by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
Here is question for you. Both responses to the question are literally impossible, but one is in fact entirely true. This is not a religious matter. It is a matter connected to intellect, logic, and reason.
Here we go…
Did something come from nothing, or, did something always exist?
Either something somehow, in some way, came into existence from nothing, or, something, or someone, always existed.
How can anyone discuss the origins of life, the universe, and everything before and since without questioning how something can emanate from nothing? You can, as I have, attempt to research this topic, and you will find it exhausting. There are explanations out there how something can come from nothing. But each time, within nothing is… something.
Atheists and agnostics will the question, “How a sovereign God can allow tragedy and evil?” “How can God allow there to be illness, pain, and suffering?” “What about starvation and homelessness?” They may ask, “Where did God come from?” Then the clincher, among so many other questions that are fair to ask, is, “Do you, as someone who believes in God, believe in the theory of evolution?”
Questions regarding tragedy, evil, pain, and suffering, would be linked directly with free will, and the freedom and autonomy to choose independent from the sovereign intention of the creator that catalyzed the systemic evolutionary process of all things, and in particular, life of any and every kind.
To the last question concerning evolution, I would suggest that you consider that both Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein neither declared that they were atheists nor agnostic when it comes to the essential existence of God. (You will hear from them, and many other scientists, throughout this essay.) Both Darwin and Einstein understood logically and rationally that something didn’t come from nothing, suggesting that their conclusion must be that some kind of supreme sovereign being always existed, since one of these impossibilities must be true and factual.
Unless you accept that something, as minute as it may be, can come from something, appear from out of nowhere, then I believe the question in need of an answer is this: Assuming that something had to always exist, if God didn’t always exist, than what else did?
There a plenty of theories regarding the origins of the universe and life. Of course, we have the big bang theory. However, there is more often than not, agreement that the big bang was not some kind of explosion into a universe, but more of a transformation of densely hot energy (a quadrillion degrees) that within millionths of billionths of trillionths of a single second burst into light—the literal big bang—millions of years before there were stars and galaxies.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. Genesis 1:1-4 (NKJV)
The Bible tell us in at the very beginning of the book of Genesis that the earth was without form. The writer of Genesis, commonly believed to be Moses was born around 1527 B.C. There are scholars out there who believe the book of Genesis to have been written in the fifth or sixth century B.C., which would be several hundred years after Moses. This is the justification for considering the Book of Genesis to ancient mythology rather than historical.
The more you research the origins of the universe, the more you will discover that there was something before the big bang, and that the big bang is not what you thought it to be.
We read in Genesis that God separated the light from the darkness, and that is what the big bang is more likely to be, perhaps hundreds of millions of years before the first star. The book of Genesis skips ahead, past some ten billion years of history, into the matter of how the earth was formed and then quickly advances to the origins of life.
Remember that Bible indicates in Genesis that, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” When you study the truest beginnings of the universe, the big bang starts out as something smaller than a drop in a bucket, or rather an ocean, or oceans; really drop in the universe. But much smaller than a drop. It is a combination of solid, gas, and liquid heated to a quadrillion degrees.
The Bible is telling us that God hovered over the face of this. It had to cool to form the fourth degree of matter; plasma. It all happened, cosmologists agree, in millionths of billionths of trillionths of a second. Since you probably cannot blink your eyes more than three times in a single second, there is no way for the human mind to fathom the time frame considered here. To God, however, time is up to Him. Anyway, it is from plasma, the fourth degree of matter, that protons, electrons, atoms, and all that, become physical matter that ultimately produces stars, planets, galaxies, etc. Depending on your source for any of this there are anywhere from hundreds of billions of observable galaxies (thanks to the Hubble telescope) up to a couple of trillion. Within each galaxy are trillions of stars and planets within the solar systems of most stars.
There are cosmologists that disagree, according to the latest data in the last 20 years, that “the big bang” is most appropriate when describing the origins of the universe. Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt, has suggested the big bang should be renamed the big stretch theory, according to new research he has performed with other cosmologists. His more recent research implies opposition, if not contradiction, to the original theories Dr. Steinhardt championed regarding inflation as the manner in which the salient properties of the universe (the big bang) occurred in the first place.
