this very clear: the Big Bang is not against the Bible, it was predicted uniquely and accurately by the Bible. The image displays the newspaper headlines when the world was first realizing the Big Bang or beginning of the Universe was a reality.

In fact, the scientists involved in the origin of the Universe discoveries, as well as many within the church, realized the Bible was the only source predicting details discovered by modern science in the Big Bang. Naturalistic science taught the universe was eternal and fought the idea of a beginning, until the evidence forced them to accept what the Bible had claimed all along. The prominent astronomer, Sir Frederick Hoyle, who was atheist and believed the Universe was eternal, was repulsed when asked about the Universe possibly having a beginning. He ridiculed the idea as “scientific Genesis” and called it a “Big Bang” in an interview, and the name stuck.

Those in the church, who think the “Big Bang” is against the Bible, why do you believe that? Unfortunately some churches and speakers have taught people to reject the Big Bang due to their preconceptions about the age of the Earth, but the Big Bang is about the origin, not the age. And the age of the Universe discussion is another interesting topic, and will be covered in its own blog and video. For now, consider the following statement by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (Summit II, 1982) on the relationship of science and Scripture:

“It is sometimes argued that our exegesis should not be influenced by scientific observations. We believe this view is mistaken. While the Bible clearly gives more specific information about our relationship to God than one can possibly deduce from natural revelation, it does not necessarily follow that our understanding of the physical world, its origin, etc., will also be more clearly deduced from God’s revelation in His word than His revelation in His world. Since both are revelations from God, and therefore, give a unified story, it seems quite permissible to consider all of the evidence (scientific as well as biblical) to be significant to the degree that each revelation can be clearly interpreted.”

In the end, God’s revelation in his Word and nature will mutually support each other, and we already see exactly such support with the discoveries surrounding the beginning and cause of the universe.

The original big bang model has had some aspects adjusted and became more robust as a model, which is what solid models do, and the current big bang model is called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model (ΛCDM).

What option do you believe? And what reasons support your belief?

What if I tell you just a foot into the concrete right below where you are in the room, there is a hammer buried in the concrete, and sadly (unless you don’t like cats), 20 feet to the right, also buried in the floor are the remains of a cat. Further, if you tear away the drywall in the upper corner of this room, you will find the plank too short to reach the ceiling, and on the opposite wall, behind the drywall, there is a simple image of a praying mantis.

Now, your curiosity gets the better of you, so after everyone leaves for the night, you get a jackhammer and dig into the concrete where I told you the hammer was – you find a hammer. Additionally, you find the cat remains, short plank and mantis image. How do you think I knew this information? Only a few possible options, and you’d be a fool to think option one or two is correct.

Similarly, the Bible predicted multiple, clear, specific things we would find when our curiosity began digging into the Universe. How do you think the Bible knew this information?

Answer: The Christian model is proven true in the foundational area of origins (Where did it all come from). The worldview of the scientific community, and almost every belief system, including agnosticism and atheism, claimed time and space had no beginning, but were eternal, which has been exposed as false.

Additionally, the biblical model, thousands of years ago, clearly and specifically predicted a number of facts, which have been found to be precisely true with the most important discoveries in all modern science. This is powerful. If anyone fails to accept how significant this is, ask them to find any other source(s), in ALL of history, which has ever matched this same level of foreknowledge of scientific understandings, so specific, and thousands of years before their discovery.

Those close to the discoveries get it:

• Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies said: “…astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.… the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same.” (Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, 14.)
• Nobel Prize winners Penzias and Wilson add respectively: “The best data we have (concerning the Big Bang) are exactly what I would have predicted had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Bible as a whole.” And, “Certainly there was something that set it all off … I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the Universe to match Genesis.”
• Mathematical physicist Frank Tipler: “From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.”

Answer: If you think the Bible is only a product of humanity: Name other books, or anything ever produced by humans, matching the number and level of clear, specific, accurate predictions, given so far in advance of scientific recognition. No person could have known what the Bible provided.

Nothing by man has ever come close. If you think something is comparable, like Nostradamus, or claim the Bible is vague, what’s your evidence? There are standard tests for the validity of a claim or model about reality, including: how well a model explains what we find, how much it explains, are the predictions accurate and difficult to match. The biblical model reaches a level of validation in these tests no other competing claim is able to reach. One cannot rationally walk past this point, unless other examples show the Bible is not entirely alone in this. Many more reasons can be given to support there is something well beyond humanity’s ability in the Bible, but those will be covered in later sections.