#STRask - Did Matter and Energy Already Exist Before the Big Bang?

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Questions about whether matter and energy already existed before the Big Bang, how to respond to a Christian friend who believes Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 describe two separate creation events with two sets of humans, and the source of Moses’ creation information.   What do you think of the argument that matter and energy already existed before the Big Bang—that it was compacted by gravity, then the Big Bang happened, then repeat? How would you respond to a Christian friend who believes Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are two separate creation events with two sets of humans being created? From what source did Moses obtain his creation information?

– music – Welcome to Stand to Reason's hashtag STRask podcast. I'm Amy Hall and I'm ready to ask Greg a question. That's Greg Kockel, by the way. We have some science questions today or questions about beginning of the universe. And the first one comes from Gabriel. What are your thoughts? Oh, he was there.

Sort of. What are your thoughts on the theory of cosmic inflation? I have heard an argument that matter slash energy already existed and it was simply compacted by gravity and then the Big Bang and then repeats? Well, that's a particular view that is meant, I think, is motivated by an attempt to get away from an absolute beginning, okay? And like the inflationary Big Bang is the standard model.

And I think even though there's some variations on that in the past, and this isn't my expertise at all, but just my understanding is that it still is, the fundamental facts are still in place. The universe has an age. And it's not just the age of when the Big Bang started, but there was a whole bunch of stuff that existed before that. It has an absolute age that there was when there was nothing.

And then there was something. Alright? And when they say infinite density, you know, that point of infinite density, I'm not even sure how do we comprehend the notion of infinite density at this little speck at the beginning that then expanded at the Big Bang. I think infinite density is kind of a euphemism for nothing, you know, but there is a view that the universe expands and contracts and expands and contracts in an infinite pattern, but there are all kinds of difficulties with this view.

There are philosophic difficulties and there's see, what's the word I'm looking for, a negated conclusion is the universe is heading towards universal heat death, that we are losing all the energy into space in a way that energy will no longer be available to be used. That's entropy. And it's a thermodynamic principle. It's not just a principle of organization. That's the way a lot of people think of it. It has to do principally with the loss of energy to do work. And the energy isn't created or destroyed.

It's just dissipated. When the energy is dissipated, things cool down, okay? It's the heat that the energy is, it's the heat that's doing stuff, right? And when things cool down, when the energy is dissipated, things cool down until you get to a point of really, really cold. It's called zero Kelvin. It's like 500 and something degrees below zero. And that means there's no molecular motion of any kind. There's no motion of any particles. The universe is dead and we are moving inexorably to that end. So the question is, in this, you know,

collapse and rebirth and collapse and rebirth model, where is the energy coming from, given the now inert universe that is totally dead, because there's no life, because there is no motion of any kind? Where is it getting the energy then to collapse in on itself and then be reborn, so to speak. Now, like I said, I'm not a specialist here, but this, I think, is a serious problem of this view. And my experience looking at the development of cosmology for the last 150 years is that cosmologists, characteristically, are looking for any kind of explanation that keeps God out of the picture. And even Einstein did this. When he was looking at the evidence in his own calculations of general relativity, that the universe had an age, had a beginning.

He didn't like that, so he cheated with the cosmological constant that he inserted in there to make his equations look like the universe was eternal. All right? And he called it the greatest blunder of his life because when he got a chance to look through the telescope and he could see the visual evidence for these receding this expanding universe he realized the universe had a beginning and And so There was no escaping it no since then

There have been other efforts like an oscillating universe I just described, to try to get away from the absolute beginning. But there is a fairly bored Guth and Vilenkin, BGV, is that right? These three guys that have done all the statistics on this, it says any analysis that you make of the origin or the cosmological assessment is going to lead you to a point where you have an absolute beginning of the universe. There's no other way out of it, all right?

So I don't take seriously these alternatives because I think the evidence is best characterized as one that turns out to be consistent with Genesis 1.1 in the beginning. Now God created us with Genesis 1.1's, but that's the origin of the universe, and even secular thinkers by and large now acknowledge that there was an absolute beginning to the universe, even though there are some creative alternatives that have been offered, I think they are hamstrung with serious challenges and difficulties. And why? Why go that direction?

