The Big Bang and Evolution

The Big Bang:

• Lemaitre - Catholic who founded the theory of the Big Bang

• How the universe was formed

• There was a singularity that expanded

• Scientific evidence for it e.g. red shift which is left over radiation form a massive explosion

• The beginning of all time and space

• universe is still expanding

The scientific explanation of how the universe began about 14 billion years ago. A singularity inflated, expanded and cooled to form all the matter and energy in our universe today.

The Big Bang challenges teleological arguments as it provides alternative explanations for the universe that isn’t God.

Evolution:

The scientific explanation of how life developed on Earth through the process of natural selection. This explains how organisms appear to suit their environments and reach their goals, not due to design but due to random mutations and ‘survival of the fittest’.

Challenges teleological argument:

• Explains why the universe appears design but suggests God isn’t the ‘designer’

Theists might respond to this challenge:

• Deny evolution - maybe all the ‘evidence’ for evolution is wrong or a test from God (creationist argument)

• Test from God

• God planned evolution

• Evolution doesn’t explain everything e.g. human appreciation of beauty which implies that God has input into evolution, not just chance