Cause and Effect: Who (or what) created the universe?

Question

I can see the point atheists make in their arguments refuting the necessity of God, but the argument of First Cause still stumps me: since everything we know was caused by something else, who (or what) caused that incredibly small, incredibly dense matter that exploded during the Big Bang and became our universe? Something coming into being from nothing is alien in nature, so was the primordial stuff of the Big Bang created by someone or some thing? What other options are are besides God to explain this?

Answer 1

Interesting Question. Before my answer, i would like to say that I respect both science and spirituality. Neglecting either one would leave one side of the coin untouched.
I believe in mutiple expansions and retractions of the universe(more like saying big bangs again & again).....because when we say big bang, we might ask what really banged. The same thing goes in theological reasoning too that if we say "god created the universe", then the obvious question might be how did god come into exsistence. If the answer for that is god exsisted forever, why not apply the samething to universe and say universe exsisted forever but went through different cycles of expansions and retractions.
Even with multiple expansion and retractions or "big bangs again and again" if you will, the basic question still lingers....where did the original matter come from. When we talk about multiple expansions and retractions, that means we are talking about new universe(with new space & time) starting again and again. So the only thing we can do is to speculate what could be there before but its hard even to take a guess because the reality we are in(or think we are in) is the result of new expansion(or big bang or creation or whatever we can call).

The basic question, (i think) boils down to the question on energy. Whether its scientific or religious, we are talking about energy. I think energy is required for the things that we see around to come into exsistence. Energy is necessary to sustain the universe too. In the same note, It is proved from laws of themodynamics that "ENERGY CAN NEITHER BE CREATED NOR DESTROYED" but can be transfered to different states. So whether we are talking about God(energy) or singularity in science (energy), we are talking about properties of energy which puzzle us to this day.
Philosophically we might further this question by saying, if energy can neither be created nor destroyed, why is this law the way it is. What causes this law to uphold itself. Did something lead to this law to uphold itself. This is how the reasoning and questions goes on and on. There is always something to be discovered/known which we don't have a clue of. Accepting a theory on infinity might be beyound our comprehension but like said before....we have to have an open mind to question, reason, and come up with intelligent theories to describe the universe and never stop questioning.

Without curiosity and questioning, life on earth will come to stall.
So coming up with different questions and answers will lead us to greater goal.

Answer 2

The Big Bang theory is only an explanation of the expansion of the universe (of space itself) and of what happens to the energy content of the universe as it expands (and cools). The theory simply takes it for granted that the energy was already present and was already expanding at the "Planck Time" (the moment we call the beginning). Causality (the name of the principle whereby cause precedes effect) is true. According to the principle, since the universe is an obvious effect, there must be a cause. However, the principle does not help us to determine WHAT the cause is. The problem is that the energy density, at the Planck Time, was so high that we know that matter itself could not have existed then, and that the forces themselves also did not exist. We do not even understand how time itself can flow through this energy density. To put it bluntly, we do not know how to use the word "before" when we apply it to that moment. And without a clear definition of "before", finding a cause (which must come before) is very difficult. But, the fact that we do not know what it is, does not mean that there is not a cause. That is why the principle has not been contradicted. Since we do not understand how time flows at (and "before") the Planck Time, maybe there was nothing to "cause" whatever came before: for all we know, the energy had been there (and expanding) for an eternity. Or it just came out of nowhere, just like virtual particles that are created out of "nothing" by random quantum fluctuations.

Answer 3

The wiki article posted by Antonio is a very good survey of the issue.

The two things that I've always run into when dealing with this argument are quantum physics, and the nature of Time.

Specifically, effects without cause are commonplace in quantum physics. Particles come into existence and vanish without cause. Energy fluctuates in a vacuum without cause. Particles decay without cause (i.e. without even theoretical predictability ... the Heisenberg Uncertainty result). In other words, at the macro-level nature appears to be causal, deterministic; but this turns out to be because of statistical laws that mask an underlying micro-level of unpredictable events ... events with no cause.

And as far as Time and the Big Bang ... the concept of "cause" has no basis in meaning without Time. I.e. if a cause must precede an effect in time, then there can be no such thing as a cause before there is Time itself. To quote the last paragraph of the wiki article (which describes this better than I can):

"The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into being, the start of both space and *time*. Then, the question "What was there before the universe?" makes no sense; the concept of "before" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time. This has been put forward by Stephen Hawking, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole."

Answer 4

I have read book called Angels&Demons and it has interesting theories in it.Even trought it's a fiction, it was writed by Dan Brown(DaVinci Code).In book he writes about Antimatter which is opposite to matter.
Antimatter is not found naturally on Earth, except very briefly and in vanishingly small quantities (as the result of radioactive decay or cosmic rays). This is because antimatter which comes to exist on Earth outside the confines of a suitably equipped physics laboratory would inevitably come into contact with the ordinary matter that Earth is made of, and be annihilated. Antiparticles and some stable antimatter (such as antihydrogen) can be made in minuscule amounts, but not in enough quantity to do more than test a few of its theoretical properties.
So maybe some long time ago enough antimatter was collected to create Big Bang.
It's just an idea, there is this alot of stuff in this world which we don't know about.

Answer 5

Who's to say that the universe hasn't always been? The problem with thinking that there must be a cause for everything leads then for one to ask, Who/What created God? That would then lead to the same problem.

Answer 6

even if you could figure out who (or what) created the universe, then you're left with the question: how did that being come to exist? It's a never ending question and basically a matter of what you choose to believe.

Answer 7

The answer is simple: There are no other options. Obviously the universe was created by evolution!

Don't even get me started on the HYPOTHESIS of GOD - it's got holes in it the size of a mammoth.

Answer 8

i duno im not really religous but there is no other explanation so i guess got made it, and i dont get this big bang theory , what created the bang?no1 no's and the human mind cant understand it. its the most interestin subject tho, i think anyway..X*X*X*X*X*X

Answer 9

There is simply no way of knowing so far. Our physics breaks down. To our knowledge there was no time in the cosmic egg, at least not time as we know it. We simply don't know yet.

Answer 10

The answer is simple: There are no other options. Obviously the universe was created by God.

Don't even get me started on the HYPOTHESIS of evolution - it's got holes in it the size of a mammoth.