And the reason is because the implications of an absolute beginning are implications they just philosophically can't handle, uncomfortable with. What you might want to do when you hear a theory like this, you obviously ask for their evidence. And as you ask for the evidence, listen for whether or not there's some sort of a presupposition in their response where they're presupposing that there can't be a beginning.

If that's the case— Or a beginner. Or a beginner. That's the issue. A beginning implies a beginner. Right. And there are all sorts of philosophical reasons to come to that conclusion. So I would ask for the evidence, listen for some sort of presupposition that there is

no beginning and that they're trying to find ways to explain whyupposition that there is no beginning and that they're trying to find ways to explain why there, how there is no beginning, rather than starting with the evidence and then following that where it leads. So I think that's what you have to do in these situations. Philosophically, I don't know how you could have matter that was eternal. Matter is contingent. It's not self-existent. It's the kind of thing that degrades. You already mentioned the heat death. I don't know how you would make a case

that matter could even be eternal philosophically. Do you have any other philosophical comments? Well, yeah, there are two other concerns, philosophical concerns that are akin to each other. I don't care for the first one. And it's a favorite of Bill Craig, William L. Craig, the philosopher, the Christian philosopher, that you cannot have an actual infinite. Infinity is a concept, but it's not an actuality, all right? And so you can't have, if you have a universe that had no beginning, then it has an infinite duration, you'd have an actual infinite. And then he gives illustrations like Hilbert's Hotel and stuff like that. I never was compelled by those. I think there's an easier way to go about it that's less abstract. And that is that you, well, I'll give you the abstract statement here, and then I'll flesh it out in more common terms,

is you cannot get an actual infinite by successive addition, which simply means you can't count to infinity. Try it. One, two, three, four, 100, 100, 102, a billion, one, a billion, you can keep counting, and you will never reach an infinite number. You'll always have a finite number, which means we will never live for an infinity.

We will live forever and ever and ever, but we'll always have an age because we had a beginning. And that process going forward works the same going backwards. If there was, if the universe had any beginning, had no beginning, that matter and energy had no beginning, we would never be able to get to the present moment, which would be the terminus of an infinite series of events. It's like counting to infinity and today we finally arrived at it, you know, kind of thing, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, kind of thing. So it doesn't work philosophically for that reason.

Can't count to infinity, forward or backwards. So the universe had a beginning. Okay, Greg, let's go on to a question from Elijah. How would you respond to a Christian friend who believes that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are two separate creation events with two sets of humans being created? Whoa. Well, I don't think that way of looking at it is necessary given the text. The way it's usually characterized is you have big picture Genesis 1 to Genesis 2 verse 4, and then following that in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, you have a much more focused look, like an isolated camera instant replay kind of thing.

And so there is no other indication anywhere in the text, the corpus of scripture, particularly the New Testament, where Adam and Eve are mentioned, and it ain't those two, you know? And that there are some others that were created. I know that critical scholars have tried to characterize chapter one and chapter two generally as two separate creation accounts. But that's because they're trying to undermine the legitimacy or authority of scripture. They're not trying to argue, well, there are two sets of human beings that were created. One in Genesis 1, whoever they were, and then in Genesis 2, a couple named Adam and Eve. No, they seem to go together and even when you go to Jesus'

comments and Paul's comments about Adam and Eve, you just have to survey them. There is no indication that they are talking about a separate couple than were described in chapter 1. Notice, by the way, in chapter 1 it says that God made them male and female. In the image of God, God created them. Okay? And then after the flood in chapter 9, it says, of man sheds man's blood, then by man his blood should be shed, for in the image of God God created man. Now this is to Noah, who is a descendant of Adam and Eve. Notice the same language that is used to describe those created in chapter 1

is used to describe those who are the descendants of those we read specifically about in chapter two. It just seems to make sense that they're talking about the same group. So I don't see any reason to overcomplicate things like this. There's kind of an Occam's razor here that as you go with the most simple straightforward explanation that is adequate to the facts, adequate to the information available to us. So this is wildly speculative, it seems to me, and I don't see any reason to go in this direction. It would seem really odd to me if no one ever mentions this again anywhere, if this is the

very beginning of the Bible, the revelation of God, and no one ever talks about it or gets a lesson from it or points back to it in any way. It seems like if God had created one set and then destroyed them and started over again, we would hear about it. That seems like a big deal. I mean, it's certainly a big deal a few chapters later when there's the flood. The flood is referenced over and over and over as an example of God's judgment. It's in Old Testament and New Testament. So if there was a first judgment, why would that never be mentioned? There are certain key things like Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the flood that are referenced over and over and over.

