Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (Reasons to Believe)

by Hugh Ross

Finally I had to acknowledge the obvious: no human mind or collection of minds alone could have produced the sixty-six books of the Bible. These books contained information their writers couldn’t have known and concepts they couldn’t have begun to imagine apart from supernatural inspiration.

These 200 billion galaxies contain, on average, about 200 billion stars each. So the total number of stars in these galaxies adds up to about 40 billion trillion—and that’s without the estimated 10 billion trillion stars contained in the unobserved dwarf galaxies. Somewhere around 50 billion trillion stars make their home in the observable universe.

Here’s another attempt at comparison. Shrink an average star (about a million miles in diameter) down to the size of a grapefruit. Hold that grapefruit and ask a friend to hold another. Given the average distance between stars in the Milky Way Galaxy (about forty trillion miles), can you guess where your friend would have to take her grapefruit to illustrate the distance between stars? If you, with grapefruit in hand, stood in downtown Los Angeles, she would have to travel to Peru or Siberia. Now try to imagine that distance multiplied 40 million times (that’s the necessary diameter of a volume large enough to accommodate 50 billion trillion grapefruits). Given all the empty space between galaxies, the universe on this stars-as-grapefruits scale would actually be much bigger than this calculated diameter!

Jupiter and Saturn operate as gravitational shields for Earth. They protect it from catastrophic hits by asteroids and comets that would render advanced civilization impossible.[8] If either Jupiter or Saturn were any less massive or any more distant, such protection would be inadequate.

Ruling out a visit by aliens from a planetary system far, far away narrows the reasonable options down to one: Something or Someone from beyond the physics and dimensions of the universe, who is not subject to them, placed life and humanity in the only location in the universe at the only time in cosmic history where and when such creatures could survive and thrive.

Calculations done by British astronomer Dave Waltham demonstrate, however, that Earth’s rotation axis tilt would still be stable if the Moon were only half as massive as it is.[4] A less massive Moon would be smaller in the night sky and thus less disturbing to astronomers’ attempts to study distant galaxies and quasars. Waltham also demonstrated, though, that unless the Moon is as massive as it is, its gravity would be insufficient to have slowed Earth’s rotation rate to the twenty-four hours per day that human life and civilization require.[5] If days were longer than twenty-four hours, day-to-night temperature extremes would be too great. Yet with shorter days rainfall and benign temperatures would not be so evenly distributed over all the continental landmasses.

Tides as powerful as those on Earth are necessary to effectively cleanse the coastal seawaters from toxins and to enrich them with nutrients. In fact, the Moon’s specific properties are fine-tuned for life in so many different ways that one astronomer wrote an entire book on the subject in 1993.[6]

The recognition that the Moon must be as large as it is for people to exist definitely tempers any complaints astronomers make about light “pollution.” These gripes are further tempered by the recognition that the Moon has an extraordinarily dark surface. It reflects a mere 7 percent of its incident light. Earth, by comparison, reflects 39 percent, some of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons reflect 60 to 90 percent, and Neptune reflects 73 percent.[7] Because the Moon is so exceptionally dark, or non-reflective (see figure 5.1), its bounced-back light presents a minor annoyance to astronomers rather than a blinding glow that obliterates astronomers’ work and everyone else’s enjoyment of the night sky.

Like the Moon, Earth’s planetary companions provide critical protection for life here. The gas giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—work together to shield Earth from life-exterminating collision events. Each gas giant acts like a gravitational blocker either to absorb or to deflect potential colliders such as asteroids and comets.

The words one of my grad school professors uttered one day amid a course on the structure of the Milky Way still echo in my mind: “What a wonder that we dwell in a galaxy in which we can see all its wonders!” Today, even more than back then, astronomers appreciate how superbly designed our galaxy is to permit the discovery of its multiple fine-tuned features, characteristics that make possible not only human existence but also our global high-tech civilization.

The optimization of cosmic darkness and of Earth’s location within the dark universe that sacrifices neither the material needs of human beings nor their capacity to gain knowledge about the universe reflects masterful engineering at a level far beyond human capability—and even imagination. It testifies of a supernatural, superintelligent, superpowerful, fully deliberate Creator.

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.

The Creator’s investment in Earth’s life is far from trivial. Life itself in all its complexity, diversity, and abundance demands an enormous outlay. That scientists still can’t assemble even the simplest life-form in the lab from scratch (from nonorganic compounds), let alone make it live, preserve its life, and sustain life for billions of years, testifies to the level of the Creator’s investment—and involvement.[10] This observation leads to an obvious conclusion: if the Creator put so much into creating and sustaining human life, then it must have an ultimate purpose.

The Bible claims to come from the Cosmic Manufacturer. So although its primary purpose is not to describe the physical details of the universe and Earth, what it says about them should match observable reality.

Scripture refers to God as having no beginning or ending, as being uncreated (see Deut. 33:27; Job 36:26; Pss. 41:13, 90:2; Isa. 44:6; Dan. 4:34; John 1:1–3; Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 7:3, 24; Rev. 10:6). Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 say that God’s time can be arbitrarily long or short compared to the human experience of time. Such complete freedom to compress or expand time is only possible for a Being who is completely free to operate beyond, or transcendent to, time (regardless of the number of time dimensions) or who has access to the equivalent of two or more time dimensions.[14]

Geneticists have demonstrated through mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA analysis that the present human species is traceable back to one man and one woman who lived less than 100,000 years ago. Many discoveries of the past decade have scientifically confirmed what the Bible says about the origin and nature of the human species.[27]

One book, of course, is the Bible. The other is the book of nature. One of the most famous Reformation creeds, the Belgic Confession of 1566, makes the point: We know him [God] by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.[28]

What makes the Bible’s claims about the origin, structure, and history of the universe and life all the more remarkable is that it stood alone for so long in making such claims. For centuries the Bible was the only text offering such precise and voluminous detail about the natural realm.

Job, one of the most righteous men who ever lived, concluded that unless there were someone to intercede between God and himself, someone to make amends for his moral failings, he had no hope, no destiny (see Job 9:2, 14, 33; 10:14).

And yet Job also concluded through his careful examination of the record of nature that the Creator is certainly powerful, wise, and loving enough to provide the means of redemption (see Job 9:4, 10; 10:12; 12:10). Thus Job trusted in the divine Redeemer to make amends for him and to conquer the evil that resided in his heart. He said, “Give me, O God, the pledge you demand.

Who else will put up security for me?” (Job 17:3) and “My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin” (Job 14:17). Therefore, Job was able to declare with confidence: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will...

Sometimes skeptics challenge this two-creation model by asking, “Why didn’t God just place Adam and Eve in the new creation to start with?” It appears that unless humanity is exposed to and tested by the greatest possible temptation, the most compelling attraction of evil, in the first creation—the rewards, pleasures, and relationships of the new creation cannot be made both perfect and permanent.