In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.

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[ Frequently Asked Questions > If the Sun and Stars Were Made on Day 4, What Was the Light of Day 1? > Conclusion ]

Conclusion

Is the CMB (1) left over from the big bang, (2) radiation emitted for a brief instant from all created matter, or (3) something else? Both (1) and (2) place the CMB at the beginning of time and attribute the radiation’s current low effective temperature (2.73 kelvins, or -454.76°F) to an expansion of space.

The big bang’s explanation for the CMB has several widely recognized problems.

The CMB, when viewed over the entire sky, is thousands of times too smooth to have produced the galaxies we see today, even after billions of years.

The most distant galaxies seen are tight clusters of stars—too tightly clustered to have formed so quickly after the rapid expansion of a big bang.

The CMB radiation from matter on opposite sides of the universe is identical. However, that matter, according to the big bang theory, was never close enough together to have reached thermal equilibrium. But, if the CMB is a natural consequence of the creation of matter within a very compact universe that was later stretched out, identical radiation would be expected.

All this does not necessarily mean that the explanation proposed here for the light of Day 1 is correct. However, if one considers the many other problems with the big bang theory, a discussion that begins on page 32, the two choices described here—creation or the big bang—are reduced to one. (Other possibilities, usually of a nonquantitative, nontestable nature and having nothing to do with the CMB, have been proposed for the “light of Day 1.”)

Yes, there is much we do not know about light and the beginning hours and days of the universe. However, weak ideas should be exposed and better ideas presented, even if they may not be the final answer. Otherwise, incorrect ideas are accepted by default—reinforcing the reigning paradigm.

The subject is not unimportant. God asked Job “Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory, and that you may discern the paths to its home?” (Job 38:19–20) Just as Job could not answer those questions and others related to creation (Job 38), we also fall short—although today we better understand light and how immense the universe is.

One thing is clear: on Day 1, three days before the Sun and all stars were made—or before the creation of all stars was completed⁸—a temporary light source illuminated the spinning earth and provided day-night cycles.