How “Nothing” Created Everything
“How can nothing create something?” is a commonly asked question by Christian theists. When we look at the Universe and everything in it, we often end up asking what made all of it come into existence. We tend to imagine a Creator behind it. — God or Gods, spiritual beings, whatever the word “spiritual” means.
Christians have a very clear idea of what or who created the Universe as is. God is the one who brought us into existence, so He must be the one who brought everything else into existence as well. But, what if that’s not how it all happened? What if there is an explanation to it that has nothing to do with anything supernatural and spiritual? What if life and the Universe have a much more complex history?
The best-supported theory of our universe’s origin centers on an event known as the big bang. This theory was born of the observation that other galaxies are moving away from our own at great speed in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient explosive force.
According to science, it was the Bing Bang that caused the expansion of the Universe (along with space-time), meaning that the separation between galaxies is increasing methodically. This raises the question of what caused the Big Bang in the first place? It’s like nothing created something that could eventually result in an expansion. Without God it all seems impossible — a Christian might say.
However, nothing is impossible, at least according to the famous life mantra. God isn’t all that necessary after all. This might sound a bit contradictory to some, but there is actually a good reason to assume that the Big Bang was caused by nothing.
The Big Bang is the moment that space and time (or ‘space-time’) came into existence. Before the Big Bang there was no space or time. So, it is actually meaningless to ask what caused the Big Bang to happen — there was no Universe in which that cause could have existed.
This is where religious thinking comes in. If nothing caused something, the Big Bang in this case, how can everything exist? How can nothing “create” something? — Of course the answer must be “God”. However, quantum physics and modern cosmology have both shown no need for a specific something behind everything. The idea that what we live in now might have had no particular reason for its upspring and that we aren’t a part of a divine plan isn’t that “nonsensical” after all. Yes, things can very much happen randomly and that is by no means something that needs to be reexplained from a religious and spiritual point of view.
Things can happen randomly, spontaneously, and for no particular reason. This unpredictable and ‘causeless’ nature of the Universe is experimentally verified but has nothing to do with our inability to observe correctly — it is a fundamental property of the Universe. So, although there may have been a cause for the Big Bang that we are unaware of, modern cosmology neither defines nor requires one.
To sum up, our existence doesn’t necessarily need a divine explanation. If most things in this Universe can be explained through natural phenomena, why should the upspring of it be any different? There might be a God behind it, but for now there is no reason to think that. We can and should, however, question everything, if we feel that takes us closer to a more suitable answer. Moreover, as I already mentioned in one of my previous articles, we cannot know everything, but we can always learn more. And the more we learn the closer we get to the so called truth.
