Modern science has been proven, over the past 400 years, to be incapable of accomplishing what the ancient philosophers explained it could never accomplish: providing a more accurate and certain knowledge of the world than philosophy. Plato explained this — and he wasn’t even smart enough to figure out the art of Reasoning. Aristotle also explained this, and there is a reason why Aristotelian philosophy guided western civilization for almost 2,000 years. That’s when Francis Bacon proposed the abandonment of Aristotle’s “method” and the Scientific Revolution was launched.
Because of the massive amounts of money and manpower that has been invested in modern science, it is able to appear impressive. The facilities, equipment, crowds, imagery, etc., are mesmerizing. All of this, however, is spectacle, distracting us from the real question: What have we learned, for certain, about the natural world?
Schools have been gutted of their ancient wisdom by this irrational pursuit of experimental knowledge of the world. The consequences are evident in the laughaboly ridiculous theories proposed by scientists. No theory is more obviously ridiculous than the so-called “Big Bang Theory” proposed to explain how the universe started.
What is the Big Bang Theory?
The Big Bang Theory posits that the entire universe originated approximately 13.8 billion years ago from an extremely hot, dense, and singular state—a point of infinite density and temperature known as a singularity. In an instant, space, time, matter, and energy began to expand rapidly outward from this initial condition. As the universe cooled over time, subatomic particles formed, then atoms (mostly hydrogen and helium), followed by the gradual coalescence of stars, galaxies, and larger cosmic structures through gravitational attraction. This model accounts for the observed expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the abundance of light elements, presenting a naturalistic explanation for the origin and evolution of all matter and the fabric of spacetime itself from a common primordial source.
The Obvious Impossibility of the Big Bang Theory
Imagine, if you will, that the Sun and the Earth—or rather, the primordial material destined to become them—emerged from one and the same cosmic source at the very instant of creation, as the Big Bang theory proposes for all matter in the universe. At that singular beginning, they occupy essentially the same point in space, sharing the same initial conditions. Now suppose that this common origin imparts to both an identical impulse, a single burst of force or momentum transfer, much as a cannon might propel two objects with the same charge of powder. What, then, would reason and the unchanging laws of nature predict about their subsequent paths through the vast expanse of time and space?
The answer arises directly from the principles of mechanics long established by careful observation and logical deduction. The force applied is the same for both, yet their masses differ profoundly. The Sun is said to have a mass some 333,000 times greater than the earth. According to the relation between impulse and change in momentum, the lighter body must acquire a far greater velocity from the same push. The Earth would surge forward at a speed 333,000 times that gained by the massive Sun, which would recoil almost imperceptibly, like a great boulder barely stirred by the kick that sends a pebble flying. Their relative velocity, dominated by the Earth’s motion, would thus be enormous even if the initial impulse were modest by cosmic measures.
Over the immense span of cosmic history—again, some 13.8 billion years—this differential velocity compounds without bound, assuming for the sake of the experiment that no overwhelming counteracting forces immediately intervene. If the relative speed were a mere 1 kilometer per second—a pace no faster than a leisurely stroll on Earth—the separation after all these eons would reach approximately 46 million light-years. Scaling by the mass ratio yields a distance of roughly 15 trillion light-years. For context, the observable universe itself extends only about 46.5 billion light-years in radius from our vantage point. The Earth would lie hundreds of times farther away than the farthest reaches we can possibly detect, utterly isolated in a region beyond any causal connection to the Sun. Even a vastly smaller initial velocity difference of just 1 meter per second would still propel the Earth to tens of billions of light-years distant—well beyond the bounds of the visible cosmos.
In reality, however, we observe the Sun and Earth in intimate companionship, separated by a “mere” 150 million kilometers—one astronomical unit, traversable by light in just over eight minutes. They share a common center of mass (lying very near the Sun’s core), orbit together through the Milky Way galaxy with nearly identical velocities, and remain bound by gravity in a stable system. Such proximity and coordinated motion stand in irreconcilable contradiction to the outcome demanded by the thought experiment. Gravity alone could not possibly reunite or hold together bodies once separated by velocities sufficient to produce even a fraction of those cosmic distances; once the escape threshold is surpassed, the lighter body departs forever on a hyperbolic path into the void.
This discrepancy deepens when we reflect further on the composition of our world. The Big Bang framework holds that only the lightest elements—primarily hydrogen and helium, with trace lithium—could form in the primordial furnace. Yet the Earth abounds in heavier elements: carbon, oxygen, iron, silicon, and more, essential for rock, water, and life itself. These must arise later, through processes in ancient stars and their explosive deaths, which then supposedly seeded new clouds of gas and dust. But this deferral merely postpones the difficulty. Any such precursor stars or clouds, if likewise emerging from the same singular origin with uniform early conditions, would face the identical mass-driven velocity disparity. Localized gravitational collapse into coherent structures like our solar system becomes implausible amid such dispersive forces acting from the outset.
Conclusion
Thus, the thought experiment illuminates a profound philosophical contradiction. The Big Bang theory, in positing a common explosive origin for all matter under shared initial impulses or conditions, cannot account for the ordered, bound, and compositionally rich system we inhabit without invoking mechanisms that strain against the simplest applications of inertia and momentum conservation. It invites us to question whether the cosmos truly unfolded from a single, undifferentiated point in the manner described, or whether a different understanding—one more consonant with the enduring principles of nature and the evident harmony of celestial bodies—better accords with reason and direct observation. In pursuing truth, as seekers in the classical liberal arts tradition have always done, we weigh such ideas not by authority alone but by their consistency with logic, mathematics, and the world as it presents itself to the inquiring mind. The closeness of Sun and Earth today whispers of a more measured, perhaps more ancient or localized formation, urging continued reflection on the deepest origins of all things.
In the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, such reflections are not undertaken in a spirit of opposition to science, but in proper understanding of its place. We affirm the value of experimental science within its own domain, where observation and measurement yield knowledge of material processes. Yet we also recognize that science, by its very method, is limited to what can be quantified and tested, and therefore cannot judge questions of ultimate origin, causality, or purpose. For these higher matters, philosophy provides a more universal and certain light, proceeding by reason from first principles. And beyond even philosophy, divine revelation offers truths that exceed the reach of human inquiry while confirming and elevating it. Thus, in our studies, we seek not to diminish science, but to situate it rightly within the fuller order of knowledge, where reason and faith together guide the mind toward truth.
Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
The sources, goals, method, outline, and direction of this lesson are the work of Mr. William C. Michael, O.P., Headmaster of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. The written copy has been composed from his materials and instructions with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools, and reviewed and approved by him before publication.
