Why Does the Universe Have To Be So B-O-L-D ?

Why did God make the universe so B-O-L-D? So Big? So Old? So Lonely? So Dark?

If God just wanted a place for humanity to live, couldn’t He have just created the Earth for us to live on – and nothing more? Or even more, why didn’t He just place us immediately into “heaven”, His spiritual realm, where we could be with Him right from the start?

Certainly God could have done these things because He is all knowing and all powerful – but He chose to do creation as He has done it.

God is a complicated being – and His plans for us can be more complicated than we can ever imagine. But knowing through science what is now out there in the universe, let’s try to understand why God made the universe so BOLD.

Why Such a Big Universe?

Skeptics presume: “If God’s goal was to make a habitat for humanity, he would not have made so many useless galaxies, stars, planets, comets, elements, and other components.”

Anyone who hasn’t studied astrophysics may not realize that the universe MUST be as massive as it is or human life would not be possible – for at least two reasons.

The first concerns the production of life-essential elements. The density of protons and neutrons in the universe relates to the universe’s mass density. That density determines how much hydrogen, the lightest of the elements, fuses into heavier elements. And the amount of heavier elements determines how much additional heavy element production occurs in the nuclear furnaces of stars as the stars are born and die out.

If the mass density of the universe were any lower, the universe would never be capable of generating elements heavier than helium – elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sodium and potassium, which are essential for any kind of physical life.

The second reason the universe must be hugely massive concerns its expansion rate which critically depends on its mass density. A universe with less mass, that is a smaller universe, would not form stars like the Sun and planets like Earth. Its expansion would be so rapid that gravity would not have opportunity to pull together the gas and dust to make such bodies. Yet if the universe’s mass was any greater, gas and dust would condense so effectively under gravity’s influence that all stars would be much larger than the Sun. Any planets such stars might hold in their orbit would be unsuitable for life because of the intensity of the stars’ radiation, not to mention the gravitational disturbances caused by neighboring supergiant stars.

Why Such an Old Universe?

Because of the limited speed of light, what scientists see in their telescopes is what the astral body looked like when the light which they are receiving left the body. Science has a number of ways of measuring the age – the time light traveled from – the star or galaxy being studied. The latest measurements indicate the universe has been around for 13.73 billion years. This is a very long time but it represents the minimum time necessary to prepare a home for humanity. And as it turns out, the minimum time is essentially the same as the maximum time for at least three reasons.

First, essential heavy elements need to build up. Scientists say that for its first 300 million years, the universe contained only 5 elements: hydrogen, helium, and tiny traces of lithium, beryllium and boron. But life requires over 20 different elements heavier than boron. But the big bang creation event yielded none of them. Manufactured exclusively in the nuclear furnaces of stars, these elements built up gradually.

Human civilization, including high-tech societies with automobiles, demands these heavier elements, but their creation took at least 9 billion years and three generations of star formation and death to provide for a heavy-metal-rich planet such as Earth. And slightly more than 4.5 billions years ago, just as that essential abundance first became available, Earth’s solar system came together.

Second, dangerous events must subside. Supernovae so crucial for building up the heavy elements essential for advanced life also shower their environs with deadly radiation. Consequently, advanced life could not be safely introduced until the rate of supernova eruptions in the Milky Way Galaxy had subsided considerably.

Though it took 9.2 billion years for the planet Earth to form, it was necessary for an additional 4.5 billion year delay before the Earth’s bombardment with material and radiation subsided.

Also the Sun’s luminosity or brightness has changed significantly throughout its history. Human arrival and survival on the scene depended on the Sun’s having reached a particular level of brightness and stability. This level was not reached until the Sun was about 4.5 billion years old.

Tidal interaction with the Moon and Sun has steadily reduced Earth’s rotation rate from its initial 2 or 3 hours per day down to its current 24. This is the optimal rotation rate for advanced life because faster rotation caused extreme weather movements with very disruptive hurricanes and tornados.

The third reason is more philosophical. At 13.73 billions years of age, the universe and our location in it is just old enough – and young enough – to facilitate its visual and technological exploration. In a younger universe, the light emitting objects, primarily stars, are jammed tightly together. The light of nearby objects would have blinded observers from seeing the more distant objects.

Also, only when Earth reached an age of over 4 billion years did its atmosphere become transparent enough to enable its inhabitants to observe the most distant objects in the universe. The human era is theoretically the earliest possible epoch that allows astronomers to study the light from the origin of the universe. And if humans had arrived significantly later upon the scene, the situation also would have been less than optimal. At some point (after about 14 billion years of age), the universe will expand at speeds exceeding the velocity of light and humans would then be able to see only a fraction of cosmic history.

Our Creator God apparently placed us here at an optimal time for us to study and appreciate His glorious workmanship in the structure of the universe.

Why Such a Lonely Universe?

The human desire to reach out and touch someone seems irresistible. It was inevitable that our desire to explore and search for intelligent life would extend beyond Earth to other parts of the Milky Way and even to galaxies beyond. But this search by all scientific means possible has yielded absolutely no contact with any other life outside of Earth.

And understanding the physics involved in space travel makes it difficult to believe that any contact with extra-terrestrials will ever happen.

Current understanding of the universe, at least from a naturalistic perspective, supports the idea that only Earth offers a sufficiently hospitable environment for an intelligent species to survive and build a high-tech civilization. It also confirms that Earth may offer the only hospitable environment for the simplest of life-forms. Since advanced life can exist only if supported by billions of years of previously existing simpler life (producing oil and coal deposits), it seems doubly certain that the humanity of Earth is the only intelligent physical species in the observable universe.

While Earth’s location is not geographically central to the solar system, galaxy, galaxy cluster, or galaxy supercluster, it deserves the description “spectacularly favored” for life. Perhaps Someone had a purpose or purposes in mind for limiting life to just one residence.

Why Such a Dark Universe?

Typically we think of light as helpful to visibility, but in some cases it’s the opposite. The car’s dome light after dark causes problems for the driver. And no one wants the lights left on during a movie or slide show. For an astronomer, light can be an enemy.

Researchers who believe in a personal Creator (and many do) thank their Maker for Earth’s placement in one of the darkest regions of the universe. The lights of the universe don’t blind us or limit our view.

Like all galaxies, the Milky Way is filled with bright beacons of light. The brightest are its core and its spiral arms. Located far from the galactic core, the core’s powerful light does not affect us. In its orbit about the galactic center, the solar system rides almost exactly halfway between two spiral arms, and these arms’ crowded clusters of bright stars do not overly illuminate Earth’s night sky.

Astronomers can also be glad that the Milky Way Galaxy sits in one of the darkest locations in the universe where advanced physical life conceivably could exist.

The very best location and quantities of darkness to allow humans to observe all the wonders of the universe equate with the very best location to allow for the existence of a bountiful, beautiful home for humanity. Such a convergence would seem more than an accident. These multiple “coincidences” speak of supernatural intention.

Clearly, Someone wanted human beings to exist and thrive. Just as clearly, Someone wanted us to see all He had done in the universe. His purposes for human existence must be highly valuable. By studying the universe in all its detail – as the Creator apparently made sure we could – we have begun to discover and understand some of His purposes. And that quest continues.

[Back to Home]