So it doesn't make sense to me that there was this first big judgment and nothing is ever said about it. It just doesn't make sense. Is that the presumption of the question that there was one couple that were judged and obliterated then the second couple in the next chapter? I'm assuming that. I don't know how else you could explain it unless they're saying there's completely two different sets.

Well, where's the race of people descended from the first two that God said were good? And so you get this race of good, unfallen, and the race of fallen. I mean, you see all the complications it raises. It's funny, yeah, because I was assuming that there was a destruction involved here, but that makes it even worse. If there are human beings that aren't related, then that's ridiculous because every human being is traced back to Adam and Eve. So you can't say that there's this other random race of created beings that are not related

to Adam and Eve. Well, they would have to have been destroyed because Paul makes the comment when he's speaking at the Areopagus about – doesn't he make the point there about God created all men from this one beginning? I don't know if it's there, but yeah, he does say that for sure. Something to that effect, yeah. Okay, let's go into a question from – let's see, which one should we take? Let's take Bill. I'm interested to know from what source did Moses obtain his creation information,

i.e. the first few chapters of Genesis. presumption is that this was communicated to him by God when he was on Sinai. I'm not sure Wesley Huff would be able to answer this, I think, but let me see. Because I just finished the book of Leviticus, and the last line says, of course, this might be referring just to the Levitical material here, these are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai. So I actually don't know anything about the literary, in a certain sense, the literary, in a sense, the literary history of the books, if there's good reason to think that all of these things were given together. Certainly, when you go to the Pentateuch, to the book of Numbers, this is after Sinai, all the things that happened,

that Deuteronomy, the law is given a second time. But Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus given a second time. But Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus are the historical information that precedes the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. And I'm not sure where that came from directly. I mean, there's no – I don't know if there's any internal evidence that specifies that. But I think there are certainly, if God can reveal all of his laws, speak to Moses with an audible voice, he could certainly reveal to him what came before. There's no problem with that. Yeah, it's not, there's, there are lots of possibilities, I guess. And in my view, none of them undermine the integrity of the material there, all right,

if God is involved. And Jesus, when he goes back and he cites the Old Testament, he cites things there during that time. Abraham, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, these are all part of Genesis. He cites all of these things as historically reliable. In fact, when he is asked in Matthew 19 by the Pharisees about the legitimacy of divorce and remarriage, he says, have you not read? And then he goes back to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

So in Jesus' view, these books were authoritative right from the very outset, okay, of the books. So Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and then he quotes. So I can't give the answer about the literary origin of these books, but although they're attributed classically to Moses, this was the Jewish awareness of the source of the books. And in many cases, it explicitly says that, like at the end of Leviticus. But I'm not sure precisely, but I do know that Jesus considered these books to have divine authority. What we see in Genesis is we see God interacting with human beings from Adam and Eve, we see Abraham, we see even Melchizedek who was a priest and

wasn't in the line of Abraham but still had some knowledge of God. We know there were things about God that had been passed down. Adam and Eve could have passed things down. It's not like the people who came after them knew nothing about God. We see that they did. An oral tradition that might be robust. Right. So things could have been passed down orally, they could have been passed down in any way, but no matter what, we know that God was revealing by audible voice to Moses things he wanted Moses to write down.

So if you're going to accept the laws being from God, there's certainly no problem with accepting that he revealed things about Adam and Eve that we need to know. And the audible voice is explicit in the text. Yeah. Well, thank you, Gabriel, Elijah, and Bill. We love hearing from you and we hope you'll send us your question too on str.org or on X with the hashtag strask. If you have something you've been thinking about, we would love to hear from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kochel for Stand to Reason.