The Big Bang and science is back in the news

The Big Bang is back in the news. In 1979, physicist Alan Guth theorized that if the Big Bang actually occurred, some residue of the big explosion should still be in evidence today. A team of scientists, led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have found the smoking gun. They have found the scientific evidence Guth hypothesized should exist. This most recent discovery is being called a landmark. The Big Bang will now be treated as fact in the scientific world.

Origins have been a huge topic of discussion among religious people and among Christians in particular. The Big Bang as fact pushes our thinking into time and space that is measured in billions of light years.

Time and space are moved far beyond the usual thinking of a science layperson like me.

It is devastating to religious people who have clung to theories and beliefs that call for a relatively young earth and universe. While some can argue that God caused the Big Bang, the enormous time and expanse of space that separate the Big Bang and modern times is so enormous that discussion is futile.

The newest discussions reminded me of the remark made by philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard: “Beware of people who claim to have found the beginning. They have only gotten tired.”

The search for a beginning by Christians has been a boondoggle from the beginning. Jesus showed no interest in the subject and there is no interest in the subject that is to be found in the Israelite tradition. The roots of the faith of Abraham were Mesopotamian and Babylonian. In the mythologies of the area “between two rivers” (the Tigris and the Euphrates) the interest was in the activities of the gods bringing order to the chaos that was found. Creativity was found in their gods’ shaping new things out of old stuff. There is not a hint of a god who created new things ex nihilo (out of nothing).

Creation ex nihilo is a Greek corruption of the entire Israelite-Christian religious tradition. It does not appear among Christian thinkers until well into the second century C.E.

Discussions among Christian thinkers inevitably return to the first chapter of the book of Genesis. There is nothing in Genesis 1 that suggests creation ex nihilo. Rather, it is a story of the Israelite God confronting that which was without form and void. In other words, God found chaos that was useless. This story was put into the form we read in Genesis in the sixth century B.C.E. by Israelite captives living in a slave encampment. They had been exiled from Jerusalem after the Babylonians had conquered and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 587 B.C.E. This Israelite story was a rebuttal of Babylonian creation mythology.

In Babylonian mythology, the subject of chaos was an obsession. The Babylonian answer to chaos was to do battle. Their weapon was order enforced by might.

Order was victorious over chaos, but only temporarily. Chaos always returned and the war between order and chaos was renewed. This is an interpretation of life that is still alive and well. Every war that has ever been fought has been fought in order to establish someone’s idea of what order should be. However, every successful war carries the seeds of the next confrontation. Babylonian mythology is cyclical and so also is modern warfare.

The Israelites had experimented with the ways of war. They had been a powerful conquering nation under the leadership of King David. However, the conquering nation had gone on to become the conquered, and life had again become chaotic. The Israelite people had been killed and scattered. Only a small remnant remained to ponder life as a slave people. A handful of Israelites rewrote Babylonian mythology. In their rewrite, the Israelite God reshaped chaos into new forms. The war scheme was abandoned. The creative tools of God carried the label of goodness. Everything God did for six days was called good. It was then that God could take a rest.

There is a profound message for Christians in the Genesis creation story. We participate in the creative work of God when we address the chaos of the world with acts of goodness. This is the heart of everything Jesus said and did. He called for the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth through love, justice and acts of kindness.

The Big Bang is now accepted as fact. It is a fact that confronts every person who ponders origins. We are all a part of a very long process that has no beginning, is evolving and is never ending. Creationism and creation ex nihilo are intellectually dead. The transformation of life through acts of goodness is still on the table waiting for our embrace.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

Opinions expressed on the Faith page are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, its staff or its parent company, Wick Communications Co. To submit a column or other news for the Faith page, send email to news@frontiersman.com, or call 352-2250.