From within the properties of the universe, science gets a quite murky when it comes to the origins of life. Science as a field agrees that there was gravity and gravitational waves before there were stars, but cannot speak with specific clarity to the origin of gravity and matter. The origin of gravity and matter would have to contain within it, the material to originate life that can survive, learn, reproduce, nourish itself, and go on to reason in terms of human and animal life, and be able to love, or comprehend any aspect of love. Without a creator at the helm as the catalyst for all living things, how is it remotely possible?
Consider everything that has to fit and work together for anything to reproduce, to be alive, to grow, and to sustain itself. From the tiniest of living things to plant and animal life to human beings, all growth and life appears to be an active miracle. Why does some mushy thing we call a brain organize the function of life—the beating heart, the breathing lungs, the absorption of nutrients, intelligence, emotion, logic, love and hate—with such precision? The ingredients for life are beyond measure and imagination. Why does any of it work?
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29 (NIV)
“How can I believe in something I’ve never seen?” is usually the question associated with the declaration they do not believe God exists. Yet, we all believe, and in fact trust in, that which they have not seen all the time, every day. Whether it be the oxygen we breathe, gravity, nutrition, electricity, wi-fi, and everything else we put absolute confidence in that we don’t see. Willing accept the word written by people about history and science; unwilling to accept anything written by people about God. When it comes to belief in God… NOPE… not willing to go there. “I need evidence… prove it.”
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? Isaiah 29:16 (NIV)
“What we know is a drop, what we do not know is a vast ocean. The admirable arrangement and harmony of the universe could only have come from the plan of an omniscient and omnipotent being.” —Isaac Newton, physicist and mathematician, founder of classical theoretical physics
Is there a God? Is God out there, somewhere? Where is God? Is God watching? Is God watching powerful stars collide and blow each other up in this big, bad universe? Is God watching powerful humans collide and blow each other up on this big, bad planet we call earth? Is God watching? Is God out there? Where is God?
“Modern physics teaches me that nature is not capable of ordering itself. The universe presupposes a huge mass of order. It therefore requires a great “First Cause” that is not subject to the second law of transformation of energy and that is therefore supernatural.” —Howard H. Aiken, American physicist, computer pioneer (IBM)
Before I set out to poke at the so-called “intellectual sensibilities” concerning the reality of God, I would to say to you that the only proof I need lies within my own personal experience—my testimony, if you will—in relationship with God. Once you have known God in your experience, it is so profound that it is life-changing. It is what makes the most sense. Then, when in the fellowship of others, even total strangers, who have shared in that transformative experience, there is nothing more affirming than that. There is a connection that binds us together in relationship, even when having met those “brothers and sisters” for the first time. No one can take that away from us no matter how they try.
“I was practically an atheist in my childhood. Science was what led me to the conclusion that the world is much more complex than we can explain. I can only explain the mystery of existence to myself by the supernatural.” —Allan Sandage, American astronomer
They (whoever ‘they’ is) might ask, “How do you know it’s God?” That question to me is like asking her who just gave birth to a newborn baby, “How do you know the infant you just gave birth to is your child?”
“I can assert most definitely that the denial of faith lacks any scientific basis. In my view, there will never be a true contradiction between faith and science.” —Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize 1923
Whether one believes in God or not, it is other-worldly what is being seen and measured in the universe with the advances of ever-increasing technological progress. The Hubble telescope is one satellite sending pictures back as it orbits the curvature of the earth at a clip of 17,000 mph, at an altitude of some 340 miles. The high definition images transmitted from space are remarkable. Scientists enmeshed in the exploratory research are giddy with excitement in the wonder of their discovery. It’s being hailed as the golden age of astronomy. Even the most sophisticated geniuses around the world are blown away with new-found excitement by recent discoveries, full of anticipation for what is coming as the exploration of the universe rages on.
Contrary to popular opinion, surveys suggest that more than half of the scientists surveyed (astronomers, physicists and mathematicians), either acknowledged their belief in God, or some form of a supreme being as the logical engineer of the order of the universe. Atheists see this and go crazy, picking at Einstein’s connection to God, and that he didn’t believe in a personal God, or how that some scientist’s quote about a supernatural originator of life is taken out of context and mischaracterizes the scientist, or worse yet, mischaracterizes science itself.
