Let There Be Light

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Gen. 1:3)

In the late sixties The Washington Post featured a one image cartoon entitled “The Big Bang Theory.” The cartoon depicted two scientists reaching the top of a mountain only to find a holy man at the peak with an open Bible on his lap. He greeted them with, “What took you so long?”

Astronomers have over time come to understand that our galaxy, The Milky Way, spans roughly 100,000 light years and our solar system is about twenty-five light years from its center. To put this into perspective, if the star closest to earth (excluding of course our sun) vanished today, the light from that star would continue to stream at the earth for the next five years. Only then would we realize that the star no longer existed. And if the star farthest away from earth in our galaxy vanished, we would continue to behold its light streaming at us for the next 75,000 years. This means that when we gaze up at the stars we are beholding light that is five to 13.9 BILLION years old. None of it is what we would consider ‘real time.’ And we have no way of confirming that anything we see streaming at us from outer space is still there!? In reality, the stars in the night sky that we find so fascinating are actually a bit of an illusion offering a false sense of stability.

The size of the universe is beyond human imagination, but NASA currently understands that there are over 100 billion stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in the universe. The universe is expanding faster than light speed. And yet it is all so vast that the lights forming ‘the big dipper’ have never appeared to change even though they are moving apart faster than light. There is so much space between stars that whole galaxies are observed to be passing through each other without any catastrophic consequences.

If we could leave our solar system and lose our time piece, we would never again know the date or time of day, because both are based upon the earth orbiting our sun. Time is an Earthbound limitation, and outside of our solar system there is no time. Interestingly, St. Peter declared over 2000 years ago in the Bible, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Peter was of course a fisherman before becoming an apostle, so it seems reasonable that Jesus, who was from above, explained that truth to him.

Science is limited by the very design of existence, and the more we discover through scientific observation the more real that limitation becomes. Unless humans ever find a way to travel faster than light speed, space is a barrier that prevents us from gaining any understanding of what was before it, and what is beyond it. Scientists can only speculate regarding the beginning and end of existence.

But there are clues in what we have been able to learn and observe. We believe that the universe is infinite, which means that it is ‘limitless or endless.’ If existence is infinite, then anything is infinitely possible, probable and in fact a reality – even God, unless of course one simply decides to ‘cancel’ that portion of the definition of ‘infinity.’ But according to the parameters of infinity, God does in fact exist. And interestingly Albert Einstein included God in his understanding of time and space.

The Bible is the only document over the past fifteen centuries that describes a beginning of the universe that is consistent with what science currently observes to be true. It reveals that God spoke the universe into existence saying, “let there be light.” (Genesis 1:3) And the stars all continue to streak outward according to God’s command. God describes himself as “I am” (Exodus 3:14) – the “Alpha and Omega” (Revelation 1:8).

This article has only addressed the three-dimensional world, but the Bible documents that existence is four dimensional – the fourth dimension being spiritual. Beings appear and disappear throughout the Bible. Jesus revealed that he was sent to Earth by His Father (God) on a mission. He explained that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24) Many that met Jesus choose to die rather than deny what they had witnessed. Science cannot easily dismiss the declaration that God said, “Let there be light.”