The Big Bang Theory: Evidence for A Creator

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered… where did the Universe come from? For thousands of years, humans have asked the same question, and every culture has its own origin story.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

In the Middle Ages, Christian thinkers and Islamic philosophers proposed an answer, known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It goes like this:

1. 1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
   2. The Universe began to exist.
   3. Therefore, the Universe must have a cause for its existence (i.e. God).

This argument does not rely on religious texts. Instead, it is grounded in logic and everyday experience. We know that things do not just appear from nothing. So if the Universe began, it must have had a cause — something outside itself that brought it into being.

Objection: The Idea of an Eternal Universe

However, could it be that the Universe never had a beginning?

One of the most influential critics was Philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Kant casted doubt on the second premise of the Kalam argument by proposing that the Universe might be eternal and self-existent. If the Universe had no beginning, then it did not need a cause—and the argument for a Creator would collapse.¹

Kant’s skepticism found indirect support from the dominant science of the time: Newtonian Physics. Isaac Newton (1643–1727) had formulated the law of universal gravitation. Mathematically, this implies that all stars in the Universe should attract one another—and eventually collapse into a single point at the centre of gravity.

But clearly, this is not what we observe.

To resolve the paradox, Newton proposed that the Universe must be infinite in size and contain infinitely many stars. In such a model, the gravitational forces pulling stars in every direction would cancel out. The Universe would remain static, without collapsing.

Though Newton himself was a Christian, others built upon this model to argue for an eternal, uncaused Universe. If space could be infinite in all directions, they reasoned, perhaps time could be too— stretching endlessly into the past with no beginning.

As a result of this view, the second premise of the Kalam Argument — that the Universe began to exist — no longer held, and the logical conclusion that there must be a Creator became invalid.

Evidence for a Beginning

However, this situation would not last. In the early 20th century, a series of astronomical discoveries would radically shift the conversation, putting the question of the Universe’s origin back in the spotlight.

In 1912, astronomer Vesto Slipher began measuring light from distant galaxies. He found that the spectral lines in the light were redshifted, which meant that the light was moving away from us.

Building on Slipher’s work, astronomer Edwin Hubble made a groundbreaking discovery in 1929². He found that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to be receding. This relationship—now known as Hubble’s Law—suggests that the Universe is undergoing spherical expansion, like a balloon being inflated.

By extrapolating backward in time, it meant that galaxies would have been closer and closer together in the past, until they all converged at a single point. This point marks the beginning of the Universe itself: a spacetime singularity.

This concept formed the basis of what we now know as the Big Bang Theory. It was originally proposed in 1931 by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and Catholic priest.³ When it was first proposed, the scientific consensus still favoured an eternal, static Universe. Many physicists, including Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, strongly opposed it — largely because of the theological implications.⁴

A finite spacetime would bring back the Kalam Argument and force scientist to confront an uncomfortable question: if the Universe had a beginning, and everything that begins to exist must have a cause, then what, or who, caused the Universe to come into existence?

Alternatives to the Big Bang Theory

To explain away the need for a beginning, scientists proposed alternative models to the Big Bang Theory. However, these theories encountered problems that undermined their credibility and caused them to fall out of favour:

• • The Steady State Theory suggests that the Universe is always expanding, with no beginning nor end, but new matter is continually created to form new galaxies, so the average density is maintained.

    Problem
    – Unable to account for the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

  • The Oscillating Universe Theory proposes that the Universe undergoes eternal cycles of expansion and contraction, alternating between a Big Bang and a Big Crunch, infinitely.
    Problem
    – The second law of thermodynamics dictates that entropy, or disorder, within a closed system always increases over time. Each cycle of expansion and contraction would leave the universe with more entropy than the previous one, eventually reaching a point of maximum entropy (“heat death”), where it is impossible for a new cycle to begin. This also means that an infinite number of past cycles is impossible.

    – Current empirical data shows that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating, due to dark energy. There is no known mechanism for how a future collapse is possible, and how the collapsing Universe will bounce back into expansion.

Theological Implications of The Big Bang Theory

On the other hand, the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) in 1964 by astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson provided conclusive empirical evidence for the Big Bang Theory⁵. As predicted by the theory, the Universe began in such a hot and dense state that there is a faint afterglow of radiation that fills the entire observable Universe even to this day.

By the 1970s, most scientists had accepted the Big Bang Theory as the best explanation for the observations of the Universe. But along with it came theological implications.

A prominent astronomer of the 20th Century, Allan Sandage, converted from Agnosticism to Christianity as a result of the Big Bang. He explained that the Big Bang was a supernatural event that could not be explained within the realm of physics as we know it. Science had taken us to the first event, but it could not take us back to the first cause. The sudden emergence of matter, space, time, and energy pointed to the need of some kind of transcendence.⁶ He also believed the Big Bang aligned with the biblical idea that the Universe came into being when God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3).⁷

But… Who Created God?

To avoid confronting the theological implication, a common objection goes like this: “If the Universe needs a cause, then who caused God?” Philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that one should not feel compelled to explain the cause of the Universe, since Christians also cannot explain the cause of God.⁸

At first glance, this may seem like a strong counterargument. However, it actually misunderstands the logic of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The Kalam Argument does not claim that everything must have a cause. Rather, it states that everything that begins to exist must have a cause. This distinction is crucial.

The Christian God is eternal—without beginning or end. As such, God does not require a cause. On the other hand, the Universe, as the Big Bang theory confirms, had a beginning. Therefore, it must have been caused by something outside of itself.

What Kind of Cause?

So what kind of cause could bring the Universe into existence?

It must be:

• • Timeless — because time began at the Big Bang.

• • Spaceless — because space began at the Big Bang.

• • Immaterial — not made of matter.

• • Omnipotent — to create all things from nothing.

This sounds remarkably like the God of the Bible.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
— Genesis 1:1

For centuries, skeptics dismissed this Biblical verse as pre-scientific myth. But today, science echoes the Bible’s opening line. The Big Bang does not explain God out of the picture. It points directly to Him.

Have you encountered the Creator behind the cosmos?