1. If the Bible is literally true, then the Universe is not billions of years old.
2. The Universe is billions of years old.
3. Therefore the Bible is not literally true.
In the 1920’s, Edwin Hubble discovered a positive relationship between a galaxy’s velocity (derived from its red shifted light), and its distance from Earth (derived from its Cepheid stars) (Filkin and Hawking 1997). Hubble wrote a mathematical equation: Velocity = Hubble Constant x Distance which is now termed Hubble’s Law. In the words of Stephen Hawking (2001, 77) “… Hubble’s law, established that the universe is expanding with the Hubble constant H setting the rate of expansion”.
In 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, the primary justification for spending billions of taxpayer dollars was to obtain an accurate Hubble constant (Christensen and Fosbury 2006). We now know that the Hubble constant is 70.6 ± 3.1 km/sec/megaparsec (Suyu et al. 2010) and that the age of the universe is 13.7 ± 0.14 billion years old (Dick 2008). We know this because the Hubble constant can be projected backward in time reversing the expansion of the universe. The figure 13.7 ± 0.14 billion years old means that the youngest possible age for the universe is 13.56 billion years old and the oldest possible age is 13.84 billion years old. The casual observer may say, "How can I trust these scientists when there is a 280 million year margin of error?" The margin of error is present because the Hubble Constant has a margin of error of ± 3.1 km/sec/megaparsec, which causes the ± 0.14 billion years margin of error. Scientists are reducing this margin of error all the time but the lesson to learn from this, is that the universe cannot be younger than 13.56 billion years old and this has been established, using a scientific law.
The following documentary was made by the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 2001 to explain evolution.
Science has revealed to us that the Universe is 13.7 ± 0.14 billion years old (Dick 2008), that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that life emerged on Earth around 3.5 billion years ago (National Academy of Sciences 2008). Therefore, we can conclude the Bible is not literally true.
- Our Place in the Universe
- Theistic Evolution
- Was Albert Einstein a Christian?
- Charles Darwin and Christianity
- Evolution Lectures
- Christensen, L.L., and B. Fosbury. 2006. HUBBLE: 15 Years of Discovery. New York: Springer.
- Dick, S. 2008. The postbiological universe. Acta Astronautica, 62 (8-9): 499-504.
- Filkin, D., and S. Hawking. 1997. Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Cosmos Explained. London: BBC Books.
- Hawking, S. 2001. The Universe In A Nutshell. New York: Bantam Books.
- National Academy of Sciences. 2008. Science, Evolution, and Creationism. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press.
- Suyu, S.H., P.J. Marshall, M.W. Auger, S. Hilbert, R.D. Blandford, L.V.E. Koopmans, C.D. Fassnacht, and T. Treu. 2010. Dissecting The Gravitational Lens B1608+656.II. Precision Measurements Of The Hubble Constant, Spatial Curvature, And The Dark Energy Equation Of State. The Astrophysical Journal, 711 (1): 201-221.