CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

 

How did the universe come into being?

How did the equilibrium, harmony, and order of this universe develop?

How is it that this Earth is such a fit and sheltering place for us to live in?

 

Such questions have attracted attention since the dawn of the human race.

 

Before finding the correct answers to these key questions, we shall start by asking how big the universe is.

The planet Earth is a part of the solar system. In this system there are nine major planets with fifty-four satellites, and an uncounted number of asteroids all spinning around a single star called "Sun", a middle-sized star compared with others in the universe. Earth is the third planet from the sun.

Let us first try to understand the size of this system. The diameter of the sun is 103 times that of the earth. To visualize this, the planet Earth has diameter of 12,200 kms. If we scale that down to the dimensions of a glass ball, the sun would be about the size of basketball.

 

But the interesting thing here is the distance between the two. Keeping to the same scale, the two balls should be 280 meters apart. Some of the objects representing the outer planets would have to be set several kilometers away.

Big though this might seem, the solar system is a quite miniscule in size compared with the Milky Way, the galaxy in which it is located. There are over 250 billion stars in the Milky Way-some similar to the sun, others bigger, others smaller. The star nearest to the sun is Alpha Centauri. If we want to add Alpha Centauri into our model system, it would have to be located 78,000 kilometers away.

That's too big for almost anyone to grasp, so let's reduce the scale. We'll assume the earth to be as big as a dust-particle. That would make the sun as big as a walnut about three meters from the earth. On this scale, Alpha Centauri would have to be located 640 kilometers from the sun.

Do not forget that our planet earth is at the scale of a dust particle

This point is the most interesting one; as we compare the distances and measures in the universe, Earth is so small. Having a circumference of 33.000 km, we think land on earth is endless, but here you see, it is just a single dust on the beach and even smaller than it. However, the number of planets and stars is more than the total number of dust-particles on all beaches on earth.

These quantities reveal us a significant fact. The world we live in is the part of a special design, which is all specially designed for vitality, for the humankind to live. It is obvious that if there is a design then there should be a designer. 

Similarly, The conclusion reached by scientists and philosophers searching for answers with their intellects and common sense is that the design and order of this universe are evidence of the existence of a supreme Creator ruling over the whole universe.

This is an indisputable truth that we may reach by using our intelligence. Allah declares this reality in His holy book, the Qur'an, which He inspired as a guide for humanity fourteen centuries ago. He states that He has created the universe when it was not, for a particular purpose, and with all its systems and balances specifically designed for human life.

This plain truth declared by the Qur'an is also confirmed by a number of the important founders of the modern science of astronomy. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton all recognised that the structure of universe, the design of the solar system, the laws of physics and their states of equilibrium were all created by Allah and they arrived at that conclusion as a result of their own research and observations.

 

However, The reality of the creation of which we speak has been ignored or denied since the earliest times by a particular philosophical point of view. It is called "materialism". This philosophy, which was originally formulated among the ancient Greeks, has also made an appearance from time to time in other cultures and has been advanced by individuals as well. It holds that matter alone exists and that it has done so for an infinity of time. From these tenets, it claims that the universe has also "always" existed and was not created.

 

In addition to their claim that the universe exists in an infinity of time, materialists also assert that there is no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that we see around us are merely the product of coincidence.

 

Georges Politzer, was an ardent champion of both Marxism and materialism. Putting his trust in the validity of the "infinite universe" model, Politzer opposed the idea of creation in his book Fundamental Principles of Phylosophy when he wrote:

The universe was not a created object, if it were, then it would have to be created instantaneously by God and brought into existence from nothing. To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science cannot accede. 3

Politzer supposed that science was on his side in his defense of the idea of an infinite universe. In fact, science was to prove that the universe indeed had a beginning. And just as Politzer himself declared, if there is creation then there must also be a creator.

 

Today even the heavy supporters of the materialism, accept the fact of BigBang. Even the well known scientific magazines carried it to their covers.

 

So now lets see the scientific evidences of BigBang one by one.

There are 3 main evidences: These are continuous expansion of the universe, presence of the Cosmic Radiation and the ratio of Hydrogen over Helium all throughout the universe.

 

First of all: How is it known that our universe is still expanding?

