My Christian newspaper had an article about the work of Jason Lisle. He argues that recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope debunk the Big Bang Theory.
Could someone please explain the gist of Dr. Lisle’s argument in layman’s terms?
Also, some YECs in my church mentioned this. So if someone can explain what’s wrong with this “new cosmology”, I would be most thankful.
Thank you! 
Hi ivar,
I have read a number of Lisle’s published works…i will make the caveat that i am not expert in his area of publication however i do understand his arguments…some i agree with, others i do not agree with.
I am a YEC (as everyone here knows)
I agree with the 7 day literal creation account as recorded by the prophet Moses. He was a biblical prophet btw, just so you recognise that is important for his credibility. Moses was given his message via direct communication with God. We also know from the witness of many other bible writers that a very common method of God communicating with prophets and apostles was through visions and dreams. This means that the argument the bible writer did not understand what God was trying to convey…that argument is 100% false!
Ok. so with the above out of the way…onto your question…
I for one do not agree with Lisles theology in many areas. I disagree with any Christian who claims that the Seventh Day Sabbath was done away with at the cross and that we are under a New Covenant (the inference being that the New Covenant and the Old are different…they are exactly the same)
Without getting tangled up in nonsense debates about the mechanics of the big bang…if the bible says “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, then that means prior to God creating them, they did not exist. In our limited human abilities to visualise the creation of everything we observe around us…i have no problem with the notion of the big bang…in that a singularity expanded (if you like) out to become everything we see around us. I do not make the claim that the singularity is metaphorical for God…of course that argument can be made, but the fact is, we are here physically!
I would also not go so far as to make the claim Lisle is unscientific or his arguments are wrong. He is drawing philosophical conclusions from the evidence he has before him. Any individual, whether science or stupid, is perfectly entitled to make strong academic arguments with all the necessary supporting evidence to obtain a high distinction grade for their work. Lisle does earn that grade. Does this mean Lisles view is the only correct one? No! (for myself as a YEC to say that is significant btw)
I will be interested in reading what other here have to say about this, but I’m sure that we mostly agree that the Big Bang isn’t necessarily falsified by the James Webb Telescope observations. I accept that there are theological dilemmas with the naturalistic model of the Big Bang, however, the fundamental part i think is correct because it aligns with the notion of God as a creator speaking into existence everything we see around us.
Oh i forgot to add an important point for me…the question “is space expanding?” i think is pointless. If God is eternal, everlasting…has always been here, why should we even bother with trying to explain boundaries? I think that is correctly criticised by naturalists as a stupid argument. So on this one, Lisle and i diverge.
I also do not like it when individuals cite their own works as evidence. In his introduction he states, “Creationists…”, then straightaway cites himself from 2 years ago (2022) as evidence of that claim…that’s not what he is inferring with the notion of creationists! The inference is other creationists…these should be who he cites, not himself.
Finally, as i said, his paper does earn its grade. Lisle is very good at producing credible academic work with adequate references…we should not delude ourselves into thinking the answer to his views are that he is stupid or a pseudoscientist!
Just accept that we all make philosophically driven conclusions from the evidence before us.
Dont be too concerned by that…it wont make any difference to your salvation! Christ made salvation quite simple:
“love the lord thy god with all thy heart mind and soul, and love thy neighbour as thyself”
and
“in as much as you do it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”
I spend time on these forums arguing with Theistic Evolutionists because i enjoy it and it stimulates my mind…it has nothing to do with improving my chances of salvation. Debating this stuff takes us away from whats really important…focusing on God and loving our neighbour. (just my take on it)
The idea with Big Bang is that space itself is expanding with matter in it. Space has a “fabric”… I assume consisting of dark matter and dark energy. This never really made sense to me.
An additional important implication of the Doppler model is that there was no big bang. The big bang requires an expanding space: a scaling factor that changes over time. But the evidence is consistent with a metric that is (approximately) static. The galaxies are receding, but are moving through a non-expanding space. Thus, the universe is indeed expanding in the sense that the average distance between galaxies is increasing. But the fabric of space does not expand. Nor should we conclude that the Hubble law in a non-expanding space implies that galaxies sprang from a common point. Galaxies have tangential motions in addition to their radial motions. Consequently, their negative velocity vectors do not converge to a common point. This is particularly obvious for those nearby galaxies that are blue-shifted.
I always thought matter expanded in an infinite space (with nothing in it), as this “new cosmology” suggests:
The most straightforward interpretation of the data seems to suggest that the redshifts of galaxies are entirely the result of a relativistic Doppler effect in non-expanding space such that their recessional velocity is linearly proportional to their distance even at high redshifts. Under this cosmology, the high redshift galaxies observed in JWST deep fields are nearly identical to nearby galaxies in linear diameter, brightness, and mass. Independent of cosmology, we have already observed that high redshift galaxies have similar morphologies and a similar range of metallicities to nearby galaxies. Thus, there is no evidence of substantial galaxy evolution as a function of redshift.
No “galaxy evolution” meaning more distant galaxies that should appear younger (smaller) should be observed in JWST, but because they appear similar to nearby galaxies, they are not less evolved.
What is wrong with this “new cosmology” is the suggestion that it supports YEC. Debunking Big Bang does not make YEC correct. Big Bang was originally proposed by Georges Lemaître who was YEC as well as young universe.
