Ever since Parmenides in the fifth century BC, the question “Why is there anything at all?”, or, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has been raised or commented on by philosophers including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Martin Heidegger − who called it the fundamental question of metaphysics.
Help from science
Modern science can eliminate some possibilities.
The idea that the universe has always existed is not tenable because its amount of usable energy is decreasing in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and it will eventually end with no motion within it and a uniform temperature throughout it. It commenced wound up and it is now winding down so it could not have always existed.
Another argument is that the universe created itself. Again, this is untenable because before the universe could do anything like create itself, it had to have existed already.
Popular theoretical physicist the late Stephen Hawking made the following statement:
…because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.[1]
Since gravity is a force of attraction between two objects, then it is non-existent if there is no matter and the concept of gravity being a creative force is meaningless.
Professor John Lennox[2] responded with:
Laws themselves do not create anything; they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions. What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine. That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own – but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Whittle as its agent.[3]
There remain only two possibilities:
One. Everything was created by a supernatural being.
Or
Two. Everything was created by nothing.
The reader might be thinking that the idea that “nothing” created everything from nothing is preposterous and nobody would entertain such an idea. But atheists are trapped, because “nothing” is all they are left with. If there was something present through which everything came, then who or what created that “something.” Undaunted, they put their faith in the creative power of nothing:
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, presented in a recent book, his claim that the laws of physics could have created the universe from nothing.[4] For a thorough rebuttal of Klauss’ claims, see Dan Reynolds’ article in Journal of Creation.[5]
Cosmologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Alan Guth, had this to say:
The universe burst into something from absolutely nothing—zero, nada. As it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nothing.[6]
Luke Barnes, a non-creationist astrophysicist who is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney, Australia, is scathing about Krauss and those who argue like him:
First and foremost, I’m getting really rather sick of cosmologists talking about the universes being created out of nothing. Krauss repeatedly talked about the universes coming out of nothing, particles coming out of nothing, different types of nothing, nothing being unstable. This is nonsense. The word nothing is often used loosely—I have nothing in my hand, there’s nothing in the fridge etc. But the proper definition of nothing is “not anything”. Nothing is not a type of something, not a kind of thing. It is the absence of anything.[7]
That leaves us with only creation by a supernatural being. Interestingly, a Supernatural Being has contacted us and told us that it was He who created everything. Also, He told us how He created; He simply spoke everything into existence. So, it was no harder for God to create 100 thousand heavenly bodies or 100 billion galaxies each containing 100 billion stars. He has told us in what order He created; we can read about this in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 of the Bible. And the reason He created, was because it pleased Him.[8]
The Bible goes further and challenges us with the stark fact:
..since what may be known about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his external power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.[9]
The incomprehensibly complexion of creation ranging from the astronomical size of the universe to life in all of its great variety all point to a Creator.
1967 Nobel Prize winner and an evolutionist himself, George Wald, sums up the situation very well with this statement:
When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities–creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance![10]
[1] Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, 2010., 25.
[2] Professor Lennox has impeccable qualifications to discuss the subject. He holds multiple higher degrees, including an MA, PhD and DSc; he is a Reader in Mathematics at the University of Oxford, and a fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green College.
[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html.
[4] Krauss, L. A Universe from Nothing. New York: Free Press, 2012.
[5] Dan W Reynolds, Journal of Creation, April 2013, 27(1), pages 30-35. http://creation.com/review-krauss-universe-from-nothing.
[6] Discover, April 2002. DISCOVER, April 2002
[7] L Barnes, Out of nothing, letterstonature. WordPress.com, April 1, 2011. Cited by Jonnathan Sarfati, http://creation.com/god-created-not-quantum-fluctuation, November 21, 2013.
[8] Colossians 1:16, Revelation 4:11.
[9] Romans 1:19-20.
[10] G. Wald, The Origin of Life, Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954.
2 Comments. Leave new
Yes but even if the ‘god’s’ of religions and supernatural events can occur, they would have to have come from something, because like you said “First and foremost, I’m getting really rather sick of cosmologists talking about the universes being created out of nothing.” And this is a question that escapes the means of our existence, and what is here now. Though however there is confusion as to how something came of nothing, this is the reason philosophers created stories of supernatural beings. To explain something unexplainable, to put a plug in the whole of the question trying to drag us in. But a theory i have is that like the absence of something creates a ‘want’ to become something. A vacuum has want to become filled with matter, and in the same way, where no energy existed there was a force of the ‘want’ which nonphysically wants to exist. The nothingness could have teared open a somethingness, or all our thermodynamic laws and mathematical rules need to be re-established. To find the somethingness, first we must find the nothingness, and this information could be very crucial to uncovering the past and future of everything. We must look deep within existence, ourselves and… yeah. The find of the search.. if found that is, will be the truly most beautiful thing we cannot imagine. Don’t plug this hole shut with the supernatural because it is yet to be explained, open up the hole to allow this curiosity and beauty to enlighten us with what we are, where we are, why we are, who we are. Please, allow yourself to delve deep into your curiosity, disprove and reprove theories again and again. This is what everything wants to know. Where it came from, why. Question everything, my theory, me, this website, the world, the universe… That is where we can find the beauty of the nothingness of creation.
Thank you for your comment Virgo. I prefer to believe that everything was created by a Supernatural Being rather than “nothing”. What is more, a Supernatural Being has contacted us and told us that it was He, the God of the Bible who created everything. He told us how He did it; He simply spoke it into existence, in what Order He created; we can read that in Genesis chapter one, and why He did it; because it pleased Him. Clearly, the God of the Bible was not an invention of philosophers.