 

As you know, the 1920s were important years in the development of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexandra Friedman produced computations showing that the structure of the universe was not static and that even a tiny impulse might be sufficient to cause the whole structure to expand or contract according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to recognize what Friedman's work meant. Based on these computations, the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre declared that the universe had a beginning and that it was expanding as a result of something that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate of radiation could be used as a measure of the aftermath of that "something".

The theoretical musings of these two scientists did not attract much attention and probably would have been ignored except for new observational evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy. Observing a number of stars through his huge telescope, he discovered that their light was shifted towards the red end of the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was directly related to the distance of the stars from Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the universe model held until then.

According to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. (Just like the fading of a train's whistle as it moves away from the observer) Hubble's observation showed that according to this law, the heavenly bodies were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble made another important discovery; The stars weren't just racing away from Earth; they were racing away from each other as well. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly "expands".

Hubble had found observational evidence for something that George Lemaitre had "prophesized" a short while ago and one of the greatest minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded that the universe could not be static because of calculations based on his recently-discovered theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions of Friedman and Lemaitre). Shocked by his findings, Einstein added a "cosmological constant" to his equations in order to "make the answer come out right" because astronomers assured him that the universe was static and there was no other way to make his equations match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to admit that his cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his career.

Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding led to the emergence of another model that needed no fiddling around with to make the equations work right. If the universe was getting bigger as time advanced, going back in time meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went back far enough, everything would shrink and converge at a single point. The conclusion to be derived from this model was that at some time, all the matter in the universe was compacted in a single point-mass that had "zero volume" because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into being as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume. This explosion has come to be called the "the Big Bang" and its existence has repeatedly been confirmed by observational evidence.

There was another truth that the Big Bang pointed to. To say that something has zero volume is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The whole universe was created from this "nothing". And furthermore this universe had a beginning, contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that "the universe has existed for eternity".

 

 

cosmic background radiation The Triumph of the BigBang

In 1948, George Gamov carried George Lemaitre's calculations several steps further and came up with a new idea concerning the Big Bang. If the universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion, there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over from that explosion. This radiation should be detectable and, furthermore, it should be uniform throughout the universe.

Within two decades, observational proof of Gamov's conjecture was forthcoming. In 1965, two researchers by the name of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson chanced upon a form of radiation hitherto unnoticed. Called "cosmic background radiation", it was unlike anything coming from anywhere else in the universe for it was extraordinarily uniform. It was neither localized nor did it have a definite source; instead, it was distributed equally everywhere. It was soon realized that this radiation was the echo of the Big Bang, still reverberating since the first moments of that great explosion. Gamov had been spot-on for the frequency of the radiation was nearly the same value that scientists had predicted it would be. Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel prize for their discovery.

In 1989, George Smoot and his NASA team sent a satellite into space. Called the "Cosmic Background Emission Explorer" (COBE), it took only eight minutes for the sensitive instruments on board the satellite to detect and confirm the levels of radiation reported by Penzias and Wilson. These results conclusively demonstrated the existence of the hot, dense form remaining from the explosion out of which the universe came into being. Most scientists acknowledged that COBE had successfully captured the remnants of the Big Bang.

 

RATIO OF HYDROGEN AND HELIUM

More evidence for the Big Bang was forthcoming. One piece had to do with the relative amounts of hydrogen and helium in the universe. Observations indicated that the mix of these two elements in the universe was in accordance with theoretical calculations of what should have been remained after the Big Bang. That drove another stake into the heart of the steady state theory because if the universe had existed for eternity and never had a beginning, all of its hydrogen should have been burned into helium.

Confronted by such evidence, the Big Bang gained the near-complete approval of the scientific world. In an article in its October 1994 issue, Scientific American noted that the Big Bang model was the only one that could account for the constant expansion of the universe and for other observational results.

Defending the steady-state theory alongside Fred Hoyle for years, Dennis Sciama described the final position they had reached after all the evidence for the Big Bang theory was revealed:

There was at that time a somewhat acrimonious debate between some of the proponents of the steady state theory and observers who were testing it and, I think, hoping to disprove it. I played a very minor part at that time because I was a supporter of the steady state theory, not in the sense that I believed that it had to be true, but in that I found it so attractive I wanted it to be true. When hostile observational evidence became to come in, Fred Hoyle took a leading part in trying to counter this evidence, and I played a small part at the side, also making suggestions as to how the hostile evidence could be answered. But as that evidence piled up, it became more and more evident that the game was up, and that one had to abandon the steady state theory.5

 

 

Who Created the Universe From Nothing?

