Evidence for God’s Existence: Origin of the Universe

As a Christian, you will inevitably run into someone who doubts the existence of God. You can either retreat in fear from the conversation because you lack the knowledge to adequately respond, or you can put in the work ahead of time to prepare yourself for these conversations, thus making you a better witness for Christ. The good new is, there are only about three arguments you need to study and get good at discussing when it comes to presenting evidence for God's existence. They are:

1. Origin of the Universe

2. Origin of Biological Information (Life)

3. Origin of Consciousness

There are more arguments you could learn, such as the moral argument, but I believe if you devote most of your time to these three, you will be able to convince most skeptics that God is real, or at least get them thinking about the inadequacy of their view.

In this article, we are only going to discuss the first argument, which approaches the question of God's existence by giving good reasons for why God is the best explanation for the origin of the universe. This argument is part of what scholars call the Cosmological Argument.

The Cosmological Argument

κόσμος (Kosmos) – Greek word meaning the world or material universe.

Cosmology is the study of the origin and development of the universe. Ever since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have thought about what or who created the universe and developed different arguments. They came up with such terms as “First Cause,” “Sufficient Reason,” or “Unmoved Mover” to explain God’s existence. Eventually, all of these arguments became known as the Cosmological Argument, which is actually a family of arguments that are presented in three different ways.[1]

Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Kalam Cosmological comes from Muslim theologians who further developed the Cosmological Argument during the Islamic Golden Age (8th to 14th century).

Kalam – an Arabic word meaning “speech” or “doctrine.” The word was used to include all medieval Islamic theology.

We’ll look at the argument as developed by al-Ghazali (1058–1111). He reasons:

·      Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning.

·      The world is a being which begins.

·      Therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning.[2] 

William Lane Craig (b. 1949) formulates it this way:

·      Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 

·      The universe began to exist. 

·      Therefore, the universe has a cause.[3] 

Let’s start with premise one. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. We could also say it like this: Nothing begins to exist without something or someone causing it to happen. We may not know what this something or someone is, but it’s part of the human experience and scientific study that nothing just pops into existence from nothing for no reason, including the cosmos. 

When we talk about “cause” in this context, we are talking about what caused the cosmos to come into being. The cause was either nothing, as the atheist would say, or some form of intelligence preceded the Big Bang. I just happen to believe the latter option makes far more sense.

So, the creationist would say God is the cause of the universe. The atheist would say the Big Bang. The creationist would then counter with God caused the Big Bang and then the atheist would counter with, “Yeah, but what caused God?” And then we have this endless cycle of cause and effect–the endless what came before that and what came before that and so and so on. This is what philosophers call an infinite regress, and the cosmological argument deals with this by saying that you can’t have an infinite regress.

Infinite Regress: causal or logical relationship of terms in a series without the possibility of a term initiating the series.[4]

You must have something uncaused to bring about the first cause, because if everything is caused by something else, then we never arrive at the moment when the chain of events began. And if we can’t arrive at the beginning, then we can’t arrive at the present. Craig, explaining how Ghazali argued his second premise, writes:

For one thing, the series of past events comes to an end in the present—but the infinite cannot come to an end. It might be pointed out that even though the series of events has one end in the present, it can still be infinite in the other direction because it has no beginning. But Ghazali’s point may be that if the regress of past events were infinite, then it would be impossible for the present moment to arrive. For it is impossible to cross the infinite to get to today. So today could never arrive, which is absurd, for here we are![5]

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), an Italian Dominican philosopher and priest, contributed to this by seeking a cause that is first in rank, not in time.[6] Aquinas argued that for something to exist, a continuous bestowal of being must be enacted upon it; otherwise, it would cease to exist. God is enabling us to actualize our being, and without His act of being upon us, we would not exist. We are what he termed “contingent beings,” or beings that depend on something else for existence. He reasoned that everything and everyone in the universe is in motion, but nothing in the universe can initiate its own motion.

Now, when we think of motion in this context, we aren’t just talking about objects with mass moving around from one point in spacetime to another. We aren’t talking about the transference of kinetic energy from one object to another. Aquinas was talking about moving from potentiality to actuality. Motion in this sense is more about changing from one state of being to another.

Cold                       to              Hot

                                                   Whole                     to             Broken

Non-existence to Existence

All things are either in state of act or potency, but they can’t be in both at the same time. For example, if you have a log, it has the potential to be hot, but to move from that potential to actualization, an outside force like heat energy has to be applied. The log can’t just burst into flames and actualize heat without something moving upon it.

To Aquinas, God is pure act and has no potentialities. God can’t become anything more or come to learn anything. God is not in motion because there is nothing for him to actualize because He is already complete and perfect in His being. He is pure act, the ground of being and therefore, the “unmoved mover.”

Think of a train. If you sit and wait for a train to go by, you know that no matter how many train cars are connected, eventually the end of the train will come and you will get through the intersection. This is essentially what the Cosmological Argument is saying.

Just like dominos begin to fall because someone or something moved the first domino, when you keep going back in time trying to see what caused the first motion to initiate the cosmos, you find what Aquinas called the "Unmoved Mover." This Unmoved Mover is the first mover; the mover that pushed the first domino, or that steam engine that moved all the train cars. But this mover is itself not moved by anything else. This, of course, is God.

All of this explains how you get a universe out of nothing. We have a universe because God set it in motion by bestowing being on it. It went from not existing to existing at the Big Bang because God moved the universe from thought to actualization.

