Think about the universe. How big is it? How old is it? Think about light. Light travels at 186,282 miles per second. Wow! That's pretty fast! In fact, light is the fastest known thing in the universe. As far as we know, nothing can travel faster than light. Think about the stars we see at night. On a clear night, out away from city lights, it almost seems like we can just reach out and touch them. But, alas, they're too far away, farther than we can truly comprehend.

Think about our own moon. The average distance from the earth to the moon is about 238,900 miles. That means it takes light about 1.28 seconds to travel between the two. Think about our sun. The average distance from the earth to the moon is about 93,000,000 miles (that's 93 MILLION miles). It takes light from the sun about 8.3 minutes to arrive on earth. In other words, the sun is always about 8 minutes farther along than it appears to be. Wow. That seems like a long way to go, but compared to the next nearest star, the sun and moon are practically next-door.

The nearest star besides the sun is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.2 light-years away. That means that the light from that star takes about 4.2 years to reach us. If it were to burn out today, we wouldn't find out for 4.2 years. Wow. That's pretty far. But, that's nothing. Think about our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is shaped somewhat like a disk, with a large bulge in the center. Our solar system is located toward the edge of this disk. The average thickness of the disk is about 30,000 light-years, and the distance across the disk is about 100,000 light-years. This means that it would take us at least 30,000 years, traveling at the speed of light, to reach the nearest edge of our galaxy. Wow. The nearest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda galaxy, is about 2.2 million light years away, and is part of a group of galaxies called the Local Group. I could go on, but you get the idea: The universe is a big place.

The Milky Way	The Andromeda Galaxy

But how can we see these distant objects if they are so far away? How can light from Andromeda have reached earth if it's 2.2 million light-years away? Did the light really take 2.2 million years to get here? This doesn't seem possible if God created the universe only several thousand years ago. Are the things that are measured at billions of light-years away really that far away? Are they really that old? There are several schools of thought on this, and we will examine a few.

One view is that the universe really is billions of years old, the creation story is a myth, and there was no creator. Obviously, this view is false. There must have been a creator, for something cannot come from nothing. This creator is the God of the Bible, and He created all that we see and experience. Some of the other views are not so easily dismissed, and you must decide in your heart which one makes the most sense to you.

Another view is that the distances measured are false. That is, astronomers are making errors in either their measurements, or their interpretations of those measurements. This is definitely a possibility. Astronomers don't know everything, and they are continually revising and rethinking theories and ideas. If this view is true, then the universe is a much smaller place than generally believed. This doesn't make it any less marvelous or wonderful, just smaller.

Some have speculated that, at the time of the creation, light actually traveled faster than it does now, and it has been slowing down over time. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove or disprove this theory. It does make sense, however, that if light traveled faster in the past, a trip that takes 2.2 million years today might have taken only 2000-3000 years, and a trip that takes 15 billion years today might have taken only 6000 years. Perhaps Adam and Eve could see to the edges of the galaxy and beyond.

Speaking of Adam and Eve, were they created as children, or as adults? It seems pretty clear in the Bible that they were both physically mature. God did not create helpless babes. The same can be safely said of the first plants and animals on the earth. Since God created Adam and Eve with age, could He not have created the universe "with age"? Of course He could have. Perhaps when the universe was initially created, God put the light from the edges of the universe near to the earth. This would allow for both a young universe, and an appearance of great age.

Clarence Larkin had an interesting view on this. He taught in his book, The Greatest Book on Dispensational Truth in the World, that the creation is told from the perspective of an observer on the earth, starting from Genesis 1:2, when the earth was "formless and void". In verse 3 -5, light and darkness are separated, and the day-night cycle begins. According to this view, the observer on earth would experience the day-night cycle, but would not see any celestial bodies; almost as if there were a constant cloud cover. In verse 14-19 the sun, moon, and stars were revealed, as though the cloud cover was rolled back. This view allows for a recent creation and an old universe by inserting a gap of indeterminate length between verses 1 and 2.

This brings up the question of time. When did time actually begin? How long was the earth formless and void? How long was there darkness before God said, "Let there be light"? When was the universe put in subjection to time? Since God is not bound by time He could have created the universe and then "aged" it billions of years in an instant. It does seem clear from the Bible, however, that time had definitely started in Genesis 1:3. When it comes right down to it, no one knows exactly when the beginning was, though some have tried to put an exact date and time on it. The most important thing is that God indeed created the universe and all that is in it.

Well, hopefully I have given you something new to think about, something to ponder and peruse. Which view do you hold to? Which one seems to make the most sense? Which one seems to make the least sense? Do you hold to yet another view, unmentioned here? Have you ever really thought about it before? Well now is a good time to think about it.