What Came Before the Big Bang?

Popular agnostic/atheist YouTuber Alex O’Connor recently interviewed Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper, who discussed their recently published book, Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins. Afshordi is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, while Halper is a science communicator, mostly on YouTube. The title of this podcast is “What Came Before the Big Bang?—The Latest Evidence.” (Note, all three men approached this topic from a secular perspective, interpreting the evidence without reference to God’s Word.)

Before the big bang? When I was at university, I taught my astronomy students about the big bang model. I usually raised this question, and I pointed out that the question makes no sense, sort of like asking what is north of the North Pole. You see, within the big bang model, the big bang is the beginning of time, so there can’t be a “before the big bang.” Well, the situation now is a bit nuanced, which is a polite way of saying that the situation is murky. Now cosmologists regularly talk about what preceded the big bang, with the big bang just being the latest phase that the universe has passed into. You see, the big bang is not a single model, but rather it is a basic model of which there are many variants. And those variants seem to continually spawn. Therefore, it is a good idea for someone to periodically sort through these changes and clarify misconceptions, which is what Afshordi and Halper have done in their lay-friendly book.

Clarifying Current Big Bang Thinking

The big bang model is often confused with a singularity. A singularity is something that is mathematically undefined. Things that are mathematically undefined cause problems. The best example of a singularity is division by zero. See the example in the appendix for how introducing a singularity can cause problems. The singularity associated with the big bang is the breakdown of our physical theories when pushed to the earliest times in the big bang model. At some point in the past, the mathematics underlying the big bang model results in a singularity, which makes it impossible to probe any earlier. That essentially puts up a barrier—we cannot go any further back into time with our current theories. I remember when the big bang was equated with a singularity, but as Afshordi pointed out in the interview, the thinking now is that the big bang is the sudden appearance of the universe, but the singularity preceded the big bang. So there must be some time prior to the big bang, but we can’t probe that with current theories. Remember all those quotes saying that the big bang was the beginning of everything? Well, according to Afshordi, the big bang is not the beginning of everything because there was a singularity that caused the big bang.

Well, according to Afshordi, the big bang is not the beginning of everything because there was a singularity that caused the big bang.

Another problem that Afshordi pointed out is that close to the big bang, general relativity and quantum mechanics become very strong, but we don’t have a unifying theory of these twin pillars of modern physics. Physicists believe that all fundamental forces of nature can be described by a single, all-encompassing theory. Unification of some of the fundamental forces has already occurred, but the unification of general relativity with all the other fundamental forces may be far off into the future. Only if this “theory of everything” is developed can cosmologists hope to resolve what happened in the early big bang universe when general relativity and quantum mechanics were comparable in scale and amount.

Cosmic inflation was concocted four decades ago to solve two thorny problems with the big bang model (the horizon and flatness problems). Inflation is almost universally accepted, even though there is no evidence that inflation occurred—and no known mechanism to start or stop the process. It was refreshing to hear Afshordi express skepticism about inflation. He said that on some days he likes inflation, while on other days he does not. He did state that if inflation were real, then inflation predates the universe. That is, inflation did not arise once the universe came about, but rather, inflation may have caused the universe to arise. Afshordi opined that inflation may be past eternal. That is, inflation may have always existed. (However, even many secular cosmologists acknowledge that “past-eternal” inflation faces significant problems and is not supported by the evidence.) From the big bang’s inception, and for years after its widespread existence, the mantra had been that the universe was the true beginning in time. That contrasts with the steady-state model of cosmology that was widely believed before the big bang became established in the 1960s. The steady-state model posits that the universe has always existed and always will exist. But for at least a couple of decades, I have noticed that among those who accept the big bang model, there is a return to thinking something is eternal. This something may not be the universe, but cosmologists increasingly think that something physical preceded the universe, and that something may even be eternal. The Bible says that something eternal preceded the universe, though that something is more properly expressed as someone.

Genesis

Rather early in the interview, the question of Genesis came up. Georges Lemaître, the man who first formulated what would become the big bang model (the “primeval atom” idea), was a theoretical physicist and a Roman Catholic priest. Pope Pius XII obviously was proud of that. In 1951, Pope Pius XII gave an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which he suggested that Lemaître’s model was compatible with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching about creation. This concerned Lemaître, and an audience with the pope was arranged. Lemaître emphasized that science and faith ought to be kept separate, and hence the big bang ought not be viewed as proof of God’s existence. Apparently, Pope Pius heeded Lemaître’s advice, for when the pope addressed the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Rome the next year, he noted scientific advancement, but he did not tie it directly to creation.

Halper noted that Genesis begins with sky and earth, so it isn’t talking about the origin of the universe, but of the earth, arguing that this parallels the Babylonian creation myth. (Of course, from a straightforward reading of Genesis 1, we understand it to mean the creation of the entire physical universe, not merely our planet.) This fits well with the notion that the Pentateuch was written at the time of the Babylonian captivity or shortly thereafter. This liberal view of Scripture insists that the first eleven chapters of Genesis copied legends and myths picked up in Babylon. O’Connor agreed that Genesis talks about the beginning of the earth, not the universe, and he stated that he did a recent show on this. This was in reaction to many people saying that Genesis talks about the creation of the universe and the big bang proves it. This is an interesting development, for there are many professing Christians who emphasize that much of the beginning of Genesis is not literal history. Many of these people probably accept the notion of the late writing of the Pentateuch and that it contains myths and legends picked up in Babylon. But some of these same people also argue that the big bang is evidence of the Genesis creation. But they can’t have it both ways—if the first eleven chapters of Genesis are just stories picked up in Babylon, then how could it possibly reflect the big bang? (Note the inconsistency!)

Conclusion

It is impossible for a direct reading of Genesis 1 to end up with a big bang origin for the universe.

Of course, we at Answers in Genesis understand that all the Bible, including Genesis, is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), meaning that it is without error and authoritative in every area. There is no indication that the creation account of Genesis 1 is anything other than history. It is impossible for a direct reading of Genesis 1 to end up with a big bang origin for the universe. God’s Word plainly teaches that the heavens, earth, and everything they contain were created in six literal days, about six thousand years ago. That is why Answers in Genesis has always opposed interpreting the Bible in a way that reads the big bang model into it—because doing so replaces God’s clear eyewitness account with man’s ever-changing opinions.

Appendix

Let x = 1. We can square either side of this equation to get

x² = 1.

Since x = 1 and x² = 1, then

x² = x.

Subtracting one from either side, we get

x² − 1 = x − 1.

Notice that the left side of the equation is the difference of two squares, so we can factor it:

(x − 1)(x + 1) = (x − 1).

There is a common term on either side, so we can cancel the common terms:

(x + 1) = 1.

But x = 1, so

1 + 1 = 1,

or

2 = 1.

Obviously, there is a problem here. If you go back through each step substituting 1 for x, you will find that everything was fine until I cavalierly canceled the common term on either side. We do this so often in algebra that we forget that this process involves dividing either side by the same term. The problem is that since x = 1, this step involved dividing by zero. But division by zero is undefined, which fits the definition of a singularity. Proving that 2 = 1 is an example of the nasty sort of things that happen when singularities are involved.