God's Big Bang

Today was Wellshire's first annual Faith & Science Sunday. We read from Genesis 1 (the Creation story) and Job (most of Chapter 38 and 40:1-2).

Listen to it here.

God's Big Bang

I’d like to tell you the simple story of how the universe started… To begin with, 13.7 billion years ago, the building blocks of everything that ever existed were packed into a space smaller than one hundred-billion-trillion-trillionth of a meter across. The universe entered the Planck Era, a time from that beginning up to one ten-million-trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second later. Gravity came into being, and by the end of the first trillionth of a second, the strong and weak forces and nuclear force, along with a seething ocean of quarks, leptons, antimatter and bosons. The entire universe got as big as our little solar system.

And after that first whole millionth of a second since that beginning, quarks turned into hadrons, and then everything turned into photons, and light was all that existed. And now the first whole second of the universe was over. 90% of everything in the universe turned into Hydrogen and the other 10% was Helium. And by now two whole minutes had passed. Then nothing much happened for 380,000 years before all the electrons everywhere combined with free nuclei and turned into every other substance we know about, from stars and rocks and rainbows to potato chips and pianos and politicians and porcupines. Did you understand any of that? Me either.

Those words I just read are excerpts from a wonderful 6 page article written by Neil deGrasse Tyson who won the 2005 Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics. Tyson is one of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world, with a gift for explaining the most difficult scientific principles in the history of time to school children on PBS shows and planetarium visits. Those words are his watered down version of how scientists think the universe came into existence.

Holly was going to read that version for the children’s sermon, but I talked her into the more kid-friendly version she used with flashcards. I imagine their reaction would not have been terribly different from the reaction God could have expected from a farmer or goat herder three thousand years ago, even if he’d watered it down as much as Tyson did. As a Christian, I am deeply thankful that the God I believe in was far more poetic than Dr. Tyson and far wiser when he breathed the words of our creation into the ear of the Biblical writer. I say this not to dissuade you from clinging tightly to an interpretation that God created the world in precisely six 24-hour days as we know them, but to offer you the concept that a loving and compassionate creative almighty God might have the same approach most loving parents do in explaining the difficult and often impossible to understand concepts of the world in an accessible and simple and poetic way.

The translation we read said “to begin with…” rather than the familiar, “in the beginning…” The Hebrew doesn’t actually use the word “the” here and so the less familiar translation leaves room for some of the mystery that surrounds creation, the same mystery that still plagues scientists. What existed before?

We believe in a God who laid the foundations of the cosmos, as he tells Job. And what greater feat of engineering is there than to determine the four forces of physics in under a trillionth of a second? We believe in a God who created absolutely everything, forming the universe from chaos. These beliefs are not contradicted by science, but rather science, also authored by God, lends us the tools for understanding the vastness of God’s majesty. Proverbs says wisdom will protect us, that God gives wisdom and that we are commanded to seek wisdom and knowledge. So God provides us with that which helps us to gain wisdom.

Too often, however, we make science and faith out to be so different from one another, even enemies. Science and faith share too much in common to believe they are so fundamentally different. They have their own language. They share the same potential to unify and divide, to heal and to harm. No other forces on earth have as much power to do both. At its best, faith can provide hope, healing and community, even peace. When twisted and perverted, faith can breed hate or violence, even war. At its best, science can bring people together and heal wounds and disease. And unchecked by morals and people of conscience, it can maim, harm and destroy beyond measure.

And yet, time and time again, science and faith have worked hand in hand, and helped one another, or even taught one another great lessons. The Catholic Church is more often credited with standing in the way of science, most notably astronomy. It was only recently, in 1992 that the Catholic Church officially acknowledged that Copernicus, and later Galileo, was right in claiming that the earth was not the center of the universe. But it is Pope Gregory XIII to whom we owe credit for our modern and highly accurate calendar, created by astronomers. The Church wanted Easter to remain fixed in the calendar, not slowly shifting later and later. Pope Gregory established the Vatican Observatory, staffing it with Jesuit priests who observed the night sky to determine a more accurate calendar. Thanks to him, Dr. Pholenz can now plan for Easter Sunday music well ahead of time each year, without worrying the Super Bowl will interfere.

Science has provided the discoveries and methods needed to save lives through medicine that is one of the greatest missions of the Church. The hospitals and clinics of every nation that people of faith build and operate rely on the science of medicine to carry out that mission. And science relies on people of faith who care about the sick and hurt to carry those means to the people in need. If ever there was an example of the Gospel lived out, it is caring for the sick, the partnership of science and faith.

Despite examples of God’s creation working together, we plead ignorance and continue to pit them against one another. We turn from our own disputes just long enough to weigh in on the larger ones. Believers pause from debates on economic and legal policies that affect the poor and arguments over ordination of homosexuals to disagree with scientists about the proof that God exists. Scientists set aside arguments over whether intelligent life can exist elsewhere in the universe or if we already found life on Mars to weigh in on the archaeological evidence of the life of Jesus or proof the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. And we pretend that either of us can answer questions for the other. We pretend to be experts. Time and time again, scientists pretend they are evolved and believers prove none of us truly are yet.

Many Christians try claiming the Bible as a science text book, and fail to claim it as the inspired Word of God, gifted to us by a creative and loving redeemer who yearns most for us to be in right relationship with God and all of God’s creation. We lose something important when we forget that and I think we disappoint the one who created both science and faith. God is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. An understanding of God as creator does not discount a big bang or expanding universe as the method and mechanics of that creator. An understanding of God as sustainer does not discount evolution and extinction as being the tools of that sustainer. By arguing that God created and then never allowed for, planned for or guided changes in that creation, we theologically argue ourselves out of a sustainer entirely.

To limit the tools of God is to limit the creator and sustainer’s power. And for a people naturally inclined to limit God’s power as redeemer to our favorite in-crowd, we should think twice before we force God into a tiny creator/sustainer shoe box.

I stand here this morning, not before a panel of leading scientists (my apologies to any actual leading scientists here this morning), but before a community of believers, a people of faith. And as people of faith, to what calling are we charged? We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, heal the broken and sick and visit the lonely no matter where they are and to care for all of God’s created world. In a world this full of hungry, naked, homeless, broken, sick and lonely people, a world we’ve done so much to neglect and to harm, we need all the help we can get to fulfill this command to love one another and this world as Christ did. So much that science has to offer can help us do just that.

Medicine, psychology, technology and new methods and ideas can save people, improve quality of life and protect all God’s people and God’s creatures great and small. And don’t imagine for a moment that embracing the ideas and encouraging the people who participate in their discovery will fail to give purpose to the scientists who labor in their passions, nor show them the love of Christ. We are called to benefit from science and to benefit science. We have been given a great gift for understanding the world around us and to work toward the good of all. We are called to be thankful for that and to use that gift responsibly. Only when we are grounded in our beliefs and eager to learn can faith and science both reach their full potential. I encourage each of you to embrace faith and science, and to study both and to challenge both. Read articles, watch shows, ask questions, engage in debates, sure, but be a living example of someone who can live in both worlds: faith and science. Encourage your children, your friends and your peers to open their minds and open their hearts and remember that faith and science are not enemies, but both gifts from a God who loves us, a God who is creator, sustainer, and redeemer, who takes delight in his creation. Shouldn’t we take delight in it too?