The Four Big Bangs

As I said in my last Blog, I live outside of LA. I drive those LA freeways for a couple of hours each day, getting to and from my day job. On my way home I listen to my favorite radio, 99.5 KKLA. If you live in Southern California and you listen to Christian Radio you have most likely heard Frank Pastore, the host of the afternoon drive home show on KKLA. Frank is recognized as one of the leading Christian Radio Talk Show Hosts in the US.

Anyway, on my drive home last Tuesday Frank was talking about a new video he recently made with Prager University. It was called "The Four Big Bangs". In one of my first blogs, Universal Options Part 2, I talked about the Big Bang. This was the Creation of the Physical Universe. Frank expands on this and says there are really four "Big Bangs" you will need to understand and believe, either from a secular view or from a Christian view, in order to comprehend the world around you. I think he is right on in his analysis.

Frank outlines these four bangs: Cosmological, Biological, Anthropological and Psychological. I will present here my understanding of what he said with a few my own thoughts added in. You need to go to "The Four Big Bangs" to hear it straight from Frank.

Cosmological Big Bang: This is the "Something from Nothing", the Big Bang as we know it from Science. It exploded about 16 billion years ago but only yielded matter and energy, only created a handful of the elements we know today. It takes billions of years of burning in the nuclear furnaces of billions of suns to produce the elements we now know. This first Big Bang does not address the origin of life.

Biological Big Bang: This is the conversion of inorganic compounds to organic lifeforms. It adds simple biology, chemistry and physics to the mix. We still have just simple life forms at this point. We can not identify the huge differences between bacteria, plants and animals, nor between man and animal. Complex life forms do not exist yet. As Frank says, Man has progressed a long way into understanding things like DNA and the human genome but we have no clue how to make life from "dead stuff".


Anthropological Big Bang: This is the Darwinian question, how do we get from lower life to human life? Where is the missing link? We have much questionable evidence but still no concrete scientific proof of this theory in spite of almost two hundred years of study since Darwin proposed it. Evolution is accepted as fact by many scientists but with an ever increasing bank of knowledge and discovery bringing it to question, a growing number of scientists are turning to other theories including that of Intelligent Design.

Psychological Big Bang (self-awareness): This is the transition from the mechanical brain of simple life to the complexities of man's self-reflective mind. It is the question of morality and meaning, man's search for significance and purpose. Other animals have no appreciation for what is true, good and beautiful. How do you get to the mind of a human from that of any lower life form? Even the lowest life forms have central nervous systems but none besides the human mind can contemplate or create. How do you account for free will and introspection, humankind's existential drive to ask why? This is not even considered in evolutionary theory.

No evidence of any gradual growth or development of any of these exists. You need a big bang for each one. You need faith in four "somethings from nothings" or faith in a creator God who is behind it all.

As Frank closes his video he asks "When someone asks if you believe in the Big Bang, ask them which one?"