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Thank you all so very much for sharing your insights on God and the Age of the Universe!

Various beliefs are in play already on this thread including at least three Young Earth Creationism models: geocentric, heliocentric and Gosse Omphalus (that God created an old looking universe.) Old Earth Creationism is also in play and I imagine there are various degrees of God’s involvement represented, i.e. from simply setting the initial rules and conditions to frequent interventions.

BTW, naturalistic theories (e.g. self organizing complexity, cellular automata, chaos theory) all require guides to the system such as initial rules and conditions.

Order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period.

I do not wish to impugn others’ deeply held beliefs about God the Creator and how “all that there is” came to be, but would like to present my own understanding for the record.

In sum, I agree with Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder that both Young and Old Earth Creationism are true:

The universe is approximately 7 days old (equivalent earth days) at the inception space/time coordinates and the universe is approximately 15 billion years old at our space/time coordinates.. This is based on Relativity and the Inflationary Model.

The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old at its space/time coordinates.

I also perceive this to agree with God’s Name Logos which is translated Word in John 1:1. Logos is also the root word for Logic.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

More specifically, I perceive that God spoke everything into existence:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. - Genesis 1:3

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6

Indeed, I assert on technical grounds (information theory and molecular biology) that we humans are in fact a message being communicated.

Man is not the sum of his physical parts.

Every molecule in our bodies is replaced every seven years. We are quite literally not the same persons we were seven years ago. But the message of who we are continues.

Physically that message is our DNA. It describes who we physically are. As long as that message is physically communicated we are physically alive.

But that’s not all. By the very fact of our existence on some finite worldline of the space/time continuum, the universe has been physically “informed.” Physically, who we are and our entire lives are “on the record” – written across the cosmos. And God sees all of it.

But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. – Matt 12:36

More importantly, God has written His own Name across the cosmos in and through us Christians:

Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, [The Son] of David. - Matthew 22:42

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Matthew 16:15-18

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and [that] no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. –I Corinthians 12:3

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9

And again,

So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. - Romans 10:17

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. – John 10:3-5

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:4-5

And again,

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. – Matt 4:4

Give us this day our daily bread. – Matt 6:11

I am that bread of life. – John 6:48

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

And so when I meditate on the cosmos, I am not alarmed even though it reminds me that I cannot physically sense the proportion or how fast I am rocketing through space or relativistic time.

It is speaking to me of God’s glory:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. – Psalms 19:1-3

Indeed, even science underscores that very point.

The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could “decouple” from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.

The Universe may be flat but it is nevertheless musical

To listen in, click here: The Sound of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Background on the sound file: The Sound of the Big Bang

God’s Name is I AM, The Creator, Alpha and Omega, Logos, YHwH (He IS).

Thanks for the beautiful post.

Every molecule in our bodies is replaced every seven years. We are quite literally not the same persons we were seven years ago. But the message of who we are continues.

Physically that message is our DNA. It describes who we physically are. As long as that message is physically communicated we are physically alive.

But that’s not all. By the very fact of our existence on some finite worldline of the space/time continuum, the universe has been physically “informed.” Physically, who we are and our entire lives are “on the record” — written across the cosmos. And God sees all of it.

Man is part and participant in the cosmic creation....

What a magnificent essay/post, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you ever so much for writing it!