Whatever… so what! The scientist said what the scientist said. Who’s to know for certain what he intended behind what he said unless he is around to clarify.
What did Albert Einstein say?
“The more I study science, the more I believe in God. I want to know how God created this world.” —Albert Einstein
Check out what else he said, which I suppose, is taken out of context as well:
“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” —Albert Einstein
What I am about to share with you, as Albert Einstein said way back when, inevitably and provocatively points toward the reality of God as creator, and yes, lends credibility to biblical claims regarding the origins of the universe. Astronomy is closer than ever to treating the big bang and the expansion of the universe as something that occurred in an instant. Gravitational waves carried matter (that became stars and stuff) hundreds, thousands and millions of times the mass of our sun from one end of the universe to the other, covering trillions of trillions of miles, in a less than a second.
It’s no joke! It’s not an exaggeration or an over-simplification of facts. They say stuff is carried by gravitational waves through space at millions of light years per second. Just one light year is just under six (6) trillion miles. How many trillions of miles is millions of light years? So, exactly how big is this universe? Try not to let your head hurt too much trying to wrap your mind around that.
I recently viewed a PBS program (Black Hole Apocalypse) with world-renowned physicists and astronomers educating viewers about the universe and black holes and such. The host of the program, Dr. Janna Levin, a physicist who earned her PhD at MIT, and her colleagues blew my mind discussing gravitational waves. Black holes are believed to be the remnants of large stars (at least three times the mass of the sun) that die in what amounts to supernova explosions. As black holes grow from “feeding” on more stars sucked in by gravitational forces, they can become millions (even billions) of times the mass of the sun.
These incredibly massive black holes partner up to orbit around each other at speeds of up to 100 times per second. This event produces gravitational waves that shoot through the curvatures of space billions of light years per second. No embellishment here. Such extraordinary activity generates big-bang caliber action throughout time and space. Regarding the effects of black holes and their gravitational forces, Dr. Levin suggests, “We might not exist without them.”
How do you even begin to wrap your mind around that?
What are scientists now saying about these gravitational waves and their impact on how it all began?
This article references remarks by astronomers, physicists, biologists, and mathematicians throughout history (including some you’ve heard of), addressing what they believe about the origination of the universe, and what’s living in it. The article is long because it is comprehensive in it’s mindful investigation into why it is more reasonable to believe in God than not to believe. It questions the nature of those who resist believing, even in the face of ever-mounting scientific evidence for the reality of God.
The Science is in the Details
“God is a mathematician of a very high order and he used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.” — Paul A. M. Dirac, Nobel Prize-winning physicist crucial to early contributions to both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics
As you read this extensive and comprehensive article making a legitimate, intellectually sensible case for a creator, please hold on to this thought: Once you have accepted that it makes the most sense rationally that the origination of life required a live, intelligent, powerfully sovereign source—‘sovereign’ meaning absolute, directing, superior, and (most importantly) effectual—then ALL things under the sovereignty of this living source is entirely possible; including (and especially) the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, since the originator (creator) of life can certainly then restore life from whatever condition it’s been in.
Let’s begin this exploration by asking the question…
If God didn’t always exist, then what did?
Pardon my naiveté but, wouldn’t whatever always existed have to be alive to somehow produce life?
Wouldn’t whatever was alive that always existed have to be intelligent and intentional enough to get it just right for any of it to work? Wouldn’t it have to have within its “DNA” everything it takes for life to be what it’s come to be?
“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.” —Arno Penzias, physicist, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics
How was life assembled? How was it turned on? How did it get figured and sorted out?
These are legitimate questions that beg for a rationally, sensible response. Something always existed, right? Something (or someone) started at least the process for it all to get going. There is no way around it; as assertive, and even aggressive, as some may try to be explaining away the problem of this reality.
Here is another question that has to be answered. How did something that appeared from nothing become more things? How did the then collection of things fit together so perfectly to form and produce more things that altogether have the constitution to move, and to collaborate, and to grow?
All it needed was enough time? Without reasonable intelligence, organization, collaboration, and so forth, wouldn’t time be just as likely to evoke disruption and disturbance as it would to be effective and productive?
