So You Say "The Big Bang Never Happened!" Part III

Dr. Psarris asserts that the Big Bang fails because, as an attempted scientific explanation, it violates the first law of thermodynamics (that matter is neither created nor destroyed).    This is one of the most obvious illustrations of the nature of his confusion.  The six points of observational data listed in the last posting do NOT serve to scientifically explain the beginning of the universe.  Indeed they cannot, for the reason that they are themselves part of the very object of study which demands an explanation.  Rather than providing an explanation, the data instead identifies a problem, or rather the challenge (the existence of the cosmos, complete with a history trail which leads all the way back to its absolute beginning), that is laid bare by the tools of scientific investigation.  So rather than offering an explanation, the Big Bang poses a problem which demands an explanation—an explanation, furthermore, which science can never, and therefore will never, even in principle provide. 

Psarris repeatedly asserts in his lecture that the Big Bang is materialistic (and atheistic) by its very nature.  That is both logically nonsense, and it is historically false.  The Big Bang indeed highlights the question for which only the transcendent God (one who stands completely outside of the natural order) can provide as a possible answer.  In short, the Big Bang absolutely demands the existence of the God of the Holy Bible God as the creative Agent who brought it all into being.  For this reason, it is significant that in truth (contrary to Psarris) the first opponents of the Big Bang were atheists, not Christians.  Albert Einstein, Sir Arthur Eddington, and Sir Fred Hoyle, as atheists, initially resisted the Big Bang precisely because its implications pointed to the notion of a transcendent creator.  It was only with resistance that the first two came to embrace the Big Bang because of the weight of evidence.  It is a controversial matter, as far as I can tell, whether Hoyle ever came to accept the Big Bang.  But what is certain about even him is that his long-standing resistance to it had been based precisely on its theological implications.     

In summary, Dr. Psarris’ repeated attempts to discredit the historicity of the Big Bang on grounds that it violates the laws of science fail.  Not only has he involved his audience, as we earlier noted, in a confusion of categories (description vs. explanation), he has also built his objection to the Big Bang on the “red herring” fallacy.  To state as he has that the Big Bang cannot scientifically explain the origin of the cosmos, accomplishes nothing whatsoever to undermine the status of the actual scientific data that is alleged to support that very beginning.  Raw data cannot be dismissed out of hand simply on the charge that it apparently explains nothing.  Psarris likewise has done nothing to invalidate the data (partially listed in the previous posting) that he philosophically brushes to the side.  The big Bang did indeed happened.  That it did, raises the kinds of questions only the Bible can provide (Genesis 1:1, Hebrews 11:3. Etc).