This is where atheists bring up their objections and look for other possible causes for the universe. They either state the universe is eternal or they may quote Stephen Hawking, who wrote that the universe came from a quantum vacuum.

They love to point to the uncertainty of the quantum realm and how virtual particles are popping in and out of existence out of a quantum energy field, as if an energy field is nothing. A field of any kind is not nothing, even if that field exists for less than Planck time, which is the shortest measurable unit of time.

It’s true that virtual particles, or gauge bosons that carry the forces of nature (light, the strong and weak force), exist for less than Planck time, but all of these virtual particles were created at the Big Bang. There were no virtual particles, no quantum fields, no space or time. Furthermore, if the universe came from the quantum vacuum, we have to ask where the quantum vacuum came from. And if you can find out what the quantum vacuum came from, you have to ask where that thing came from that preceded it. Eventually you come to nothing as it must be truly understood. Nothing means nothing. Not a quantum field, no energy of any kind. Nothing.  

It goes against everything we know to be true to believe that something as complex as the universe could truly emerge from nothingness without some kind of intelligence initiating it, and this is the heart of the first premise. For something to begin to exist, whether it be a universe, a human, or a car, we know intuitively that it was brought into being by some other agent. But some people actually believe in the scientific impossibility of everything in the cosmos emerging from nothing. That requires more faith to believe than believing some intelligent being did it. 

Premise 2: The Universe Began to Exist 

The Big Bang 

In the beginning was the Word… (John 1:1).

Now that we established that something doesn’t begin to exist uncaused, we are ready to see if premise 2 is true. Did the universe have a definite beginning? Some atheists like to argue in favor of an eternal universe, but what do scientists currently believe about our cosmological origins?  

It took the brightest minds in physics, including Albert Einstein, to finally accept the fact that the universe must have had a beginning. Even when their own equations proved it, they just couldn’t accept it, because they knew the theological and philosophical implications of this. They were quite comfortable believing the universe was eternal, but when the proof just kept pouring in that refuted this idea, they couldn’t escape it. 

Cosmologists believe the universe started as a single point much smaller than the smallest piece of matter. It’s hard to imagine everything in the universe all packed into an incredibly dense region smaller than an electron, but that is the current thinking. The “Big Bang,” as it has been labeled, was the instant everything in the universe came into being from this single point. At the moment the universe began, there were no electrons, atoms, quarks, or other pieces of matter. There was no gravity, no light, no Higgs field, no nothing. There was only one particle and one force. In a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, expansion began and other elementary particles began to form. 

If we were fortunate enough to have a video camera set up to record the Big Bang, what would see if we rewound the tape back to the very beginning after watching about a billion years of the universe’s expansion?  We would see all of the galaxies, stars, and cosmic dust quickly go back to their original point at the Big Bang and the screen would go dark and there would be nothing. But imagine for a second what we would see if it were possible to go a time before the Big Bang- a time before time. We already said there was nothing. By nothing we mean nothing that could cause itself to exist or give itself being. But there was something immaterial – information! 

We now understand that the universe had a beginning and therefore has a cause. What is the cause? Mind. How can I say this? Well, for there to be a Big Bang from nothing, there had to be information to tell the stuff that went bang, WHEN to go bang, HOW to go bang, WHERE to go bang, and WHAT’s going to bang. Information was the force that told the stuff to go bang NOW. Information was the force that said this is HOW you will go Bang and this is how to you will expand. Information had to be present first for the stuff to go bang where it did, if we can even use locality in this sense. Information like that to run a universe comes from an intelligent mind. As J. Warner Wallace often says, "If you have a Big Bang, you must have a Big Banger that caused the Bang."

How to Discuss in Simple Terms

The main purpose of the information above is to enable you to share and defend your Christian faith. However, if you have limited time with someone, explaining these concepts might be challenging. It's better to simplify your message. Rather than overwhelming them with terms and names they likely won't recall, consider asking a straightforward question and guiding them to a logical conclusion.

The conversation should look something like this:

Christian: "Where did the universe come from?"

Atheist: "The Big Bang."

Christian: "What caused the Big Bang?"

Atheist: "We don't know yet but some scientists think the universe came into existence from a quantum ocean or is part of a multiverse."

Christian: "Where did the quantum ocean come from and who or what is generating all these universes?"

Atheist: "We don't know."

Christian: "Would you agree that information had to precede the Big Bang? Wouldn't you need information to determine when the Bang would take place? Why was the Bang when it was and not a billion years later? And wouldn't you need information to say where it would Bang? Why is the universe where it is and what is it expanding into if there is nothing but the universe? Wouldn't the laws of gravity and expansion need to be worked out before the Bang so the universe wouldn't implode on itself or expand too quickly? And wouldn't you need information to say what is going to Bang? Matter and energy, what it is and how it operates would need to be worked out before the Bang. So, all the laws of the cosmos were in place before the cosmos. Information, therefore preceded matter and energy and even time itself. The next question is: what preceded information like this? Mind. This mind is God."

[1] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Faith and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 95-96.

[2] Al-Ghazali, Kitab al-Iqtisad fi’l-I’tiqad, cited in S. de Beaurecueil, “Gazzali et S. Thomas d’Aquin: Essai sur la prevue de l’existence de Dieu proposée dans l’qtisad et sa comparaison avec les ‘voies’ Thomsite,” Bulletin de l’Institut Francais d’Archaelogie Orientale 46 (1947): 203.

 [3] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Faith and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 111.

 [4] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/infinite-regress.

 [5] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Faith and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 96.

 [6] J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 465.