The Expanding Universe and the Nature of God

By Chuck Livermore

When Albert Einstein first published his General Theory of Relativity in 1917, his equations showed that the universe should be expanding. However, Einstein believed in an eternal, unchanging universe. If it were eternal, it could not have begun to exist at any point in time. To Einstein, if God existed, he must be a part of the universe. If the universe had always been here, it wouldn’t require a creator. Yet, if the universe was expanding, one could theoretically “rewind” the expansion to a single point of origin—the moment the universe began. To preserve his belief in a static cosmos, Einstein introduced a “cosmological constant” into his equations to counteract gravity and keep the universe balanced.

Ten years later, a Belgian priest and trained astrophysicist named Georges Lemaître published a paper in a Brussels scientific journal. His calculations suggested that the entire universe had expanded from a single point into the vast cosmos we observe today through our telescopes.

When Einstein attended a conference in Brussels, the young priest eagerly showed him his calculations. Einstein patiently listened, examined Lemaître’s explanation, and then dismissed it, saying, “Your calculations are correct, but your physics is abominable!” He simply could not accept the idea that the universe had a beginning. Anything that begins to exist must have a cause. Einstein couldn’t accept that God caused or created the universe. In order for that to be true, God would have to be greater than the universe itself.

At Lemaître’s urging, Einstein later visited the Mount Wilson Observatory with astronomer Edwin Hubble of Caltech. Hubble showed him that distant galaxies were shifting toward the red end of the light spectrum, indicating that they were moving rapidly away from Earth. This phenomenon—known as the redshift—is caused by the Doppler effect. Just as the sound of a train whistle drops in pitch as it passes, light waves stretch toward red as they move away from an observer and compress toward blue as they approach.

Faced with this evidence, Einstein realized his error. At a press conference, he reportedly said in his thick German accent, “I now see zhat ze universe ist expanding. It hat a beginning.” He removed the cosmological constant from his equations and later called it “the biggest blunder of my career.” Today, scientists almost universally agree that the universe began with an event called the Big Bang. As Christian apologist Frank Turek quips, “I believe in the Big Bang—I just know who banged it.”

Einstein disliked the idea of a universe with a beginning because he understood its implications: it suggested a creation event, like the one described in the Bible. If the universe began at some point, there must have been something—or someone—that caused it to begin. Scientists tell us that all matter, energy, and even time itself came into existence at that same moment.

When Einstein understood that the universe had a beginning, he knew its cause must be something extraordinary. Einstein’s concept of God must have grown with that insight. The cause of all matter

must have been immaterial, since matter cannot create itself. The amount of matter in the universe is fixed; as the universe expands, no new matter is created—it is only rearranged or transformed into energy. When a new star is formed, it coalesces from existing matter; it does not create new matter. Therefore, the original cause of all matter must have been immaterial—or, as we might say, spiritual. The writer of Hebrews expressed it this way:

“By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.” — Hebrews 11:3, NLT

To create all energy, the cause must have been infinitely powerful. Just as matter is neither created nor destroyed, energy cannot be destroyed—it is only transformed. Burn a log, and its matter becomes ash while its energy heats the room. The heat from a cup of coffee left on a table is not annihilated; it simply disperses into the air. This process is described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which deals with entropy—the tendency of all systems to move from order to disorder. Metal rusts, paint fades, and food spoils. A car left in a field will eventually decay: the tires deflate, the battery dies, and the body rusts. Because energy naturally runs down, whatever caused all the energy in the universe to burst into existence must have been supremely powerful.

And to create time, the cause must have been outside of time—eternal. Time is simply the measure of motion and change. If everything stopped moving, time would cease, or at least our perception of it would. A stopped clock no longer measures time; before mechanical clocks, people measured time by the movement of the sun, moon, and stars.

Interestingly, the qualities required to bring the universe into being—immateriality, omnipotence, and eternality—are the very qualities the Bible ascribes to God. Jesus told the woman at the well,

“For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” — John 4:24, NLT

Some religious thinkers—such as Buddhists, Hindus, and even progressive “Christian” leaders like Richard Rohr and John Shelby Spong—believe that God is the universe or a part of it. But that cannot be true if God created the universe. A creator must exist outside of what he creates. God cannot have created Himself.

Likewise, God must be all-powerful to have created all the energy and matter in existence. Consider this: astronomers estimate that there are roughly 200 sextillion stars—200 billion trillion!—in the universe. Yet God knows each one by name:

“Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.” — Isaiah 40:26, NLT

Our sun is an average-sized star, yet some red supergiants and hypergiants are 1,000 to 2,000 times larger. You could fit a billion suns inside some of them! Whatever—or whoever—created such

power and complexity must be greater than all of it combined. That is who God is: limitless in power, beyond imagination, and sovereign over all creation.

Einstein and his contemporaries believed the universe was eternal. But it is not. Only God is eternal—“the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” He can create time because He exists outside of it.

The more we learn about the universe, the more we grasp the nature of its Creator. God is the “Prime Mover.” Nothing could create Him, for nothing greater exists. Yet He is great enough to have created everything. The Creator must be immaterial, all-powerful, and eternal—and that is exactly who our God is.

For more ways science points to God, see my book, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Evidence for the God of the Bible They Don’t Want You to Know, available at amazon.com.