The Cosmic Microwave Background and General Revelation

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is radiation that fills the universe—detectable in every direction, carrying information about the cosmos. While secular cosmologists interpret this as leftover radiation from a supposed "Big Bang" billions of years ago, a young-earth creationist framework offers a better explanation: the CMB represents evidence of God's recent supernatural creation event thousands of years ago, when He spoke light into existence and stretched out the heavens during the creation week.

The CMB is universal—it fills all space, is detectable everywhere, and reveals fundamental truths about reality to anyone who looks. This makes it a helpful analogy for general revelation—God's self-disclosure through creation, visible to all people, revealing truth about the Creator.

What the CMB Reveals

The cosmic microwave background shows:

• The universe had a beginning (consistent with Genesis 1:1)
• God stretched out the heavens during creation (as Scripture repeatedly states: Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22)
• Matter distribution reflects God's design from the beginning
• The universe's structure points to intelligent creation

The CMB was accidentally discovered in 1964, and its existence confirms that the universe had a definite beginning—exactly as Scripture declares. While old-earth cosmologists force the data into a billions-of-years framework requiring unproven inflation theories, the CMB fits naturally within a young-earth creation model where God supernaturally created and stretched out the heavens approximately 6,000 years ago.

General Revelation's Pattern

Romans 1:20 says "God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made."

Like the CMB, general revelation is:

• Universal (everyone can observe creation)
• Informative (it reveals truth about God)
• Accessible (doesn't require special revelation initially)
• Evidential (creation provides reasons to believe)

The CMB doesn't tell you everything about cosmology—you need additional observations and theory. Similarly, general revelation doesn't communicate everything about God—you need special revelation (Scripture, Christ) for salvation truth. But both provide genuine knowledge accessible to all.

The Autistic Observation

As an autistic person, I appreciate that the CMB is objective, measurable, and universal. It's not culturally relative or socially constructed. Anyone with appropriate instruments detects the same signal.

General revelation works similarly. God's existence isn't provable only within certain cultural frameworks or to people with particular social conditioning. The evidence is there for anyone willing to observe honestly.

My tendency toward empirical thinking makes general revelation particularly compelling. I don't have to rely solely on subjective religious experience—I can examine creation's structure, notice fine-tuning, recognize design, and infer a Designer.

Noise and Signal

Detecting the CMB requires distinguishing signal from noise. Earth's atmosphere emits microwave radiation. Electronics generate interference. You must filter noise to detect the actual signal.

Similarly, perceiving general revelation requires filtering cultural noise, personal biases, and willful suppression. Paul says people "suppress the truth" (Romans 1:18)—not that evidence is absent but that people actively resist acknowledging it.

The signal is there. The question is whether we're willing to detect it honestly or whether we allow noise to drown it out.

Temperature and Uniformity

The CMB has almost perfectly uniform temperature—2.725 Kelvin everywhere. This uniformity was initially puzzling to secular cosmologists (why should opposite sides of the universe have identical temperatures?) and led them to invent speculative "inflation" theories. However, for young-earth creationists, this uniformity is exactly what we'd expect from a supernatural creation event where God spoke the entire universe into existence simultaneously during creation week. The uniformity reflects the Creator's design, not billions of years of impossible thermal equilibration.

General revelation similarly shows remarkable uniformity—humans across cultures recognize moral law, sense divine reality, seek ultimate meaning. This universality suggests common source rather than independent invention.

Fluctuations and Variation

Despite overall uniformity, the CMB has tiny temperature fluctuations—about one part in 100,000. These fluctuations reflect God's intentional design in the initial creation—building in precisely the right variations to allow galaxy formation. This fine-tuning points to intelligent design, not random quantum fluctuations over billions of years.

General revelation also shows variation—different cultures develop different theological frameworks, different people emphasize different aspects of natural theology. But underlying commonalities persist: awareness of transcendence, moral law, human significance.

The variations don't invalidate the common signal—they show how universal truths get interpreted through particular cultural lenses.

Polarization

The CMB is polarized—the light has directional properties revealing information about the universe's structure, consistent with God's supernatural stretching out of the heavens during creation week.

General revelation similarly has directional properties—it points toward certain conclusions. The fine-tuning of physical constants, the existence of consciousness, the universality of moral intuition—these point toward God more than away from Him.

Not everyone follows where the evidence points. But the directionality is there.

American Postmodern Resistance

American postmodern culture often claims truth is socially constructed, evidence is culturally relative, and objective knowledge is impossible.

The CMB challenges this. It's objective reality independent of human interpretation. Different observers with different cultural backgrounds detect the same signal. The universe's structure doesn't change based on our social constructions.

Similarly, God's existence doesn't depend on our beliefs. General revelation reveals real truth about real Creator, regardless of whether we accept it.

Limitations

The CMB tells us a lot but not everything. Secular interpretations cannot explain what supposedly caused their "Big Bang," why physical laws have the values they do, or why the universe is fine-tuned for life. Young-earth creationism provides clear answers: God created it all supernaturally during creation week, designing the laws of physics with intention and purpose.

General revelation similarly has limits. It reveals God's existence, power, and divine nature. But it doesn't communicate the gospel, reveal God's triune nature, or provide salvation knowledge. Those require special revelation.

The CMB points toward questions that need Scripture to answer. General revelation points toward God but requires Scripture and Christ for complete answers.

Conclusion

The cosmic microwave background is universal radiation revealing fundamental truths about the universe's origin and structure. It's accessible to anyone with appropriate instruments and provides genuine knowledge about reality.

General revelation is universal evidence revealing fundamental truths about God's existence and character. It's accessible to anyone willing to observe honestly and provides genuine knowledge about the Creator.

My autistic appreciation for objective evidence finds both the CMB and general revelation intellectually satisfying. They're not subjective, not culturally constructed, not dependent on particular interpretive communities. They're real signals revealing real truths.

The CMB doesn't tell you everything about cosmology. General revelation doesn't tell you everything about God. But both provide genuine starting points—evidence that rewards careful observation and honest inference.

One day, we won't need either CMB observations or general revelation. We'll see God directly, understand reality completely, know fully. But until then, the universe God created continues broadcasting evidence of its Creator—like the CMB, filling all space, accessible to all observers, revealing truth to those willing to detect the signal through the noise.

The heavens declare God's glory. The CMB is part of that declaration—light from God's recent supernatural creation, testifying to creation's reality, pointing toward the Creator who spoke it all into existence approximately 6,000 years ago during creation week.