Don’t Panic! The Convergence of Big Bang Cosmology with Theology

Introduction

Bringing up the Big Bang in certain Christian circles is a fraught proposition. Depending on the audience, the response might be hearty agreement, hasty disagreement, or panicky joking (“God said it, and BANG, it happened!”). This paper attempts to address all three groups by showing that Big Bang cosmology is not a threat to the Christian faith. Instead, Big Bang cosmology allows for a convergence of theological, philosophical, and scientific truth in discussing the origins of the universe and its ultimate fate. Rather than fearing the steady march of science in uncovering the secrets of the universe, Christians should embrace and engage in dialogue as science will always be inadequate in addressing philosophical and theological questions. Indeed, some of the greatest thinkers in Christian history proposed theological and philosophical solutions to the origin of the universe long before the modern scientific method and current theories came to be accepted as authoritative.

This paper aims not to present a deep dive into the interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis or to rehash scientific proofs for intelligent design, but rather to illustrate that Christians need not fear the pursuit of scientific truth. This paper will show that with Big Bang cosmology, there is an overlap between…