We have to assume that time is a productive agent in the evolutionary process, rather than a counterproductive measure working against the process. Time still does not offer up a catalyst for the process. Time does not excuse the problem that whatever came from nothing had to be alive, or contain something alive, in order to produce opportunity to advance the evolutionary process of living organisms. Time, on its own, does not contain within it the constitution or competence for organization and intelligence.
“As a scientist, I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God… I would say that Hawking’s claim is misguided. He asks us to choose between God and the laws of physics, as if they were necessarily in mutual conflict. But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.” —John Lennox, PhD, mathematics professor, Oxford University
Consider the evolution of life without a creator as you would music and a song without a composer.
How did the music form and come together for it all to work without a composer and conductor? The song wrote itself? The instruments and voices just happened to show up and know how to perfectly perform the song so that it eventually, by chance, without reasonable comprehension and intelligence, just happened to be understood to be music?
Where did it all originate? How did it come to be? Why does it work?
Why are things the way they are if there isn’t or ever was a creator? Why does any of it work? How does it make sense that you, and all other living species, breath to sustain life? How—and why—did it come to be that male and female come together to reproduce the process of life? And then, how did everything else around it—water, oxygen, food, and so on—develop the capability to sustain life?
Science has discovered scores of the sheet music that is necessary to play these incredible songs. Researchers and scholars for centuries have discovered more and more of the compositions and have developed the intelligence to piece together the music in such a way that the songs can be supported by instruments and musicians. When the compositions are discovered and performed, they sound musical. They are beautiful… wonderful… glorious! Some may even suggest they sound miraculous.
Then, these same scientists are willing to settle for what they believe is a reasonable possibility that the compositions just happened by chance—by accident—through random occurrences. These geniuses agree that it is logical to expect that given enough time—billions of years, or whatever—that the music somehow composed itself from nothing, out of nowhere. Is that genius, or what?
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. Genesis 1:31 (NKJV)
“I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose… The safest conclusion seems to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man’s intellect.” —Charles Darwin (1873 letter to Dutch writer and friend, Nicolaas Dirk Doedes)
Something happened. There is no question about it. Whatever it was that actually happened, happened. The thing about facts and truth is that facts are facts and truth is truth, whether anyone believes it or not.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Yes, it does… every time.
How do you know?
It doesn’t matter.
Whether we know or not doesn’t change the obvious. It doesn’t change, adjust, or alter the facts about what is true. The tree fell in the forest and it made a sound, whether anyone heard it or not.
What about words and language? Did human communication just happen randomly over time? Or was it people that originated sounds to communicate something? Language to communicate definitely evolved over great lengths of time, but language needed a degree of reasonably intelligent thought to come into existence. Language didn’t just happen randomly. No doubt there was a kind of evolutionary process. But it all began with someone at some point in time. It must have taken incredible effort and collaboration among civilized societies from one generation to the next long before language became routine.
Per Merriam-Webster, ‘theism’ is defined as “the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (opposed to atheism)”
“Perhaps the best argument…that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas…being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory.” —Christopher J. Isham, Imperial College of London astrophysicist, Britain’s leading quantum cosmologist
So, what actually happened? How did it all begin, this big, wild and wonderful, amazing, glorious universe? What about this thing known as life? Did it all start with a bang… the big bang? What banged? What made it bang? Was it a fluke… coincidence? Was it an accident?
“The more I study science, the more I believe in God… I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts; the rest are details.” —Albert Einstein
Perhaps the question is, WHO made it bang?
Was it God?
“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.” Revelation 4:11 (NKJV)
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” —Albert Einstein
Is the science of evolution possible without God at the helm?
Is God, after all, real?
What is God? Who is God? Can God be seen? Can God be heard? Can God be experienced?
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Is believing in God like believing in Santa Claus?
But… but, what if…? What if Santa…? What if Santa Claus landed on your roof?
Would you believe in Santa Claus if he actually (for real) landed on your roof, came in and blessed your life? Then Santa came back and did it again… and again. Would you believe in what you experienced? Would you really? Would you come to trust in your experience? Would you tell anyone about it? Or maybe, you would tell everyone about it!
“If God didn’t always exist then, well… what did?” continues with Something from Nothing?
