So did the universe spring into existence from nothing, without a creator, according to the scientific evidence?
For most of history, people thought the universe was past eternal and uncreated, with matter and time and space already there. It’s a lot easier for us today to think of a finite universe with a beginning, since the big bang theory is currently the most widely accepted theory. But a big bang without a creator has some major difficulties. Without a creator the big bang theory is essentially: “Nothing went ‘bang!’ and out came the universe.”
The atheist, like the theist, believes that matter and energy came into existence without pre-existing materials and then was ordered against the known second law of thermodynamics which says things naturally go from order to disorder. So either way this event was outside known natural laws and therefore was a supernatural event. The main difference is that the atheist has to believe in a supernatural event without a supernatural cause adequate to explain it. Smith and Eastman comment on this: “The atheist’s model begins with an even more impressive miracle―the appearance of all the matter in the universe from nothing, by no one, and for no reason.”[1]
Astronomer David Darling says, “Don’t let the cosmologists try to kid you on this one. They have not got a clue either―despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. ‘In the beginning,’ they will say. . .‘there was a quantum fluctuation from which….’ Whoa! Stop right there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, and then there is something. And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off. They are away, and before you know it they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats.
“You cannot fudge this by appealing to quantum mechanics. Either there is nothing to begin with, in which case there is no quantum vacuum, no pre-geometric dust, no time in which anything can happen, no physical laws that can effect a change from nothingness into somethingness; or there is something, in which case that needs explaining”[2]
So it seems that something from nothing would be a greater miracle that anything. But something from a sufficient First Cause such as God, makes perfect scientific sense.
[2] “On Creating Something from Nothing,” New Scientist, vol. 151, September 14, 1996.