God and the Big Bang

I have a slightly fractured view of creation. As a Christian, I believe that creation was an act of God, the one supreme higher being. However, I also have a difficult time in overlooking the evidence provided by science. Consolidating the two is a tortuous struggle.

The critical question is if creation was accomplished by an omnipotent, omniscient Creator capable of doing all things then why did it take six days? Surely, God could have done this in the proverbial snap of a finger. We also accept that God is active everywhere at all times, yet Genesis tells us that he had to take a break on the seventh day.

This is where I feel that a belief in God the Creator does not necessarily conflict with the "Big Bang" theory. This will cause discomfort to many Christians as it necessarily negates a literal word for word belief in an inerrant Bible. Let's suspend those personal beliefs for just a second a look at the possibility.

The "Big Bang" theory tells us that at some instant in time (if time can even be considered as existing prior to creation) a process started and that process has carried on throughout millenia to the point we find ourselves at now. I'm aware that the mere word "process" is a gross oversimplification of evolution but that's another article all together.

What better task for God to undertake than a minute action in a small sliver of time that over millions of years snowballs into the wondrous world we live in? Where is the greater glory: God taking six days to create everything and then requiring a day of rest or God creating an instantaneous "Bang" that became an indescribably intricate evolution into everything we know.

Some scholars postulate that the Genesis creation story was simply an allegory to put creation into human terms. Maybe they're correct. Maybe the theory of a "Big Bang" created by God leading us through evolution was, and still is, much too complex for us to grasp.

The early writers of the texts that are now the Old Testament must have depended on oral traditions of history from Adam and Eve to their own time. Surely, these traditions must have had God's inspiration behind them. What if God had made these writers aware of the Big Bang and evolution? Would they have understood this without any evidence or observations to base it on? They knew nothing of extinct creatures and relationships between species. What we now know as "science" would have seemed like fantasy to them. What they were able to understand and relate to others was working on a task a day at a time and then taking a break after a week. Maybe God's "rest" was sitting back and letting the natural progression of things take place. God had set the Master Plan in motion. He had created one small spark that would become everything in creation as He watched. Could there be a better way for an all-powerful God to create His masterpiece?

On the other hand, if you are truly a faithful believer, then however the world's existence began was an act of God, whether it was a week of creation or a microsecond's worth of "Bang".