With this triumph of the Big Bang, the thesis of an "infinite universe", which forms the basis of materialist dogma, was tossed onto the scrap-heap of history. But for materialists it also raised a couple of inconvenient questions: What existed before the Big Bang? And what force could have caused the great explosion that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?

Materialists like Arthur Eddington recognized that the answers to these questions could point to the existence of a supreme creator and that they did not like. The atheist philosopher Anthony Flew commented on this point:

Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas contended could not be proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning. So long as the universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only without end but also beginning, it remains easy to urge that its brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most fundamental features, should be accepted as the explanatory ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still correct, it certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this position in the face of the Big Bang story. 6

Many scientists who do not force themselves to be atheists accept and favor the existence of a creator having an infinite power. For instance, the American astrophysicist Hugh Ross proposes a Creator of universe, Who is above all physical dimensions as:

By definition, time is that dimension in which cause-and-effect phenomena take place. No time, no cause and effect. If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. …It tells us that the Creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe.7

 

 

The truth that is defended by religious sources is the reality of creation from nothingness. This has been declared in the holy books that have served as guides for mankind for thousands of years. In all holy books such as the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Qur'an, it is declared that the universe and everything in it were created from nothingness by Allah.

In the only book revealed by Allah that has survived completely intact, the Qur'an, there are statements about the creation of the universe from nothing as well as how this came about that are parallel to 20th-century knowledge and yet were revealed fourteen centuries ago.

 

Another important aspect revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries before the modern discovery of the Big Bang and findings related to it is that when it was created, the universe occupied a very tiny volume:

Do those who are disbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not have faith? (Surat al-Anbiya': 30)

There is a very important choice of words in the original Arabic whose translation is given above. The word ratk translated as "sewn to" means "mixed in each, blended" in Arabic dictionaries. It is used to refer to two different substances that make up a whole. The phrase "we unstitched" is the verb fatk in Arabic and implies that something comes into being by tearing apart or destroying the structure of ratk. The sprouting of a seed from the soil is one of the actions to which this verb is applied.

Let us take a look at the verse again with this knowledge in mind. In the verse, sky and earth are at first subject to the status of ratk. They are separated (fatk) with one coming out of the other. Intriguingly, cosmologists speak of a "cosmic egg" that consisted of all the matter in the universe prior to the Big Bang. In other words, all the heavens and earth were included in this egg in a condition of ratk. This cosmic egg exploded violently causing its matter to fatk and in the process created the structure of the whole universe.

 

 

The Speed of the Explosion

People hearing of the Big Bang but not considering the subject at length do not think about what an extraordinary plan must lie behind this explosion. That's because the notion of an explosion doesn't suggest harmony, plan, or organization to most people. In fact there are a number of very puzzling aspects to the intricate order in the Big Bang.

One of these puzzles has to do with the acceleration caused by the explosion. When the explosion took place, matter certainly must have begun moving at an enormous speed in every direction. But there is another point that we need to pay attention to here. There must also have been a very big attractive force at the first moment of the explosion: an attractive force that was strong enough to gather the whole universe into one point.

Two different and opposing forces are at work here. The force of the explosion, driving matter outward and away, and the force of attraction, trying to resist the first and pull everything back together. The universe came into being because these two forces were in equilibrium. If the attractive force had been greater than the explosive, the universe would have collapsed. If the opposite had been true, matter would have been splattered in every direction in a way never to unite again.

Then how sensitive was this equilibrium? How much "slack" could there have been between the two forces?