Lets not forget that Lisle does adequately address this in that that widely accepted view does not align with the dopler effect …ie the shifting of light wavelengths due to relative motion of the source through space.
Lemaitre’s view was that galaxies were essentially stationary on an expanding balloon.
i just want to confirm…i do not see any of this as evidence for or against theistic evolution/ naturalistic, or YEC cosmology. For us Christians on these forums, i think a theological case can be equally well made for either approach.
Well, JWST shows an old universe even at far distant galaxies. There is no evidence of a beginning but the Bible also does not say when the “beginning” was. YEC suggest God created with an appearance of age which is not very honest IMO.
It makes God look like Loki rather than Yahweh. Every time I read that idea I hear again, “Your God is a liar” from people that YECers were ‘witnessing’ to on campus in my university days.
that depends on the consistency of the rest of that individuals theology. This is exactly why i made the Old vs New covenant statement in my earlier post.
When one has internal theological inconsistencies, then that world view loses credibility in the eyes of others looking in from the outside.
You have illustrated that claim of mine well St Roymond. Now you know why i am so strict on biblical theology and referencing. We must be able to consistently support our beliefs or others outside of the faith will quickly tear them to shreds.
YEC doesn’t even rise to the level of inconsistencies, the way it adds to the text, ignores the grammar, ignores the ordinary use of Hebrew, and mixes science with theology.
And the credibility is zilch because it does nothing but pseudoscience and has no respect for the text of the scriptures.
YEC is shreds to begin with; it doesn’t need any tearing.
Adam spotted a major common problem with creation science claims, in his noting that Lisle’s self-citation isn’t good proof for “creationists believe”. In general, there is very little citation of other young-earth ideas within creation science claims. Examination of the range of views and determining which ones best fit the available data is the way to progress in scientific understanding, but is unnecessary if one is just looking for excuses.
Like many young-earth claims, Lisle is also going primarily off the headlines rather than seriously digging into the data and what it indicates. JWST data is quite new and still getting basic analyses; claiming that it proves much of anything yet is premature, though it certainly is prompting lots of interesting (and often still contradictory) ideas.
I don’t think there is any reason to believe that Lemaitre was YEC. The only significant Roman Catholic YEC efforts that I am aware of since the late 1700’s are modern ones swayed by the claims of post-1960 creation science.
We do see galaxy evolution in the pictures from JWST. However, galaxy evolution (like practically everything else) does not fully follow previously expected patterns.
There is this book, a biography of Lemaitre, a translation of the French original. It has been some time since I read it, but I would be surprised if YEC was even mentioned.
Dominique Lambert
The Atom of the Universe: The Life and Work of Georges Lemaitre
Copernicus Center Press, Krakow, Poland, 2015
The non-local singularity makes God a better trickster than anyone imagined Loki to be
“Non-local singularity”???
If you mean the Big Bang, that’s not being a trickster at all – being a trickster means playing head games with people, which is a necessary attribute of the YEC deity.
Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not - Albert Einstein
I cant find where I saw it suggested that he was YEC. The more I read on Lemaitre, its clear he was not YEC. Biologos also has an article on him:
In one sense, no one was YEC as we know it until the 1960’s and Henry Morris came along, and it really did not become mainstream until the fundamentalist movement became popular. Of course, Ellen White provided the seed, but few knew she or her ideas existed outside of the SDA bubble.
I remember growing up in a rural SBC church that while literalism and concordism was the norm, interpretation of Genesis was a bit cloaked in mystery, and day-age interpretations and gap theory ideas were held as possibilities. With YEC, mystery seems to have disappeared and has been replaced with rigid dogma as the rise of institutional positions solidified with AIG, ICR, and CMI came along, making a young earth foundational in their worldview, where before it was just a side issue.
Of course, most all of you know that, but my point being that Lemaitre was not YEC, as YEC did not exist in his time and experience.
I’m not sure where the article is going, but I really liked this quote:
If you keep going back and back, then (in the Old Big Bang model, before we knew about inflation) you find that at a sufficiently early time, 13.7 billion years ago, the density, temperature and expansion rate start off as infinite. That’s a singularity!
Right, but “non-local”?
That took me down a rabbit trail of about eight articles, ending with one that explained why giving an age to the universe can’t actually be done; all we can count is the time since the universe cooled enough for photons to move freely – before that it’s calculations that vary depending on assumptions. So 13.7ish billion is just the time since the universe was cool enough for atoms to form.
So in a very serious sense, the question of the thread has no valid answer – or has a variety of answers depending on how one defines the Big Bang, since the idea of a singularity died with a whimper years ago.
If you are going to make claims, you need to reference St Roymond.
State the inconsistencies, cite the appropriate references that support your claims.
That doesnt resolve anything, because inflation demands a region of a finite size. This doest not help the question, where did it all come from?
I think this idea that God created science then left it to its own devices is ridiculous. The bible does not support that notion. Its neither biblical nor Christian.
Then theres this…
The following historical phrase is used 11 times in Genesis:
“These are the generations…”
2.4
5.1
6.9
11.10,27
25.12,19
36.1
37.2
Do you have references that show this is poetry?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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