[Alamo-Girl]

This whole "time" thing is so sticky, however, that it's best to acknowledge a wide range of views on it, AND a difficulty with its complexities. Indeed.

That there was a beginning of time (space/time) was the most theological statement ever to come out of science.

Measurement of the cosmic microwave background radiation showed that the universe is expanding, therefore space and time had a real beginning, i.e. big bang theory which is nearly universally accepted.

That inflationary model demands it - and no physical cosmology defeats it (multi-verse, multi-world, ekpyrotic, cyclic, hesitating, imaginary time, etc.) For all their efforts, all these models have merely extended the beginning to an undetermined prior event. And all of them rely on pre-existing geometry for that event. Time is geometric.

In the beginning, God created...

The bottom line is causation. In the absence of time, events cannot occur. In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

Causation requires geometry (space/time) - there must be an uncaused cause of causation, i.e. God the Creator.

[xzins]

You are so much smarter than me, sister.

If God caused time to come into being, then what word do we use to describe God prior to that big bang....

Existed?

[D-fendr]

One view of creation and the big bang is of broken symmetry, a geometric concept.

It is more of a way of looking at it than it is a testable hypothesis.

[wmfights]

big bang theory

And let there be light.