The mathematical physicist Paul Davies, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, performed lengthy calculations of the conditions that must have existed at the moment of the Big Bang and came up with a result that can only be described as astonishing. According to Davies, if the rate of expansion had differed by more than 10-18 seconds (one quintillionth of a second), there would have been no universe. Davies describes his conclusion:

Careful measurements puts the rate of expansion very close to a critical value at which the universe will just escape its own gravity and expand forever. A little slower and the cosmos would collapse, a little faster and the cosmic material would have long ago completely dispersed. It is interesting to ask precisely how delicately the rate of expansion has been "fine tuned" to fall on this narrow dividing line between two catastrophes. If at time I S (by which the time pattern of expansion was already firmly established) the expansion rate had differed from its actual value by more than 10-18, it would have been sufficient to throw the delicate balance out. The explosive vigour of the universe is thus matched with almost unbelievable accuracy to its gravitating power. The big bang was not evidently, any old bang, but an explosion of exquisitely arranged magnitude.19

Bilim Teknik (Science Technique, a Turkish scientific periodical) quotes an article that appeared in Science in which the phenomenal equilibrium that obtained in the initial phase of universe is stated:

If the density of the universe was a little bit more, in that case, according to Einstein's relativity theory, the universe would not be expanding due to the attraction forces of atomic particles but contracting, ultimately diminishing to a spot. If the initial density had been a little bit less, then the universe would rapidly be expanding, but in this case, atomic particles would not be attracting each other and no stars and no galaxies would ever have formed. Consequently, man would never come into existence! According to the calculations, the difference between the initial real density of the universe and its critical density, which is unlikely to occur, is less than one percent's one quadrillion. This is similar to place a pencil in a position so that it can stand on its sharp end even after one billion years… Furthermore, as the universe expands, this equilibrium becomes more delicate.20

Even Stephen Hawking, who tries hard to explain away the creation of the universe as a series coincidences in A Brief History of Time, acknowledges the extraordinary equilibrium in the rate of expansion:

If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size. 21

What then does such a remarkable equilibrium as this indicate? The only rational answer to that question is that it is proof of conscious design and cannot possibly be accidental. Despite his own materialist bent, Dr Davies admits this himself:

It is hard to resist that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out… The seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence for an element of cosmic design.22

 

 

Seeing the Plain Truth

20th-century science has come up with categorical evidence that the universe was created by Allah. The anthropic principle that we mentioned before reveals every detail of a universe that has been designed for mankind to live in and in which there is no place for chance.

The interesting part is that the ones who discovered all this and came to the conclusion that the universe couldn't possibly have come into being by accident are the very same people who defend the philosophy of materialism. Scientists such as Paul Davies, Arno Penzias, Fred Hoyle and Roger Penrose are not pious men and they certainly had no intention of proving Allah's existence as they pursued their work. One can imagine that they reached their conclusions about the design of the universe by a superior power most unwillingly.

The American astronomer George Greenstein confesses this in his book The Symbiotic Universe:

How could this possibly have come to pass (that the laws of physics conform themselves to life)?…As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather Agency- must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?27

An atheist, Greenstein disregards the plain truth; nevertheless he cannot keep from wondering. Other, less prejudiced scientists on the other hand, readily admit that the universe must have been specially designed for mankind to live in. The American astrophysicist Hugh Ross ends his article "Design and the Anthropic Principle" with these words:

An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have brought the universe into existence. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed the universe. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed planet Earth. An intelligent, transcendent Creator must have designed life.28

Thus science proves the reality of creation. Certainly there is Allah and He has created everything around us-the seen and the unseen. He is the sole Creator of the extraordinary and outstanding equilibrium and design of the heavens and Earth.

It has come such a pass that today, materialism has the flavor of a superstitious, unscientific system of belief. The American geneticist Robert Griffiths jokingly remarked "If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn't much use."29

To sum up: Every physical law and every physical constant in this universe has been specifically designed to enable human beings to exist and live. In his book The Cosmic Blueprint, Davies states this truth in the last paragraph, "The impression of Design is overwhelming."30

Doubtlessly, the design of the universe is evidence of Allah's power to establish. The precise balances and all the human beings and other creatures are the evidence of Allah's supreme power and act of creation. This result discovered by modern science is just a reworking of a truth revealed fourteen centuries ago in the Qur'an:

Your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then settled Himself firmly on the Throne. He covers the day with the night and, each pursuing the other urgently; and the sun and moon and stars are subservient to His command. Both creation and command belong to Him. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all worlds. (Surat al-Araf: 54)