The Bible Scientific - Hebrews 1:10-12

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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Today we will examine Hebrews 1:10-12:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (NIV) - He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ¹¹They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. ¹²You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

Each verse points to one part of a bigger theme, that the universe is temporary but God is eternal. The first two verses reference scientific thought - the Big Bang and the death of the universe. We looked at the Big Bang when discussing Genesis 1:1. This is the current scientific theory for the formation of the universe.

The end of the universe is not so well defined scientifically.

There is scientific support for a number of possibilities. The Big Crunch - a Big Bang in reverse - is one such scenario. It requires the mass of the universe and gravity to be just so, such that the expansion of the universe stops and everything collapses back on itself. Similar to this is the Big Bounce where the universe expands from the Big Crunch and a new universe is formed, possibly repeating endlessly.

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In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.
But you remain the same, and your years will never end. - Psalm 102:25-27

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Current science suggests a universe that is flat and infinite - it goes on expanding forever. This possibility eliminates the Big Crunch/Big Bounce. We discussed this in the last blog (Psalm 104:2). If this is true, then the universe will not just fall back on itself but will continue to expand forever. At some point it will reach a state of maximum entropy, a heat death, with the universe cooling to approach equilibrium at a very low temperature over a very long time period.

Essentially the universe will "wear out" (as mentioned in verse 11) and approach a state where all energy is evenly distributed. The mechanical movement of the universe will run down as work is converted to heat because of the second law of thermodynamics. This heat death of the universe is a possible fate in which the universe has evolved to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.

Image courtesy of NASA/STScI/Ann Feild.

In this case the stars will all burn up and out, life will be impossible and the physical structure of the universe will become a soup of elemental particles. Much like wearing out like a garment!

Verse 12 also seems to mention these possibilities - the rolling up of the universe and the changing of the universe like the changing of a garment. This implies that God could create a new universe. But the main point in verse 12 is that God will always exist and is unchanging. This is inherent in His nature. And although this cannot be proved/tested scientifically, it is required as part of who God is.

The Bible teaches that someday this universe will come to an end and be replaced by a “new heavens and a new earth.” Science is now learning that at some future time, the stars will all burn out and the universe will end. For the earth and the sun, that has been calculated to be about 2 billion years from now. But life as we know it will cease much sooner than that as the sun expands to become a Red Giant star, engulfing the earth within in it.

We will look to Isaiah next:

Isaiah 40:22 (NIV) - He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

The Bible Scientific - Psalm 104:2

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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In this blog we will take a look at this verse from Psalms:

Psalm 104:2 (NIV) - The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent...

Psalm 104 is an elaboration of the physical creation events. Each section of verses detail another small part of creation - the Earth covered with water, the separation and formation of the land, the water cycle, plants and animals, food for all creatures, man works in the day and the animals hunt by night, the vastness of the oceans teeming with life and God's Sovereignty over ALL of His creation!

• Verses 1-4 - God and the majesty of the heavens
• Verses 5-9 - Creation of the sea and dry land
• Verses 10-18 - Provisions for the feeding and maintenance of all the creatures according to their nature
• Verses 19-24 - The Regular Course of the Sun and Moon (day & night) and the seasons
• Verses 25-26 - The vastness of the sea and all that dwells in it
• Verses 27-30 - God's Sovereignty over the Creatures and His creation
• Verses 31-35 - May the glory of the LORD endure for ever, may the LORD rejoice in his works

Specifically, Psalm 104:2 can be divided into two parts - "The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment" - pointing to His invisible nature, and "He stretches out the heavens like a tent" explaining how He formed the universe.

Taking part one we find that God, by nature, is invisible and He is so majestic that He can use the light of the universe as His garment. This part of the verse also points to how we can see God in His creation when we look to the heavens (see Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20).

The second part points to the heavens as being "stretched out" (expanded) like a tent. As we see in the Big Bang Theory, the universe expanded from a singularity and science currently afirms that the universe is still expanding.

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For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities
His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse. - Romans 1:20

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The Hebrew word used here for tent is "yĕriy`ah." It means a tent, curtain, drape, or veil - a fabric that can be hung up as in the tent of the tabernacle in the desert during the 40 years of wandering. This could be God's dwelling place (the heavens) or it could be indicating the shape of the universe as flat like a curtain but being a place where creation can exist.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity says if the critical density is equal to the actual density of the universe, it is flat, as opposed to curved like a sphere (more dense - closed) or a saddle (less dense - open).

Scientists think that the actual density of the universe is equal to the critical density, and thus think the universe will extend forever like a flat piece of paper. Currently the universe is still stretching out but the expansion rate will slow down gradually, over an infinite amount of time. Thus, the universe is considered flat and infinite in size.

NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) measured background fluctuations in an effort to determine whether the universe is open or closed. In 2013, scientists announced that the universe was known to be flat with only a 0.4 percent margin of error.

Therefore this verse (Psalm 104:2) matches with what science has found based on the Theory of Relativity, that the universe is stretching out (expanding) and is like a tent or curtain (flat).

The speed of light limits us to viewing the volume of the universe visible since the Big Bang; because the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, scientists can only see 13.8 billion light-years from Earth.

The universe will continue to grow until it all burns out (entropy - second law of thermodynamics). We will look at this idea next time in Hebrews.

Next up:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (NIV) - He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ¹¹They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. ¹²You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.

The Bible Scientific - Job 25:2

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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This post of "The Bible Scientific," looks at - Job 25:2

Job 25:2 (NIV) - Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven.

By NASA / WMAP Science Team [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This verse shows that God has created an all-encompassing order to the universe. Science has found that all physical laws apply to the whole universe everywhere and equally. This concept is called "The Cosmological Principle."

Astronomer William Keel explained it like this:

"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."

The cosmological principle is first clearly asserted in the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) of Isaac Newton. Newton conceptualized the Earth as a sphere in orbital motion around the Sun within an empty space that extended uniformly in all directions to immeasurably large distances. Earlier cosmologies held that the Earth rested at the center of universe, with the sun and moon rotating around it. Newton also asserted the uniform extension of the physical laws of motion to a great distance beyond the observational location of Earth itself.

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The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that,
Compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
is an utterly insignificant reflection. - Albert Einstein

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Now if we translate this verse from a more scientific bent, it might say this - "The great power and rule of God brings order to all the heavens. "The great power and rule" are the physical laws that we see everywhere in the universe. Thus God, by His all-powerful nature, created the heavens and holds them in place by the physical laws He established. For man to be able to examine and understand anything about the universe around us, the laws of physics must apply uniformly and completely to the entire universe.

An orderly universe has traditionally been seen as “proof” of a creator-God who ordained natural law. As Albert Einstein said, “The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

In the next blog we will examine the verse: Psalm 104:2 (NIV) - The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent...