Our recent post dealing with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) launched in 1990 and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched in 2021 help clarify our beliefs about when our universe was created. Cosmologists have dated the beginning of the universe at about 13.7 billion years.
Theologians have discussed the time scale of the creation event for many years. Creationists are categorized as “Old Earth Creationists” (OEC) or “Young Earth Creationists” (YEC). Young Earth Creationists experienced a revival since the mid-20th century. Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb authored a popular book entitled “The Genesis Flood” in 1961. It was followed by other volumes, such as “Scientific Creationism” by Henry Morris in 1974. Morris and Whitcomb were staunch believers in a young universe, not a 13.7 billion year old universe. Their scientific interpretations were substantially different from mainstream scientists of the 21st century with respect to the age of the universe and Planet Earth.
It is our view that the telescopes mentioned in our opening paragraph reveal scientific proof that God’s initial creative act occurred 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the “Big Bang.” This event marked the beginning of time, space, matter, and energy. It was a true beginning of all things. We have used the following description of God: THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS. One of the four dimensions mentioned above—time—is mentioned several times in scripture: I Cor. 2:7, II Tim. 1:9, Titus 1:2, and Eph. 1:4. These passages contain phrases such as before time began, before the beginning of time, or before the ages began.
For Young Earth Creationists (YEC) the age of Planet Earth is only six to ten thousand years based on their interpretations of both science and Hebrew scripture. It is our belief that science discoveries concerning the enormous age of our universe are correct beyond any doubt. Exegesis of the Hebrew word “YOM” (day) permits various time scales.
God could have produced our universe in a brief instant. Instead, astrophysicists have discovered the extended timeline of many events which took place in our vast universe since time began to produce the unique life-plentiful planet we enjoy today. cThe JWST is able to look back in time even farther than the HST. We look back in time when we view distant objects through the JWST, HST, and other telescopes. We are able to visually perceive events from the past and calculate how long ago the events occurred in Earth years. For example, Andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy patch in the heavens. It is visible through a fine telescope as a beautiful spiral galaxy. It is roughly 2.5 million light years away and is composed of billions of stars. When we view Andromeda Galaxy we see an event that happened 2.5 million years ago. Therefore, we conclude that the universe existed 2.5 million years ago.
The Creator is not confined to human time frames. He creates, however, within human time frames. We may better understand verses such as II Peter 3:8b: “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This passage suggests that the Creator of All Things acts creatively over long time scales. Our post of 11/13/17 entitled “Our Miracle Immersed Planet” listed three types of miracles—transcendent, transformational, and sustaining. We copy our definition of transformational miracles here:
“…(Transformational miracles involve) God’s direct action to refashion a particular aspect of his created realm to produce something of much higher complexity and functionality. These miracles took place within the laws of physics and space-time dimensions of the universe.”
The HST and JWST telescopes are able to look back in time to dozens of past events where transformational miracles occurred.
