When we look out into space, even with the most powerful telescopes, are we really seeing the universe in real time? Are we observing events as they really happen, that is, at the time we observe them as measured on our local clocks? The light from the distant galaxies arrives at Earth and we observe those beautiful galaxies and perhaps record motions in those galaxies. We only have our local clocks which tell us the time and day of our observations. Can we then say that we are observing the stars and galaxies in real time as those events occur?
This might surprise you, but after 50 or more years of studying physics, astrophysics and cosmology I have come to the conclusion that we are indeed seeing all the stars and galaxies in real time. How is that possible? First let’s look at what we can learn from the Scriptures.
Through the prophet Isaiah about 700 BC God said:
13b … My right hand has stretched out the heavens; I called to them, they stood up together.
Isaiah 48:13b KJ3
You get the sense that God called and the response was immediate. There was no delay to allow for the finite travel time of light from the distant cosmos. The Creator God called and stars of the heaven instantly materialised. If you were on Earth on that day — the fourth day of creation — you would have seen the event occur and thought nothing strange about the timing of the event.
The reason for that is because when we experience events on Earth they occur at the time we see them happen. That is the natural language we are familiar with. So what I am saying here is that the language of the Bible is that same natural language.
6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 9 For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
Psalms 33:6,9 AKJV
In this text the word “heavens” also is referring to the stars that the Lord made. God spoke and that brought them into existence. It happened instantly, without delay. He also used the word “now” to describe when He created.
7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
Isaiah 48:7 ESV
Of course, this anthropomorphises God the Creator. His words have power over creation. Everything in the universe was created this way.
6 You, even you, are LORD alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and you preserve them all; and the host of heaven worships you.
Nehemiah 9:6 AKJV
The prophet Nehemiah adds that the Creator not only made the starry heavens but also He preserves them all. As a result the heavenly host worships Him. That refers to the stars in heaven and has the spiritual parallel of the angels worshipping their Creator.
12 I have made the earth, and created man on it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
Isaiah 45:12 AKJV
Here the prophet tells us that the Creator “stretched out the heavens” which grammatically means in context that God created all the stars and galaxies and arrayed them across the sky just like putting up a curtain or a tent. See Does the Bible Really Describe Expansion of the Universe?
God commanded and they were created. There is no delay due to a non-zero finite travel time of light from the distant cosmos. The text simply states what God did, implying that a causal observer would agree. It all happened at the same time.
The following description of the Magi who visited King Herod seeking the infant child Jesus is very instructive.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, see, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
Matthew 2:8-9 AKJV
They saw a star and followed it to find the young child Jesus. This all occurred in real time. Now the star could have been astronomically near but even so would have had to have been a few light-years distant from Earth. Thus, unless it was not a normal star but a planet in the solar system which God used, the whole story tells us that the astronomical event of the star moving to stand over where Christ was must have happened in real time. That is, there was no delay between the light from the star leaving its surface and the Magi seeing it on Earth.
The issue here is magnified the greater the distance the source is from Earth. We can say that the canonical speed of light is 1 light-year per year. By definition that is true. However it makes a fundamental assumption which must be accepted by faith.
Since it is impossible to measure the one-way speed of light we in fact cannot actually know how long light takes to travel from a star out there in the cosmos to Earth. By convention we assume it to be that speed of 1 light-year per year for the one-way journey inward to Earth and the same for the reverse journey outward back to the star. But it is a convention because we cannot measure the speed one-way in or out. It is fundamentally impossible to do so.
So let’s just think about what we can know. The light from the cosmos arrives in our telescopes and that allows us to see the stars and galaxies with that light. Assuming nothing else, it appears that we are seeing those objects in real time.
When we think of an exploding stars, a nova or a supernova, we observe a blinding flash of light. It is a pulse of light. Without lost of accuracy we can say the event of the explosion occurred at the moment we saw it explode. Perhaps we recorded the event with an accurate clock. The time recorded was the time the explosion happened. No calculation allowing for a finite speed of light is needed.
If a supernova was observed in 2025 and we know that the star which exploded was for example 100 light-years from Earth we do not record the year it exploded as 1925, 100 years before the present day. No, we record the day and time of the event when we saw it happen.
And supernova are all named according to the year they are first observed, e.g. SN 1987A. A letter of the alphabet is added for the first, second etc that year. So that supernova was recorded as happening in 1987, yet it is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of 168,000 light-years.
I am explaining this issue because for a very long time I did think anyone who believed this was crazy. That they had forgotten to allow for the time for the light to travel through the vast distance of the universe to reach Earth.
If they had allowed for that, then they would realise that the event occurred 100 years ago or 168,000 years ago in the case of SN 1987A. And that that means we are looking back into the past. Read Can We See Into the Past?
But the problem with that assumption is that it makes a logical fallacy. It assumes what it intends to prove. Circular reasoning.
If you don’t know the speed of the incoming light you don’t know how long it takes to reach Earth. Therefore there is nothing you can say about when the event occurred EXCEPT that you recorded the event happening at the time you observed it.
All the theories that are developed to explain the cosmology of the universe and its origin are therefore untestable because they all make the same error. If there is no light-travel time then we are observing the universe as God created it in real time. Such a conclusion is compatible with the biblical language God used in relation to His creation of the heavens.
In conclusion we can definitively say that billions of years are not needed to be added to the creation timeline back to a big bang. Though the universe is billions of light-years in extent the light from the most distant sources arrives at the Earth simultaneously with its emission from the source. And to be clear, that is by convention, and therefore cannot be refuted.
Therefore the size of the universe does not present any problem to the creation scenario as presented in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. The entire history of creation less than 10,000 years cannot be refuted based on any scientific arguments.
Related Reading
- Can We See Into the Past?
- Video: Can We See Into the Past?
- Scripture and a Static Universe Biblical Creation Cosmogony
- Einstein’s Physics Says There is No Biblical Creationist Starlight Travel-Time Problem
- Starlight and Time: Is It a Brick Wall For Biblical Creation?
- The Conventionality Thesis on the Synchronisation of Clocks Separated by Distance
- Questions on the Conventionality Thesis and the One-Way Speed of Light
- Does Starlight Take Billions of Years to Reach Earth?
- The Physics of Creation | Day 4
Recommended Reading
- Book: Apocalypse Now: On the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Premium membership needed)
- Book: Merchants of Death: Global Oligarchs and Their War On Humanity
- Book: The Physics of Creation, The Creator’s Ultimate Design for Earth (Premium membership needed)
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