Massive Upheaval Part II

We are considering the staggering scientific discovery from the 20th century that the universe had an absolute beginning out of a “zero-volume singularity.”  That realization has completely overthrown the previously-held scientific consensus that the cosmos “always existed.”  This new paradigm, though subject to on-going limited revisions, rests on very secure foundations for the host of reasons I list in my November 15 posting.  The question that logically follows from this discovery is, how is this absolute beginning of the universe to be explained apart from a transcendent Creator (“transcendent” means, to stand above and outside of the material universe) who called it into existence?


It is crucial that we define the words “nothing” and “zero-volume singularity.”  Atheist Lawrence Krauss argues in his recent book, A Universe From Nothing, that something will always arise out of nothing because physics tells us that nothingness is “inherently unstable.”  Similarly, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow argue in their recent book, The Grand Design, that gravity was the cause of the creation of the universe out of “nothing.”  A common disconnect appears in both of the above statements that is frequently repeated across popular literature.  They both appeal to an existent entity first in order to account for the appearance of something out of nothing.  The problem with their line of argument is, prior to the Big Bang, “nothing” means literally the absence of anything at all.  Exactly what is it that was supposed to be unstable when nothing yet actually existed?  Exactly where did Hawking’s gravity come from that was supposed to have brought all things into existence?  For a fuller treatment of these kinds of challenges I recommend the book God and Stephen Hawking, by Mathematician and Philosopher of Science, John C. Lennox of Oxford University.

According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, at the Big Bang, all of space, time, matter, and energy came into existence out of nothing.  This reality removes the cause of the universe from the realm of science.  Quantum Mechanics is often pitted against Einstein’s theory.  Yet quantum mechanics can’t exist it all without the Big Bang since prior to that initial explosion there was absolutely no space nor time, nor matter, nor energy for anything at all to perform anything at all.

 While science cannot account for the beginning of all things, the Bible boldly proclaims, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)