Did the universe create itself? Or did God create it and design it for mankind? The universe certainly looks well designed for our existence; for one thing, the laws of physics are finely tuned for gravity. Even atheists admit it looks designed.

Spike Psarris was one such atheist. He entered the U.S. military space program as a committed evolutionist, but came out a Christian and a creationist. Spike hosted the session on the Distant Starlight Dilemma at this year’s Creation Superconference and discussed the dilemmas faced by both secular and creationist cosmologies.

As I interact with evolutionists, they understandably believe the universe is billions of years old because light travels 186,000 miles per second, and that means it would take billions of years for light to reach Earth from the furthest regions of the universe. Therefore, they reason, the universe can’t be as young as creationists claim. But this line of reasoning is based on assumptions as biases, many of which are unreasonable. One such assumption is that the Big Bang is a valid cosmological model.

The Big Bang cosmology is certainly the reigning cosmological model, but it also has many critics. And that’s because it’s filled with holes that can’t be reconciled with observational evidence. Yet it endures because there isn’t a better model to replace it.

The redshift is considered strong evidence for the big bang because we observe distant starlight shifted to the red end of the spectrum, and that evidence is interpreted to mean that the universe is expanding in all directions. Further, if this expansion is played backwards, then everything in the universe must have come from the same point- hence the Big Bang.

The Big Bang, therefore, is considered the originator of everything- matter, space and time. But if this event created matter, space and time, then what was before the Big Bang? Obviously, nothing. Then, we must ask, can anything come from nothing? Of course not. From nothing comes nothing. And if there’s nothing to cause something to happen, then the Big Bang is in big trouble.

But that’s just the beginning. If we consider a galaxy on either side of us is 10 billion light years away, there’s not enough time for light to travel from one end of the universe to the other, and that means opposite sides of the universe have never been in contact with each other, so they shouldn’t be in equilibrium. Different areas of the universe should be at different temperatures, but we find them to be the same… this is known as the horizon problem.

Evolutionists try to account for this problem by proposing hypothetical entities, such as the inflaton particle, which is outside the realm of physics and supposedly drove the inflation of the universe. But without this magic particle, the Big Bang would have been discredited long ago.

In reality, there are other cosmologies consistent with the redshift that can accommodate the evidence, including creationist models. The model Spike favors is a time dilation model, and he gives credit to physicist Russell Humphreys.

Accordingly, evolutionary scientists claim the universe has no center of mass. Why? Because redshifts can be seen in every direction. Nonetheless, it appears that we’re at the center of an expanding universe, and the simplest explanation would suggest that we are indeed at the center.

Evolutionists like Edwin Hubble find this explanation “intolerable” because it would mean we’re in a favored location in the universe, and that would imply something he doesn’t want to admit- that God exists: “Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe… The hypothesis cannot be disproved but is unwelcome… But the unwelcome supposition of a favored location must be avoided at all costs. Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable”. As Spike pointed out, this is purely an emotional response lacking any form of logic. There’s no good reason to react this way unless one is invested in denying God.

I’d suggest that being in the center of the universe is welcome because, while it doesn’t ‘prove’ God’s existence in any scientific sense, it certainly provides overwhelming evidence.

Perhaps there is a center to the universe, and we’re at it. In such a scenario we could experience time dilation as gravity affects time. The deeper we are in a gravitational field, you see, the slower time runs (we know this because GPS units have to be calibrated to compensate for this phenomena). Thus, inside of a black hole, time stops, but outside the black hole, time would remain normal. Eventually the black hole would go away, and no time would have passed for an Earth-based observer leaving the black hole. Thus, distant starlight is not a problem for a young earth and universe.

This is just one of a number of creation cosmologies, and while it’s not my favorite, it works without fudging the physics.

Evolutionists, of course, won’t be convinced to abandon naturalistic explanations based on any such evidence; they have faith that some day someone will come up with the perfect naturalistic solution.In the meantime, they hope to maintain the false narrative that their cosmology is a fact without any problems or unsolved mysteries.

But for those who do believe God exists, and for those who see his design, the Earth is a very special place. It’s cool that scientists are able to investigate God’s creation and try to understand how it works.