We have brains that function very well, but nevertheless are finite and limited in their ability to understand certain concepts with which we cannot have direct experience. It is impossible, for example, for us to fully understand the idea of infinity, or eternity. We can speak conceptually about something, but our brains are simply not designed to grasp it fully.
The idea I have in mind presently is the difficulty of comprehending how powerful God is. It’s easy to use words such as “omnipotent”, but more difficult to grasp what this means in a tangible sense (besides a very general example such as the feat of creating the universe).
I'm a bit of a science nerd, so I enjoy reading about physics and astronomy (and pretending to understand at least some of it). One of my favorite topics is black holes, and as I learned more about black holes, I realized they may provide a way to put the power of God into physical terms. Obviously I’m not a scientist, so my understanding and explanations likely are not complete, but I’ll do my best.
The first thing to understand about black holes is that they are not holes. Black holes occur when a star with a sufficiently large mass runs out of fuel and collapses under the weight of its own gravity. Stars generally are in a state of equilibrium, a balance between the outward push of internal fusion reactions and the inward pull of gravity. Once a star’s fuel is depleted, there no longer is any outward push to counter the inward pull, and in an instant the star collapses into an extremely dense state. It is now a black hole.
The reason it’s called a “hole” is that its gravity is strong enough to pull anything into itself, even light. This is due to the escape velocity of the black hole. Escape velocity is the speed at which an object must travel in order to escape the gravitational pull of a large body (such as a star, planet, or of course a black hole). The stronger the gravitational pull, the faster the escape velocity must be. The escape velocity of earth is about 7 miles per second (25,000 mph). Light travels much faster, about 186,000 miles per second, so it has no trouble escaping earth.
However, a black hole, due to its extreme density, has a much stronger gravitational pull than the earth or even the most massive stars. To get an idea of the density of black holes, consider that in theory a black hole doesn’t need to have formed from a star. Any object, if shrunk to a sufficiently small size (while still maintaining the same mass) would eventually reach sufficient density to become a black hole. The earth, for example, would have to be squished down to the size of a pea for this to happen. Imagine how dense this would be, and you have an idea of the density of a black hole.
The gravitational pull of the black hole, therefore, is so strong that even light, with a speed of 186,000 miles per second, is not fast enough to reach the required escape velocity, and is sucked back towards the black hole. This is why it appears black: no light escapes for us to see. Imagine trying to pull apart an object held together with such a strong gravitational force!
Now consider what we know about the beginning of the universe. For much of history, humanity believed that the universe had no beginning, that it simply existed and was not undergoing any change on a universal scale. Everything changed when Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe actually is expanding. This implied that the universe had a beginning (which, of course, Christianity had said all along), because of the following inference: if we were to “rewind” further and further into the past, the universe would become increasingly smaller, until ultimately it would converge to a single point at its beginning, known as a singularity. This would be a point of infinite energy, infinite heat, infinite density, and an unimaginably small size. It is believed that at this singularity all of the laws of physics would break down (and I certainly don’t blame them!).
Hopefully now my reason for talking about black holes earlier is becoming clear. This singularity is similar to a black hole, but certainly much more extreme. This point was even smaller than a pea, but contained not only the mass of the earth, but all of the matter in the entire universe.
Though it’s impossible to comprehend, consider how strong the gravitational pull of such a dense point must be, and therefore, how much energy would be required to pull it apart.
God pulled it apart.
And He did it with such force that it exploded to a size 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than its initial size, within the first .0000000000000000000000000000001 seconds of the universe’s existence.
If there was ever an appropriate time to say “Mind Blown” this is would be it!
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