Christians: Why is it so difficult to believe our universe/matter has always existed?

Question

You believe god can neither be created nor destroyed??? He/she always existed. Just curious. This is a repost. Earlier I did not get many answers for this question.

Vishal: Thx for the response. There is no reason for Atheists to get mad. I am not making these things up. You can check it out on PBS it's a documentary on the Origins of our Universe.

Answer 1

Somehow, some of the atheists got angry at this question.

I think the reason is some confusion over the term "universe." In general, science says that matter always existed, but that the spacetime has a beginning. "Prior" to the expansion of spacetime (The Big Bang) there was no time (because there was no temporal dimension).

If you're including the spacetime as necessary component of the universe, then it's wrong to say that the universe already existed (and I guess that the atheists who are getting mad do have this view.) If, on the other hand, you don't include spacetime as a necessary component of the universe, then you are justified in saying that the universe always existed.

Anyway, I've always wondered this too.

Answer 2

Firstly, the Big Bang hypothesis supports the idea that this universe had beginning.

Secondly, philosophically one may appeal to the First Cause Argument:

"The most famous arguments for God's existence are the ''five ways” of Thomas Aquinas. One of them is the argument from design, which we looked at last week. The other four are versions of the ''first cause” argument, which we explore here.

The argument is really very simple: Everything needs an explanation. Nothing just is. Everything has some “sufficient reason” why it is.

Example: My parents caused me, my grandparents caused them, etc. But it's not that simple. I wouldn't be here without billions of causes, from the Big Bang through the cooling of the galaxies and the evolution of the protein molecule to the marriages of my ancestors. So the universe is a vast and complex chain of causes.

But does the universe as a whole have a cause? Is there a First Cause, an uncaused Cause, of the whole process?

If not, then there's an “infinite regress” of causes, with no first link in the great cosmic chain. If so, then there is a First Cause, an eternal, independent, self-explanatory Being with nothing above it, before it or supporting it. It would have to explain itself as well as everything else — for if it needed something else as its explanation, then it wouldn't be the First Cause.

Such a Being would have to be God. If we can prove there is such a First Cause, we'll have proved there is a God.

If there is no First Cause, then the universe is like a railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained, proximately, by the motion of the car in front of it: The caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it: the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it: etc. But there's no engine to pull the first car, and thus the whole train. That would be impossible, of course. But that's what the universe is like if there is no First Cause." Peter Kreeft

Answer 3

Ever heard of the 'big bang'? The universe has a beginning and it will have an end. And even if it did always exist, I would have no problem believing it because our God said he didn't want to leave any proof of his existance and leave it up to faith. We believe God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity (All of the same person in 3 different forms) is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. So, essentially, yes I think He's always been there, and always will be. So, if you want to know more about Christianity or just religion, you can go to godtube.com or email me:[e-mail]

Good Luck! =)

Answer 4

I'm an atheist, and I find it hard to believe in anything without a beginning - including the universe. Are you saying you're perfectly comfortable believing it always existed? Woudn't that mean time had no beginning? Thats a pretty crazy idea, since time is always changing, and for it to change without a beginning is contradictory. God is... well, God isn't really considered to be anything material or physical, God is sort of considered a general presence of consciousness. I agree with you... that it also seems weird to suggest God always existed. But if you were brought up believing in God, you couldn't have it any other way... ie. God couldn't possibly have been created - since God is by definition the creator. Thats why they believe it (although I don't agree with it myself). The question itself seems to be an effort to prove (or at least support) God's lack of existence. Why bother - you're not going to convert any Christians to atheism. And its obviously not to support your own belief in atheism - since it doesn't seem as though you're going to get converted into a Christian.

Answer 5

Isn't there a certain law of thermodynamics that says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed? Is this the same for matter?

As a Mormon, I believe that God did not create matter ex-nihilo but that it has always existed alongside the eternal creator. I believe that he did not create the earth out of nothing, but organized the materials that were at hand.

Meaning of the Word Create

"You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing, and they will answer, “Doesn’t the Bible say he created the world?” And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time He had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end." (King Follett Sermon.)

Answer 6

why is it so difficult to believe our universe has not always existed?In the beginning was an unexplained puddle of goo. Suddenly, an electric arc shot out of nothingness, creating amino acids. These acids, through pure chance, developed into proteins and eventually the first single-cell organism came into being. Over the course of time, chance favored this cell, and eventually its offspring became every mammal, fish, bird, amphibian, reptile, microbe, and plant on earth today. According to evolutionists, this is the most likely scenario for our existence today. If this were the case, we should be able to go backwards in time and conceptually deconstruct every organism to get to this original cell. However, in nature, certain things defy this deconstruction. Some biological structures are irreducibly complex, which means this theoretical devolution cannot work on them. Irreducible complexities are one of many evidences in nature against Darwinian evolution.

Answer 7

Either the translatable matter/energy existed for all of eternity, or God did, or both.

Surely, one must accept something possesses an eternal characteristic.

Because from nothing there is only nothing....

That matter might be eternal isn't so difficult to hypothesize. We can understand the concept of the infinite without fully appreciating it.

But for the atheist--explain how the eternal, inanimate matter/energy all came together yielding life capable of complex thought, communication, reproduction, balance, memory, emotion, reason and an immune system capable of staving off disease.

Evidence of design? Or evidence of millions of cosmic accidents?

Answer 8

since time did not exist before the big bang your question is not posed correctly. Time began at the moment of the big bang, and thus the universe has an age, and thus a beginning. The universe is 18 billion years old, therefore it did NOT exist forever. Thus matter did NOT always exist as there was no time, you can not measure a dimension which does not exist. While we do not know how many dimensions the universe has (some are postulating 10+) we can measure time, one of its dimensions.

Answer 9

Why only adressed to xians? sounds like an agenda. Anyway, you can beleive what you want. I guess you could say the physical universe has always been here if you have no answer besides god. sounds boring though and like a lame existence ending in death. so, I like to go with the one that says the universe was formed by an omnicient force, or god. my way has a more fun and happier ending.

Answer 10

I do believe that God was never created and that He will never be destroyed. Although, I do believe that He created everything else. And that some of His creation will be destroyed. However, not His children (those who love Him).

If everything always existed, with no creation, why would there be time?