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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
Scientific Perspective (Genesis Event #1)
In this passage, we are told that God created the heavens. In the ancient Hebrew language the notion of heaven is the closest concept to what we now know as the universe. According to scientific consensus, the universe began as an extremely dense, hot point and then rapidly expanded and cooled. Subatomic particles formed which then formed atoms and then molecules like hydrogen and helium. Over billions of years, gravity pulled these atoms together to form clouds and then stars and galaxies, including our Milky Way galaxy. This beginning to the universe has been calculated by scientists to have taken place about 13.8 billion years ago. This beginning of the universe, known as the “Big Bang”, also turned out to be the beginning of space and time (or spacetime) itself.
We consider this event of the Big Bang as separate from the creation of the earth from a scientific standpoint. The Big Bang was a creation event that had no prior material beforehand. But the creation of our earth was a creation event that built on previous elements that had been created.
The scientific consensus is that the earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago from a vast cloud of dust and gas known as the solar nebula. Gravity caused particles to collide and stick together, a process called accretion. Heavier elements sank to the center of the earth’s core, while lighter materials formed the mantle and crust.
Scriptural Perspective
Genesis 1:1 covers the first 9 billion years of our universe in just a few words. The expansion of the universe for the first 9 billion years was obviously not the focus of the narrative in Genesis 1:1. But it is significant that even in these few descriptive words, the order of creation as described by science does follow the order of the words in Genesis – first the heavens and then the earth.
The most logical explanation for this complex universe that had a beginning is that there must have been a Creator with intelligence that is far beyond what we can imagine. This would be a Creator that transcends or is beyond even space and time. The description from Genesis that was written over 3,000 years ago is consistent with this explanation of a beginning that we have from modern science.